Zucchini Feta Fritters

Tis' the season when spring has at last sprung. Lovely people start wearing brilliant colors and showing off their long-forgotten skin. SKIN! You forget how wonderful skin is during these long winter months, when even during intimate evening hours skin stays shrouded under the duvet. Skirts and shorts and fancy shoes...I love those beginning days of spring when people pop open like the buds. And then there are the buds; those lovely little green sprigs poking out, otherwise known as my kryptonite.

Yes, I have seasonal allergies. All the glories of opening season are lost when suddenly the sky begins to blur, my head begins to ache and I begin sneezing like it's my M#@$%in' JOB. Damn thee, pollen.

Partly due to these seasonal allergies, my appetite also takes a steep dive at the beginning of Spring. This means no more heavy casseroles, lasagnas, meat pies or other things that require basting, baking or massive quantities of butter. It's a sad departure, but it has to happen sometime, otherwise I would just be like this guy all the time. Happily.

So I turned to the trusty isles of Greece, where relatively light fare can flourish. I had zucchinis, I had feta, I was rarin' to go. These were delicious and light and really flavorful. Ramsay originally had mint in his but I skipped because I just didn't want to try and find any. This was still awesome. I also added some mystery spice from our mortar and pestle which I believe was just cayenne and pepper, but experiment, see what you get. The feta gets all melty and amazing, and the lemon at the end is soooo good.

DOWNSIDES TO SPRING:
-the streets start smelling because all the dog excrement starts unfreezing (and there is a lot)
-allergies
-never knowing if I should bring galoshes or sandals or a scarf
-allergies

UPSIDES TO SPRING:
-most everything other than allergies

IN CONCLUSION: enjoy these fritters. they make everything even better.

Zucchini Feta Fritters
(adapted from Ramsay's World Kitchen)

3 large zuchinnis
1 large onion
olive oil
salt and pepper
2-3 TBS AP flour
200 grams diced feta
3 eggs
tbs dill
lemon wedges

Grate the zucchinis into a small bowl and sprinkle with salt and let it rest for 10 minutes. While this rests, slice the onions very thinly and cook in a pan with olive oil for about 6 minutes, til soft. let cool. Take the zucchini and press out the water, then transfer to a large bowl. Combine with the onions, then add the feta, flour, herbs and eggs. Combine, and if it seems too wet add a bit more flour. add a good portion of pepper. Heat the skillet with olive oil, then add spoonfuls to the pan. allow to cook about 2-3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Eat warm with lemon!!!

I want Pizza, P.I.Z.Z.A.

This whole of the winter I have been satisfying my urges for pizza much more than I probably should. Mainly because I found this easy and amazing recipe for dough and I purchased a pizza stone at the end of last summer. I would say any lover of pizza should just go ahead and invest in a pizza stone. SO WORTH IT. You can easily get one for about 7 bucks, buy some flour and yeast and cheese and you have basically purchased one medium pizza from pizza hut, except that now you can make amazing pizza anytime. Such a good idea.

We decided to make it a pizza party night, especially since we're tapping into the fourth season of the wire (best). So we prepped a bunch of toppings including bacon, caramelized onions, red peppers, sauteed mushrooms, chevre, spinach, fresh tomatoes, BBQ sauce and some awesome pesto I made fresh last summer and froze. This was one of my mom's kitchen tricks that I only started using in my twenties. It's simply using ice-cube trays to store broth cubes or pesto cubes or fresh herbs. This summer I really went wild because we got so much basil from our CSA and my little balcony, so we've been enjoying fresh pesto well into the end of winter. 

I think the melange method is best. Basically all of it tastes delicious together, so let the creativity run amuck and choose your own adventure. Next time I think we're gonna try for some slightly more off the wall flavors (citrus? Sweet potato pizza?) but or tonight, I just wanted something to remind me of my TGIF nights as a kid when we baked pizza at home and watched the trinity of television shows: Sabrina the teenage witch, Family Matters and Full House. All Hail sitcoms of variable caliber.

Pizza Dough

3 cups AP flour

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 3/4 cup warm water

1 tsp salt

pinch of sugar

olive oil

place the yeast in a bowl with the warm water for 5 minutes. Add in the flour and salt and knead for some time with your hands, until the dough becomes transparent. Place the dough, which is now shaped into a ball, into a large bowl that has been well oiled. Let the dough rise for 3 hours with a damp cloth over the top. Every hour punch the dough down again. 

To bake on a pizza stone, set the oven to 500 deg F, let the pizza stone get hot in the oven as well. Assemble your pizza by taking the dough in both hands and letting gravity pull it into a longer shape as you work your way around the edges. Prep the pizza with whatever your heart desires on a floured surface, and when ready take the pizza stone out and transfer the whole pizza on. Bake for anywhere from 8-12 minutes. YUM.

Cashew Chicken Stir Fry

I may have just broken one of the cardinal rules. But I'll tell you something, the above picture was not taken in some fuzzy-artistic frenzy. It is legitimately blurry and I don't have any idea why.

I tried. I am telling you, I had lighting this time. I adjusted angles and stationed a lamp above the food and even repositioned some things on the plate. This was a step for me, not an enormous one but a step. But I have just realized why having a nice camera is important in food photography. Snapping pics on your iPhone may have been made solely for those drunken fb photos you regret, and not fine food photography. Which brings me to my next point...

Moussaka

The winter tends to bring on a rash of meat-heavy meals: sausage, meatballs, sausage, bacon. In some ways (for me) this is a paradise, but the old adage "too much can be a bad thing" (or whatever the hell it is) proves true even for a meat-lover like myself. That being said, this particular meal still has meat in it. But I believe Moussaka is traditionally a non-meat dish, and with these good intentions I have gained momentum towards a slightly less meat-full diet.

Perhaps I am also dreaming of Grecian isles during these winter months; a nostalgic dream of those years when debt figures were still being bluffed. Perhaps even farther back, when people still believed that a fleshy god was living just beyond the clouds and impregnating gorgeous virgins on earth. 

Ah, those were the days. 

Really my only knowledge of Greece comes from the film Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. In this film, we do not see Rorie Gilmore eating anything because she is too busy bathing her nubile young body in the Aegean Sea and flirting with a beautiful fish monger. From my perspective, if she wasn't stuffing her face with fish and cheese and motherfuckin' spanikopita all the time, bitch is crazy.

Flavor Country

After a long and exhausting week, there is nothing like a visit to flavor country.

My friend suggested we begin a Sunday tradition of collective dinners. I've had this thought so many times, but lately my community seems to be shifting continuously and group activities seem an impossibility. Thank you Whitney, and thank you to this Japanese funk group and their song "SCARY BOMB."