a mochi morning.

After reading The Kind Life book by Alicia Silverstone, I was fascinated by the japanese rice cakes named Mochi. After searching for the last month, I finally found them at a local health store and knew the first recipe I would make would be Mochi Waffles. Without brown rice syrup on hand, I decided to make a usual waffle topper, a mixture of maple syrup, coconut oil, and frozen berries.

First, I took out 3 pieces of Mochi (I used the Sweet Brown Rice) and sliced them into thin slices.

I took all pieces and spread them evenly across an already warmed waffle iron (mine makes four squares). While cooking, I heated up one tablespoon of maple syrup, one teaspoon of coconut oil, and a half cup of frozen blueberries and frozen cherries. After three minutes, the mochi waffles had fluffed up and were ready to eat.

In Alicia’s book, she emphasizes eating them up quickly so that they are still warm and sticky. I drizzled them with the maple-coconut oil-berry sauce and enjoyed. They were not like I expected, but crispy and chewy at the same time. The flavor is really mild and benefited from a delicious sauce. Next time I will make her lemon-walnut-rice syrup.

With the three small blocks of Mochi, I made two servings of two waffle squares each. The recipe from Alicia’s book can be found here.

Yesterday, I wrote about a recipe mishap. One of my favorite things to get when out for middle eastern food is falafel. When studying abroad in Amsterdam, I often frequented Maoz Falafel for a fast fix. A little while back, Mama Pea posted a recipe for a protein packed version that I knew I just had to try. Apparently I didn’t read her recipe for Protein Packed Falafels Falawesomes with Vegan Tzatziki close enough, because I ended up using a whole block of tofu instead of just 4 oz. Yes, I used 4 times the amount for extra protein (oops…). Then I continued to use an entire can full of chickpeas instead of just one cup worth. It must have not been my day. Realizing my mistake as I mixed the wet and dry mixtures, I knew the only way to make the recipe work would be to add another dry ingredient. Panko bread crumps were thrown into the bowl and I baked them for twenty five minutes, just five more than the original recipe. Although I had made a few significant errors, they were scrumptious with her amazing vegan tzatziki recipe.

For lunch today, I packed a few on romaine leaves, sprouts, cucumber, celery, cherry tomatoes and the tzatziki. I had only added the amount of seasoning that the original recipe called for, but they were great. Soon, I will re-attempt the recipe with the correct measurements.

Some questions:

Are you a falafel fan?

Do you tend to scrap a recipe when making a mistake or try to work with it?

Hope everyone is having a wonderful FRIDAY!