Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Sixty-Two (Spelt Right Focaccia topped with all the fixins')

A picture of these lovely creations will be posted once Cousin Lisa sends the photo.  So, we had our Shogry family reunion.  It was pretty amazing.  Seeing cousins after more than 20 years.  My mom was the oldest surviving relative, the matriarch who is quite able, but a little hearing challenged.  We had the first part of the reunion at the Pittsfield MA State Forest.  We topped it off by visiting my Cousin Donna's house.  I brought a big tray of focaccia.  You can always count on a Lebanese family having black olives, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, the works. 

Ingredients and directions: A sheet of Spelt Right rosemary focaccia, cut in half and sliced down the middle.  Black pitted olives (not from a can!), sliced onions, sliced fresh tomatoes, EVOO, sea salt, feta cheese.  Place all the fixins' on top of the focaccia, drizzle with EVOO, sprinkle lightly with salt.  Bake at 375 until hot.  Slice in pieces.  Serve to the throng of cousins.  Comments, especially from the Southern Cousins.  "Cousin Beth, this is sooooo good.  When can we get it down South?"   Now, that's a good question y'all.  We are working on it!

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Fifty-One (Sloppy Joe's Take Two, Salad with homemade balsamic dressing)

Garlic is an obsession in this house.   It is really a miracle food, http://www.desigram.com/Health/Ingredients/Garlic.html, and much like spelt, is one of the oldest cultivated foods.  We know from bakery experience that garlic is an antibacterial.  Have you ever noticed that garlic is never mixed right in with bread, but instead is drizzled in through a slice or sprinkled on top?  The reason is that garlic's antibacterial properties will kill the yeast or sour dough.  We once had to throw away an entire batch of bagels after trying to mix the garlic in the dough.  Never did that again.

We have been very busy in the bakery for the past week and it will last for a few more weeks (hopefully forever).  In the meantime, I had to resort to some easy home recipes.  Good thing Whole Foods is just 20 minutes away.

Tonight's dinner:  Sloppy Joe's laced with garlic made with Grass Fed Beef from Cold Spring Ranch Farm in New Portland, Maine.   Greens, tomatoes, and cucumbers with very garlicy homemade balsamic dressing.  The Grass Fed Beef from Cold Spring Ranch http://www.coldspringranch.com/grass_fed_info.htmis really the best and when I can get it, the only beef I will serve my kids.  It is run by Gabe Clark, a fellow Bates College alum (tho' many years younger than I).  

Ingredients - Sloppy Joe - Take Two: 
One Spelt Right Pizza Dough, fully thawed and risen. 
One Pound Grass Fed Ground Beef from Cold Spring Ranch Farm
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion
2-3 TBL Extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
pasta or pizza sauce (homemade or jarred)
grated pizza cheese (we used a mozzarella provolone mix)

Directions:  Pre-heat oven to 450 F.  In a large skillet, saute chopped onions and chopped garlic in EVOO.  After onions brown slightly, add beef cook until brown.   Add tomato sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.  Divide dough into 8-10 even dough balls, stretch or roll out until thin, but not transparent.  Cover the dough with the grated cheese, then add meat mixture.  Make triangles as shown in the photos.   We did this on a pizza peel covered with corn meal, and put it directly on the hot pizza stone, but you can do this directly on a lightly oil baking pan.

Ingredients and Directions - Salad with garlicy balsamic vinegar.   Make a salad of your choice, we used organic green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, topped with chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, and chevre.   For the dressing,  I put 3 large garlic cubes in blender, then added balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, dried basil and dill, all to taste (sorry I did absolutely no measuring with this one).  I then blended dressing ingredients together until frothy.  It was amazing, but you have to do this to taste.

Tim and the kids loved the Sloppy Joe's (I don't eat red meat so I didn't have one).  We all devoured the salad.  Nothing was left for the lunch boxes tomorrow.  TWO THUMBS UP.

Lunch Box Chronicle: Day Forty-Five (Falafel, tahini sauce, libani)(vegetarian)

I like to believe that I can replicate any dish I have tasted anywhere.   Unfortunately my wishes and reality don't always coincide.

On two trips to West Hartford, CT, I visited Tangier International Store and Middle Eastern Deli.  The falafel wrap is beyond worldliness  It represents the blending of best of the cultures of the City of Tangier, the store and deli's namesake.  The flavors are incredibly powerful and bold, yet subtle and light.

Back in March, my mom and I were the first to stumble upon Tangier on our way home from West Hartford.  It is an unassuming store in the corner of a flat building, but what lurks inside is almost magical.   The aisles are lined with packaged foods from the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Fertile Crescent and off to the side is a small lunch counter with a myriad of homemade Middle Eastern foods.  There were fitayers of all types, but none quite as creative as the ones in the Lunch Box Chronicles  I am sure they would have thought of it as blasphemous to stuff a fitayer with peanut butter and jelly.  Peanut Butter and Jelly Fitayer Post

I ordered the falafel.  My mom said she wanted only "a little bit" claiming she was much too full after all our day of sampling and noshing at Whole Foods.  After one bite, the "little bit" simply couldn't satisfy her.  And, being a nice, but not overly generous daughter, I did not intend on parting with another bite.   We just had to order another.  Our conversation on the four hour ride home inevitably turned to the falafel.  "Can you believe the taste?" "Does it bring you back to childhood?" "What were those incredible flavors?  "Did you taste the nana (mint)?" "Do you think we can make this at home?"

On a repeat visit to West Hartford in May, I insisted to my daughter Emma that she had to experience the falafel from Tangier.  "Oh mom," she protested, "I am still so full from the food at the Afghanistan Cafe and Hookah Bar."  She still thinks it is wild that I unwittingly brought her to a hookah bar.

I persuaded her to have just a bite of the falafel..."This is the BEST," she proclaimed.   I had already experienced the "only a little bite" from her grandmother a few months before and knew that my best bet was to wolf down the falafel before Emma had any ideas to ask for more.

It must be our cellular memories for food of our ancestors, but something about the combination of blended chickpeas, tahini and lemon dressing, yogurt and mint, sent us into complete food heaven.

My goal was to replicate this Falafel Utopia at home.  The result was not quite Utopic.

Ingredients: Spelt Right Pizza Dough, Premade Falafel or Falafel Mix, Tahini, Fresh Lemon, Garlic, Salt, Pepper, Greek or Lebanese Yogurt (Liban), dried mint, cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce.

Prepare Spelt Right Pizza Dough into pita bread on the grill Spelt Right Pita Bread Instructions

Prepare falafel mix according to instructions.  We used a wheat free version.  I think next time I will
l try to make it on my own.

Tahini Dressing.  Blend the following ingredient in a blender:

• 1/2 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 3 gloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• enough water to loosen dressing
• dash of cumin (optional)

Yogurt Dressing: 8 ounces of Greek or Lebanese yogurt, finally chopped cucumber, 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of dried or finely chopped fresh spearmint, 1 garlic clove finely chopped and mashed.

Assemble all ingredients in a pita pocket made with Spelt Right dough.

Result: Not bad, the bread was better than that at Tangier, but the body of the sandwich couldn't compare.   Tangier's was so much more flavorful.  I am on a mission to recreate Falafel Utopia.  This isn't the last you will hear of my attempts.