Malai Kofta and Favorite Recipes

Malai Kofta Recipe

I look forward to my blog hops every Friday. I love selecting a theme – usually an ingredient or holiday – and seeing what everyone links up. The entries never fail to surprise and impress me, and I often return to the blog hops for inspiration. There’s a lovely community feel to boot, in the same way that a potluck has a sense of community. Today’s theme isn’t a specific ingredient, it’s much looser than usual. Today I just want to see your favorite recipe or recipes. What dish on your blog do you make all the time, or are you especially proud of?

 

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Cheesecake + Cook in Israel Cookbook Announcement

Cook in Israel Cheesecake

As a freelance writer and photographer, I’m always juggling various projects and assignments of differing scopes. I’m very excited to announce one with which I have a great personal connection at this point, one that took up a lot of my time and creative energy in the past year, and one that I am very, very proud of. Cook in Israel: Home Cooking Inspiration with Orly Ziv is a collection of 100 recipes, each with a color photo and many with step-by-step photos. I edited the book and took all the photographs, working closely with Orly and our talented designer Idit Yatzkan (idityatzkan@gmail.com) to create exactly the cookbook she’d dreamed of producing.

 

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Minted Fava-Pea Mash

Minted Fava-Pea Mash

My celebration of spring continues this week with two of my favorite seasonal ingredients: peas and fava beans. Though it’s a bit predictable, I can’t resist the pairing of peas, favas, and mint for it’s fresh, green taste. It just screams spring! Here I’ve simmered the peas and favas until tender (you can use frozen if fresh are not available), then mash them with some garlic confit and mint. There’s no dairy so the  dish is totally vegan and parve, not to mention gluten free. It’s light and healthy, but packed with flavor. I like the texture of the roughly mashed vegetables, but you could blend them thoroughly for a bright springtime puree.

 

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Asparagus with Garlic Two Ways

Asparagus with Garlic Two Ways

It’s the start of springtime and that means a new abundance of fresh and exciting produce. I’m starting to see the first stone fruit in Israel – loquats, peaches and nectarines. Fresh garlic has peaked and I’ve stocked up as usual. And there’s even asparagus on supermarket shelves. I was working on a spring-themed meal for a piece in the Jewish Daily Forward (read it here) and wanted to combine asparagus – something I associate with springtime back home – and fresh garlic, which I will forever associate with springtime in Israel.

 

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Apple-Date Charoset and a Passover Recipes Blog Hop

Apple-Date Charoset and other Passover Recipes

Although I didn’t grow up celebrating Passover, I’ve been attending seders since I was 14, first with friends’ families then, for the past 12 years or so, with my husband’s family. It was love at first seder. Back at my first Pesach I was still an awkward, picky eater of a teenager, and as the charoset (haroset) passed by I put a dainty spoonful on a piece of matzo. But one taste of the apple-walnut mixture had me scrambling for seconds and it’s been one of my favorite components of the holiday ever since. It’s definitely kid-friendly, and delicious even if you’re not in the market for Passover recipes (check out the last paragraph for some ideas on how to put it to use).

 

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Vegetarian Braised Cabbage and a St. Patrick’s Day Blog Hop

CabbageI don’t believe I have a drop of Irish blood in me, and I don’t feel Irish come St. Patrick’s Day. But I can appreciate having a day to celebrate Irish culture in whatever way you see fit. For me, of course, that’s with food. Lots of Irish recipes, especially by way of America, are quite heavy and meaty so I wanted to do something simple, vegetarian, and budget-friendly. Enter braised cabbage, sans bacon (I know, sacre bleu!). All it takes is a head of cabbage (one of the least expensive vegetables I know), a knob of butter, a bit of broth and salt and pepper.

 

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Asian Cabbage Salad

Asian Cabbage Salad Recipe

If you don’t already have a salad like this in your repertoire, you need one. The “Asian” cabbage salad has become a mainstay of the American (and apparently Australian!) barbecue, potluck, and picnic and with good reason. It’s quick, easy, delicious, and travels well since the cabbage stays nice and crunchy even hours later. The Asian Cabbage Salad recipe is my pick for this month’s Secret Recipe Club. I was assigned the amazing blog Claire K Creations and, as usual, was torn between more than a few tempting options. The haloumi stuffed coconut chicken nuggets were also in the final running until my oven conked out, making this salad – which I’d had my eye on – a pretty easy choice.

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Black Garlic-Mushroom Dip and a Garlic Blog Hop

Black Garlic

Black garlic is one of those ingredients that inspires you to play around. The sweet, umami-rich flavor bares practically no resemblance to raw garlic, much in the same way that kimchi tastes very different than plain old cabbage. A Korean specialty, black garlic is simply regular garlic that has been fermented through heat. But unlike other fermented foods, the fermentation process mellows garlic instead of making it sharper, and it’s said to have twice as many antioxidants as regular garlic. The texture becomes like a firm jelly, and the flavor has hints of soy sauce, molasses, and honey. It’s so good I like to eat it raw, and it doesn’t leave you with garlic breath (not that I have anything against garlic breath).

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Chubeza (Mallow) Patties and a Vegan Blog Hop

Chubeza (Mallow) Patties

There are lots of pros to volunteering at a community garden. You get to meet wonderful, passionate people who care about the earth and sustainable eating. You get to spend time outdoors in nature, even if you live in a city. You learn about gardening, and are introduced to new types of plants, fruits, and vegetables. And, the best part, sometimes you get to take the fruit of your labor home. I’ve been helping out here and there with an amazing local organization called Earth’s Promise (seriously – they’re awesome, check them out) and this week I came home with quite a haul: potatoes dug fresh from the earth; lettuce I planted months ago and was finally able to pick; and chubeza (חוביזה; aka mallow) a wild edible green that’s popular in Israel and across the Middle East.

 

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Arancini (Rice Balls) and a Rice Blog Hop

Arancini (Rice Balls)

I didn’t think I could love risotto more than I already did. But take leftover risotto, roll it into rice balls, stuff them with cheese, bread and deep fry and you’ve got an entirely new beast. Called arancini (which means little oranges in Italian), this Sicilian specialty is a vegetarian bar snack worth trying. They’re crispy on the outside with a melty, gooey surprise in the middle. And they’re way easier to make than you may think. They require cold risotto so it’s the perfect use for leftovers (and in fact I developed this recipe for an article on leftovers for the next issue of TreeFree Food). Continue reading “Arancini (Rice Balls) and a Rice Blog Hop”