Vegetables
Whitefish dinner: New potatoes with dill
Your whitefish dinner simply has to include potatoes…but I do mean simply. Boiled new potatoes often find themselves on a plate next to whitefish, but sometimes they taste downright blah. No more blah potatoes! Cooked properly–in salted water and never overcooked–your new potatoes will taste great through and through. Toss with some chopped herbs like…
Read MoreCoosa and eggs, breakfast (or dinner) of champions
There seems to be this idea that just because you go to culinary school and write a food blog and think and talk incessantly about food that your table is graced with elaborate meals three times a day. I’d hate for you to see my breakfast program, which has been undergoing a reform lately. When…
Read MoreIngredient: Little coosa, little summer squash
It’s true that the Lebanese love to stuff it—grape leaves, cabbage, coosa. The coosa refers to a particular light green, medium-sized squash that is sweet, tender, and so good. But they’re difficult to find, so we turn also to traditional zucchini and yellow summer squash, which are succulent too. Last week I was strolling down…
Read MoreGarlicky Cabbage Rolls, some little gems.
Garlicky Cabbage Rolls are an all-time Lebanese favorite here, gems! This version is cooked in water and lots of garlic. For tomato-based Cabbage Rolls, click here. My name is Arikhia, not Rita, she said. They say Rita in this country. That was the first thing my Aunt Rita said when I interviewed her one afternoon…
Read MoreTechnique: How to blanch cabbage for rolls
Cabbages, like onions, are made of tightly wound layers. Leaves of cabbage want and need to be softened so that they are pliable enough to be pulled off of the head and rolled up with stuffing. Here’s the simple blanching process: Pierce the core of your fresh cabbage, tough outer leaves removed, with a two-pronged…
Read MoreRadish & arugula salad. Here let us feast.
When the landlady at the first apartment I lived in with my sister in Chicago told us she was selling the old grey stone and it was time for us to move on, I was excited about the prospect of something new and different. That is, until I discovered what moving really meant. For me,…
Read MoreLebanese Potato Salad
Lebanese potato salad is light and fresh with lemon and mint–the perfect, healthy summer salad which is dairy- and gluten-free. See how to cook the potatoes perfectly here and in my video. I was surprised when I returned from Lebanon recently to find the herbs in the back corner garden had come into their own.…
Read MoreTechnique: How to cook potatoes perfectly for salad
Perhaps the most vexing thing about making potato salad is cooking the potatoes properly. They are a little like pasta in this regard, but potatoes don’t have the same breaking point leeway that pasta has. Take them 30 seconds beyond just right, and here come the mashed potatoes. As we discussed yesterday, different types of…
Read MoreIngredient: Potatoes
One of the great pleasures (and there were many) of a morning at Chicago’s Green City Market was the remarkable display of potatoes at Nichol’s Farms. The colors! The shapes and sizes! My favorites were some little purple potatoes that defied all expectations for tubers, in color and flavor and texture. Up north we are…
Read MoreLebanese Stuffed Grape Leaf Rolls
Lebanese Grape Leaf Rolls, a taste of Dier Mimas Lebanese grape leaf rolls, also known as dolma or simply stuffed grape leaves. You’ll love this recipe and story about Lebanese family and food. […watch my video on how to roll grapeleaves HERE!…] There is one thing I’ve always thought was a given about grape leaves:…
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