Tuesday, March 24, 2009

and we'll send up our shooting stars and comets..

So I'm back in Philly at school, and going back to class and work yesterday was just unreal! It really didn't even feel like I had nearly a week and a half away from here at all!
Oh well.. on the bright side, only 38 days (including weekends!!) left until the last day of class.. but hey, who's counting? ;)
this just means the closer to being in london i will be..so i'm pretty pumped.

While I was home though I did get a chance to make a few more things! so that was super.

My parents had left on vacation for a majority of the time that I was home, leaving my two siblings and I to fend for ourselves while they baked in the beautiful Dominican Republic sun... i'm not bitter, i promise :)

So I cooked a tad bit..
One night I found a really simple recipe for homemade falafel, and decided it was something to try. The only time i've made falafel before was using a box mix from Fantastic Foods where you just added oil, i believe. Which were awesome though, so I'm definitely not complaining.. but I felt better about making it from complete scratch this time.



The recipe made quite a bit, and I managed to fit three of them in a pretty big sized pita filled with lettuce, tomato, and hummus :) delicious!

Falafel:
1 can of chickpeas
1 small onion, finely minced (okay so mine wasn't exactly minced persuay..still came out good!! haha)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3 T chopped parsley
3/4 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp tumeric
dash of red pepper
2 T flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, and then put them in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Form into ping-pong sized balls and put onto an ungreased baking sheet, and flatten down a bit with a fork. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, flipping halfway through and they'll be done when they're golden brown. You could also try frying these up, but I figured baking was better ;)

For dessert the night before this, on the last night my whole family was home, I decided to make a Hot Fudge Cake. I stumbled upon this recipe while searching for a hot fudge recipe..craving a hot fudge sundae one night..haha but this cake just seemed too good! And made me think of those non-vegan but delicious looking lava cakes that i serve to people everynight at applebee's...



Hot Fudge Cake:
1 1/2 c flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/8 c sugar
9 T cocoa powder, divided
3/4 c soy milk
3 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 c hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and 3 T of cocoa. Stir in soy milk, oil, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Spread in ungreased 9x13 glass baking pan. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar and 6 T of cocoa. Sprinkle over the batter, and pour the hot water over it all, but do not mix. Bake for 45-50 minutes and serve warm!

I originally found this recipe from jewishvegan.blogspot.com, but it says its truly from Taste Of Home, but just with soy milk as opposed to regular.
I did in fact half this recipe though, and I made it in a 8x8 pan..which kind of made it look like brownies, but this was definitely delicious.
And the fudge sauce stayed delicious and gooey for days after as well :)

Back to the grind of work though now, but hopefully now that spring break is OVER spring weather will finally start to appear! one can only hope ;)

9 comments:

Anna said...

That chocolate cake looks AMAZING!

I hope you had a good break while your parents went off and partied. Sometimes living at home without the rents is really way more fun than going on vacation with them, though!

Good luck with those remaining 38 days! They are going to absolutely FLY.

Anonymous said...

Ok I'm totally making that falafel recipe!!!

And my gosh, I want that cake! AMAZING!

fleur said...

I tried making falafel once and it sucked!!! :( Ill try it your way next time as it worked well for you :)

jb said...

Haha I agree with your last post- MD definitely is not spring break central, way too cold, however your food looks sooo good- hot fudge cake? count me in!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you're not bitter :) Your falafel looks great, wish I tasted that but your lava cake was amazing as was your banana, peanut butter cake. Love you!

Bianca said...

That cake...OMG! As a kid, my mom and I used to love getting the hot fudge cakes at Shoney's....and this looks way better. I'd serve it with a scoop of ice cream and a cherry on top though. :-)

Megan said...

ahhhhhh, hot fudge cake.... are words even necessary?

good luck with the rest of school! the first few days back sucked for me, haha. & nothing wrong with the countdown. 33 days for me :) yay!

River (Wing-It Vegan) said...

Woohoo!! I was away for so long I missed it when you said you were going to London! What a great experience that is going to be! I'm so happy for you! YAY!!

Awesome food! The falafel looks delicious, and the fudge cake looks waaaay too good! London Baby! :D

Lauren said...

I love falafel! YUM!

Chocolate cake = Heaven!!!