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 …
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 …
Cold sesame noodles with cucumber and wakame
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, …
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. …
Fresh pasta with asparagus, seared eggplant and basil
The weather is beautiful, and the asparagus stalks at the market are looking like the fresh, young shoots that they are. Simply beautiful. I could take a bunch of asparagus and put it in a vase in my living room, but then I’d have a vaseful of asparagus in my …