Cafe Liz -- Kosher vegetarian recipes from my kitchen in Tel Aviv -- an Israeli food blog

Eating lunch at Israel’s markets

To market, to market. It's been a busy few months, and not because we've been up to anything in particular -- mostly just due to life. Raising a toddler, working, toddler, work, and then the day is over. It's not that I haven't been cooking -- cooking has become even more important now that my son is eating regular meals. But somehow it seems that everything gets eaten before I have a chance to photograph it. Or it just bears a striking resemblance to something I've already blogged about. Or both. But we still manage to find time to market hop -- least of all because we need to buy food. And I like nothing better than sitting down to lunch at one of the many lovely restaurants that you'll find alongside markets in this country, restaurants that specialize in one, maybe two kinds of food at most. Lunch can turn a grocery trip into a family outing. More ...

Potato kubbeh with mushroom filling, and a tempest in a semolina shell

Kubbeh got a brief blast of attention when a pop-up kubbeh restaurant briefly appeared in New York City last month. Reading about it from afar, I was pleased that kubbeh was getting some much-deserved focus — kubbeh is quite popular in Israel, but nearly entirely unknown in the United States. …

Prasa (leek) patties for Passover

Leek dumplings are a traditional Passover food for many people of Turkish and Balkan descent, my family included, though I couldn’t tell you what makes this specifically Passover food. To be honest, it’s not really a dish that my family makes anymore — at this point, the koftes de prasa …

Braised mushrooms and fava beans with spring garlic and scallions

There’s something invigorating about visiting the market on one of the earliest days of spring. I don’t mean spring in the true calendar sense, as sticklers will point out that officially we have a week or two of winter left. And I also don’t mean it purely in terms of …

Springtime matzo ball broth

Is it that time of year again? The time when it becomes socially acceptable to start planning for Passover? My, how time flies. Our Passover is likely to be a particularly hectic one, since we’ll be spending it in a new apartment. After 6-plus years in our little Tel Aviv …

Spanish tortilla

Look at us Mediterranean folk — all fit and healthy thanks to our diet heavy on vegetables, fish and olive oil. Or so the story goes. It’s trendy to speak of the “Mediterranean diet,” but there are so many variations in the food people eat around the Mediterranean basin. And …

Mustard greens salad with marinated pear and fennel

My greens guy must really like me. I mean, given how much I spend at his stand every week, how could he not? One day he went chasing after me as I made my way through the Carmel Market. Admittedly, I’d just paid for a big bag full of vegetables …

Sweet caramelized wheat hamin with winter vegetables

Can recipes become out-of-date? I certainly hope not. I made this lovely wintry stew a week and a half ago, in the midst of one of Israel’s fiercest winter storms in decades. But life happened — I was busy, least of all redesigning this site, as some of you have …

Wintry mangold-wheat soup

There are soups for every season. This is a soup for winter. We are in the midst of Israeli winter at its most intense. It rained for three days straight, and oh, what rain! Some places even had a bit of snow. Fine, laugh. I know it’s not exactly winter …

Porcini-leek risotto

“What would you eat if you hadn’t eaten in a week?” my husband asked the waitress. That’s how I feel sometimes. The day slips by, so many things need to be done, and by the time I finally find the time to eat, I’m so hungry I don’t even know …