Falafel O-clock

Hello everyone,

Veg for lent update:

Tuesday night I broke the news to my roommates that I was going veg for lent. Their initial reaction was anything except supportive, it involved comments such as "DON'T DO IT" and "I am going to fry everything in bacon fat". Needless to say it was a bit discouraging, however this afternoon my roommate stopped by and asked if I would be home for dinner to know if it should be Kirsten friendly or not. I was shocked/ very impressed after last nights little freak-out. Who knows what will happen in the next 40 days (although I am pretty sure lent is longer than 40 days so 45 days?)

ANYWAYS... back to the important stuff.

This recipe is inspired by some falafel chips my roommates brought home from planet organic. They were corn chips seasoned like falafel and possibly

containing some chickpea flour. They were delicious. I am not sure if you guys know this... but I am a big falafel fan.

Falafel Crackers

Ingredients:

- 1 cup chickpea flour

- 1 cup water

- 2 Tbsp olive oil

- 1 Tbsp parsley

- 2 Tbsp garlic powder

- 1 tsp dried chili (optional)

- 1 tsp Sriracha hot sauce (optional)

- 2 tsp sesame seeds

- 1 tsp salt (preferably coarse sea salt)

Directions:

- Pre-heat oven two 375

- in bowl mix chickpea flour, water and oil

- in mortar and pestle grind seasoning (except sesame seeds and salt) until it is a fine powder

- mix in the seasonings

- pour into cookie sheet and spread evenly (this can be done on parchment paper but it wasn't a problem without it)

- top with sesame seeds and salt

- bake for 20 minutes, at this point take them out and cut into square bite sized pieces

- bake for another 10-20 minutes (depending on thickness), the outer ones should be completely crispy and the thicker ones should be close to drying out.

- remove from oven, let cool, and serve

The Batter

The finished product... or what is left of it.

Happy crunching,

-Kirsten

Bean-a-licious

Today I am completely exhausted. I have no idea why, and I brewed the very last batch of Cuba coffee (from our trip this time last year) today. I want to go back to Cuba, who is with me?!

So I taught this morning, the lab is extracting trimyristin from nutmeg. It is a pretty decent lab, it just involves refluxing for 20 mintues and then recrystallizing the product. One of my kids asked me if they could get high off of their product--

this reminded me of Andre. I looked it up: we were not extracting the good stuff. The best part is that it smelled like nutmeg, which made me want to drink rum and egg nog. Also I looked up recipes for egg nog this christmas...it was bad! I don't want to make it, I just want to be in ignorant bliss when it comes to what I am drinking in this particular case.

Okay so this post has nothing to do with egg nog, or cuba, or teaching, or coffee... it is about Beans! Bean cookies to be exact.

We made these cookies this weekend, the recipe is from Carolyn, one of the Calgary peps. It is a super nice pick-me-up mid day, and pretty much

guilt free (if you sub the flour with more oats). Very healthy! And, if you get the right oats, they could be gluten free, great for those poor kids who can't have gluten.

White Kidney Bean Cookies

Ingredients:

-2 cups of oatmeal

-1 cup of all purpose flour

-1 can of white kidney beans

-1 egg

-1 Tbsp butter

-1 tsp vanilla

-1 cup brown sugar

-1 tsp baking soda

-1 Tbsp ground flax

-1/2 Tbsp hemp protein powder (optional)

-1/2 cup white chocolate chips

-1/2 cup walnuts (or any other nuts)

-1/2 cup Crasins

Directions:

-Process oats in food processor until it become a flour consistency. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl (oats, flour, sugar, baking soda)

-Put beans into food processor & process until liquid, now add ground flax, vanilla and process

-Mix the wet and dry ingredients and stir in the chocolate chip, crushed walnuts and crasins

-Place on cooking sheet in desired size and shape (these do not melt down when cooked)

-Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Et Voyla!

Cheers,

Kirsten

New Toy!

For Christmas I asked for a crazy blender. My dad had no idea what I was talking about so he threw some money at me. What I would normally do in such a situation it to put all of the cash into the "Die student loan die!" fund and watch it make a negligible dent. The other option here would be to buy a normal not 500$ blender, but thats no fun.

First up the Apple smoothie:

In the mix:

-1 frozen banana

-1 cup of spinach

-1/2 lime

-2 apples (with the core!)

-1 cup of ice cubes

-1/2 cup of water

Before After

I was pleased this was after a few seconds and it was so smooth. I like the texture the apple provided and I also really like the colour the spinach brings (you cannot taste it at all).

Next experiment: Larabar mimics

These bars have a really short ingredient list consisting of dates, some sort of nut and some flavour. Devin requested something fruity so I made a lime one for him and chocolate mint for me!

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup cashews

-1/2 cup almonds

-7 dates

-for the lime flavour I added the zest of 1 lime

-for the chocolate mint I added 1 Tbs of cocoa and 1/2 tsp mint extract

process the nuts until powdery, stop before it becomes nut butter.

Pit and add the dates, these remind me of The Dancing California Raisins I just want to dress them up like Mr. Potato Head and have them dance around the kitchen.

And add in your flavour!

On the left is the dough when it is done, on the right is the dough rolled into snack size balls for easy snacks on the go.

The are so tasty!

What is your favourite on the go snack?

-Kirsten