Walnut "Meat"balls

Hi friends, it has been quiet around here for a little more than a month now, but I am back now, and have lots to share with you from my trip through Europe and Turkey.
If you wish, I can talk about our trip later, but for now, I am just happy to be back. And to be sharing a few of my instagram pictures from the trip.
This sounds so ungrateful, happy to be back, after such a great trip, seeing such an interesting country, and what can I say except that I am very grateful, and I enjoyed this trip a lot. And eventhough I am not one to get homesick, there are certain things I miss once I have been without a home for a while.

I think it is very human to seek the comfort of familiarity. We are creatures of comfort, and a month stuffed with new impressions and changing beds offers little space to just be.

So I loved eating out, trying all the Turkish food we did, and I did love the meze, but still, I really missed cooking. The only cooking we did in the whole month was just in the beginning, when we made a Greek salad in our hostel in Istanbul. And I am so happy to be able to cook again. To be making things, not just consuming. And I think I'll share some Turkish recipes in the future, but for the past week I craved something different.

These walnut balls are the first things I cooked after coming home that I think is worthy of sharing.
A while ago I turned from almost vegetarian to vegetarian for real, and ever since I feel the need to come up with recipes for things I no longer want to cook and eat.
I did not loads of meatballs before becoming vegetarian. When we both ate meat, my boyfriend and I made Moroccan inspired meatballs once or twice, with cinnamon and dates. I really loved those. But other than that, I dont have many fond memories attached to the consumation of meatballs, but I still do miss them. I miss the possibility of making meatballs when I want to.

This is where these walnut balls come in. I looked at a few recipes for vegetarian meatballs over the last weeks and months, and using nuts in them stuck with me. I kept the flavoring pretty simple this time, some mustard and parsley, a little paprika, salt and pepper. I plan to make them again, and then follow my memories of the Moroccan meatballs we made quite a while ago.

Zucchini Risotto

 

Every spring I wish I had the opportunity to tend to a garden. I look at seed catalogues, online and offline, together with my mother. I might even order something even though I do.not.have.space. Craaazy, I tell you. Then I visit my parents, frequently, just to get my hands dirty. I talk to the tomato seedlings, to get them to grow nice and quickly. I try to sneek in one or two plants I personally would like to grow, this year's butternut squash is performing nicely, there are already dozens of little squashs visible and growing. 

One advantage of not having a garden myself is a) I don't have to be home and water almost daily, and b) I am not flooded by zucchini. 

I do love zucchini, though, and I have been preparing quite a few things using a zucchini or two. This risotto is a double zucchini risotto (double chocolate sounds better, but we'll leave it at zucchini this time). One zucchini is grated into the risotto, to make for a bit a lighter risotto. The other zucchini is diced, panfried and scattered over the creamy risotto.

Vegetarian Paella

Lately I felt that I don't share enough of me here on my blog. I am rather shy and a people pleaser in real life, and I guess that is the way I wrote here, too. I am always reluctant to be open and to share my feelings and let people into my life because it makes me vulnerable.
This is life, I know it. Being vulnerable is a good thing. Only when we are open to hurt can we really feel joy, experience deep connections with the important people in our life, and express ourselves freely.
Today I want to share 10 things about me that you (probably) did not know about me.

1. I have said it above: I am a people pleaser, and I don't really like that about myself. Writing it out makes me cringe, I don't want this to be my truth. But I am, and I guess to some degree I'll always be, but I want to not care so much about what other people think of me.

2. I started this blog almost 1 1/2 years ago, but for the first year I only told my boyfriend about it. I told my parents this winter/spring, and shared it on facebook. But the girl I lived with, and shared a kitchen with, never got to know about it. I just did not tell her. I guess that relates to Nr. 1 above.

3. In my free time I enjoy learning about neuropsychology. This stuff is so fascinating, I get books from our university library and read them in the train, I listen to Berkeley podcasts while I work. I read a lot when I was a kid, but at the moment I prefer reading science books to novels.

4.  I lived abroad, in Barcelona, for 5 months when I was 16 years old. Then after school I lived in Galway, Ireland for 3 months, improving my English and just generally having fun. But never in my life have I left Europe. I love to travel, but somehow I always end up in Europe. This summer we are going to Turkey, which is technically between Europe and Asia, so this is going to change soon.

5. Sometimes I am too lazy to shave my legs. I just am. Until I want to go swimming or wear a dress.

6. During school, we were supposed to run lapses every year. I actually don't know how many because I managed to skip every single year. I was the master of skipping sport exams.

7. During all my teenage years I only wore long shorts. And not bikini or bathing suit. I just did not go swimming. I was hot all summer long. But I did not care as long as I could cover up my body.

8. I cut my hair myself. I have curly hair, and I always had troubles getting the cut I wanted. Why do hairdressers always think they need to give me 6oies hair?

9. When I listen to music I mostly just listen to one song on repeat, or the whole album on repeat. It drives my boyfriend half-crazy I think. But I usually just want to listen to something in particular, and if it suits my mood, over and over again.

10.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a boy. Girls were so complicated, with all that discussion about who can be who's friend - I never understood it. I was always a boyish girl, and still today I am not really a girly woman.

And now I want to share a recipe for paella with you. I mentioned above that I lived in Barcelona, Spain for half a year. But while I lived there I did not once have paella. My guest mother did not know how to cook, the only thing she did was fry up some meat and open a bag of pre-washed salad. We cooked paella at school with our Spanish teacher, though, and later when I returned to Spain I did go out to eat paella.