Gordita & Hummus & Tips to Set Your House on Fire

For lunch, I had an extra-thick tortilla, aka gordita, with homemade hummus. I also ate a leftover roasted yam from last night, sprinkled with salt and aleppo pepper.

Homemade hummus is awesome, if you get the ratios right. Sadly, I'm not sure what those are right now- I couldn't find our usual recipe, so bumbled around yesterday with some tahini, garbanzos, olive oil, lime juice (I forgot to buy lemons), garlic, and salt. It's edible, but too thick, a bit chalky (too much tahini?), and generally shy of awesome.

The gorditas were an almost disaster. I bought them because they sounded yummy, but store-bought tortillas are always dry and gross without proper preparation. Wanting to make them edible as expeditiously as possible, I recalled my secret tortilla weapon: the toaster.

Not the toaster oven (I don't own one), the toaster. Note that I learned of this tip when a friend complained on Facebook about his Spanish wife setting the kitchen on fire again, so please don't sue me when your kitchen goes up in flames. It's kind of dangerous. But it works quickly, and perfectly, to heat a few tortillas. I rub with a light (light!) coat of olive oil, then pop a tortilla in each slot. Stand there and watch it, and unplug if your toaster starts smoking. You'll probably need tongs to get the tortilla out, as they tend to get slouchy. Don't forget to unplug your toaster before poking around in there. In this case, the gordita wasn't flexible enough to fit into the slot, so I cut it in half. But it was fast, and I got a nice crisp outside and warm, steamy inside without the hassle of heating a skillet.

I'm Secretly Dutch

For lunch, I had falafel and fries from Amsterdam Falafel, with soda water to drink.

You may recall that I dislike falafel. [This whole excursion, which also involved CaBis and me cursing vociferously at the many drivers in the bike lane, was Jon's idea.] But this place is delicious. Their falafel is inoffensive (high praise from me), and the toppings are fabulous. They have pickled radishes (the fuschia things you see in the photo)which I love on Middle Eastern wrapped things, and excellent, very garlicky hummus. There were also a variety of interesting toppings, such as sweet veggie salad, minced jalapeño, beets, and fried, caramelized eggplant. Perhaps the only improvement would be labeling all the cool toppings, so we don't have to guess.

In any case, I didn't have to guess, because the dude manning the counter was either a very proud owner, or the best employee ever- he gave great service, and excitedly explained all the toppings. I was a little skeptical of his description of arduously prepping all the toppings from scratch every morning, but accidentally poked my head into the kitchen later, looking for the bathroom. Sure enough, there were huge piles of veggies, and an employee chopping away.

The fries were classic vlaamse frites. They're somewhat fat fries, crispy on the outside and fluffy inside, with a good amount of salt and served in a traditional paper cone. There were a few yummy sauces available at Amsterdam Falafel, including "garlic cream" (heaven) and peanut. The peanut sauce had a nice touch of vinegar, but I found it needed a little heat- add a bit of the minced jalapeño, and it's perfect.

Finally, the soda water. I love that, in addition to taking Euros and being located in a very Amsterdam block of rowhouses, they still have soda water in their soda machine. It seems like that's getting more and more rare. It's refreshing in the summer, and way better than actual soda.

Quirky dinner at home

For dinner, I had basmati rice with fava beans, and a gianduja-filled wrap.

The rice was cooked in my amazing rice cooker, and dressed with Marie Sharp's mild sauce and sea salt. I mixed the rice with our favorite canned fava beans from the local Middle Eastern market. They are "Palestinian recipe", which, after much fava-tasting, is our favorite. In general, you can't go too wrong with canned favas, but I recommend staying away from the Egyptian-style beans- I don't remember what is in them, but they smell like vomit. They taste fine, but I could never get past the smell. Palestinian-style, however, is so very good. It is typified by cooked favas and garbanzos in a lemony garlic and olive oil sauce.

The wrap probably should've been filled with some of the Sabra hummus we have in the fridge, but we bought the million-pound tub of hummus from Costo awhile back, and I'm hummused out. Instead, I filled our high-fiber rye tortilla wraps (seriously, check out how scary healthy these are) with hazelnut-chocolate paste. A bit iconoclastic, but overall pretty good. I was concerned about the nexus of rye (which I kind of hate anyway- I bought the wrong flavor wraps by mistake) and chocolate, but it was barely noticeable. In the end, it was probably better than using the other wraps we have around, which are tomato-basil flavored.