Socca (chickpea flour flatbread)
I bought a big bag of chickpea flour (called besan in India) over a year ago, used it once in a recipe, and then didn’t touch it again. I decided it’s been sitting long enough, so I went searching for recipes that called for chickpea flour. The obvious first recipe to try was socca, a simple flatbread made from chickpea flour, olive oil, and liberal amounts of salt and pepper. I actually had a version of socca a few years ago at a bakery in Florence, but there they call it Torta di Ceci. (In other parts of Italy they often call it Farinata). Whatever the name, despite the rave reviews online, the version I got at the bakery in Florence had a somewhat odd texture (more creamy than crisp) and not all that much flavor. Maybe a homemade version would be better. I used Mark Bittman’s recipe on the New York Times website. Read the rest of this entry »
Pumpkin, pear, and fennel soup
I could have sworn I blogged about this recipe before, but I can’t find any post about it, so here it is again. This is a recipe from the fall section of Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. Despite the name, the recipe doesn’t actually call for any fennel. At least, not the vegetable. Rather, it calls for fennel seed, which Berley says brings out the natural sweetness in other ingredients. I can’t vouch for that, but I really like fennel seed in savory dishes. I was very excited to try the combination of squash, pear, leeks, ginger, and fennel seeds. Read the rest of this entry »
Pumpkin and feta muffins
I wanted to use up some feta and milk and found this interesting looking recipe for a savory muffin on 101cookbooks.com. It seemed a nice recipe for the cool fall (almost Winter) weather. Read the rest of this entry »
The captious vegetarian 