Felafel Pita Sandwiches with Garlic Dill Sauce

I wanted to fix a simple sandwich meal, but not the same old thing.  I decided to make a felafel pita sandwich.  I generally get ideas for meals by reading books and when the characters eat something, it inspires me to try that, too!  All you authors out there, let your characters eat something fun!

The recipe calls for the dough to chill for 2 hours before cooking, so keep that in mind.

   

Felafel Pita Sandwiches

1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 large shallot
3 Tablespoons flour
2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon cardamon
1/8 teaspoon coriander

pita bread
tomatoes and lettuce
oil for frying

   

Garlic Dill Sauce

1/3 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dill weed
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans.  Dry them with a clean dish cloth.  Place them in a food processor with the chopped parsley.  Mince the shallot.  Add the shallot, sesame seeds, cumin, salt, pepper, cardamon and coriander and pulse the processor until the beans are finely chopped but not smooth.

   

Add the flour and pulse until mixed. Use a medium cookie scoop or a large tablespoon and check to see if you can form a ball that holds together. If it is too wet, add a bit more flour.

   

Chill for 1 to 2 hours to firm up.

   

Make the Dill Sauce.  Adjust the garlic salt to taste.

   

While the dough was chilling, I went out to the chicken yard where I have a plethora of volunteer tomatoes growing.  I picked and washed a few for the sandwiches.

Use the scoop to make balls of all the dough.  I flattened mine a bit to make them easier to cook and eat.

   

Fry in 1/2 inch of oil over medium heat until golden brown on each side. Place on a paper towel to drain.

   

When I opened the pita I had purchased, I realized it was scored.  My original intent was to fold the pita over the filling.  But, based on the scoring, I chose to fill the pocket of the pita.

   

Smear the Diil Sauce inside the pita.  Add lettuce and tomato slices to taste.  Place two or three crispy and warm felafel balls, or discs, inside and enjoy.

More on Rosalind's quilt

Rosalind started this cathedral window quilt and I am going to finish it.  It won't be exactly as she planned but I wanted to highlight her work, not mine.

   

I found one square that Roz had written on with pencil.  She wore her name and birthdate on  corner.

   

Her husband was Arnold Yasui. She had written his name and birthdate on the opposite corner.

   

I used an off white thread to backstitch those details. This square will be the center of my quilt.

   

My sister's nickname was Pinky. and the colorful fabrics she chose had various shades of pink.  I chose a pink fabric with tones from the "window" pieces.  This became the sashing between the squares.

I thought too much pink would take away from the squares, so I picked a green fabric that worked with the green of the "windows".

   

I need to add a back piece, some batting and start quilting.

Smoothing Out The Divots.

The back part of our property was not kept mowed.  It was just bush hogged a few times a year.  I wanted it mowed regularly so we bought a zero turn mower and we've been trying to dig out all the roots and rocks.  This has left divots and bumps which slows down the speed you can mow. We don't want to tear up our new mower!

   

The new shop had some excavation done to accommodate the footings and slab.  We have a large pile  of dirt...and rocks and roots.  Lee has been using the tractor to take buckets of dirt around the yard and filling in the depressions.

   

I expect the grass will take some time to fill in.  At least we'll be able to speed up the mowing.

   

A New Garage

When we moved to our new house it was missing one thing.   A shop/garage for Lee to store and work on his cars and trucks.  Fortunately we have plenty of room to add a building for this purpose.  We are now in the process in correcting that.

   

There was an old abandoned well too close to the new location, so we had to cap it.

   

This involves filling the hole and capping it.  

   

We also had some glue lam beams delivered.   The are beams made of layers of wood laminated together to make a super strong beam. These are stronger, yet smaller than a solid beam of wood.

   

Next they brought us some trusses.  These will hold up the roof.

   

We had to remove a tree, which wasn't my favorite part.  We now have the permit and the construction will start soon.

Rosalind's Quilt

My sister Rosalind started a quilt. It is a cathedral window pattern and is all hand stitched.  It is made with triangles of a light fabric.  You fold the edges of the triangles over a square of a patterned fabric, to sew it to the fabric in a diamond shape.  Like this.

   

Roz hand stitched everything.  I don't know if she even owned a sewing machine.

Then she passed away and the pieces were forgotten in a storage space.  Her husband remarried and then he got cancer and passed away.  His widow contacted me and as she went through the storage unit and has Kindly sent me several boxes of Rosalind's keepsakes.  The quilt squares were in one of the boxes.

I decided the quilt needed to be finished.

   

The finished squares had a lot of issues in terms of evenness.  I tried to fix them with ironing.  This was minimally effective.

   

There were over 100 squares.  The original pattern called for all the finished squares to be sewn together and then continue adding in the colorful squares. There was enough fabric to do so and I thought about finishing it that way.  ButI didn't want to hand stitch a quilt that was going to end up King size.   If I machine sewed it, there would be an obvious difference between the triangles.  Also, it would be more my quilt, at the end, then the quilt Roz started.

   

I decided to keep the squares as she made them and assemble it as I would any other quilt.

I also chose to take the advice of the folks at my local fabric store, Web Fabric.  They suggested  breaking the quilt up into two smaller quilts.  It would be much easier to do the quilting on my regular sewing machine.  It meant that I could make the second quilt for my niece.  She and Roz had started the quilts together and she was a thrilled when I asked if she wanted a finished piece.

I chose some pink fabric to be the sashing between the squares and to try to even them up. My sister's nickname was Pinky, so this was an homage to that.  I'll get to that next.

Please, Not Yet

   

I recently found a broken egg in a nest box.  The shell was so thin that just the weight of the hen was enough to break the eggs.  This is not normal.  This can indicate there is not enough calcium in the diet. But I give them a high quality feed with plenty of calcium.  I also crunch up and return the eggshells to the chickens with their food.

But a weak shell can also be indicative of an older hen.  I think that is the case here.  I just lost one hen and another may be on her way out.

This is my least favorite part of owning animals