Veggie Week: Greekish Chickpea Pockets

With a retail shift in the morning followed by 6 hours of class, Tuesdays are pretty killer. But now I have one more tasty, healthy meal to add to my I-know-I'll-be-too-tired-to-cook-when-I-get-home arsenal, and it's these tasty pita pockets. I made the filling last night, and I am super grateful for that teeny bit of foresight. Not only was dinner super fast to throw together, but I think sitting in the fridge overnight improved the flavor.

I didn't change the recipe enough to claim any significant contribution, so I'll let the link speak for itself. I used whole wheat pitas, and I think I used a bit more mayo, but that is all a matter of taste. Of course, plain Greek yogurt would also be a good "glue" for this chickpea salad. I served mine with some fresh (local!) Romaine, and sliced tomato tucked in.

Simple, fresh, and vegetarian, these would also make a great pack-along lunch (with filling and pita stored separately of course).

Quote of the Day: And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul. ~ Plato

Cold Avocado Soup & Grilled Cumin Chicken with Grape Tomato Salad

Some of you may recall a recipe from the infancy of this blog that involved a rather fail-tastic creamy avocado salad dressing. Since the inspiration for that actually came from an avocado soup recipe I had seen about a week before, I am happy to say that I finally got around to making the chilled avocado soup that I have been longing for since then. And it's good. Really good.

I didn't change this recipe much at all, except making the executive decision that 1 1/2 avocados were needed, owing to their substandard size. I also used a small bit of onion instead of the shallot because somehow, between my grocery store and my home, I lost the darn thing. From Delish.com:

Ingredients:

1 medium avocado, peeled and pitted

1 shallot, peeled and chopped

1/2 seedless cucumber, chopped

2 Tablespoons plain yogurt (I used fat-free Greek-style)

2 Tablespoons fresh mint, plus 1 sprig

4 teaspoons lime juice

1 1/2 teaspoons salt - I used 1

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 radish, chopped

1 cup cold water

Directions:

1. Place cucumber, avocado, shallot, yogurt, 2 tablespoons mint, lime juice, salt, pepper, cumin and cold water in a food processor and process until smooth.

2. Chill for at least one hour before serving. Serve garnished with radish and remaining mint leaves.

My mother recently treated me to some lovely new place mats under the promise that they would soon appear on this blog. I'm sorry, Mom - Next time! <3

 I was surprised at how pronounced the cumin was, but it was certainly not overbearing. You could cut it down a bit if you want to but I think it adds a lot to the soup. We had a soup course (fancy, right?) with some French bread followed by the chicken with a bit of tomato salad. This is one of my summer favorites: Just some grape tomatoes, cut in half, with some sliced green onion, olive oil, salt and pepper and a little white wine vinegar. So simple, summery, and yummy - with room temperature tomatoes, of course.

 The chicken portion of this recipe is lifted from this recipe, which I originally served with grilled nectarine, blackberry-raspberry salsa and grilled polenta. What is it about the combination of cumin and grill-marks? Yum.

Quote of the Day: The avocado is a food without rival among the fruit, the veritable fruit of paradise. ~ David Fairchild

Also, I just learned that avocado pits, when thoroughly cleaned and dried, make excellent cat toys because of the irregular rolling motion caused by their lopsided shape. The more you know.

Edit: Despite the chicken, I've marked this as vegetarian due to the soup recipe.

Crock Pot Falafel from Crockpot 365

I have Stephanie O'Dea, better known in some circles as The Crockpot Lady, to thank for many of my favorite go-to recipes. Between her adventurous cooking and frank reporting, her blog is pretty great.

And in my opinion, one of her best - and most surprising - recipes is falafel that you cook in your crock pot.*

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 Stephanie's Recipe:

Ingredients

1 15oz can garbanzo beans (chick peas)

- 1/2 onion, chopped

-1 T dried parsley

- 2 cloves minced garlic

- 1 egg

- 1 t kosher salt

- 1/4 t black pepper

- 2 t ground cumin

- 1 t ground coriander

- 1/4 t cayenne pepper

- juice from 1 lemon 

- 1/2 to 3/4 cup bread crumbs 

- 2 T olive oil (for the bottom of your crock)

Directions

Drain garbanzo beans. Dump them into a mixing bowl and smash them with a fork. Set aside.

Get out your blender or food processor. Blend together all of the spices, the onion, the garlic, the egg, and the lemon juice.

Pour on top of your smashed garbanzo beans. Use your fork to mix together, and add the breadcrumbs slowly until the mixture is wet and sticky but can be formed into balls nicely. I needed 3/4 of a cup of breadcrumbs.

Pour 2 T of olive oil into the bottom of your crock pot stoneware insert.

Form squished golf-ball sized patties of falafel. Dip each side into the olive oil and then nestle into your crockpot. It's okay if they overlap or are on top of each other.

Cook on high for 2-5 hours. You will know that the falafels are done when they turn brownish-golden. You can flip them halfway through the cooking time if you feel like it, but they will brown on top even without flipping.

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My "mise." Silly little lemon juice container not pictured, because I feel kind of lame about it.

See? EASY. And honestly, out of sheer laziness I sent my chickpeas for a spin in my food processor until chopped instead of mashing them. I still do recommend mixing the ingredients in the order she describes, though. (I just dumped the chickpeas out after chopping and added them back in later). I use a Ninja Master Prep and apart from a somewhat annoying-to-clean lid design, I'm a big fan.

This is one recipe that I follow without messing around with it. Which is a pretty big compliment.

And by "not messing around," I mean that I only changed the following:

- I always cook with dry beans, so I cooked my chickpeas the day before. (Wonderfully, chickpeas don't need to be soaked). The equivalent of a 15 oz can is just under 2 cups of cooked chickpeas. Dry beans are MUCH cheaper by volume, and I hugely prefer soaking and cooking them to wondering exactly what goop my beans are canned in, and why they taste like nickels.

- I used 2 tablespoons of lemon juice instead of a fresh lemon, just because that's what I had on hand.

- Instead of the half onion, I used a bit of white and a bit of red onion, and instead of Kosher salt I used regular, for the same reason as the lemon juice substitution.

Happy little falafels cooking in my 2-quart crock pot.

I served them in wheat pitas with lettuce, tomato, and a quick tzatziki I made with fat free plain yogurt, a little lemon juice, dried dill, and salt and pepper.

Truthfully, I've never had "real" falafel - that is, the deep-fried kind. But, Brady insists that these taste just the same, except obviously not the fried part. Even better!

* If you want to get particular, "CrockPot" is a particular brand of the general appliance variety known as the "slow cooker." I grew up calling them all crock pots, so that's what you get. But whatever you call them, they are magical and fantastic, and definitely NOT just for soup.