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Friday, March 6, 2015

Homemade falafel

Because food prices in restaurants in Switzerland are exorbitantly high, when we are home for the weekend, Ryan and I try to prepare 1-2 meals on Sunday that will last us through the week.  One of our frequent rotations for work day lunches is baked homemade falafel.  It is super simple to make, it makes a TON to last throughout the entire week, and it is healthy as it is baked and not fried.

The below recipe makes about 25 falafel. You can make the whole caboodle and freeze some finished falafel for future consumption or you can cut the recipe in half if you want to make less.

Ingredients:
4 cups of canned chickpeas
2 onions
2 heads of garlic (if you don't like garlic, you could do less)
2 teaspoons of salt
Parsley, stems and all (enough to fill 2 packed cups)
Cilantro, stems and all (enough to fill 2 packed cups)
1 tablespoon of baking powder
8 teaspoons of cumin
dash of cayenne
4 teaspoons chili powder
4 tablespoons of flour

Steps: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees farenheit (200 degrees celsius).  Put the onions and garlic into a food processor with the spices and salt and chop until fine.  Transfer the mixture to a big bowl.  Then put the chickpeas with the parsley and cilantro into the food processor and chop until you chunky.  You don't want to create a puree, but you also don't want huge chunks of onion or garlic in your falafel.  You may have to do several batches in the food processor depending on how big yours is.  Mix the chickpea mixture with the onion/garlic mixture and mix in the flour and baking powder.  Coat a baking sheet with a thin layer of olive oil. Hand shape the falafel into golf ball size balls and flatten them out a bit (so that they can fit into pita sandwiches!).  Bake them for approximately 20-30 minutes (flipping over once) until they are lightly browned and cooked through, and voila, simple homemade, healthy falafel.





You can store the finished falafel in a tupperware container for the week (or freeze them like this) 



I fill a tupperware for my lunches at work with 2-3 falafel, lettuce, shredded carrots, tomatoes, and feta cheese.  I bring along a half pita and stuff it with these ingredients to make a pita sandwich.  You can also make a simple tzatziki sauce to add to the pita sandwich (take plain yogurt and add a dash of olive oil, dash of lemon juice, chopped cucumber, clove of garlic, dash of salt and pepper, and dill to taste).



Monday, March 2, 2015

Lovely Mallorca

I realized that I never quite caught up on a few trips I have taken over the past few months. So without further ado, I give you the lovely Mallorca.

We went to Mallorca for a long weekend in August... hm, I guess I am more than a few months delayed posting about this, whoops... we were search of a relaxing Mediterranean beach get away and this island lived up to our expectations.  Mallorca is extremely busy with holiday-goers in August, so we purposely chose to stay in an adults only hotel in a small village on the western side of the island so that we could hide from the crowds (Camp de Mar).  We had an absolute blast in Mallorca, it has beautiful coastlines, wonderful hidden beaches, and scrumptuous food (Paella anyone?).

I would highly recommend adding Mallorca to any European summer travel itinerary. My only suggestion (as with any European beach destination) would be to avoid visiting Mallorca in August if possible as everyone else on the continent seemed to have the same idea...

The bay of Camp de Mar

The cliffs at Portals Vells
The beach at Portals Vells.
The cliffs at Portals Vells, you can take a walk from the beach up to these cliffs
Inside the cliffs at Portals Vells



On the rooftop balcony of our hotel 
Chilling on the balcony of our room overlooking the pool
Can we stay here forever?
The bay of Camp de Mar
The most amazing dinner (and table) at Flor de Sal in Camp de Mar
Dinner with a fantastic view
The rooftop balcony at our hotel
We went on a run past our hotel and up onto a neighboring mountain - what views!
Successfully scaled the mountain
EAT: Flor de Sal in Camp de Mar has beautiful views and fantastic food
STAY: H10 Blue Mar in Mallorca was a great adult's only hotel in the quiet bay of Camp de Mar
PLAY: So many options, but we mainly stayed and relaxed in Camp de Mar. We also spent one day exploring the beach and caves at Portals Vells which I would highly recommend - the color of the water was spectacular

Sunday, March 1, 2015

One year(ish) of marriage!

Happy anniversary to my love! Our first year (or two, depending on where you start the count) has been full of love and adventures and I can't wait to see what the next year brings!


Check out more photos from our wedding here

Monday, February 23, 2015

Visiting friends, and what else? Skiing of course

This past weekend my friend Donna and her boyfriend Brandon came to visit.  Donna is one of my close friends from Boston University and is currently getting her MBA near Paris. While we only get to see each other once every few years, we are always able to pick up right where we left off.  Thanks for visiting us guys, we had a blast!

Giving Brandonna a tour of Geneva
While Ryan flew to Kenya on Sunday morning for work (side note, maybe he will make a lil' guest blog appearance to give us a recap of his trip), I took Donna and Brandon skiing in Chamonix.  The Le Tour ski area in Chamonix provided some fun yet tricky runs for me in the crusty powder that had fallen the night before.  Below are some of Brandon's fantastic photos from our day spent skiing:












Sunday, February 15, 2015

Ski, ski, ski and more ski!

Apologies for the silence on the blog front lately, but rest assured we are alive and well and we have basically been skiing our little hearts out for the past few weekends.

While this season in general hasn't produced a lot of snow fall, there was a week in late January when the skies opened and dumped several feet of snow on the area (although nothing quite like the recent storms in the Northeast US I'm sure, that just sounds painful...).  We took advantage of the conditions by venturing out on several day ski trips and a few weekends away in Verbier and Chamonix. 

Skiing in Verbier with our friends

Caught the sunset reflecting off the mountains on our drive home to Geneva from the mountains
Ryan accidentally snapped his ski poles on the lift!
Adventuring out during one of the storms 

One of our newest favorite food discoveries from the Chamonix region, Farcon (a casserole-like combination of potatoes, bacon, and prunes toasted on a grill, it sounds strange but it is delicious!)
Chowing down on lamb shanks while eating outdoors one day in Chamonix 
That one time I followed the guys past this cross and onto a cliff...
Enjoying the hot tub with some friends at our rented chalet in Chamonix 
Hot tub time! 
Gorgeous blue skies at the top of the mountain, but...
Foggy and dismal at the bottom of the mountain!
One of our favorite slope side restaurants in Chamonix, Les Vielles Luges 
You can see the fog blanketing the valley below 
Relaxing at the chalet with friends
EAT: We discovered the following new places to eat these past few weekends and they will certainly be added to our repeat visit list: Carrefour for lunch slope side in Verbier; Micro-Brasserie de Chamonix (MBC) for beers, music, and delicious burgers; and Poco Loco for awesome fast food burgers in the town of Chamonix