Saturday 7 March 2015

Pea, Quinoa and Feta Fritters and random bicycle moments

Usually I make a recipe and once it is right, I feel free to mess about with quantities and ingredients.  On my first attempt at these fritters I substituted brown rice, didn't measure ingredients and they were brilliant.  Yet I still felt compelled to make them again following the recipe that inspired me.  Which was every bit as good.

Which just reinforces how recipes are so helpful and yet so restrictive too. They are a great starting point.  However every kitchen is different, seasons change and we need to be able to adapt accordingly.

I originally bookmarked the fritters because I am always on the lookout for mint inspiration because it grows like a weed in our garden.  When I made the recipe I had some home made pesto in the fridge and used this instead of the mint and parsley.  Because peas and pesto go so well together.

I wish I had taken a photo of the fritters on the first night when I used brown rice.  It was too crazy.  Sylvia had a friend over and I got confused about times and my focus was elsewhere.  So the next night I did it properly.  The best thing about following the recipe was that it made just enough for two.

On the first night I fried enough fritters for two and put the rest of the mixture aside.  I was too lazy to fry any more the next night and made a rather good celery and white bean soup.  Adding the rest of the mixture to the soup gave it heaps of flavour.

And while we are striding into the world of random moments I have a few to share about bicycles:
  • When we went swimming last week we locked our bike next to a mother and daughter who could not remember the combination of their bike locks.  Luckily we have two locks so we locked our bikes together and loaned them our second lock.
  • I was really sad to hear of the death of a cyclist on Sydney Road in Brunswick.  He was hit by a driver opening their car door without looking and fell into the path of an oncoming truck.  It is something I fear when I ride my bike on busy roads.  Hence my preference for the Upfield bike path.  There is talk of making changes on Sydney Road to make it safer for bicycles but I see so many drivers breaking the laws that it seems there is a problem with the culture of driving there as much as the road rules.
  • Speaking of rules, there is a law in Victoria that children under 12 may ride on the footpath accompanied by an adult on a bike.  Sylvia and I were pulled up by some PSOs (pseudo policemen) going under a train tunnel on our bikes.  They thought I was making the law up.  I range Bicycle Victoria (now Bicycle Network) to check and told that the underpass is Metro (ie public transport) land so road laws don't apply.  So the next time we went that route past a PSO, I was telling Sylvia to dismount but the PSO just smiled and waved her on.  It is hard to obey rules when you get inconsistency!
  • On a happier note, it is really nice that one of Sylvia's friends also rides her bike to school regularly.  It is always fun to see them racing down to the bike shed to take their bikes out to ride home.

Back to the fritters!  We ate them for dinner with mock tuna salad, lettuce and corn on the cob.  They would be delicious for a picnic and a lovely green snack for St Patrick's Day which will be here before we know it!

I am sending these fritters to Shaheen for her Vegetable Palette event that is focused on spring vegetables this month.  (It is not Spring in Melbourne but peas are a great spring vegetable if you can get them fresh!)  I am also sending them to Karen for the March edition of her Cooking with Herbs event.  And finally they go to Gluten Free Fridays #132 which is run by Vegetarian Mama.

More GF finger food on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Baked rice paper spring rolls
Polenta quinoa sticks with rhubarb sauce
Quinoa pizza balls
Red lentil koftas
Sesame hummus bites
Sushi with sticky walnuts and edamame

Pea, quinoa and feta fritters
Adapted from Couscous and Consciousness
serves 2

1/3 cup dried quinoa
2/3 cup water
1 cup peas, defrosted
1/4 cup besan
1 heaped dessertspoon pesto
100g feta, crumbled
salt and pepper
oil for frying

Tahini dressing:
2 tablespoons tahini
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil
flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place quinoa and water in a small saucepan.  Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and rest with lid on for 5 minutes.  Mix cooked quinoa with peas, besan and pesto.  Blend about half the mixture - I do this by roughly blending with my stick blender.  Mix in feta and season.

Shape small handfuls of mixture into patties.  Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large heavy bottomed frypan and fry until golden brown on both sides.  Drain on kitchen towel.  Serve hot with tahini dressing.

To make tahini dressing: mix everything in a small bowl until you have a creamy sauce that you can pour over the fritters.  Keep any leftover sauce to add to a salad dressing or use as a sauce for other dishes.

On the Stereo:
Tales of a Librarian: A Tori Amos Collection

23 comments:

  1. I share your thoughts on recipes - useful as a starting point but I only ever follow exactly if I don't trust my instincts for the dish or I'm trying to recreate something for blogging. Both of your fritters sound lovely, especially with the dressing.

    Your cycling notes worried me as I too fear that kind of accident when cycling. I remember that rule about children on footpaths (Perth had it too, but apparently the UK does not) and can't believe anyone would be so mean as to make a child get off if she was riding sensibly. I still go on footpaths occasionally if the road is very busy and the path isn't crowded - I always ride so slowly I am at walking pace, and no one has pulled me up to date, thank goodness.

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    1. Thanks Kari - I am surprised that the UK does not have that rule about kids on bikes but maybe it because the footpaths there are so narrow anyway but I could not imagine sylvia riding on the road. It is too scary for young kids - but maybe the police are quite forgiving of young riders. I sometimes forget I am not with sylvia and ride on the footpath but there are places where it is safer to ride on the footpath and I ride slowly and get off if it is really busy.

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  2. Those fritaters look delicious. I love using recipes as a starting point and making them my own too. I very rarely make things the same way every time.

    In QLD both adults and children can ride legally on footpaths. Where I live, there is a main road into the city, or a circuitous cycle route. When I was child free I would always take the main road option. My children aren't old enough to ride yet but I worry for them... Both cyclists and drivers are oft observed to obey road rules only when it suits them, so I feel I have no hope of teaching consistent road safety. It seems odd to me that the solution may well be that we will pack all bikes in a car, drive to somewhere safe to ride, and then drive home again!

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    1. Thanks Lisa - the upfield bike path is pretty much only a block from sydney rd for most of coburg and brunswick which is why it is an easy alternative to sydney road. Sylvia has been know to talk about the 'idiots on the road' after too many years of driving busy roads to childcare. It does freak me out if I think about it too much.

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  3. I do strongly dislike people who are self-appointed chief of police. Why do they have to interfere with what other people are doing? I was in that situation recently where I was driving my husband's new car and had to stop for petrol. At the petrol station I didn't know how to open the petrol cap. I phoned my husband and then a big thug of a man came up to me in a very threatening way and abused me saying I had to get off my phone as I was going to cause the petrol station to blow up. That is what he firmly believed. What a fool. You are advised to be off your phone while pumping petrol (I hadn't even got to that stage) because it can interfere with the flow of petrol into your car - not because it will cause the petrol station to blow up. The man wouldn't step away from me until I said I was calling the police. Nightmare! xx

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    1. Thanks Charlie - I was quite resentful of someone telling me the law when he didn't know it himself when we were at the underpass. I remember doing a little project on mobile phones at uni and the issue of it being dangerous to use a phone at petrol stations came up. But if that was the case I think there would be lots of explosions at petrol stations (or whatever is meant to happen). I have actually heard somewhere that it is no longer such an issue. Ah well, at least you had your mobile phone on you to be able to call the police :-)

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  4. These fritters sound nice but I would use couscous or brown rice as quinoa and I are not friends. I am too scared to ride a bike on the roads.

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    1. Thanks Cakelaw - I was lucky to have friends who showed me about riding on the roads or I think I would have been terrified - bike lanes are great and I use them if I can

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  5. Lots of green goodness there :) I was also sad to hear of the cyclist. I use the Upfield Bike Path too, though haven't really used it more than once to get from the Bell Street end down to the other end. I don't think changing the law will make a difference to be honest, there are just waaaay too many people who break the law, never look when they open their doors etc, especially on Sydney Road :( People are in such a hurry to get down Sydney Road and I see stupid things all the time.

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    1. Thanks Veganopoulous - I like the upfield bike path though I have heard some people saying there are too many roads and pedestrians. But I find it a great way to get about on my bike. I agree about the idiots on the road - I was walking down a small side street near sydney road yesterday and some idiots veered their van towards me and then laughed - you don't even want to know there are people like that who have drivers licences!

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  6. They look delicious. I love anything with peas. I think I'd dip mine in houmous falafel style. yum

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    1. Thanks Katie - they would be great for dipping!

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  7. Spring is supposedly coming here, so I've been in the mood to make all the pea recipes! Love the sound of these fritters and glad to hear they're so amenable to change.

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    1. Thanks Joanne - I love pea recipes - just don't make them often enough!

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  8. Mmmmm. I love pea and I love Feta AND I love quinoa! Guess I might just love these! Quinoa is great used in patties and fritters. It has such a wonderful nutty texture.
    Interesting bike tales too. I also worry about the invisibility of bikes to drivers, particularly when they open car doors etc. And as for 'bike police' we have a similar problem here in the summer when there is a rule about not cycling on the sea wall..... it only applies to certain stretches and is so unclear and random, no one ever knows whether you should be on or off!

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    1. Thanks Kate - sounds like they are calling you! As a driver who also cycles I am quite aware of how hard it is to see cyclists - I try to look out for them but it can be difficult. Random rules are so annoying - we have bike paths that peter out when approaching an intersection and I always think that is odd - do cyclists disappear at intersections?

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  9. oh yum, love those fritters! I have a similar style of cooking which means I don't always make things the same way twice which can make recipe testing a challenge!

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    1. Thanks Cate - I understand - I became aware of how much I alter recipes when I did recipe testing for ricki heller last year - it was tough to be really disciplined

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  10. I love versatile recipes too! Mr NQN rides twice daily and I am always absolutely afraid that something will happen to him. He says that the biggest danger is cars opening their doors!

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    1. Thanks Lorraine - the whole issue of car doors is a thorny one - I heard an interview with the mother of a cyclist who was killed by dooring - she suggested using your left hand to open doors so you have to twist around and look. It makes me wonder if others do as many head checks as I do!

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  11. Thanks for linking up at our Gluten Free Fridays Party! I have tweeted and pinned your entry to our Gluten Free Fridays board on Pinterest! :) I can't wait to see what you share next time!
    -Cindy

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  12. I love the sound of these Johanna. Its bookmarked to make in the near future too. Thank you so much for sharing with VegetablePalette, the round up will be up at the beginning of the month.

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  13. I LOVE these Johanna and what a GORGEOUS colour they are too! Karen

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