Seared lentil salad with eggplant, carrot, parsley and mint
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.
Do-it-yourself capers — a picking and pickling guide
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 …
White asparagus and purple potatoes with emmenthal and fennel
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.
Refreshing drinks for summer
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 …
Rice noodles in coconut rhubarb curry
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 …
Rhubarb apricot jam
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 …
Loquat lemon mint sorbet
It seems there’s quite a demand for a loquat sorbet recipe. I’ve actually been planning to make one for a while, but a request from a reader in Malta (echoed by others in Israel) told me that now’s the time — after all, the season’s almost over. So, as the …
Authentic Spanish gazpacho
This recipe made half a dozen grown Spanish men swoon. It’s another recipe I learned from my time in Madrid, in Sra. Pilar’s kitchen. Summer was at its peak, the days were regularly 40 degrees Celsius, and she’d keep a big, glass bowl of cool gazpacho in the fridge. We’d …
Grape leaves stuffed with cranberries, garlic and rice
Now is the season to pick grape leaves. Not that I have access to a grapevine; but plenty of other people do, it seems. One of them apparently dumped a pile of fresh leaves next to the scales at some stall buried deep in the Carmel market this past weekend. …
Pan-fried potatoes with kumquat-orange-basil glaze
It’s well past kumquat season here, but I’ve been saving a few lonely specimens in my fridge for a rainy sunny day. The problem is that unlike fine wine, fresh fruit doesn’t always cooperate when you try to “save” it. As far as these kumquats and I were concerned, the …