MFM and sweet things

Today I have learnt to collage my photos in Picasa - well actually I always knew I could do it, but this is the first time I have actually done it. Just a guess, but I think you can expect quite a few more collages from me in the future ;-)

Yesterday was Meat Free Monday again and I made some falafels. Now I love falafel balls and have made these quite a few times but never as a main meal, more often as simply part of an antipasti type lunch. The challenge became making it enough of a meal for H'o'M. Just serving it with pita bread and some tahini sauce as directed in the recipe just didn't cut it for me, but by the same token I didn't want a heavy meal loaded with calories..... compromise.... a salad.

I chopped up some lettuce, and added the regular suspects - tomato, capsicum, cucumber, mushroom and  spring onions, then added extras like avocado, cheese for H'o'M and beetroot for me.  I toasted a large pita bread under the grill and chopped it up to serve with a couple of tablespoons of hummus. I think it worked out just fine. I'm sure H'o'M could have eaten a steak as well, but he didn't complain ;-)

The falafel balls are really easy when one has a tried and true food processor in the house. Just bung all the ingredients in, whizz briefly and you're good to go. The balls are made of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), tahini, cumin, coriander, pepper, salt, fresh coriander (cilantro) and a little plain flour to bind them all together. I pan fried them quickly to get a slight crunch, then baked them in the oven for another 10 minutes.

As you can see from the photo collage I made a few other tidbits too.... a couscous tabouleh type salad for lunch in Ballas on Saturday. Loads of parsely, lemon juice, tomato and spring onions all mixed with the couscous.
For a treat I also baked Nigella Lawson's 'totally chocolate choc chip cookies'. They are too chocolatey for me - using real dark choc makes them far too rich. I prefer my chocolate milkier! Not so all the kids though - I think they were a hit ;-)

While down on the farm I baked some more yo-yos. This time I iced them 2 different ways. I added lemon juice to half the mixture and orange juice to the other half. I liked the tangy lemon one much more than the sweet orange one.

For lunch one day I also made another foccaccia. I do like this recipe. We ate one loaf for lunch on Friday with some chicken noodle soup I made, and the other one for lunch on Monday - toasted - with a vegetable frittatta.