potato & herb salad
I love potatoes and anything that is made with potatoes, from Russian potato salad to tortilla Española to Belgian pommes frites to campfire potatoes. Now that we have a fireplace – the second best thing you can have in the…
Sweet Potato & Butternut Squash Spread
When baking sweet potatoes, the high heat causes their moisture to evaporate, and leaves their skin caramelized like candy – which is delicious – but overly sweet for me, so I like to mix them with spicy, sour or nutty flavors to reduce the sweetness.
Root Vegetable Hummus
I had started to write this post in the summer, while we where visiting Israel, but never finished it for the same reasons I haven’t been able to start or finish any posts since leaving Los Angeles back in June; lack of time, lack of motivation…
Rosti with Zucchini & Golden Beets
We’re moving! Again? Where to? I can’t tell you yet. You’ll have to wait for my next post. But I’ll give you a hint… It’s a small island in Spain. But before we settle down, we will do some traveling,…
Black Bean Kibbeh
Honestly, I don’t know what to call this dish. I think Kibbeh is the most appropriate name for it other then experimenting with black beans – I was trying to make veggie burger but I over-processed the beans and added a large egg, which made the mixture too mushy to…
Veggie burgers with melted tahini
The first time I had a burger was in the beginning of nineties, in Israel. It was soon after I moved in with my twin friends. David, their New Yorker dad/excellent cook made them for lunch. The first time I had a veggie burger was in 2000 at a…
avocado & beet sandwich
I came back from Larchmont Farmers’ Market starving. I dug out an avocado, watermelon radish and microgreens from my shopping bags and in less then five minutes made myself this beautiful, nutritious sandwich.
Simple Thai-Style Coconut Soup
I love Thai food but I don’t like it when restaurants make it overly sweet. Sugar has a negative affect on the immune system. I feel weak when I eat it and my slender body immediately becomes an greenhouse for fungus.
Radish & carrot salad
I came across this brilliant recipe while I was flipping through a beautiful cookbook in Barnes & Noble. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the title of the book so I can’t credit the author. I made this salad because I needed to do something with…
Mushroom & Lentil Soup
I adapted this recipe from Green Kitchen Stories blog. Their recipe call for Chanterelle mushrooms but (a) I didn’t have any and (b) the price here for one pound (half a kilo) chanterelles is $42. I’m sure it tastes divine but the the humble…
vegetable tagine with chermoula sauce
Chermoula is a marinade that North Africans use in their cooking. It is usually used to flavor fish or seafood, but it can be used with legume and vegetables. Very healthy. It’s strange, for someone who grew up in a Moroccan home, I…
Roasted Sweet potato, Lemony tahini & Parsley
I discovered this delicious dish at a Thanksgiving dinner at friends’. I could tell immediately that it was right up my alley – humble yet sophisticated, and charming. My friend found it in the New York Times cooking section. As…
Chickpeas & Amaranth Tagine
There’s a traditional Moroccan fish recipe that my mother, and the rest of the Moroccan Jews around the world make every Friday for Shabbat dinner. I’ve never met anyone who grew up in a Moroccan home who doesn’t get nostalgic about…
Rice bowl with swiss chard & barberries
Before I say anything about this rice bowl/salad, I want to get something out of my system. Hi, my name is Shelly and I am addicted to TED talks. It started after I turned forty a few months ago. I didn’t mind turning…
Simple Cabbage & Scallion Frittatas
Yes, I am alive, and today, after six hectic months, I can finally say, “alive and well.” I survived the move from our two-bedroom-one bathroom townhouse to a three-bedroom- three bathrooms townhouse!. Two-and-a-half bath, technically. Now we each have our…
Paris & Penne with cashew cream and Butternut Squash
It’s been a long time… Two days ago I arrived back from a marvelous week in Paris. It was a trip that my mother, older sister and I have been dreaming to do together for years. (Aunt Shuli tagged along.) For my…
Egg-less shakshuka sandwich
I know, it’s oxymoron to call it shakshuka because shakshuka is always made with eggs but it does taste like shakshuka. We, Israelis, often eat our shakshuka with tahini so the combination of cooked tomatoes and tahini is what makes it…
swiss chard with harissa
It’s funny how Moroccan jews are so strict about the distinction between Shabat or holiday food and everyday food – my mother never eat Shabat food on a yom chol , a weekday – and vice versa. In my family I’m considered to be a rule…
Matbucha Moroccan Tomato Mezze
You can’t write a post about matbucha (Moroccan cooked salad) without writing about Yeruham. The cooked salad and the small town in the Negev Desert of Israel go together. The aroma of tomatoes cooking with garlic and peppers being charred over an open flame…
Beet Carpaccio
Yesterday was a fucking, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It’s started with a blood test (I hate blood tests, they make me insanely paranoid). It continued with a call to Cigna, our health insurance. I don’t know what is worse, the part that…