My Food Geek

The other day I was reading about someone who was tired of their winter vegetables. She was saying something about San Diego’s winter vegetables being tired and pale. I can’t think of anything that is further from the truth. Just last week I got crisp cauliflower, yukon gold potatoes, and the greenest sugar snap peas I’ve seen all winter.

With all these delicious winter vegetables, I thought I’d put together my version of the Indian classic, Aloo Gobi. This recipe is pretty straight-forward, no fancy techniques, no fancy ingredients. You may even have all these boring ingredients in your pantry already.

Maia, thanks for the inspiration

Aloo Gobi

1 head cauliflower cut into small florets
2 cups sugar snap peas cut in half
5 potatoes
1 onion chopped
1/2 cup curry powder
1/2 cup oil
2 tablespoons butter
red pepper
salt and pepper

Boil potatoes, skin on, until fork-tender. Remove potatoes and rinse under cold water while peeling the skin off. Chop potatoes and reserve.

Blanch cauliflower in the potato water for 2-3 minutes. It should still be firm.

In a large, dry skillet toast the curry powder until fragent. Add the oil and saute the onions until translucent. Add cauliflower, potatoes, peas, and butter and stir continuosly until all the vegetables are coated with the curried oil.

Cook for 1-2 more minutes. Season with red pepper and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with steamed long-grain rice.

The other day, the foodie decided to dig through some of my vegetarian cookbooks for veggie burger recipes. After perusing a few he asked me “TVP or Walnut Oatmeal?” Although I do often really like the way textured vegetable protein works in recipes, walnut oatmeal just sounded too good to turn down. I hadn’t tried either recipe before, because despite my many recipe books, I really have never been much of a cook.
After a quick trip to the store for a few needed ingredients, the burger assembly began. When he got to the browning of the patties, I was amazed at how meaty the burgers smelled. The house filled up with their irresistible aroma and I couldn’t wait to try them.

I was definitely not disappointed when they were complete with these very flavorful burger and their nice meaty texture. They were nutty and delicious and the best veggie burgers I’ve had the pleasure to eat, which is saying quite a lot considering the many many varieties of veggie burgers I’ve eaten in the past. I hope to see this recipe again soon.

The leftover mixture got to make a second appearance as surprisingly convincing meatballs in a spaghetti and meatball dish a few days later.

Walnut Oatmeal Burgers
Adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition

burger mixture:
1½-3 cups walnut pieces
2 cups rolled oats
½ cup breadcrumbs
3 or 4 eggs, slightly beaten
½ cup skim milk
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sage
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste

for cooking burgers:
oil to brown patties
3 cups vegetable stock

for serving:
hamburger buns and any desired burger fixings

Grind walnuts in blender and combine with the rest of the burger mixture ingredients.

Let the mixture rest in refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors meld together.

Form the mixture into patties. The entire mixture will make 8-12 burgers depending on the size patty formed. It is recommended to use half of the mixture now, and reserve the rest for use in another recipe or for more burgers later.

Brown patties on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the stock into the skillet and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.

Serve on buns with all your burger fixings.

It looks like we’re just in time for this month’s Monthly Mingle. Without even checking my reader about this month’s theme, I decided to whip up this yummy Middle-Eastern dish.

Falafel are nothing more than chickpea fritters seasoned with aromatics and spices, formed into balls, and fried until golden brown and delicious. While I’ve snacked on falafel numerous times in the past, this is the first time I have ever made them from scratch. It surprised me how easy they were to prepare and how much better they seemed to taste than the local pita shack. Maybe it was the extra garlic or maybe it was the hot sauce or maybe it was just me being excited to see all the leftovers I had when I was done, these golden-fried fritters were good.

I served these up with a big plate of toppings: lettuce, hummus, yogurt, feta, pickles, and hot sauce. We had some whole wheat pita on the side and we stuffed our own pockets. Even after I ate what seemed like 20 pockets, there were still plenty of leftovers for the next day (and the next).

These guys were pretty easy to put together and cook. The only real difficulties I had was forming them into balls. I tried to make large patties and found out quickly that it just wouldn’t work out. As long as you make small balls, frying them should be easy and they won’t fall apart. The recipe makes a large number of one to two inch fritters but they hold in the fridge for at least a week and make for great leftovers.

Falafel

2 cups dried garbanzo beans
handful of parsley
5-10 cloves of garlic
½ an onion
ground cumin
ground coriander
red pepper
salt and pepper

Cover the garbanzo beans with plenty of water and soak for 24 hours. The beans will expand so make sure you use plenty of water.

Drain bean and place in food processor fitted with metal blade. Add garlic, parsley and onion and process to a fine consistency. You may need to do this in several stages, just combine everything together in the end.

Season mixture with spices to taste.

Cover, refrigerate, and let flavors develop for at least an hour and no more than four hours.

Form into one to two inch balls and fry them in and inch of oil until golden brown.