Akara-West African Bean Fritter

 

copied from   curiouscuisiniere

I was watching  The Joyful Cook on Facebook and she had a recipe that I thought would be easy, delicious and nutritious. It was for a dish known as akara, also known by other names in other regions of Africa and Brazil.  For the sake of simplicity let's just call it akara. I'd been saving the recipe since December 2, 2021. In her recipe she uses the term beans but, she uses black-eyed peas.  In other recipes which I consulted there are other legumes that can also be used.  I consulted three other sites,  Curious Cuisinere, The Kitchn,  and Ify's Kitchen.

copied from     Ify's Kitchen

The Joyful Cook's recipe is below.

Akara Recipe 

Beans 3 Cups

1 large onion

Fresh pepper to taste

Salt to taste( be Carey with the salt. 1 used 3 small teaspoons)

Oil for deep frying

I allowed an entire bag (12 oz.) of black-eyed peas to soak overnight in the refrigerator.  I followed various cook's suggestions as to the easiest way to remove the skins. I drained them and put one cup of peas into the blender with two cups of water. I pulsed 3 times and some of the skin came off.

The next step was to drain the peas separating the skin from the pea.   According to the various authors, the husks would float to the top because they are lighter than the meat of the peas. BTW- I did this several times and it is time consuming. See the video below to see how that turned out.

After numerous tries you see the beans on the left and the skins/husks on the right. 

copied from   love is in my tummy

 

⬅ Definitely not the white product the cooks I saw had.

I decided to continue on since one cook said it was okay to have a few flecks. I had more than a few.  The next step was to  whip the beans into an airy consistency similar to whipped cream. The airiness is what makes them puff up and float to the top when frying. Use a mixer with a whip attachment for this or do it by hand.(no)  Just before this I chopped my vegetable seasonings and put them aside.

I whipped and I whipped . That is to say; The whipping tool on the mixer did but, I was never able to achieve a light airy batter.  One  cook said that if there was too much water they wouldn't have the fluffy texture they're supposed to. SOOOOOOOOO, I took the batter and poured it into a clean cheese cloth and I wrung it as tight as I could. 

Look at all the water that came out.

I tried again but still no fluffiness.

Looks like cooked oatmeal

Finally, I gave up and tried frying it the way it was. Here is the result.

Fried up pretty, didn't puff up, Texture not as hoped for, tastes bland even with the seasonings. Not good.  This had been labor intensive and time consuming. The rest of the mixture went into the trash.

 

Things don't always turn out the way we want. No problem. The good thing is that I tried and got it out of my system. 

That's it👀👀

Will My Garden Grow?

DURING a visit to the local library, I noticed a display for

 free seeds sponsored by a collaborative group of gardeners.

There was even a handout to accompany the seeds.

You can't see them all

because they were in a cubby, but there were at least twelve to choose from.

Knowing the limited amount of space I have, AND, knowing I must do container plants, I chose; 

According to the handout, mixed greens will do better in cooler weather. Green Arrow peas can be planted now and so can dill. 

I have yet to plant these because...

👀

I went to the community Farmer's Market held every Friday (April 27, 2019) in my area and saw a booth with started plants. I bought an eggplant with  blossoms, rosemary and a tomato plant. Don't ask me what kind of tomato? People who garden always have tomatoes. I once had a potted rosemary which lived close to four years but I guess one of the winters was just too rough and so finally it bit the dust. I enjoy the smell of rosemary and its flavorful taste in foods. So many herbs are being used in medicinal and beauty products. Whether it works or not is questionable. Sometimes the mind can be tricked into thinking that it does and so it will be.

Once again I'm deviating from the subject. 

Here's a vertical and horizontal look after I put them in pots. The green pot 

is empty but I plan to repot the rosemary in it. The crate on the end has Swiss

chard which overwintered and has come back.

As of  6-1-2019  I have 2 eggplant(s)??

As for the seeds...  ????😶

Here are the gardens of friends. This first belongs to E.P. She goes small scale like I do.

She put down a layer of paper for weed control as I did in my front flower bed. She has flowers and vegetables. Peppers, tomatoes which grew from seeds of a store bought tomato. Cucumber and okra.The worms have had a feast on the collards so she's letting those die out.

My friend R.M. goes big. She is an avid gardener with a large back yard to plant and experiment with different varieties.  Captions below are in her words.

Daisies that have gone from white to yellow, due to soil content this year 

 

Both plants are Amaryllis. You gave me a box 5 or 6 Christmas's ago. I tend to propagate bulbs and plants to make other colors.

 

Blooming this week. Mandarin Honeysuckle.. Took 2 years to bloom. 

It is not invasive,  but I note wild Honeysuckle in the woods for the first time. It has crept closer, whereas I've never seen it before. Must be some pollination going on.

Can you really grow vegetables from that left over scrap?

You've seen the videos that tell you that you can grow bok choy, carrots, spring onions, celery etc. from the bottoms of your grocery store vegetables?

I've tried it with bok choy because that's a tasty, pricey little veggie.

IT DOESN'T WORK!!

I've tried it twice and all I got was a few leaves that never grew into a plant. I tasted a few of the small leaves and they were bitter and inedible. I EVEN put it in soil to grow. It mainly became weedy, flowered and still didn't grow into a plant. 

My bok choy transplant

To be fair, I've read that some of this transplanting will take place successfully if you buy organic vegetables and use them. Next time I want to try bok choy I'll start with seeds.

Thank you to E.P. and R. M. for your contributions.

next week It's a Senior Af FAIR

That's it ***

Gardening 2012

A

B

I came across this collapsible, reusable vase at Office Depot after Christmas. It was on a sales table for 25 cents. The plastic vase is reusable and collapses for storage and reuse.  A shows the vase standing with water inside. B shows the bottom of the vase with water. C is the vase emptied of water and pressed flat for storage. The filled vase has enough room for maybe 4 long stemmed flowers. It is more of a bud vase than a flower vase. Something like this could come in handy during a last minute gift.

C



D, side view

This year's garden began with me laying black plastic in the area where I planned to place my plants. This cuts back on having to weed around the plants. Most of the containers have been settled on top of bricks. The ones in the concrete blocks are set directly on top of plastic. I prefer to use containers since the ground is mostly clay and the soil would need to be amended and etc. Instead I buy Miracle Gro potting soil and use it. If you enlarge the photos you might see a black plastic chain inside the pots or foot locker. This is to try to dissuade cats and any other creatures from using planters as toilets. Don't know how useful it is but I try.

2012 Garden

 I used last years pots and 2 concrete blocks I had sitting inside the garage serving no purpose. I'd seen  plants placed inside some of the blocks and so I'm trying the same planting stringless beans in one and dwarf sugar snap peas in the other. The sticks and cage are there for the vines to grow on. I have since replaced the sticks with a collapsible metal trellis. The tomato rocket is one of the As Seen On TV plants I picked up at Walgreen's. Herbs include pineapple sage, and citrus mint. Cinnamon basil is in the bottom photo .
You may or may not be able to tell that I have planted squash and bell peppers inside the bottom of a foot locker which I purchased at a thrift store for $9.00 and then took the lid off of when I got home.  I've never planted squash so it is a little crowded in with the peppers.

Cinnamon basil (in pot). Roll out flowers used the top of the foot locker as a bed for the roll out flowers.

The roll outs were left over from last year. They have a few sprouts but nothing like I thought they'd be. Still I will keep them just in case they turn out to be late bloomers.
THAT'S IT***

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

 Many people try to limit the number of carbs (carbohydrates) that they have in their meals.The only problem is that you then limit all of the comfort foods such as mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pastas, potatoes, rice. More than once I've seen recipes for cauliflower mashed potatoes and cauliflower rice. Not until recently did I see a recipe for cauliflower pizza. Several reviewers stated how delicious it was and how they didn't feel guilty eating it. Being that I had cauliflower I'd gotten out of the quick sale bin at the market, I decided to try it.

I got the recipe from Piehole another blogger who apparently enjoys pies of all types and cooking.  Pizza is in the category of  pies.  Dean Martin  and others have sung about it.

 "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."

Here's the recipe

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

*2C riced cauliflower

*1t garlic salt

*1/2t italian seasoning

*1 egg white

*1/2C reduced fat mozzarella cheese

*toppings of your choice, also remember if you add more cheese on top to count it! (Yeh, right)

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 425.

2. Cut cauliflower into small chunks and pulse in food processor until rice like consistency is met. It should look almost identical to rice.

3.Place in microwave safe bowl (after ricing) with plastic wrap on top and microwave for 1-2 minutes.

4. Mix cauliflower with remaining ingredients.

5. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and form mixture into desired shape (spray it WELL, it has a tendency to stick).

6. Make sure its not too thin, somewhere around 1/4 an inch thick.

7. Bake for 15 minutes until slightly browned.

8. Remove and add your sauce and toppings.

9. Bake for another 5-10 minutes to melt cheese and cook toppings. You can also broil it at this stage if the edges of the pizza are looking too dark.

Cauliflower has a strong smell after being cooked so you may want to employ the crew below.


Odor reducers



 

As you can see I've placed the cauliflower in my food processor and reduced it a little at a time into the consistency of rice. Actually it looks more like coconut to me.

I ended up with far more than two cups of cauliflower.  It's in a microwave safe bowl. I placed it in the microwave with its matching top for 4 minutes instead of the 2 as suggested by the recipe since I had more than two cups.

 

While the cauliflower was in the microwave I placed a sheet of foil on a baking sheet then sprayed the foil well with cooking spray. The directions stated that it has a tendency to stick.

After removing the cauliflower from the microwave I measured out two cups, placed it in a mixing bowl along with garlic powder (I didn't have garlic salt) ,Italian seasoning, egg white and mozzarella cheese. I used the amounts listed in the recipe above.

I did most of the mixing with gloved hands.  I have shaped the "dough" into a crude square on the baking sheet

 This is the "dough" after being baked for 15 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven. It did brown a little around the edges.

I'd been to ALDI on yesterday and picked up a package of yellow, red and green peppers. The yellow and red are so sweet. My toppings included about 1/2 cup of each of these peppers, 1 slice turkey bacon, 1 1/2 oz of turkey sausage,  and onions. I cooked everything a little  since all ingredients probably won't cook at the same rate when I place them on the pizza dough.

what beautiful color



After placing the sauteed toppings on the crust, I put jarred spagetti sauce on top and then put it back in the oven for about 10 minutes.



plated cauliflower pizza

There are probably a couple of things you're thinking .

a. I should have put the sauce on first and then the toppings.  

b. I should have used real pizza sauce.

It wouldn't have made much difference because the "dough" was not very solid. Sure it tasted fine but I tested a piece before adding the toppings and it wasn't firm even after I ran it back into the oven to cook a little longer. Therefore I put the toppings first and then the sauce so it wouldn't disintegrate completely when I got ready to serve it.

Since I still have cauliflower left over, I'll try it again.  At this point I'd have to say I wasn't bowled over by this recipe. Then again I'm not a chef.

THAT'S IT***