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November 2008

Saturday brunch with oatmeal waffles, omelets and more

Today’s version of our weekly ritual included oatmeal-whole wheat waffles, a spinach-cheese omelet, a nice fresh mixed-green salad, a few of our homemade olives, and, of course, coffee from David’s Coffee at 49 Levinsky, my favorite coffee roaster.

Coconut pumpkin soup

This soup was a hit at our Thanksgiving dinner in Jerusalem. It’s a good way to prepare pumpkin left over from Halloween or Thanksgiving, but then again, it’s also a good excuse just to go out and buy pumpkin.

Do-it-yourself olives

I started pickling olives quite by chance, when a friend at work brought in his surplus crop, and I found myself with half a kilo of bright green Syrian Souri olives. The results were amazing. Sadly, I think this has turned me into an olive snob, because I can’t eat …

Sweet and sour tempeh

OK, I admit that I consider any recipe that involves ketchup to be cheating, but the results here are so good, that you could say the ends justify the means. This recipe for sweet and sour tempeh takes its sauce from a recipe I learned in Thailand (yes, it turns …

Green beans in soy sauce and sesame

Here’s another simple dish — pan-fried green beans with soy sauce and sesame seeds. I used super-fresh green beans we’d bought earlier that day at the market, and seared them on high heat so they’d be slightly blistered on the outside but still crispy and bright green (when they’re so …

Green curry

This is my favorite kind of Thai curry. Luckily, it’s not too complicated — most of the taste comes from the basil-rich green curry paste. You can think of it as a kind of Thai pesto — in Thailand they pound the spices together by hand, but here you can …

Garlicky potato salad

This recipe is inspired by the ali oli potato tapas they serve in Spain. I made this potato salad to bring to a party, and the real reason I chose this dish is that it’s completely homemade (and looks it), but takes only 10-15 minutes to make. I used about …

Sushi

Tonight I made sushi. More California than Japan, I filled half the rolls with cucumber, avocado, and two kinds of chives. The other half were filled with cucumber, chives and torn oyster mushrooms doused with mirin and soy sauce, and this combination turned out to be quite good. In fact, …