Best 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.
Quick Radish & Carrot Salad
I came across this recipe while 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 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-bathroom townhouse! Two-and-a-half bathrooms, technically. Now we each have our own…
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 Mezze with harissa
Most of the Moroccan Jews I know, including my mother and siblings, would never ever make any Shabbat or holiday dishes on a weekday, and vice versa. My mother, for example, would never make matbucha, a spicy tomato jam, or…
Spicy Tomato Salad (Matbucha)
I can’t write a post about matbucha, Moroccan cooked tomato, garlic and pepper salad, without writing about Yeruham. The cooked salad and my hometown in the Negev, the desert of Israel, go together. The aroma of tomatoes simmered with garlic…
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…
Curry Noodle Soup With Vegetables
Living in different parts of the world, you quickly realize that access to authentic Asian cuisine varies greatly. When we were in New York and Los Angeles, finding excellent Asian food was never a problem. But in Tel Aviv and…
Flatbread Sabich
This beautiful flatbread was a last-minute pivot from sabich, a popular Israeli street food: pita stuffed with potatoes, eggplant, hard-boiled egg, salads, and tahini sauce. I knew there was a chance that my American boys wouldn’t eat it because they…
Quinoa, Beet & Hazelnut Salad
I’m handing the stage to my dear mother-in-law, who introduced me to this beautiful grain fourteen years ago. Thank you, Estee! I appreciate your help. I love every word you wrote. An on-going, exasperating controversy about Quinoa is how to say it. Most…
How to make a good green salad
We eat salads on a daily basis (most Israelis do). Most days it’s a simple green salad, then some days more complex salads. There are many types of leafy greens and endless variations of leafy green salads. Leo and Alex’s…
One-pan Middle Eastern breakfast
My cousin Diane is married to Avi, a Jerusalemite who’s well known in our family as the meat expert. He is a great cook. Last month, we were in Israel for a month, and when we stayed with them for…
Collard Greens With Paprika Oil
It’s much easier to stick a tray of chicken and potatoes into the oven or throw a bunch of vegetables and beans into pot than to prepare a bunch of mezzes. But a table covered with small and colorful plates…