Galveston, Texas (Instagram edition)

We just spent an altogether too short weekend in Galveston, on the Texas coast. We were there for less than 48 hours, but I came away refreshed, relaxed, and recharged. In the future, I'll endeavor not to soon forget the healing power of the salty sea breezes and a long stretch of beach.

Inspired by this post by my friend and photographer idol, Penny de los Santos, I dove headfirst into a fabulous and free iPhone app called Instagram for my shots of the trip. Instagram allows you to apply one of a number of filters to your photo, giving you the potential of turning a decent shot into something much more interesting. There is also a cool social media component that allows you to "follow" users and comment on other users' photos (if you want to find me, my username there is "optimista"). It's a very neat way to create and share your images.

Since I have so many images I want to share here, I'll refrain from my usual barrage of verbosity and let the photos speak for themselves.

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Lamb Kofta

A couple of weekends ago, I had the great fortune of wandering about a couple of Austin's fine farmer's markets with the elusive Penny de Los Santos. At the SFC Farmer's Market at Sunset Valley, we dallied to visit with Loncito Cartwright of Loncito's Lamb fame (Loncito does not have a website, but you'll love Penny's blog post about a gathering she attended there). Penny picked up a couple of pounds of ground lamb, all the while raving about a lamb kofta recipe she knew of. When Penny raves about food, I listen, so I stocked up on some of Loncito's best ground, myself.

Later, Penny sent me her recipe via Twitter. Of course, since Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters apiece, there were a few quantities missing, so I sort of filled in the blanks. As a result, I can't really promise that this recipe is exactly as Penny intended it to be, but I can assure you it was quite delicious all the same.

Lamb Kofta
Ingredients:
For Kofta:
• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1/2 small onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 egg
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• red pepper flakes (to taste)

For cucumber yogurt sauce:
• 1/2 seedless cucumber
• 7 oz plain yogurt (I am partial to FAGE Greek Yogurt (Total 2%))
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• olive oil (apparently optional; this was in Penny's list of ingredients, but I completely forgot to use it and I thought my sauce turned out fine without the added oil.).

Purée the onion and garlic in a food processor (you can also grate it with a grater if you don't have a food processor or don't feel like getting it out). Mix the purée with the ground lamb, the egg, and all the spices. Form the lamb into hotdog-like shapes on skewers if you'd like to grill them (if this description is too confusing, check out the photos on this blog post from The Food in My Beard). If you prefer to cook them in the oven, you can form the meat into smaller oblongs in a rectangular pan and bake them at 425° F for 10-12 minutes.

While the meat is cooking, you can whip up the yogurt sauce. Dice the cucumber, then combine it with the yogurt, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Voilà. You're done. So easy and SO good. Serve the lamb with warm pita bread, the cucumber sauce, and fresh diced tomato. Penny leaves off the tomato and drizzles hers with honey, which really brings out the subtle flavors in the lamb. Marvelous.

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