Category Archives: cooking

SOcca Good

Wow, thanks for all the positive response from yesterday’s post!  And all the compliments. 🙂

I finally used a recipe! At the beginning of the month I made a goal to follow at least one recipe a week but this socca recipe is the first I completed.  The intention behind the recipe goal was to get me out of my cooking routine and try some new things.

Socca is a French pancake made from chickpea flour, water, salt, and olive oil.  Given the simplicity of the ingredients it is surprisingly delicious with the faintest hint of falafel and a rich nuttiness.

Socca

Original recipe from David Lebovitz can be found here

  • 1 cup chickpea flour*
  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoons water
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • generous pinches of salt
  • sprinkle of cumin
*I used Bob’s Red Mill Garbanzo and Fava Bean Flour because that is what I found at the store.  It worked brilliantly but I can’t compare the flavor to plain garbanzo flour.

It’s funny to me that I am counting this as following a recipe because not only did I substitute the flour but it is so stinking simple.

Whisk everything but 1 tablespoon of the olive oil into the flour.

Let the thin batter sit for at least two hours.

I made this on Tuesday afternoon and it ended up be so ridiculously hot and sticky that evening that I couldn’t bare to turn on the oven.  The batter went into a jar and refrigerated until Wednesday night.

When you are ready to bake it off add the rest of your olive oil to an oven-safe pan (I used cast iron) and place in oven, turn on your broiler.  When the pan in hot, hot, hot, carefully pour in your batter.

And here’s where I failed to read the recipe details.  I only noticed after pouring the entire jar of batter into the pan and placing it in the oven that David’s recipe makes “about three pancakes”.   Whoops.  My dinner company and I loved the density and thickness that resulted but it did lack any resemblance to a cracker, pancake, or crepe.

After about 12 minutes on a middle rack my socca was golden brown and ready to be gobbled down.

Accompanied by a cucumber salad with garden herbs and lentil sprouts

and a side of garden hose 🙂

I now understand Ashley‘s obsession with socca, I’ve been thinking about it since the first bite and biding my time until I can whip up another.  SO GOOD.

Have a gorgeous, delicious Friday!

P.S  I pronounce it SOcca but have no clue whether this is correct, do you know?  I did a few internet searches but all I came up with were other folks as unsure as I am!

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Filed under baking, cooking, food, gardening, goals, recipes

Superman Says Eat Local

Congratulations Charlottesville marathoners!  You ROCK, Cville doesn’t know flat so it’s a tough course. You inspire me!

My first thought on Saturday morning was “they’ve already been running for nearly an hour!”.  My second thought was “I want to join them”.

So I did.

You know, after a leisurely breakfast and coffee. 😉

At first I felt kind of guilty when I met up with the race course and started cruising by people at mile 15, here I was just getting warmed up and they were getting ready to hit the wall.  Then I reconfigured my attitude and decided that my fresh energy would hopefully enliven them a little.

My plan was to go out for a quick and easy 3.3 miles but I was having so much fun and was SO INSPIRED by all of the running dedication surrounding me that I went an extra mile.  The second half of my run was swimming upcurrent of the runners (don’t worry, it was pretty thin so I didn’t get in anyone’s way) so I got to give every single marathoner I passed a HUGE grin and sometimes a “nice pace!” or “beautiful morning, isn’t it?”.   I got a few high five’s in but quickly realized that you have ZERO energy to spare when you are running for hours, not even to raise your hand!

While I didn’t complete 26.2 I did cover a lot of miles this weekend, 16.5 over Saturday and Sunday by walking, running, and HIKING!

I love, love, love hiking and yesterday’s romp around Shendoah National Park with Matt + Kath was a perfect way to spend a Spring Sunday.

Superman say’s “Eat Local” and Matt agrees!

84 foot South River Falls

Naturally, there was lots of real food refueling.

Super seedy and delicious Great Harvest Dekota bread, three kinds of cheese and lots of veg.

Manna bread and almond butter cookies topped us off.

I went a little nuts in the kitchen on Saturday afternoon and whipped up big batches of sprouted wheat biscuits and cookies.

Sprouted wheat, shredding carrots, dates.

I baked this batch of sprouted wheat bread in individual biscuit form because the first loaf was so crumbly and took forever to cook.

These cookies were made without an iota of a plan and sadly they kind of taste like that.  I had a little bit of applesauce and some extra shredded carrots (from the manna) so into the food processor they went.  An impulse buy of $2 a jar organic almond butter has left me with a plethora of my least favorite kind of nut butter so in went a few big spoonfuls. Honey, a little bit of sugar, lots of cinnimon and a few grates of nutmeg, some eggs, oh wait they need something more…oats to the rescue.

They are o.k. but nothing special, if you try to create something like these cookies (you know, based on this glowing review ;)) I recommend baking them for just long enough to cook the eggs, otherwise they will dry out.

There’s a high of 84* predicted for today. I say BRING IT ON!

My strawberries need the SUN!

 

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Filed under baking, cooking, dessert, running, workouts