The week in food
November 26, 2011 § 1 Comment
It was a strange week, being so far away from the ultimate fall holiday — fall being my favorite season in New England, and Thanksgiving being the culmination of that crisp, delicious time of year. Life in Israel is about as normal as it gets at the moment, with the craziness of the high holidays well behind us and Hannuka still weeks away. Things at the cafe are steady, stable, normal and routine — which feels great (although we are about to have a long-time waiter leave us for the cleaner air of Tiberias. If you know anyone who loves food, speaks Hebrew and English fluently, and wants to work full-time with a great staff for decent pay, let me know!) I have been finding ways to fit cooking in at home, although sometimes it does feel a little redundant to close up the kitchen at work and then come home, pull out my cutting board and start chopping….
Some of the week’s eats:
Carrot Coconut Milk Curry Soup, from Gourmet. This is one of my favorite carrot soup recipes and we made it at the cafe this week. The recipe is actually for a chilled soup, but I think it is better hot. As you will see, they call for lime juice, which is hard to find in Israel — we substituted lemon juice, with great results.
My favorite oven-baked brown rice with the addition of apples, pumpkin, onions and mushrooms. Just saute some chopped onion with the pumpkin (cut into chunks), add chopped apples and halved mushrooms and saute until everything is slightly softened. Put the mixture on top of the raw rice (I used long grain this time), add the water as the recipe indicates, cover with foil and bake for the allotted time. Top with chopped walnuts and shaved pecorino.
Baked apples, from Simply Recipes. (I did mine without sugar.)
And some things we’ll be eating very soon:
Coconut Pumpkin Bread – with a few of my own adaptations for what we have available here.
Vegetarian Shepard’s Pie, from What She’s Having
Lebanese Lemon and Vanilla Cake from Bon Appetit with thanks to Amy for the link!
Mmmm these all look delicious! I’ve had my eye on that veg Shepard’s pie since you posted the link on FB! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, even if it was low key