It’s almost August and I’ve mentioned only a peep about my bucket garden. It has been growing strong since it last popped on the screen back in March. Time flies.

Back then, I planted my kitchen herb garden as I held out for weather to agree with my outdoor buckets (above). The update: A few noble patches sprouted. I grew excited. But they quickly retreated into the black earth. Just a quick tease. Hello. Goodbye. Not enough sun? Did I open the window for a cool breeze that hit them at just the wrong moment of development? We will never know.

Thoroughly jaded, I went to the local bodega to purchase baby herb plants: rosemary, cilantro and basil. I planted them in those same little death inducing containers and stuck them outside on the kitchen windowsill. (By this time May had slipped in and the weather was more agreeable.) They were going strong. The cilantro was a power house, added to guacamole, lime shrimp, fish tacos and as accents on salads. The basil grew and grew. The rosemary was forest-like. So what happened?

I entrusted these herbs to my mother… I returned from California and spotted a dry and whithered cilantro, a faltering basil, and a limp rosemary:

Didn’t you water them?

No, but… well… It rained today.

This from a woman who coos and mists her orchids nightly. I was able to nurture the basil and rosemary back to life. The cilantro’s charred skeleton remains on the windowsill. A testament to abandonment.

But the buckets… Ah the buckets outside. Those are another story.

I am a lazy gardener. But I prefer to call it survival gardening– for the plants, not me.

After last years garden died out it wasn’t until one of those 70 degree days in December that I got around to pulling the dead stalks and tilling the earth slightly. Come March, when seeds arrived, I was gifted some compost from a lovely friend, mixed it in, threw seeds on and sprinkled them slightly with water.

I haven’t touched the buckets since. No pruning, no weeding, no watering (okay, maybe 2 or 3 times I did drag buckets of water outside to water my bucket garden). See, survival gardening– only the strong plants survive.

Despite my lack of effort, for this, the third year of the bucket garden, I have a small, slow-growing colony. Left to their own devices for the bulk of the summer, through storm and sun, my plants surprised me. For weeks now I have been walking past my buckets running errands or catching appointments saying, “tonight I will weed you, no worries.” The night would come and go and I would promise the buckets tomorrow, tomorrow again. Finally, the weeds grew so tall and strong I could hardly make out the plants from the invaders.

I returned from the fish monger and could stand it no more. I plunkered down for some serious weeding. To my great surprise my plants pushed through: arugula, radish, endive, Swiss chard and mixed lettuce. I applauded my darlings, took a picture (above), then retrieved my shears to snip away for a salad of my delayed efforts.

With the abundance of zucchini came an abundance of cucumber from our CSA: cucumber and fennel soup, cucumber and avocado salad, salted cucumber sticks, cucumber water and finally, when there were just too many, pickled. But this simple recipe, pictured above, might just be the favored of all cucumber dishes.

D loved this dish so much that when we had watermelon for dessert the other night he asked what happened to the cucumber, accusing me of using up all his favorite foods when I went pickling. (Let’s just say he’ll bite his tongue when he tastes one of my pickles and wish I hadn’t left behind this one treasure for the watermelon!)

This salad goes great with fish or after the meal, cleansing the palate, or as a starter to a main. It’s vibrant color makes an artistic addition to most meals. I can see it at a BBQ too– being that unusually creative (yet so simple!) dish that little Sally made all by herself– why she’ll be a contender in the kitchen one day!

Red onions or avocado could be added to this. I could even see preserved lemons sprinkled over top. Or, make the salad with cantaloupe (and some prosciutto). Just be sure to keep it easy, fast and especially summer fresh.

Watermelon Cucumber Salad
Serving Size= 2. Active Time= 15 minutes.
1 small watermelon or 1/4 of a large watermelon.
1 large cucumber
2 tablespoons fresh dill
juice of 1/2 lemon
coarse sea salt (I used Black Lava Salt b/c the color contrast was desired)

1) Cut rind from watermelon and then cut into 1 inch cubes, place in a medium bowl.
2) Using a vegetable peeler, remove skin from cucumber and discard. Continue using the vegetable peeler to “shred” the cucumber pulp. This will create the “noodles” pictured above. Discard the core, add to bowl.
3) Chop dill and add to bowl along with lemon juice. Sprinkle with sea salt just before serving.

It’s more like falafel is making me crazy! But how can you resist the freshness of flavors in Middle Eastern cuisine?

I came to love and loathe Middle Eastern foods in high school when I took a three week tour of Israel with my youth group. There were many days eating on Kibbutz with comments like, “are you kidding?! Cucumber, tomatoes and hummus again?!” But despite all the hummus consumed on that trip, I still cannot forget the hummus I had at the main marketplace in Jerusalem. Sweet, nutty and full of paprika, to this day I search to perfect my own recipe to match this memory.

I found falafel as an undergrad. It was fast food that didn’t seem so unhealthy and best of all, it was cheap. I could often be found between classes grabbing a falafel, standing just outside the small storefront nibbling away with tahini coating my lips and dripping on the sidewalk down below. I took friends visiting from out of town to the little shop and I even took D on our first date for a late night snack. But I have never tried making it myself.

Walking through the grocery I often spot and am tempted to pick up a box of falafel mix. As much as I love falafel, I cannot get myself to purchase the boxed mix. Yes, there are chickpeas in there, but get down the list and sure enough those hard-to-pronounce unknowns appear. I can’t make myself believe that off in the Middle East, or even my Lebanese or Egyptian friends here in the U.S., folks are whipping up boxed falafel. Where do these boxes come from?

To my surprise and horror, my own cookbooks I checked for reference suggested using boxed falafel mix. Wait, really? A cookbook calls for a box?! Truth be told, I don’t own a Middle Eastern cookbook (since I usually just reference friends and their parents for recipes). I took to the internet and researched away. Recipes I found seemed fairly close to hummus recipes before frying. I had some hummus a few days old in the fridge so I figured this would make good falafel– dry enough to form balls and fry. I also thought that my desire to use hummus, no longer desirable for snacking, would make sense historically. (Instead of throwing away old hummus, why not deep fry it?)

So I chopped some parsley, folded it into the hummus, formed golf ball sized nuggets and D threw them into a pan of hot oil. They fell apart. When I say fall apart I don’t mean the little balls broke apart and were still okay to eat. I mean the balls fell apart, totally crumbling into nothingness. D had to fish them out with a sieve the added comment, “Wow, we haven’t failed like this in a while.”

And when he says that he really means a long time. I cannot recall a time we made something so horribly inedible we had to throw it away. Sure, maybe it didn’t look (or fully taste) great, but one of us (me) usually not wanting to waste food, would suffer through eating it. What we had here was fried powder that was impossible to eat and had to enter the garbage.

We both took to the internet to find recipes and compare our separate results. The one major difference in falafel to hummus is that no liquids are added. When D and I make hummus we often add olive oil and yogurt to create a creamy result (that keeps smooth for days). The more falafel recipes we found, the greater the number that excluded these ingredients, as well as tahini. This kept the batter as dry as possible. (Which is why I thought our 3 day old hummus (with no yogurt), nice and dry, would work perfectly.)

We combined our favorite recipes and went in for Round Two. We stuck one in to test. Same result. The pictures on the internet lied. These little nuggets also fell apart as well. No golden balls of falafel came to our plates.

Back on the internet D began typing in “Falafel falls apart.” To his surprise, he didn’t even get to the first “l” of “falls” when Google auto-filled his results and he found multiple comments from ornery eaters attempting to make falafel.

Who knew these little buggers could be so difficult?

We did find the most common suggestions for falafel that falls apart is 1) Refrigerate for a few hours (we were hungry now) or 2) Add flour.

Back to our falafel balls, minus one brave comrade, I threw them back into the bowl and added almost 1/4 cup flour. Mixed it up, formed balls, flattened slightly (so oil would cover them completely) and coated the discs lightly with a more flour. I quickly told D it was not too late. We could just eat this dry hummus-like batter on our Barbari bread and it would be just fine. We threw a tester in again. Finally!

We topped stuffed the falafel into our Barbari bread (a flat bread originally from Iran that is an arms length long. Once a portion is torn off, it can easily be stuffed), added a yogurt and herb dressing, fresh tomatoes and topped it with some lip smacking sticky tahini. The best part of this falafel is that they remain crispy on the outside, but are soft and creamy inside.

Falafel
Prep time (getting it right the first time)= 12 minutes. Cook time= 4 minutes.
1- 15 oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), washed and drained
1/4 cup loosely chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons red onion
1/4 cup flour (set aside 2 tablespoons in a small bowl for coating finished falafel balls)
salt/ pepper to taste
vegetable oil

1) Begin heating vegetable oil on high heat in a deep sauce pan (oil should come about 1 inch up the side of the pan).
2) Place remaining ingredients (minus 2 tablespoons of flour) into a food processor or blender. Process until fairly even consistency is reached, leaving some larger chickpea chunks, if desired.
3) Form golf ball sized balls of batter and flatten slightly. Coat lightly in remaining flour.
4) Add falafel discs to oil when hot and fry about 4 minutes, until golden on all sides. Serve warm served wrapped in pita or other flat bread.

And the yogurt-herb sauce we topped it with (along with tahini and tomatoes):
3 tablespoons yogurt
2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
Mix until combined.