spaghetti.al.pomodoro.e.basilico

Spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico sounds absolutely beautiful! In reality what this is, is my basic tomato sauce. So simple yet so enjoyable.

R E C I P E

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 cloves of crushed garlic

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon chili pepper flakes (or more if you like it spicy)

5 tomatoes (small ripe ones like roma tomatoes would be great, but whatever you have on hand really) diced.

1 teaspoon of salt

Fresh basil (a small handful, you can put as much as you want/have in, you can't go wrong with basil) torn with you fingers.

In a small pot over medium/low temperature, pour the olive oil, and add the garlic and the chili pepper flakes, all at the same time.
Cook, stirring occasionally for about five minutes, make sure the garlic doesn't brown, this will make it bitter.

Raise the temperature to high and add the tomatoes with the bay leaf, once little bubbles start forming, lower the heat to medium and cover. Cook for about 10 min, add the basil and season with salt.

The sauce is ready!

Enjoy it over spaghetti (or spaghettini, my favorite) or for 'melanzane al pomodoro' or 'eggplant al tomato'.

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falafel

I have to admit I love falafel, ever since the first time I tried falafel I loved it, it wasn't an acquired taste or something that grew on me, I loved it, I always did. The one little problem? It always gave me a stomach ache. So I stayed away, I loved the idea of it, not the reality.

I was suddenly re-introduced to falafel the other day at work. Will was having these delightful little treats for lunch. He had pita bread, hummus, and fried eggplant, it looked and sounded great! The best part? They were homemade. It never, in all my falafel days, occurred to me that I could make them! (This is starting to sound too much like the Vietnamese sandwiches, but bear with me, it gets better).

Falafel is a fried ball of spiced chickpeas, that is traditionally Jewish, and it is said to date back to biblical times. Nowadays, falafel can be found all throughout the Middle East and in India and Pakistan as well.

On Sunday we were also doing a ‘technology Sabbath’ at home, so naturally, I decided falafel would be the perfect choice! I couldn’t consult the computer for recipes, so I had to rely on memory (what Will had told me), and on cooking savvy. I, for example, based my falafel on meatball principles and used breadcrumbs and an egg to bind the mixture together, instead of flour which is what is normally used, this resulted in ‘crunchier’ falafel. The crunchy falafel won me ed-points, I got a five this time, but since I usually get a five, I don’t know how reliable these ed-points are. I have my own little rating system: 'blog-worthy' o not, so you can be sure that whatever is here has passed at least two rating systems.

I served the falafel over eggplant, accompanied by a yogurt-parsley sauce, I highly recommend them on computer-free days. Also, the homemade version only results in a stomach ache if you use the same oil for 45 to 60 batches (not recommended). Enjoy!


R E C I P E

1 medium can of chickpeas - mashed
1egg
¼ cup of chopped parsley
½ teaspoon of cumin
½ teaspoon of pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
1small clove of garlic - mashed
¼ cup of breadcrumbs + more for breading
Frying oil

Combine all the ingredients until they form a paste, yes with your hands. Form ping-pong size balls. Roll in bread crumbs (optional), and fry. You can deep-fry them, or shallow-fry them like I did, just make sure you turn them so they get a nice golden color all over.

* as Ed was reading this post he said out loud 'ping-pong sized balls? I'd make 'em bigger, man!" See how I get those fives?

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bánh.mì

The first time I mentioned vietnamese sandwiches was on one of my first posts, when i I wrote about pho noodle soup. Our friends Yu and Kurt were the ones to introduce us to these delicious and easy to make sandwiches that are called Bánh mì in vietnamese.

This is one of those things that people don't think of making at home, when we think of sandwiches we usually go with what we already know. But we love these, we don't use pickled carrots, and we have our own version of the spicy mayo, but they still make a great saturday lunch.

Today we made bánh mì gà, the chicken version. The nice thing with these is you can stuff them with whatever you have, whether it's chicken, pork or beef (or even tofu), we tried them with tuna one day and they were excellent (this is the americanized version! but who doesn't like a tuna sandwich?).

Basically what you need is: a fresh baguette (we prefer it on the softer side for this), thinly sliced carrots and cucumbers, cilantro and whatever meat you decide to use, leftover chicken is perfect, all you have to do is slice it. The secret ingredient is the mayo, what I do is mix some mayonnaise with sriracha sauce, a little bit of sesame oil and some black sesame seeds. All you really need is the mayonnaise and chili sauce, but the oil gives it a nice flavor and i just love the way black sesame look. I also like to keep the chili oil that comes with pizza, and just mix that with the mayo. Compose your sandwich with all the ingredients and eat away! I love them!

* For the tuna version we just mixed the tuna with the mayo before hand.

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sesame.ginger.noodles

This is the easiest, best dinner ever. It literally takes ten minutes. I love how it looks too!
We shop for groceries once a week, Saturday morning to be more specific which means that I’m thinking about the following week’s menu since Friday afternoon. I write down one dish per day, and buy accordingly. This means instead of buying a bag of onions for example (that are going to last me a month, if I don’t make an onion tart or something that requires lots of onions), it simply means that I buy two onions, three potatoes, two carrots, etc. This is especially practical when you live in an apartment with a five story walk up like we do. Also, we spend less money, and we don’t waste any food. Another reason this is good system for us is that if I just go to the store and buy whatever I feel like buying, we end up eating the same thing week after week, because I tend to gravitate towards the same things.
Last week, we had (for the first time) a wonderful pot of sesame noodles (with this system you also experiment a little bit more). And as I mentioned before this dish was very easy and really tasty.

R E C I P E

½ package of flat rice noodles
1 piece of fresh ginger (2.5 cm / 1 inch) chopped
1 tablespoon of honey
2 cloves of garlic, chopped.
¼ cup of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of black sesame seeds
1 boneless skinless chicken breast cut in small pieces
2 baby bok choi

1. Get you water boiling.
2. Heat a pan with the vegetable oil
3. Add the ginger and garlic to the oil.
4. After about 30 sec. add the chicken.
5. Cook.
6. Put a metal colander in the boiling water and put the bok choi in.
7. Cook until changes color. Take the colander out. Drain the bok choi.
8. Cover the water and wait until it boils.
9. Get your noodles in the water.

10. Cover the noodles and remove them from the heat. Soak noodles until soft. Drain and rinse with water. Drain again.
11. Add the soy sauce and the honey to your chicken.
12. Cook for a couple of minutes and add the noodles. Add the bok choi.
13. Cook for a couple more minutes (to reheat the noodles).
14. Add the sesame oil.
15. Add the sesame seeds.
16. And serve!

Oh and eat your dinner! It gets cold really fast!

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