Fresh homemade falafel and pita bread: Food idea

I'm pretty proud of myself - I made falafel from scratch today! And it was actually really easy!

I used this recipe for the falafels (she also has a lot of interesting information about falafel), but I added cilantro instead of parsley and I did not add the pepper, cardamom or coriander. I soaked the garbanzo beans overnight, then used a food processor to grind them up and added all the other ingredients too (garlic, onion, cumin, cilantro). After letting it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours, we shaped them into balls and fried them.

They turned out a lovely shade of light green on the inside, I think from the cilantro, but maybe from the cooked garbanzo - I'm not sure. It was actually much easier than I imagined to make the falafel from scratch. Previously we've only ever used the box mix from the grocery store.

The pita bread turned out great too!

This was my second time making them. I used a combination of two different recipes from the internet, including this one and this one. I used a little bit of sugar (1/4 tsp) with the water and yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes after stirring - it really frothed up. Then I added most of the flour, all the salt and some olive oil and mixed it and kneaded it for about ten minutes, adding more flour as needed to make it smooth. Then I let it rise for a few hours, and pulled it into a rope and broke it into 8 pieces, shaped into balls and let those sit for 10 minutes. Then I rolled them out with a rolling pin into flat circles (~ 1/4 inch thick) and two at a time, put them on a pre-heated pan (lined with parchment paper) in a pre-heated 500 degree oven. I later reduced that to 450 because one of the pitas burned a little on the bottom. I followed the recipe instructions to add them to a plastic bag immediately after removing from the oven, flattened them down with a spatula, and let them sit for five minutes. They formed the perfect pockets - they turned out great! We ate the falafel and pita with hummus, lettuce/red onion/cilantro, cucumbers and grated white cheddar (I do love me some good Vermont white cheddar).

Isn't this a lovely sunset and an interesting cloud?

Fabrics for baby quilt: Kaufman Chambray Union

While it's freezing cold in some parts of this country, in other parts it's looking like this, with people out surfing and sunbathing:

Meanwhile I was trying to find gray and white fabrics for a baby quilt, and ran across the Robert Kaufman Chambray Union line at a quilt shop, thanks to Elizabeth Hartman's Preppy Knee Socks quilt that I spied hanging on the wall. I especially like this little print. So of course I deviated from my plans for the quilt and got a bunch of these instead, along with some Kona solids. I think it will still look awesome, but it just won't be all gray/white. Here's the stack I ended up with:

Grilled Salmon + Pesto Mini-Tacos: Food Idea

I had some leftover grilled pecan-encrusted salmon (Trader Joes) and also had just tried this recipe for fresh pesto from the food network. I decided to make little mini tacos using white corn tortillas from Whole Foods and some red onion and avocado. I thought the salmon/pesto combination might be weird but they were actually REALLY GOOD!

I'm going to try making pita bread and also some honeycomb candy later today. Also, I recently read an article about how taking pictures of your food can make it less appetizing when you eat it...

2014 Monthly Calendar

I had fun making this 2014 monthly calendar (this picture is April from the calendar).