How on earth is that even possible?
But it seriously happens to me! Last month I craved celeriac (good stuff, lemme tell you), and the month before that it was roasted parsnips, and the month before that it was fish roe (holy moly this stuff is good).
I'd never eaten any of those, but somehow the idea got into my head and I couldn't be sidetracked until I'd hunted 'em down and gotten a fix.
This month, the never-eaten-but-desperately-craving was Middle Eastern food. So over the course of a week, I put together this smorgasbord:
Tabbouleh (bulgur, parsley salad with mint, cucumbers, lemon juice, red onion, and tomatoes).
Muhamarra (toasted walnuts, roasted red peppers, pomegranate syrup... I won't be craving this one again, it was pretty funky).
Hummus (okay, I've had this one before but I NEEDED it).
Baba ghanoush (grilled eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, herb dip -- I didn't need a cracker after the first taste, just a spoon and no witnesses for my feeding frenzy).
Dolmas (stuffed grape leaves... rice, olive oil, lemon juice, currants, pine nuts, mint, parsley, spices: heaven).
Falafel: fried chickpea patties... moutherwateringly delicious, especially put into a pita pocket with kalamata olives and:
Tzatziki sauce (yogurt, lemon juice, dill, cucumbers) and...
Kefir cheese (I'd drained it in a coffee filter but had no idea it could be cheese just by draining it in a cheesecloth -- SO CREAMY DELICIOUS!!).
All in all I'd say the dinner was exactly what I was craving but had never tasted. Though it was meatless, it was about as far from a penitential meal as you can get.
Stay tuned for recipes this week!
9 comments:
My mouth is totally watering! Cannot wait for the recipes!
Oh my gosh...I hate eggplant but you have actually convinced me to try this out--I like PW too, but I have to admit, using the food processor versus mashing tipped the scale visually for me to want to be adventurous and jump in!
Thanks, Becky! This one was my favorite of all the dips, which really surprised me because I'm really not fond of eggplant. Let me know how you like it if you try it!
Thank you for your sweet comment, Kristen! :)
Errr....no wonder I couldn't find the falafel on your recipe page! Actually, all I need to know is if it is you fried yours in olive oil. I would love to have the recipe you used, though. I'm not sure if I prepared the chickpeas correctly. I covered them with boiling water and 2 T lemon juice and soaked 12 hours, rinsed, drained, and repeated for another 12 hours (except I didn't do boiling water the second time because we were headed out the door for the day). At the end of this, they were rather crunchy, so I simmered them for four or five hours. Do you think they'll make decent falafel? I had another Weston A. Price Foundation attack again in which I
[Oops, posted
that by accident before I was done typing...]
"Stay
tuned for recipes this week!" ...no wonder I couldn't find the falafel on
your recipe page! Actually, all I need to know is if it is you fried yours in olive
oil. I would love to have the recipe you used, though. I'm not sure if I
prepared the chickpeas correctly. I covered them with boiling water and 2 T
lemon juice and soaked 12 hours, rinsed, drained, and repeated for another 12
hours (except I didn't do boiling water the second time because we were headed
out the door for the day). At the end of this, they were rather crunchy, so I
simmered them for four or five hours. Do you think they'll make decent falafel?
Siiigh. You have no idea how many times a day I think, "What would the
Farmer's City Wife do?"
I had another
Weston A. Price Foundation attack again last week. It always proceeds in the
same way: anxiety that we are not eating right; followed by a firm resolve to
do better; followed by concrete steps to figure out what we need to do;
followed by despair that we can't possibly afford organic, raw,
grass-fed, hormone-free, humanely raised, filtered, cold-expeller-pressed, and
cage-free; followed by complete despair that we can't even afford Sally Fallon
Morrell's exotic and unpronounceable ingredients; followed by annoyance at Sally Fallon Morrell; followed by cynical wonder about whether SFM
and the Healthy Home Economist and their ilk are making a living as
self-appointed prophets of WAPF and whether they just have to continue adding
prescripts to the law and tying up heavy burdens on people in order to keep
themselves relevant and necessary; followed by more despair and feelings of
agnosticism about the need to soak grains; followed by a desperate appeal to my husband for insight, who looks at me like the neurotic that I am and says, "What's important is your soul. Is soaking our flour going to help us get to heaven?" And ending with a frozen pizza
because I wasted all the time I should have spent making dinner looking for a
recipe for something I can afford to eat and isn't toxic!
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
[Oops, posted that by accident before I was done typing...]
"Stay tuned for recipes this week!" ...no wonder I couldn't find the falafel on your recipe page! Actually, all I need to know is if it is you fried yours in olive oil. I would love to have the recipe you used, though. I'm not sure if I prepared the chickpeas correctly. I covered them with boiling water and 2 T lemon juice and soaked 12 hours, rinsed, drained, and repeated for another 12 hours (except I didn't do boiling water the second time because we were headed out the door for the day). At the end of this, they were rather crunchy, so I simmered them for four or five hours. Do you think they'll make decent falafel? Siiigh. You have no idea how many times a day I think, "What would the Farmer's City Wife do?"
I had another Weston A. Price Foundation attack again last week. It always proceeds in the same way: anxiety that we are not eating right; followed by a firm resolve to do better; followed by concrete steps to figure out what we need to do; followed by despair that we can't possibly afford organic, raw, grass-fed, hormone-free, humanely raised, filtered, cold-expeller-pressed, and cage-free; followed by complete despair that we can't even afford Sally Fallon Morrell's exotic and unpronounceable ingredients; followed by annoyance at Sally Fallon Morrell; followed by cynical wonder about whether SFM and the Healthy Home Economist and their ilk are making a living as self-appointed prophets of WAPF and whether they just have to continue adding prescripts to the law and tying up heavy burdens on people in order to keep themselves relevant and necessary; followed by more despair and feelings of agnosticism about the need to soak grains; followed by a desperate appeal to my husband for insight, who looks at me like the neurotic that I am and says, "What's important is your soul. Is soaking our flour going to help us get to heaven?" And ending with a frozen pizza because I wasted all the time I should have spent making dinner looking for a recipe for something I can afford to eat and isn't toxic!
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Yes, the chickpeas for falafel (being uncooked) will be very pretty firm when you put them in the food processor but that's perfectly fine; in fact it's how it's supposed to be. They cook when you fry them. If you simmered them for 4-5 hours, they're probably going to be pretty mushy... even for hummus (which uses cooked chickpeas). If you've still got 'em, I'd use those for hummus and start another batch for falafel.
LOL! I OFTEN have WAPF attacks such as you described, but finally let go of it when I (like you and your husband) realized that there's no moral guilt attached to not following Sally Fallon. It shouldn't carry the weight of sin, being merely a prudential judgment thing. I'm a lot freer now that I don't feel like I have to go to confession because I made tortillas using white flour.
That said, I do genuinely feel better the closer I stick to her stuff.
The time-consuming part of WAPF is if you want to eat grains, I think. It's hard to make WAPF food last-second, so meal planning is kind of important. HOWEVER, some nicely seasoned broiled meat or fish with a salad and vegetable makes a darned fine dinner and is utterly WAPF approved. It doesn't have to be complicated. For example, tonight we might have the chicken part of this meal with a salad and steamed broccoli (with bacon grease). It doesn't take much time, the ingredients are readily available, and there's no soaking involved :).
Hang in there! Fight the good fight :-D.
Well, I didn't get your reply in time, so it was more like Falawful. The patties disintegrated as soon as they hit the hot olive oil. But it tasted fine. Anyway, next time I'll know!
On the subject of WAPF - I guess what bothers me the most is that I have no way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Their claim that boxed breakfast cereal is toxic seems kind of far-fetched. I looked up the Healthy Home Economist's recipe for homemade, gluten-free breakfast cereal and fully intended to make it until I saw that almond and coconut flour are about $9 or $10 a pound, to say nothing of the $12 cup of coconut oil she wants me to add to it. That's just ridiculous. $20 for the eqivalent of two boxes of cereal? Unless you spend your entire disposable income on food, no one but the wealthy can afford to eat like that. I'm thinking of starting a "real food" blog for REAL people - not people who can spend three hours every day on food preparation and who have unlimited funds to buy expensive flours and oils and weird, costly ingredients of which they only end up using two tablespoons!
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