falafel three ways

Day 4 of A La Minute Vegetarian I decided to take on falafel, that vegetarian standby of the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern world. While traveling through those regions I had always opted for the meaty kebab instead - I actually never quite understood the appeal of falafel, personally likening it to fried dough with vegetable bits. Like a ball of fiber. Not exciting. But I think I wanted to change my mind and making them from scratch definitely helped.



I went off this recipe. Mashed all the chickpeas with my hands - was pleasantly surprised to find that the flat part of my fists were shaped just like one of those potato masher tools.



The onion, parsley and garlic were food processed into a paste before they were mixed in - but for some reason the onion taste was really overpowering and I ended up starting everything over. Didn't have time to food process again so the end result was more rustic.



Also didn't have breadcrumbs so I substituted panko.



Here's the result of the batter shaped into balls - I realize they're just like vegetarian meatballs.



For the sides I did what the recipe suggested for cucumber yogurt, except I added tomatoes and fresh dill.

I wanted more sides though, taking some inspiration from Liba's falafel truck since she provides so many sides with her falafel. I ended up doing sweet gherkins & onions (in pickle juice) as one side and lettuce and carrot ribbons in tahini dressing as another.



These also sold pretty fast, deep-fried falafel balls with freshly grilled pita. I ate the sample, and the falafel balls were really tasty with the cumin and various spices. Would make again.

grilled veggie stack

Day 3 of A La Minute Vegetarian and I'd moved on from stuffing vegetables to stacking them.

I was inspired by this recipe, but wanted to do more vegetables and make it Italian with tomato/basil/mozzarella.

Even though the station is called A La Minute and required cooking things to order, I pre-cooked everything so I would only have to assemble to order (basically cutting down my stress). So this meant that all the vegetables were marinated days in advance and then broiled the day before.



On the day of, I just heated the cooked veggies on the griddle and melted cheese between them. Here I have eggplant topped with mozzarella topped with portabello mushroom.



That formed the base layer, along with some leftover jambalaya, grilled zucchini and squash.



The next layer consisted of marinara sauce, grilled onion and more eggplant.



This was finished off with mozzarella, basil and cherry tomato. Mr. P called this my best special yet. I definitely could have sold way more plates than I did, but I was content with the amount of food I prepped so I just left it at that. Still had other things to worry about...

cheesy grits-stuffed tomatoes

Day 2 of A La Minute Vegetarian and I had another stuffed vegetable special. Instead of bell pepper I decided to do tomatoes, stuffed with cheesy grits. Basically this recipe. I thought I would do a spin-off of grilled cheese, since grilled cheese sometimes involves tomatoes, I thought about how this had cheese and tomato and I could serve toast on the side.



While I was scooping the seeds out of the tomatoes, I looked at the soupy innards gathering in the box marked for discard... and thought about tomato soup. More specifically, gazpacho - or cold tomato soup. I thought it'd be nice to use both the outside and inside of the tomato, the outside being used for a hot dish and the inside for a cold dish.



I used this recipe but omitted the liquid ingredients at the end (tobasco/worchestershire/tomato juice). All the solid stuff went into the robocoup and was food processed directly into gazpacho. All the veggie bits were strained out so the gazpacho would look nicer.



When time came I stuffed the tomatoes (which had done some time in the oven to soften up), then put them under the broiler to get a little char. These I garnished with some chopped parsley.



As promised, these came served with buttered toast, a side of greens, and the cup of gazpacho.



Everything went together, although I thought the grits were a little garlicky. Nevermind though, sold out again :)

jambalaya-stuffed bell pepper

After Latin Quarter I moved to the Cafeteria hot line, otherwise the most grueling station consisting entirely of slopping and plopping food and getting slopped and plopped on by an endless stream of customers. It was a relief when that week was finally up and I rotated to my last station on the Cafeteria/Latin Quarter side: A La Minute Vegetarian.

Although a relief, ALM Veg was one of the culinarily-demanding positions that required coming up with a special every day. With no class time to prep, this already meant squeezing in time before/between/after classes, but lucky for me, it also happened to be Iron Chef competition week. And having lost last year, I was not going to go down without a fight. So I literally spent all of my free time in the kitchen (both at school and at home). And I basically powerwalked everywhere with anxiety knotting my stomach.

Thankfully I had researched some recipe ideas before the week came upon me, which meant that I already knew what I was making every single day of the week. Which took some stress off and enabled me to do some prep in advance.

So I decided to start off the week with a stuffed bell pepper. Rustic, hearty, not overcomplicated. A search on allrecipes.com yielded this recipe. While looking at the italian-style rice stuffing I thought, why not do vegetarian jambalaya? I love jambalaya (and cajun food in general), so why not make the rice stuffing spicier and more interesting? So I went ahead with this recipe for the stuffing.



Everything was a snap to chop up, then a quick stir-fry before I added rice and water and baked the dish like a casserole in the oven (foil on, 350F, about an hour). As for the bell peppers, I just chopped them in half and hand-scooped the seediness out, then roasted them (cut side down) in the oven so they would soften up and be nicer to eat.



The rice stuffing went in the bell pepper, and I garnished the tops with crumbled feta cheese and a parsley leaf. Unfortunately Mr. P came by and told me that the portion was too small. I didn't have anything else prepared and didn't want to add greens because there was already so much green on the plate. That's when I looked to the cafeteria hot line and saw that one of the vegetable sides for the day was corn. Nice yellow color, and it was sauteed with bits of bell pepper. The perfect complement.



This was how my special was displayed. Unlike the hot line, I got a customer maybe one every couple minutes (as opposed to one every couple seconds). I was afraid the 18 servings I prepared wouldn't sell out, so I prepared little sample cups for people to try.



I have to say, it was nerve-wracking to put these out there and have people take one, eat it and walk away. "Did it not taste good???" was the fear. But on the flip side I was overjoyed to have a few people eat the sample and then order the dish after, because it was instant validation. And in the end I sold out!

I couldn't sell the display, since it's food sitting out, so I got to eat it. Pretty tasty, though I'd cook the rice a little longer next time (a little al dente). But maybe people liked it that way. You never know what other people prefer!

french onion sandwich bites

In Garde Manger my team rotated to the last of the stations: open-face sandwiches.

I decided to go solo this time and turn the classic French onion soup into a sandwich. This required breaking down the components of the soup and using the elements in a slightly different way. Bread, cheese, onion, broth.



I'd decided to bake a baguette with gruyère. But I didn't use the school recipe from first semester, opting instead for a more complicated one from the Tartine Bread book. It didn't work out so well because I was loosely following the instructions, and with something like bread you just can't do that.

So then I cheated and stole one of the baguettes made by the first semester bread station. Cut that into slices on the bias, and topped each slice with caramelized onions (deglazed with white wine) and shredded fontina cheese.



I put them under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese, then spooned broth (veal stock simmered with spices and thickened with cornstarch) over. I was very pleased with the results. Very simple and very delicious.