tabuleh salad with roasted veg, walnuts, tahini lemon dressing & falafel.

Do you also love arabic food? I love the flavors of the Turkish and Lebanese kitchen and find it very inspiring to taste different things and try to introduce them to my own kitchen, too. Recently I started this new habit of giving myself a treat after my lovely yoga class on Mondays. The treat is called fresh falafel and I found a place which makes them super fresh, just in front of you. While you pick your salad from the counter (my favorite mix is couscous, aubergines, parsley tabuleh and humus with it) the falafel which mainly consist of chickpeas and different spices get fried in a pan. Five minutes later you have a warm, lovely smelling box in your hand and I can hardly wait to get home.

Yesterday was another Monday so I decided to buy 3 more falafels to get a nice and quick lunch after today’s work. I knew that I still have tons of fresh herbs from the farmer’s market and wanted to try out an arabic salad version with my own stuff. The experiment came out lovely! Super tasty, healthy and boasting of amazing flavors…

Tabuleh like salad with fresh mint, parsley and rucola, topped with roasted red pepper, aubergine, fennel, walnuts and falafel, served with a lemon tahini dressing.

Ingredients: bunch of greens like mint, rucola and parsley, 1 red pepper, small fennel bulb, some walnuts (crashed), 1 garlic (if you like) & some fresh herbs for the roasted veg (I took fresh marjoram and rosemary), juice of 1 lemon, high quality olive oil, seasalt, pepper, 1 spoon of tahini and 3 pieces of falafel from your favorite Lebanese place.

Method: For the roasted veg cut the pepper and fennel in bite-sized pieces and roast them for like 10min with some fresh garlic, herbs and season with salt and pepper. Add the crashed walnuts only for the last couple of minutes so they don’t burn. Put aside to cool off. For the salad chop the washed and dried greens (mint, parsley, rucola) and make a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, a spoon of tahini (add a splash of water), salt and pepper. Top with roasted veg and falafel.

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‘ wurstnudeln’ a simple but delicious pasta.

Do you also hate it to throw away left overs? I really do and that’s why I always try to make out something nice of things left over from a party or a meal. Recently a friend brought some nibbles which were little skewers of cheese, fruit, sausages and ham. Funnily everybody ate the cheese and fruit but not the meaty stuff. So what to do with all these little pieces of smoked ham and the mini sausages? Then I had a great idea – and I just knew my BF would love it too.. it’s more of a male dish, but every now and then I enjoy it too…

In Austria we call it ‘Wurstnudeln’ (pasta with sausages’). You fry a big onion slowly in olive oil and a knob of butter, cut all the left overs of cut meat or sausages (even after a BBQ etc) and add it to the fried onions. What’s really nice is to add a fresh fennel bulb which is cut in very thin slices. This is a thing Italians do in a similar dish but they use Salsiccia instead of the ham and sausage leftovers. Add a gulp of white wine (leftovers in opened bottels are perfect for cooking too!) and let it simmer a bit on low to medium heat. Add some pepperoncino, sea salt and fresh herbs if you have, e.g. parsley comes really nice..  you’ll see it just smells divine!

In the meantime coo the pasta (small ones as Gnocchetti Sardi, Farfalle or Fusilli are perfect) al dente, strain and add them directly into the pan with the fried onion – ham mix. Stir a bit so the pasta can soak up all the yummy juices and enjoy with some grated cheese on top. Lovely with a green salad!

Buon appetito!