Falafel Burgers with Baked Curried Potatoes

My dear friends A and A gave birth to a beautiful baby boy a couple of weeks ago. A bunch of friends and family rallied together to get a meal train going for them and I signed up to bring them dinner this Tuesday. I must admit, I was a bit nervous. As you all know, I'm a WFPBNO eater and the thought of making something with meat, dairy or eggs just wasn't appealing to me. I didn't want to bring that into my house and I also didn't want to feed it to others if i wouldn't eat it myself. So something vegan/plant based was on the menu but I wasn't really sure what. Also, A is a huge foodie. Can you say intimidating? I can. In any case, as I am cooking through Isa Does It, I looked there for inspiration and decided to make the Falafel Burgers along with the Baked Curry Fries. I sent that along with pitot, Israeli salad and the miso- tahini from the same book. I have been off potatoes (see my previous post about my sensitivity to nightshades) so I didn't taste these. While I fried some patties for my friends, I left a couple for me to have for lunches for the rest of the week. They were really delicious and to me really tasted like authentic falafel but without the fat. I had them in pitot with some cucumbers and the miso-tahini. If you've prepared your chickpeas in advance then the mixture comes together really easily with the use of a food processor followed by some chill time. I love using my round cookie cutter to form the burgers. They come out perfectly shaped every time. These held together really nicely during cooking and afterwards. If you have the book, I would definitely recommend you give them a try. Aren't those fries picture perfect? You can find the fries recipe here. 

Meal Plan: May 3-May 7th- Down Home Curry with Broccoli and Chickpeas

April is finally behind us! It felt to me like the longest month ever! The weather is still a tad bit unsure of itself but all this sun is really doing great things for me. Life and work have been busy lately and while I'm grateful for it, it's exhausting! In any case, there are lots of things to look forward to this spring and summer (including a trip to the states in August!!) so I'm hoping for a fun May.

This week's recipe is the Down Home Curry with Broccoli and Tofu from the stew/soup/curry chapter. I pretty much had all of the ingredients on hand already so grocery shopping wasn't too expensive this week. All in all, I spent 67 shekels on groceries this week which included carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, corn, a bag of rice (I returned the five pounds of rice-- it just wasn't tasty!), cucumbers, and mushrooms. I've stopped getting as peppers as I think nightshades don't agree with me. Sad but true.

Before I share my thoughts on this recipe, I should say that I do not like things that are creamy. Even in my SAD days, I hated the texture of whipped cream, or anything too mayonnaise-y, and if the coldness of ice cream didn't dull my senses, I wouldn't have liked that either. So it stands to reason that even on this WOE, I wouldn't like creamy, coconut-y sauces and things and I steer clear of anything that fits that bill. In my recent exploits that called for coconut milk, I made some homemade milk, which was thinner than store bought, but still, I just wasn't a fan. I decided that I'd leave out the coconut milk in my future curries (even though that lowers the fat, it's kind of blasphemous, isn't it?!) and that's what I did in this recipe. Consequently, it turned out less of a curry/stew and more of a nice vegetable mixture with which to top rice. I'm not complaining about that, I actually enjoyed that and find that it worked. That said, this is the first recipe that I made that while totally acceptable is just "good" to me and not something fantastic, like the previous recipes were. I will happily devour this until the last stalk of broccoli but it's not something I'd run to make over again.

I did make a number of changes to the recipe.. I used chickpeas instead of tofu, omitted the oil and coconut milk, used frozen broccoli, and sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes (those darn nightshades again!). I also chose to make this in the IP, obviously, just using the saute feature. You can find the recipe here.

Meal Plan: April 19th- April 23rd- Curried Peanut Sauce Bowl with Tofu

This week's recipe comes from the Bowls chapter of Isa Does It. To me, bowls are consummate comfort food but are still a little bit intimidating to me because they have a bunch of components that have to be made. I am not the person who likes to make a million things for one meal. I chose to begin my foray into this chapter with the Curried Peanut Sauce Bowl. And oh me oh my what a good pick that was. I love me some tofu and I love me some rice but put this curried peanut sauce over the top and I am right in heaven. I could eat this sauce with a spoon and if I didn't need it for the rest of the week, that's exactly what I'd do! I gotta figure out what else I can smother this stuff on. Isa, you done good!         So this week, I didn't spend any money at the grocery store. I've been eating leftovers of the tamale shepherd's pie for lunch and I pretty much bought everything I needed for this in previous trips. (I've been trying to be thriftier than usual because I just booked a ticket to fly to the states in August and I gotta save every shekel! As it is, this month is stacking up to be pretty expensive!)                                                                               The original recipe called for kale but I stopped by my local vegetable store on the way home on the day I made this and they were all out so no kale here. It definitely could use some color but maybe I'll add that the next time I make this. I used a natural peanut butter to make this (no JIF or Skippy here!) and I dry fried the tofu and the garlic and ginger for the sauce-n o damage done to either. I also found that two tbsp of tamari wasn't enough for me. I think I may have added an extra tbsp and a half or so to get that perfectly umami flavor.

Meal Plan: March 15th- March 19th: Red Thai Tofu and (Bhutanese) Pineapple Rice

Happy election day! Here in Israel, election day is a national holiday, meaning a day off from work! It's already coming to an end but I can say that I got a lot of Pesach cleaning done and my room is looking a lot tidier and less dusty. Trying to focus on getting as minimalist as possible and getting rid of things that I don't need, have any use for, or have simply expired. I'm making progress but it's not always easy!

In any case, this week, I put the second package of tofu to use in the recipe for Red Thai Tofu. (Tofu, being from soy is not allowed to be consumed by Ashkenazi Jews on Pesach which is approaching faster than I can say chametz! Gotta get a move on the rest that I have laying around!) I made the Bhutanese Pineapple Rice, which was pretty good, to go along with it. 

This week I spent 71 shekels. (Btw, I am already five pounds into my ten pounds of oats! Yikes!) I picked up red onion, frozen cauliflower (for next week's dinner), potatoes, pepper, cucumber, corn, fresh ginger, canned pineapple for the rice, and garlic. 

Isa's tofu recipes are a bit labor intensive, for me at least. Lots of chopping, for both the tofu and the rice and then all of the tofu needs to be browned before the sauce gets made. The component of this dish that makes this a Thai dish is the red curry paste. It adds a little spice to the tofu. Honestly, I really like tofu in any form so it can't really be bad to me, but this dish didn't wow me as much as the previous tofu recipe I made. I would be much more inclined to make the soy-hoisin tofu again if I would be asked. Therefore, I won't include the recipe here. won'That said, there wont be leftovers of this in my fridge by the end of the week- no tofu goes to waste here. I'm really curious to try the Apple-Miso tofu.

Meal Plan- Feb 15th- Feb 19th: Eggplant Chickpea Curry

So today is Wednesday, which means I'm a bit late with posting this week's recipe and shopping summary. Work has been quite overwhelming this week, there's been plenty of hullabaloo about getting a massive snow storm tomorrow, and I think I'm getting sick. Eek! Right now, I'm holding out for the weekend, as freezing cold as it might be!

This week's recipe was the Eggplant Chickpea Curry from Appetite for Reduction. The only thing I needed to make this recipe was eggplant, tomatoes, and couscous to serve it on. Everything else I had on hand which made this week's shopping trip very inexpensive. I picked up the usual peppers, corn, carrots, and cucumbers in addition to the eggplant, tomatoes and couscous all for a mere 45 shekels. Not bad. (I'll be making up for it next week seeing as I need to stock up on potatoes and oats.)

This recipe featured a different flavor profile than I'm used to. I've never cooked with really Indian flavors and it was my first time really featuring curry or garam masala in a recipe. It was pretty no frills and easy to put together. I accidentally defrosted 3 cups worth of chickpeas instead of 1.5 cups but I would keep that for next time. It took a while for me to adapt to the different flavor profile, but by yesterday, I actually really liked it! I hope to try more Indian style recipes in the future. As always, (except when I'm feeling rebellious) I left out the oil.. and the red pepper as well. Make it as you please. You can serve this over rice or couscous. Having sold my rice cooker (to buy the Instant Pot- woot woot!), I opted for the simpler couscous. Choice is yours.