Spiced Roasted Chickpeas for Mediterranean Tacos

My lab has developed this lovely tradition of a lunch club, where once or twice a week one person cooks lunch for everyone. So far our menu has ranged from a spiced wheat berry salad to Indian food to zucchini glory. And part of the reason you haven't heard from me in a couple of weeks is due to a lunch club related kitchen disaster that happened last week. I don't want to talk about it.

Ok, if you insist. I tried to make pita bread. Ended up with pita hockey pucks. I tried to made dolma. Ended up with a pile of torn grape leaves and an abundance of super tasty filling. I tried to make falafel. Ended up with a soupy unpalatable mess. I e-mailed my labmates at 9:30 after 4 hours in the kitchen telling them I hated strongly disliked them and I wasn't bringing them lunch.

But alas, I wasn't going to be defeated and I was still stuck on the idea of a Mediterranean lunch... but I decided to simplify it. I bought the hummus and some flat breads. And instead of turning the chickpeas into falafel, I decided to roast them and enjoy them in all their chickpeay glory.

Holy moly. I am going to roast chickpeas all the freaking time now. I had to do everything in my power to not eat all of them directly off of the baking sheet. It killed me to transfer the contents to a tupperware container and have to wait 18 hours to eat them. BUT, after those 18 hours... I got to smother them with garlic hummus, adorn them with fresh veggies and a squeeze of lemon juice, and wrap it all in some fluffy flat bread. And then I put it all in my mouth. And it was glorious.

I kept the flavors pretty standard Mediterranean with some cucumbers, garden fresh tomatoes, olives, red onion, mint, and lemon juice. My Danish labmate gave me a 5.3 out of 6 (silly Danish scale)... but only so that I would keep trying. This was some seriously good lunch time eating and so simple. Save your tastebuds from the work week lean cuisine monotony with these yummy Mediterranean Tacos!

 Roasted Chickpea Mediterranean Taco

Materials:

For the Roasted Chickpeas

• 2 cans chick peas, drained and rinsed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons taco seasoning
• juice from 1 lime

For the Rest

• 1 package flatbread
• Your favorite hummus
• 2 small cucumbers, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 2 tablespoons fresh mint, minced
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 cup lettuce, torn apart
• assorted olives
• 1 lemon

Methods:

To make the Chickpeas

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Toss the chickpeas with the remaining ingredients and allow to marinade for about 30 minutes.
3. Spread out evenly in 1 layer on baking sheet and place in oven for 45 minutes, stirring halfway through.

To assemble the tacos

1. Smear flatbread with hummus, top with remaining ingredients as desired, top with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
2. Enjoy!

Frozen Friday: Cherry Chocolate Chip

Even though the Bay Area weather is trying desperately to convince us otherwise... it is, in fact, summer and definitely ice cream season... so it is ice cream that I bring you, as promised. Since it is Friday, and I am feeling a little less eloquent that usual (does she think she is normally eloquent? I would give it high school English capability at best)... I am going to give you my assorted thoughts on ice cream and the like in bulleted form.

- I want to master the basics of ice cream before getting too crazy. I had some charming chocolate, I did the banana business... but I still need to master a solid fruit ice cream (solid as in quality, not solid as opposed to liquid fruit... umm i'm not sure liquid fruit exists...)

- Reckless R has gone and left me for a week. It has been horrible. He is never allowed to leave again. On the bright side, he left 14 bags of cherries in the fridge to rot. Thanks R. I had it in my head all week that I was going to use these cherries to make cherry ice cream. Unfortunately, by the time I got to them... many of them were covered in a lovely white fuzz. I sort of went through and picked out the ones that were still ok. Normally, this isn't something I do... because even though I can't see it, I know that the seemingly fine cherries have mold spores on them. Yuck. But I did it, because I was dead set on cherry ice cream, and I tend to do the things that I become fixated on. It was happening.

- I made these amazing cookies earlier this week. I didn't even get to photograph them because they went that fast. But I will absolutely be making them again. They were amazing. Anyways, I had chocolate chips left over from the cookies, so the cherry ice cream just became cherry chocolate chip. This is a decision I was pleased with.

- I left work at 4 yesterday, and I was eating this ice cream by 5. In that hour, activities included (but are not limited to): cursing R for leaving so many rotten cherries, making this ice cream in its entirety, feeling bad about cursing R, cursing my drier for not drying the pants I wanted to wear last night, accepting it and just wearing wet clothes out last night, and photographing this ice cream.

- With ice cream making being so easy and quick, i'm not sure I will ever go out for ice cream again (blasphemy)! I can have homemade ice cream that is quicker than standing in line at Ici.

- This ice cream was so delicious. It was creamy and fruity and decadent. Cherry chocolate chip, i'll have some right now.

Cherry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Material:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 cup pitted and chopped cherries
• 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/8 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Methods:

1. Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a blender and blend until fully blended and it takes on a nice and solid purple color.
2. Mix in chocolate chips.
3. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacture's instructions (mine churned for 15 minutes).
4. Transfer to freezer for roughly 30 min to an hour to finish firming up.
5. Enjoy!
• Despite the fact that you may live in SF and are currently wearing a sweater.

BBQ Sweet Potato and Kale Pizza

Remember when I went bananas over this sauce? Well it has made another appearance in my kitchen. This past weekend my advisor kindly held a lab summer get together at his house and the theme was vegetarian, so I was stoked. Therefore being the resident vegetarian, I had to bring my A-game. I thought long and hard about what to make, and in the end decided that a BBQ pizza would be perfect: I was thinking I could cut it up into smaller pieces, making it good finger food, and I would make it interesting and vegan so that I could blow people's minds. But really, at a summer time gathering, who doesn't love BBQ sauce and pizza? 

Well, I am lucky I made it as "gourmet" as a did... because when I rolled up to the gathering in some ripped jeans and a T-Shirt, I realized it was more of a summer cocktail party than a summer BBQ (which is due to my poor reading skills, the invite never actually said BBQ). My boss had put out quite the spread of fancy hors d'oeuvres and the wine was flowing, so I snuggled my pizza in between some veggie lasagna and Vietnamese salad. 

Speaking of flowing wine, we had a friendly wine tasting competition. He had us blind taste 4 under $15 red wines. We had to identify the grape type, rate it (according to NIH guidelines), and give other general notes. Now, a couple of things you should know about me before I continue the story: 


1) I am really not a huge wine person.
2) Since moving to California, I have tried hard to become a wine person.
3) I have been wine tasting in Napa/Sonoma twice in the last 2 months alone. 
4) When I lived in Italy I could (and often did) take an entire bottle of wine to the face. 


Ok, now that we have all of that clear, I would like to proudly gloat that I WON! While I am sure a lot of it was luck, let's pretend there was a little bit of skill to it too :-). What put me over the edge to win was when he tried to sneak in a bottle of 2 buck Chuck, I just drew a big sad face on that line. So anyways, it is usually a good idea to impress your new boss with your drinking skills, right? 

But back to my cooking skills! I have made this pizza before, and enjoyed it immensely. It is a little spicy from the chipotle in the sauce, a little sweet from the sweet potatoes, and a little crispy and garden fresh from the kale. I finished it off with a cashew cream drizzle to cool down the spice and tie everything together. I thought it was great, every bite of pizza was gone, and people kept telling me they loved it (but then again, maybe they just wanted me to share my newly won bottle of wine with them ;-)). 

BBQ Sweet Potato and Kale Pizza

Materials:

• 1 ball of your favorite pizza dough
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and sliced thin (about 1/4")
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups chopped kale
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 batch smoked onion and chipotle sauce
• 1/4 cup cashew cream (but leave out the chipotle quoted in this recipe) 

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Toss the sweet potato slices with the olive oil and give a shake of salt and pepper.
3. Arrange sweet potato slices on baking sheet in 1 layer and roast for 20 minutes, flipping once halfway through.
4. Toss the chopped kale with the balsamic vinegar.
5. Turn oven up to 450 degrees.
6. Roll out pizza dough to about 12", and pre-bake for about 10 minutes.
7. Spread sauce on the hot crust, neatly lay sweet potato slices, and then cover with kale.
8. Place back in oven for about 15 minutes. 
9. Remove from oven and drizzle with cashew cream before serving.
10. Enjoy!
1. Best served with friends and coworkers with a full glass of wine. Talking about science is totally optional. 

Zucchini cakes

Watching my garden grow this summer has really been quite the treat. It doesn't get any better than knowing that I am pampering these plants, and that they, in turn, are producing for me delicious organic produce mere steps from my kitchen (seriously, my desire to take care of people/animals/things is out of control). As expected, my zucchini has been the forerunner in production for far, but once my tomatoes start ripening, they will blow the rest of the garden out of the water... eerrr dirt ... The current count is at 60 something just between my 2 plants.

In preparing the zucchini that my garden has so graciously gifted to me, I am trying to do my best to showcase them in different ways. No hiding them in zucchini bread for me! First I had the zucchini pasta, and then I made a grilled zucchini salad (which you will see... the pictures just weren't the best)... and now we are on to zucchini cakes (Oh, so you won't hide them in bread... but you will hide them in cake. No silly, it is much more like a crab cake or a fritter. Do you even know why crab cakes taste like? No.)

In order to make these zucchini cakes an entrée, I added some quinoa to the mix, served them with a side salad... and then, ya know, just whipped up an aioli, of the garlic-herb variety, to go on top. I seriously enjoyed these immensely. The quinoa gave them a nice crunch, but the flavor was totally zucchini. And honestly? I didn't use old bay so that they would be reminiscent of crab cakes, for I am not a fan of making veg food that pretends to be non-veg food. I used old bay because a) I was trying something different and b) it has a really nice mix of celery salt, mustard, and paprika that I thought would be yummy... and I was correct! The garlic and herb aioli gives it a nice kick, and the smooth lettuce underneath cushioned all of it so gently. I will totally be making this again.

Zucchini Cakes

Materials:

For the Zucchini Cakes

• 2 medium zucchini
• 3/4 cup cooked quinoa
• 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 1 teaspoon old bay seasoning
• 1 flax egg (1 tablespoon flax meal + 3 tablespoons water)
• 1 tablespoon vegan mayonaise 
• salt and pepper

For the Herbed Aioli

• 1/4 cup vegan mayonaise
• 1 clove garlic
• juice from 1 half lemon
• small handful of fresh herbs of choice
• salt and pepper

Methods:

For the Zucchini Cakes

1. Shred the zucchini using a cheese grater, sprinkle the shreds with salt and let sit in colander in sink for 30 minutes.
2. Squeeze out all of the extra moisture from the zucchini and blot dry with paper towels.
3. Mix the zucchini with all of the remaining ingredients.
4. Form mixture into patties of about 2 tablespoons each... recipe makes about 10 cakes.
• Be careful: they will come together... but they will be delicate.
5. Place patties in refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.
6. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in nonstick skillet over medium heat.
7. Pan fry in two batches, for roughly 3 minutes on either side, or until nicely browned.
• Once browned, move to paper towel lined plate.
8. Enjoy!
• Serve warm and topped with herbed aioli (recipe below).
• These are great atop a fresh salad or served inside lettuce wraps.

For the Herb Aioli

1. Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until smooth.

Frozen Friday: Roasted Banana with Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream

Hello and the happiest of Fridays to you! I have had an interesting week filled with highs and lows, and I am still trying to make heads or tails of some of it. But at this moment, none of that matters because I am here to share ice cream with you. And I could think of no better way to end my week (unless, of course, I could convince you to come to my house to share delicious vegan ice cream on my balcony overlooking SF... just saying).

My list of ice creams to try for the summer is growing, and I am learning a bunch about ice cream making with every batch I make. For now I am sticking to simple and obvious[ly delicious] flavor combinations... but I look forward to playing with fun flavors and textures. An upcoming flavor that I am particularly excited about is going to be a spicy marg[arita] ice cream. Ya, that is happening.

Now, since I am starting with classic flavor combinations, the only logical next step from chocolate-coconut was banana-peanut butter. Oh, but how about I roast the bananas first and then use freshly ground peanut butter from Berkeley Bowl. Oh, no she didn't! Or in the words of Ridiculous R, "who did that?!"

Seriously though, this ice cream was the bomb.com. And I would even go so far as to say it is good for you. And I am not talking "good for you as far as ice cream goes" (huge pet peeve of mine when people eat low fat ice cream and say things like "look, I am being somewhat healthy!")... I am talking about this is a great afternoon pick me up snack type good for you. The only ingredients are coconut milk, banana, and peanut butter. In fact, I totally plan on having a bowl of this when I get home from work. And it is going to be awesome. So please, go make this ice cream, and then share it with as many friends as possible :-).

Yes that is my reflection in the spoon. And yes I am wearing an argyle sweater with lululemon yoga pants.

Roasted Banana and Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Materials:

• 1 can coconut milk (full fat)
• 2 bananas, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/2 cup peanut butter

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Toss banana slices with olive oil and maple syrup.
3. Roast banana slices in oven for 30 minutes, stirring once half way through.
4. Place bananas (and the syrup in the baking dish) with coconut milk in blender and blend thoroughly.
• Taste at this point in time, if you want it a little sweeter than add a little bit of your sweetener of choice.
5. Allow mixture to cool in refrigerator.
6. Place mixture in ice cream maker and churn for 15 minutes.
7. Add peanut butter to the ice cream maker and churn for additional 5 minutes.
8. Transfer to freezer and allow to set up in freezer for about an hour.
9. Enjoy!

Frozen Friday: Chocolate Coconut Graham Cracker

Have I told you lately how awesome my roommates are? If not, they are seriously awesome.

They are so strong. And handsome.

There, now you know.

One more awesome thing about the East Bay is our wonderful ice cream shops, specifically Ici and Tara's. They are constantly thinking up wonderful combinations and putting things in ice cream that no one else would dare to. That being said, i'm not sure why inventive ice cream hasn't taken off elsewhere... it's so good! I have enjoyed flavors from avocado-lime, to sweet potato, to green chili and they have all been nothing short of amazing.

Which brings me back to my wonderful roommates. I have been talking lately about how fun it would be to make our own ice cream, and how I was thinking of buying an ice cream maker. WELL, they listened (must be a first for the male population)... and got me the most perfect ice cream maker for my birthday!!! They are the best. Period. End of story. So what if they now expect me to make them ice cream all the freaking time... that is ok, I do it with a smile because I love them so.

So without further ado, I bring to you... Frozen Fridays! I will post a fun new ice cream recipe every Friday. I think it would be really fun if I could get some feedback on this... so if you have any quirky ice cream ideas, please comment with them!

We are going to kick off this series with some chocolate-coconut-graham cracker ice cream that was
seriously the bomb diggity. This ice cream was birthed via a texting conversation that went something like this:

me: Also, gonna make chocolate ice cream tonight
me: Game time decision: just put graham crackers in my cart for the ice cream
me: It's happening. Some coconut flakes may end up in it as well...
R: Omg. Best roommate ever!

I would describe to you the scene that took place when R and I first brought those chilled spoons to our mouths... but i'm not sure that is appropriate for the internets. Oh, I haven't mentioned this yet... but all of my ice cream will be 100% vegan and coconut milk based. And wow, this last batch was so unbelievably decadent... I really have no idea why anyone would want to make this laden with dairy and refined sugar. I used high quality cacao power and creamy coconut milk. And it was amazing, simply put.

Chocolate-Coconut-Graham Cracker Iced Cream

Adapted from The Nourishing Gourmet

Materials:

• 1 14 oz can coconut milk (full fat)
• 1/3 cup cacao power (I used the good stuff)
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup crushed graham crackers

Methods:

1. Combine the coconut milk, cacao power, and maple syrup in a blender and blend until mixed thoroughly.
2. Freeze according to ice cream maker's instructions.
• Mine calls for pouring the mixture into the already churning frozen barrel and churning for 20 minutes, when it will take on a soft serve consistency. 
• 15 minutes into freezing, add in the coconut flakes and the graham crackers. 
3. Let set in freezer for an additional hour or two to firm up.
4. Enjoy!
• Pleasurable noises are impossible to avoid, so just enjoy completely and let it happen. 

BBQ Eggplant Tacos

Who doesn't love BBQ and tacos? And who doesn't love even more when those things are put together? After a bit of change in my plans on Sunday, I was left to fend for myself for dinner. I hemmed and hawed about what to make. I flipped through saved recipes and some cookbooks. Nothing was really jumping out to me. I wanted to crump, but didn't want to push it. I had the time to make something that was a little more elaborate, but didn't feel like dirtying my freshly scrubbed kitchen too much. I also really wanted to put BBQ sauce on something/everything.
 

Ok, a little backstory here. R and I were out running errands on Saturday, when we stumbled into Williams Sonoma. Well, the culinary Gods were smiling upon me that day, for Williams Sonoma had a BBQ sauce tasting bar set up. WHAT?! It had a bowl of tiny spoons next to a line of artisan BBQ sauces. There was a cherry chipotle, smoked vidalia onion, jalapeño-peach... all in squirt bottles just begging to be squirt into my mouth. R said I was embarrassing him as I made us lap back to this magical place multiple times (he is just lucky I was being civil enough to actually use the little spoons and not just squirt it directly into my mouth/all over my body). Whatever. Oh, they also had a bowl of chili-lime corn nuts. I am a sucker for corn nuts. And by the third lap I had the stroke of genius to start squirting the BBQ sauce on the corn nuts. It was truly magical. I want to go to there now.

But I digress. I didn't feel like doing the standard BBQ tofu (but I will admit, while I am typing this and am woefully out of the BBQ eggplant... I plan on supplementing the leftovers with some BBQ tofu), so I was thinking that the meaty texture of eggplant would hold up nicely to some thick and tasty BBQ sauce. Also, the one thing that had popped out to me from my Millennium cookbook was this peach-lime chutney, which I thought would pair nicely with the BBQ sauce and replace the standard salsa. And instead of a traditional slaw, I topped these bad larries with a super simple fennel slaw.

These tacos were, for lack of a better phrase, stupid good. I will be honest, while I may not make the chutney again, it worked here. But I can't wait to make the BBQ eggplant again and build some more fun entrees around it!

BBQ Eggplant Tacos

Adapted from The Chubby Vegetarian and The Millennium Cookbook

Materials:

• Tortillas of choice (I like La Tortilla Factory)
• 2 eggplants (I used 1 and it was just enough for me)
• olive oil
• your favorite BBQ sauce

For the Peach-Lime Chutney

• 1 cup water
• 1 lime, with peel, finely diced
• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons freshly minced ginger
• 1 jalapeño, de-seeded and finely diced
• 2 peaches, peeled and diced
• 1 red pepper, finely diced

For the Fennel Slaw

• 1 head fennel, shaved on mandoline
• 2 tablespoons vegan mayo
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• salt
• pepper

Methods:

To make the BBQ eggplant

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Slice eggplant in half lengthwise.
3. Generously oil a rimmed baking sheet and place eggplants cut side down in olive oil.
4. Roast in oven for 45 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
6. Remove skin from eggplant and squeeze out the excess moisture.
7. Lightly tear apart the flesh and then smother it with BBQ sauce, massaging in the BBQ sauce so every bit of eggplant is covered.
• Lick your hands clean.
8. Place back in oven for 20 additional minutes.

To make the Peach-Lime Chutney

1. Bring water to a boil in a small sauce pan.
2. Add the lime and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.
3. Drain the lime and set aside (you may want to give it some more chopping action at this time).
4. Heat up the vinegar and sugar in a medium skillet until the sugar has dissolved and it takes on a bit of a syrupy consistency. 
5. Add the ginger and jalapeño and sauté until fragrant.
6. Add the peaches, pepper, and lime.
7. Saute for additional ~7 minutes.
8. Transfer to bowl and allow to cool.

To make the fennel slaw

1. Toss the fennel with the remaining ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste.

To assemble

1. Warm up your tortillas either in a skillet or quickly in the microwave.
2. Spoon in the BBQ eggplant and top with the chutney and slaw.
3. Enjoy!