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What do you do when you have excess fresh coconut on hand? We find ourselves very often in this situation. That mostly happens when there are festivals seasons or lot of poojas at home. Breakfast at parent’s place is never without a coconut Chutney on side, as Sree only likes that. While at my place, it never gets featured as hubby dear doesn’t like coconut chutney. So I can’t even use it up like that. Most times, we let it go dry, to use it as Copra. Copra is normally dried with the water inside, that’s why it become very oily and has that distinct taste. But fresh coconut, that’s not tender, is also a good candidate for becoming a copra. But hey, you got to use that copra too right! If you just sneak behind my refrigerator’s inner cabin, you will lot of copras happily slumbering away. We don’t store cooked food in fridge but somehow, something or the other gets forgotten, only to give each other a cold company!

Now when I decided to <a href=”http://cooking4allseasons.blogs…

I am bit picky when it comes to what qualifies as a good cookie. I like them buttery but not greasy. I don’t appreciate gratuitous sweetness, it’s like gratuitous violence in movies: totally lost on me. Sugar with a purpose is okay because it serves the very important purpose of balancing out the flavors or improving the texture of the crumb. Sometimes its essential job is just to sweeten my cup of tea.

Years ago, when I was new to exploring this wonderful culinary world, I made some middle-eastern treats. These were little logs, heavily perfumed with orange flower water and stuffed with dates and nuts. They were delightful and perfect with a cup of moroccan mint tea. Fast-forward to this weekend, I am looking desperately for the long lost cookie recipe when instead I come across the cutest, sweetest, nutty lebanese cookies.

<img src=”http://www.recipemuncher.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/66a91_2751206069_c95b7d6f3c.jpg” alt=”Lebanese Walnut Cookies” w…

It’s true. We’re having WAY too much fun experimenting with our rosemary and lemon verbena syrups. But, in between drinks, we’ve also had to eat!

For lunch the other day I threw together one of my favorite treats — apple &amp; kraut quesadillas.

If you wince a little at the thought of combining apples and sauerkraut, you’re probably not alone. But, trust me when I tell you that it’s really a winning combination. On top of everything, they’re quick to put together for a quick meal.

I was lucky enough to have some heirloom apples on hand from our CSA share. LotFotL warned us that they were ugly. And they really are. But, the flavor is pretty astounding. They’re tannic and tangy, with a hint of sweetness that almost sneaks up on you.

“Those are some seriously old school apples” Peef exclaimed as he took a bite of a slice of apple. The look on his face was pretty priceless. You could see the sourness just so…

The falafel odyssey continues as I incorporate as many vegetables as possible into these delightfully delicious spheres of goodness. This has also been an opportunity to experiment with baking rather than frying as I know there are many people that are a bit unsure about frying.

In reading I’ve noted that some of the complaints with baking is that they don’t crisp up as much as they would if they were fried. Unfortunately, I think you do need to use a certain amount of oil to get that affect but the good thing is that most of the oil will be left behind on the baking tray.

These particular falafel have been rolled in a mix of regular breadcrumbs, panko and sesame seeds - seeds sesame contain a fair amount of oil and in using them the theory is that baking will release their natural oil and help to crisp the falafel. Similarly, panko was used as it innately gives you an extra crispy texture to any crumbed item.

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