Cafe Liz

This soft eggplant dish has a tangy taste from the pomegranate and balsamic vinegar, while red onions add a bit of jewel-like color. You could toss some pomegranate seeds on top as well when they're in season. On a slightly related note, look at this weird eggplant we saw at the Carmel market:

I needed an easy dish to bring to a vegan friend’s potluck dinner — something substantial, but also something that could easily be prepared in large quantities. Voila — seared lentil salad.

We're used to seeing capers sold in little gourmet jars, and served in gourmet dishes at gourmet restaurants. Capers, it turns out, are a weed. They grow wild around the Mediterranean, and Israel is no exception. Capers are referenced in the bible, and hung from the walls of Jerusalem over the centuries. In fact, apparently they're one of those plants that people have to pull out, because they're just that common.

This mild-flavored dish plays with colors — white asparagus, purple potatoes. OK, maybe for some of you white asparagus isn’t such an oddity, but around here it is. In fact, it’s just beginning to make its presence felt in the market, as I described in a newspaper article.

It’s officially hot. Hot as in I don’t want to do anything that involves moving, all I want to do is sit in front of the fan. Fortunately, a light, refreshing summer drink can do much to make the heat more tolerable. Especially if that drink is prepped, sitting in the fridge, just waiting for you to drink it. I currently have three such drinks in the fridge. All are easy to prepare, and best chilled — meaning you make [...]

Most recipes for rhubarb involve turning it into mush, without taking advantage of the beautiful, red stalks’ appearance. Thai food often involves a mix of tart, lemony flavors. Hmm, I know! I’ll use the rhubarb in a stir-fry, with Thai seasonings! I was inspired to make a savory rhubarb recipe by the New York Times, which put the vegetable into an Indian-inspired curry. Meanwhile, as I was planning dinner, I had this idea of making rice noodles in a coconut [...]

I’ve been thinking of looking for rhubarb for a while now. Fortunately, rhubarb found me. I ran into it at the Carmel market this past Friday, for the first time. Rhubarb isn’t that well-known here — it’s grown locally, but this is only the second time I’ve seen it being sold in Israel. In the time it took me to buy a bunch (for 15 shekels), at least three people came and asked what this weird vegetable was, and then [...]

My friend Leonie gave me a jar of organic goat’s milk dulce de leche from Sde Bar. It so happened that I had another identical jar that had been sitting in my fridge for the past year, so I knew I had to use it quickly — I like dulce de leche, but we don’t eat it on its own. So, I decided to turn it into a cheesecake. On another unrelated note, this is my 100th post … how [...]

It’s getting a little too hot to eat warm food. Fortunately, these sesame-coated noodles are cold and refreshing. This preparation is vaguely Japanese-inspired, due to the wakame and soy sauce, but with a local twist of tahini. To the best of my knowledge, you can’t readily find tahini in Japan, because if you can, I’m not sure why our friends there asked us to bring a kilo of it with us when we came to visit.