Cafe Liz

This dish, with the cucumbers, carrots and wakame, resembles something I once had at a Japanese restaurant, but the green papaya is my own addition. I happened to have one sitting around, since I’ve been aspiring to make a spicy Thai papaya salad pretty much since we returned from Thailand. The papaya doesn’t add much in the way of flavor, but it does have a crunchier, firmer texture than the other vegetables. For some reason, I really enjoy the texture [...]

This oil-based pasta sauce is sweet and salty from the raisins and olive tapenade, and contains everything from onions and garlic to nuts and a big handful of parsley. I think I once had something similar at a fancy restaurant. Plus, it’s an easy dish to make for potluck dinners.

I wasn’t going to post another soup, since they all kind of look the same, but this one came out really well. The cinnamon adds a nice touch, and all that spinach adds good flavor. In any case, I think it’s great to show what you can do without soup mix or premade broth — it’d be nice if certain restaurants were to catch on that you really don’t need these things in proper cooking.

Here’s a nice combination of stir-fried cauliflower (mine happened to be purple) with an Asian-inspired sauce. The miso adds a little more depth to this dish than just plain soy sauce.

I like it when my tofu has a crunch. In this dish, I fried the tofu separately first, so that the outsides would be crispy while the insides stayed soft. The maple sugar, which I picked up in the U.S., added a nice roundness to the mixture of wine and soy sauce.

We didn’t do very much for Valentine’s day this year, since both Eitan and I were studying for our respective tests, but I did manage to whip up a bunch of brilliantly pink strawberry spice ice cream, which seems to suit the spirit.

Our kitchen floor is covered with bags of vegetables — I hadn’t been to the Carmel Market in weeks, due to our trip to the U.S., and the attempt to empty the fridge that preceded it, so when we went this Friday, I got a little overexcited. The advantage to this is that everything is in plain sight, which means I’m more likely to use all the fresh vegetables. So this Saturday, we wound up with a spinach shakshuka for [...]

Strangely enough, I guess you could consider cranberry an exotic fruit around here — the climate is way too warm to grow cranberry bushes. This means I made this granita out of cranberry juice, which is readily available.

UPDATE DECEMBER 2010: This has become one of our favorite homemade ice creams. As with everything that passes through our kitchen, the recipe has been modified over time. Here’s the new version. For about 1 liter ice cream: 1 cup water 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup sugar 2 cups coconut cream (200 grams/1 can) Refrigerate the coconut cream in advance. Mix the water with the cocoa and the sugar; heating the water may help the sugar dissolve. Cool the [...]