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Sunday, June 16, 2013
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Falafel!!
Over the years, I've found myself going through phases of cooking. These are inspired by different things - reading books, studies or articles, learning about new places like Asian markets, obtaining new skills, ingredients or equipment and the changing seasons influencing what's available at the farmers market or on sale. Some phases are temporary while others morph into staples. Soups and salads usually come and go according to the seasons. I generally try to only use the oven in the winter/when it's cool. I've been cooking primarily vegetarian foods outside of the occasional bit of fish or turkey for at least 6 years. I love going to the farmers market and my Sunday mornings usually include a bike ride to the market to pick up fresh foods for the week.
Mediterranean patterns of eating are often recommended to people as a healthy choice. The main ingredients consist of vegetables and fruits, healthy proteins like beans and fish and healthy oils from nuts and olive oil. Without any modifications or sometimes-bizarre fake meat substitutes, many wonderful vegetarian dishes can be made using Mediterranean recipes, so it's something I've gladly adapted to my kitchen over the years. I've made all sorts of little salads and dips and used to make falafel from a box mix, but for whatever reason, falafel from scratch seemed a little out of my range of abilities. We sometimes would just pick up falafel balls from Zankou and make our own meals around them........Then!!!!
A few months ago I discovered garbanzo bean flour, which has quickly become a staple in my home. So far I've gone through at least 4 bags of it cooking only 2 different recipes with it - falafel and flat bread, but mostly falafel.
When I picked up my first bag of Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo Bean flour, I decided to try out the falafel recipe on the side of the bag (minus corriander because I don't like it.) Amazingly, I pretty much use that recipe every single time with few modifications - it's that good. I also love the recipe because outside of the fresh lemon, I have everything I need to make falafel on hand ALL of the time! The recipe is relatively quick - it does require boiling water and letting the mix sit for 10 min before cooking, but that time is easily used for other prep work. I love the bean flour since it doesn't have the weird texture that turns me off of garbanzo beans some of the time, it takes up less space, is cheaper than canned garbanzo beans/chick peas and there's no waste since I can measure out exactly what I need vs. having a discrete "can of beans" measurement and it's faster than cooking dried garbanzo beans from scratch each time.
I sometimes make a large batch of tabouli salad on the weekend, which is a good pairing for a fast meal with the falafel during the week. The falafel's also good with some pita, tahini, romaine lettuce, salad, tomatoes, tzatziki, sandwiches with grilled veggies.... essentially it's endlessly easy to incorporate it into a meal. It's also awesome since you can easily make the resulting meal accommodate a variety of food restrictions including vegetarian or vegan and gluten-free. You could also adapt the side dishes to fit your restrictions by making a vegan tzatziki with non-dairy yogurt or a gluten-free tabouli with quinoa.
Garbanzo Bean Falafel (from Bob's Red Mill with my personal modifications): serves 2 to 3 as a main dish
-1 cup garbanzo bean flour
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-1-2 tsp parsley flakes
-1/2 tsp ground cumin
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
-1/4 tsp dried diced onions
-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
-1/2 cup hot water
-2-3 tbs olive oil for frying
Heat oil in pan. Add the falafel batter by the tablespoon and flatten slightly. Fry on both sides until golden brown. Place on paper towel to drain & serve warm
Mediterranean patterns of eating are often recommended to people as a healthy choice. The main ingredients consist of vegetables and fruits, healthy proteins like beans and fish and healthy oils from nuts and olive oil. Without any modifications or sometimes-bizarre fake meat substitutes, many wonderful vegetarian dishes can be made using Mediterranean recipes, so it's something I've gladly adapted to my kitchen over the years. I've made all sorts of little salads and dips and used to make falafel from a box mix, but for whatever reason, falafel from scratch seemed a little out of my range of abilities. We sometimes would just pick up falafel balls from Zankou and make our own meals around them........Then!!!!
A few months ago I discovered garbanzo bean flour, which has quickly become a staple in my home. So far I've gone through at least 4 bags of it cooking only 2 different recipes with it - falafel and flat bread, but mostly falafel.
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| $2.17/lb @ Whole Foods and $1/lb in bulk online! |
I sometimes make a large batch of tabouli salad on the weekend, which is a good pairing for a fast meal with the falafel during the week. The falafel's also good with some pita, tahini, romaine lettuce, salad, tomatoes, tzatziki, sandwiches with grilled veggies.... essentially it's endlessly easy to incorporate it into a meal. It's also awesome since you can easily make the resulting meal accommodate a variety of food restrictions including vegetarian or vegan and gluten-free. You could also adapt the side dishes to fit your restrictions by making a vegan tzatziki with non-dairy yogurt or a gluten-free tabouli with quinoa.
Garbanzo Bean Falafel (from Bob's Red Mill with my personal modifications): serves 2 to 3 as a main dish
-1 cup garbanzo bean flour
-1/2 tsp sea salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-1-2 tsp parsley flakes
-1/2 tsp ground cumin
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
-1/4 tsp dried diced onions
-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
-1/2 cup hot water
-2-3 tbs olive oil for frying
Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and blend. Add liquids (lemon juice & hot water) to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Let the mixture rest for 10 minutes.
Heat oil in pan. Add the falafel batter by the tablespoon and flatten slightly. Fry on both sides until golden brown. Place on paper towel to drain & serve warm
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| falafel & tabouli - a past dinner I shall recreate tonight! |
Sunday, June 2, 2013
truck sides, part 2ish
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| Refridgerated Delivery Truck, Morro Bay, CA |
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| Los Angeles Fire Department Truck, Hollywood, CA |
truck sides
d011, d013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Hollywood and Highland - Holga
Hollywood and Highland, within .1 miles of the subway station. This was a somewhat spontaneous set shot with my Holga, but I'm considering doing similar sets for other stops along the Red Line with a goal of not taking photos of the station itself, but staying within .1 miles or so.
h003
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Pasadena City Hall
A few more from my first roll shot with my Holga. So far it's a bit "easier" to use than the Diana+ in a few ways, but I've also been spoiled by the Diana+ with the the pinhole functionality & the built in plastic piece that helps hold the shutter open for bulb exposures.
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Sunday, May 19, 2013
Unbored hands of Julia Morgan
Designed by Julia Morgan
h001. d013
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| Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA - Diana+ |
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| YWCA, Pasadena, CA - Holga |
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Piedras Blancas Elephant Seals, Diana Version
Just a few miles away from the Hearst Castle along the Central California coast you can visit a beach where the ground squirrels are trained to beg for food from visitors coming to see a group of elephant seals spending time on land. In mid-April, when we visited, the beaches were mostly covered with adult females and younger males and females in their molting season. Watching them is somewhat surreal since it's so unusual to see large groups of wild non-human mammals doing their thing. (Un)Fortunately my Diana+ was being a Diana on this day and these photos got a touch of leaked light...
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| looking North with the Piedras Blancas lighthouse in the background |
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Hearst Castle Diana+, part 1
Our recent trip took us along the Central California coast to Morro Bay for camping and some wandering, San Simeon to see the Hearst Castle and Elephant Seals, San Luis Obispo, Solvang, Refugio State Beach in Goleta and then home...
This is the first part of photos from the Hearst Castle shot with my Diana+ Camera.
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Saturday, May 11, 2013
Saturday Acqusitions
Saturday April 27, 2013
March wasn't a good month for pets for me. Both my frog that I had for the past 16 years and my rat passed away in the same week. I had been looking around online for a while for new rats (I prefer to not get pet rats from the petstores) and decided on a couple of rescue boys from Misty Blue Rattery. I picked 2 brothers - a curious dumbo velveeten agouti hooded and a shy agouti velveteen . They were born a couple days before my last rat died and so they're just about 2 months old now. I sometimes feel like I'm a glutton for punishment by going back to pet rats because of their short lives, but rats are such great pets, especially in an apartment and each one has their own personality and preferences that's fun to experience. It's amazing to me what they've already learned in only being with me for 2 weeks. I look forward to spending time with my new little pets.
Saturday May 4, 2013
Last weekend I had to pick up some Shanghai film from the Post office. Afterward, we headed over to Hollywood to wander around the Wattles Mansion Property. Although it was pretty and nice to wander outside for a while, unfortunately all of the garden areas were locked up so there wasn't too much to explore.
Since we were nearby on the correct side of the hills, we headed over to Freestyle Photo so I could pick up some supplies. I'm super lucky to have a photo store like Freestyle locally - I did the math, and I saved about $25 by picking up the items in store opposed to ordering online! I had been thinking about getting a Holga camera for a little while and with the Gretchen Bleiler model on sale in store for $20, I decided to go ahead and pick it up. The trees aren't too offensive and are on stickers, but I already pulled off a "GB" sticker from the lens cap (it made the camera look like you stole it from someone with those initials.) I loaded it with film today and I'm looking forward to seeing how the pictures turn out. My first impression is that it seems a little more durable in some ways (the Diana shutter and aperture controls feel more delicate), but also a little more simple than the Diana. If nothing else, I'm glad to have it on hand for others to use. I also picked up 20 more rolls of medium format film (30 total for the day!) as well as some developer.
While we were in the store, a woman was picking up a Holga camera with some accessories and a single roll of film. I keep thinking back to it and laughing - I wondered why so many people selling their cameras online claimed to have used it for only a single roll. I suppose this sort of situation explains it.
Saturday May 11, 2013
A couple months ago, when I was biking around & doing some errands, I ended up at a garage sale where I picked up a vintage camera tripod. I chatted with the women selling the items for a bit and as is common, they made comments about me being on a bike, which made them think of the past. They mentioned that at one point Lankershim had a ton of thrift stores. It sounded idyllic compared to the car dealership lined street there today. When I noticed one of the old dealerships was converted to a thrift store recently, I was super excited. This morning I decided to stop by and see what sorts of things they had.
Because it's approximately 92 degrees outside, that means it's time to think of the cold and jackets. (Actually it was 66 this past Monday and is supposed to be 100 by this next Monday!!) I ended up finding this awesome orange flower brooch for $5.50 that I thought would compliment a blue cordoroy peacoat style jacket that I wear in the winter. It doesn't have any info on it and is in super nice shape, but based on some googling, it looks like it might actually be vintage. I might need to find a reason/outfit to wear this with before winter!
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| I love his little mohawk! |
Saturday May 4, 2013
Last weekend I had to pick up some Shanghai film from the Post office. Afterward, we headed over to Hollywood to wander around the Wattles Mansion Property. Although it was pretty and nice to wander outside for a while, unfortunately all of the garden areas were locked up so there wasn't too much to explore.
Since we were nearby on the correct side of the hills, we headed over to Freestyle Photo so I could pick up some supplies. I'm super lucky to have a photo store like Freestyle locally - I did the math, and I saved about $25 by picking up the items in store opposed to ordering online! I had been thinking about getting a Holga camera for a little while and with the Gretchen Bleiler model on sale in store for $20, I decided to go ahead and pick it up. The trees aren't too offensive and are on stickers, but I already pulled off a "GB" sticker from the lens cap (it made the camera look like you stole it from someone with those initials.) I loaded it with film today and I'm looking forward to seeing how the pictures turn out. My first impression is that it seems a little more durable in some ways (the Diana shutter and aperture controls feel more delicate), but also a little more simple than the Diana. If nothing else, I'm glad to have it on hand for others to use. I also picked up 20 more rolls of medium format film (30 total for the day!) as well as some developer. While we were in the store, a woman was picking up a Holga camera with some accessories and a single roll of film. I keep thinking back to it and laughing - I wondered why so many people selling their cameras online claimed to have used it for only a single roll. I suppose this sort of situation explains it.
Saturday May 11, 2013
A couple months ago, when I was biking around & doing some errands, I ended up at a garage sale where I picked up a vintage camera tripod. I chatted with the women selling the items for a bit and as is common, they made comments about me being on a bike, which made them think of the past. They mentioned that at one point Lankershim had a ton of thrift stores. It sounded idyllic compared to the car dealership lined street there today. When I noticed one of the old dealerships was converted to a thrift store recently, I was super excited. This morning I decided to stop by and see what sorts of things they had.Because it's approximately 92 degrees outside, that means it's time to think of the cold and jackets. (Actually it was 66 this past Monday and is supposed to be 100 by this next Monday!!) I ended up finding this awesome orange flower brooch for $5.50 that I thought would compliment a blue cordoroy peacoat style jacket that I wear in the winter. It doesn't have any info on it and is in super nice shape, but based on some googling, it looks like it might actually be vintage. I might need to find a reason/outfit to wear this with before winter!
Friday, May 10, 2013
Pink Glow Sunset Show
Yesterday evening I was sitting at my computer when I noticed a pink glow coming from my apartment window. I ran over to look up at the sky and noticed it was pink. It made sense - after the random weird rain in the afternoon, the sky had remained moody looking and filled with clouds. I grabbed my camera and hurried outside, knowing how the intense color shows of the Los Angeles sky at sunset are so beautiful and momentary.
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Tuesday, May 7, 2013
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