Freshly Made

At this point in my life I’m fortunate that I have free time to enjoy the things that I’ve always enjoyed doing but shoved to the back burner while I was working full-time.  I’ve had even more free time as of late because I have a bit of break from some of my volunteer commitments and so I’m taking the opportunity to spend some extra time cooking and baking.  Sometimes both of these tasks are not easy in our little community where ingredients are not readily available.

I took a look in the larder the other day I took some inspiration from what I did have on hand for creating a few things I’d never tried before; pita bread and falafel.  I needed to plan for the falafel that I made with dried Chick Peas/Garbanzo Beans as these needed to be soaked at least 12 hours.  I chose a recipe that was baked and not fried and was full of herbs that SU managed to find at one of the local grocers (called Chinos in Panama).  The recipe made so many I froze half and we still had leftovers from our supper.  They turned out easy to make and very tasty.

© Indacampo 2015

The pita bread was also fun to make although I was a little leery about the result; baking bread here is a little touch and go.  As usual I had to add more flour than the recipe called for but they turned out delicious and it was fun to watch them bake.  Again, the recipe made so many that I was able to freeze half the batch and we still had enough left over for a couple of lunches.

© Indacampo 2015

© Indacampo 2015

© Indacampo 2015

© Indacampo 2015

A little time and effort, particularly to make the fresh pita was worth it.  I think we’ll have some difficulty going back to buying the packaged, doughy pita bread that’s available to us…in the campo.

If you’d like to see more takes on this week’s photo challenge “Fresh” go here.