Falafel

When I lived in Bellingham, Sam, Heidi and I would occasional make falafel.  Sam introduced it to me as an Egyptian Taco.  Basically, it is spiced garbanzo beans rolled into balls and deep fried.  Break it up into pocket pitas with veggies and sauce and it is quite good.  I read an article online that suggested it more of an Israeli meal.

 

Sandi and I invited a friend over for dinner Wednesday evening.  I thought it would be fun to relive my past and serve falafel.  In Bellingham we would buy a box of dried mix and add water.  Turns out, making it from scratch is almost as easy (providing you skip the step of soaking, drying and grinding your own beans - garbanzo bean flour works great). 

 

These are still raw.  I'll need to fry them tomorrow.

 

Sandi decided to make Tzatziki sauce (a yogurt, dill, cucumber mixture) for the falafel.

Grinding and salting the cucumber

Straining the yogurt to make 'Greek Style' yogurt

Finally, the hummus

Siouxon Creek 2013

 Last weekend was my opportunity to go backpacking with friends.  We chose the same trail Sandi and I did last year: Siouxon Creek near Battle Ground, WA.

 

It was a great trail.  It follows a creek and therefore eliminates the typical switchbacks we encounter in the Cascades.  It is well groomed and quite beautiful.

The trail brings you to a few waterfalls and many campsites.

 

We found the perfect campsite only four-miles into our trek.  We were all surprised to drop our packs at 3:00 and set up camp, but you can't mess with perfection: lots of level ground, an established fire pit and benches, just off the creek and a great pool for water, an easy bear-hang and even a little kitchen area.  We were set for the weekend.

Last year, Sandi and I hiked up to Siouxon Peak.  It was a lot of work but not much fun.  This year, my friends and I tackled Horseshoe Ridge.  It was incredibly steep (gaining 1500 feet in 3 miles) but we had nice views at the top.  By the end of Saturday, we hike 9 exhausting miles.

This is a great little camp stove - very efficient and easy to pack

This is the little kitchen area I was talking about.

Good weekend.  If it wasn't so far, it would be fun to hike more often.

Cheese! Our adventure at Tillamook

Sandi had 6-days off so I took off Monday for a quick camping trip to Tillamook on Sunday night. Our goal was to eat good food and relax.  Though I don't have a picture to prove it, we did almost all our cooking over our campfire: blue cheese skirt steak and roasted sweet potato with onions.  We sautéed our mushrooms on our camp stove because our cookware isn't designed for open flames.  It was so good.

 

The next morning, we warmed our scones over the fire but had an otherwise cold breakfast of fresh fruit.

 

We finally left our campsite at 1:00 and headed over to the cheese factory for ice cream and cheese curds.  Sandi was devastated because they discontinued 'Blueberry Cheesecake' ice cream.  After growing up with that ice cream, Tillamook Mudslide, though good, was a distant second.  I enjoyed my mocha almond fudge.

 

We didn't get the hike in that we hoped.  Instead we hiked out to Bay-Ocean spit, as you can see below.

 

Enjoying our cheese curds and veggies for lunch.