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Author: Livia N

Cicero

Damn – I love my own cooking.

I could totally convince a chickpea hater (me) to love chickpeas with this thai chickpea dish. It is some awesome.

ETA: My co-workers continue to be philistines who do not get excited over savory foods.

Dear Nigella,

Yes. The purple salad would be slightly better with some fish sauce. Bother, vegetarians. But it’s still very exciting without it. You should try it with beets.

love,
Purple Fingers

tomorrow morning

To Do List

Cooking with Catladies – experiment 1

  • Thai beet slaw/salad (needs a better name)
    • peel and slice thinly 1 beet
    • shred a complementary amount of purple cabbage
    • halve a purple onion and slice one thinly
    • Jalapeno, seeded, sliced into thin matchsticks (core reserved for stock)
    • make dressing of:
      • 1 clove garlic, minced
      • 2 tsp sugar
      • 1 teaspoon vinegar (still haven’t decided between rice vinegar for the thai theme or red wine vinegar for the color theme)
      • juice of 1/2 lime
      • 1 tsp good olive oil
    • toss together with some generous grinds of black pepper
    • give a further toss with 1 Tbsp chopped cilantro
    • ETA:decided on 1 teaspoon of each kind of vinegar – needs more lime juice!
  • Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 1)
    • Drain a can of chickpeas
    • fry 1 tsp shredded fresh coconut (no really, from a coconut – no sugar added), purple onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, jalapeno flesh in 1 tsp olive oil.
    • Add half the can of chickpeas, juice of 1/2 the lime, 1 bay leaf, and some lime zest
    • Add a mixture of vegetable stock and water and cook until no longer thin.
  • Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 2)
    • fry 1 tsp fresh coconut in 2 tsp olive oil
    • add 1/2 tsp thai green curry paste
    • Add the rest of the chickpeas and a similar mixture of vegetable stock and water
    • cook until no longer thin
  • ETA: Instead of one or the other, it should be both – add some green curry paste to the first recipe to give it a yummy base flavor. And don’t forget to add a little salt in the cooking

Vacuum floor
Hang up stuff in closet
Clean off kitchen table
1 hr pilates
shower

Cooking With Catladies

Cooking with Catladies - March 15, 2009 - a fine dining experience to benefit City Kitties Rescue

This is the second time City Kitties has run this event! But this time, the meal will be catered by ME. (RSVP for West Philadelphia location.) This is a great way to help a good cause while meeting new people and sampling new food. At the end of the night, you leave with the recipes. (Or you can even give me suggestions ahead of time here) And if you play your cards right, you might also leave with a cat. OK, that might not be an incentive, but you know, even Catladies can dream…

(please repost far and wide)
From City Kitties:
Another delicious Cooking with Catladies event is fast approaching! For a donation of $30 or more, you can enjoy a multi-course meal and great company. Check out photos from last year’s mouthwatering events here and here. Reserve your place at the table by emailing info at citykitties dot org. Hope to see you there!

Pita Chips & Tzatziki

The secret to my pita chips are the awesome thin pitas by local halal grocer carries. Really, extremely thin pitas result in light, crispy pita chips that are more addictive than potato chips.

The ones I buy are made by Soumaya & Sons Bakery in Whitehall, PA.

Pita Chips

So split the pitas open into two separate halves, and brush the bready side lightly with olive oil. And then stack them one upon the other so that both sides end up lightly greased.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Cut the stacks into wedges and lay out a single layer of wedges on a baking sheet.

Mix together the following spice mix:

  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 3/4 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp powdered garlic
  • a dash of thyme or oregano
  • a dash of sumac (or zatar that has been ground smooth in a mortar)
  • a few grinds of nutmeg
  • a few grinds of pepper
  • just the tip of a knife of smoked paprika, it’s strong stuff

Sprinkle spices over pita wedges. And then sprinkle kosher salt over to taste.

Bake on middle rack of oven until crisp, 8 to 10 minutes.

Tzatziki Sauce

Buy any old cheap brand of plain fat free yogurt, and turn it into awesome yogurt by letting it drain for several hours.

Peel a cucumber. Now it can be any kind of cucumber – I have used the long, fancy seedless cucumbers; regular eating cucumbers; big, fat pickling cucumbers; and, most recently, small pickling cucumbers. Actually, I think my favorite so far has been the small pickling cucumbers because they had hardly any water content. But, honestly, I’ve had great results every time. And the only time I worried about seeds at all was for the very thick pickling one.

So peel the cucumber. Then slice it lengthwise just as thinly as you can. And then the other plane lengthwise, so that you end up with long, thin strips. And then mince all the way down, so that you end up with wee tiny cucumber pieces. Dump them all into the thick yogurt.

And then I will often add about a 1/4 teaspoon of minced garlic from a jar. It’s better from ajar than fresh in this case because it has had a chance to mellow out a bit.

And then maybe a pinch of salt.

And that’s it. By the next day, everything is settled in and delicious.