shain

Lemon and mandarin cake. With labneh and olive oil. Zest from lemon and mandarine. A little candied orange peel. Soaked with lemon juice syrup. Recipe here.

Real, already fried falafel freezes quite well. If you defrost and re-fry it it is as good as new. If instead you bake it from frozen, it's still better than any store bought falafel will ever be

Fresh green beans, pressure cooked in tomato sauce, flavored with onion, garlic, cumin, paprika, anise, parsley, cilantro. Served with bulgur. Topped with raw chopped onion , cherry tomatoes and parsley. A large drizzle of tahini sauce.

Soft and fluffy scrambled eggs with paprika, chili, peppers and scallions. Eaten with toast.

Eggplant slices, brushed with olive oil and baked. It works great in sandwiches and in a pita (like sabich), but my favorite is when served warm, drizzled with lemony tahini and some cumin. Nothing else to distract from the eggplant's flavor.

I bought fatayer flat breads and a warm salad of wild mallow ("chubeza") pan fried with onions and olive oil. The fatyer is made with a yeasted dough, stretched thin and laminated with olive oil, then filled with chopped zaatar (fresh leaves, not spice mixture), spinach and chard. It is then grilled over a very hot saj "oven" (more like a wood fired curved griddle). Served with sliced veggies and labneh with zaatar.

I was quite surprised to notice this today - That's a plumeria plant, about 30 year old, covered with blossoms every year, but never have I seen it fruiting until this day. This pair of fruits is are the only ones on the plant. I wonder if it's due to the especially warm winter this year. Doe's anyone knows how to tell it's mature? I'll sure be glad to have lots of baby plumerias

Last of the yeast dough. This cake is filled with ricotta and farmer cheese, flavored with plenty of lemon zest, poppy seeds, vanilla, and cognac soaked raisins.

Quick pasta with crisp and charred stir fried zucchini, lemon zest, thyme, EVOO, a little chili and lemon juice.

Lentil soup. Carrots, parsley, onion, green chili, garlic. Added lentils and pressured cooked until tender, blend 1/3 of it into until smooth and mix with the remaining. Cumin, paprika, parsley, cilantro, pepper. Served with flat noodles and a paste of parsley, lemon zest, garlic, chili and EVOO. Quite good if I can say so myself

So I made this cake using half of the remaining babka dough. The filling is ricotta, dark chocolate (70% cocoa), toasted almonds and apricot kernels (tastes like bitter almond, but not bitter...), a little of the candied orange peels I made a couple of months ago, amaretto, cinnamon and a little sugar. Next time I'll up the ricotta to mixins ratio (as in more ricotta), and I might also try using marzipan instead of almonds, I expected it's crispness to be a welcomed extra texture, but I found it to be distracting.

It does work well in ravioli, especially with butter and sage, though I'll skip the cheeses in the filling. I can't claim much originality with the bachemel, I simply add the grated cheese to it so that it will melt, then cover the cannelloni and bake. It provides moisture to cook the pasta and since the filling is relatively lean, it does not end up heavy, although a garlicky, creamy and cheesy sauce is definitely decadent.

Cannelloni filled with sweet potato, and two types of goat cheese (one similar to cream cheese and the other feta), sage, caramelized onions, nutmeg, a little chilli, chives. Baked covered in a bechamel with pecorino (so I guess calling it a thin mornay is more correct) nutmeg and black pepper.

I made a few babakas to give as gifts. I also have some dough left to make some for us Fillings are: dark chocolate with a little nutella cinnamon, butter and dark brown sugar Date paste, tahini and a hint of cacao In Israel the term babka is not often used, instead those cakes are usually called "yeast cakes" (עוגות שמרים), and when shaped in this for, it is sometimes called "krantz cake"

oroblanco

French toast, only very lightly sweetened, with gorgonzola. Toasted the bread before soaking for some roasted flavor.

Corn & egg drop soup - Quick stock from a little kombu kelp and dried sitake, frozen corn - half of it blended until smooth, the remaining corn kernels left whole, sliced baby corn, soy sauce, eggs slowly drizzled, dark roasted sesame oil to finish, and scallions. Hard to tell from the picture, but there is plenty of whole kernels in there for texture.

Granola - oatmeal toasted in butter, walnuts and hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, sesame, poppy, coconut, cinnamon, cacao, dark brown sugar, salt.

@Ann_T Stunning! I baked a couple of trays of quick peanut butter & caramelized peanuts cookies. Those where a gift, but I made sure to keep a few aside to snack in

Cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, stir fried until well charred yet firm and crisp. Ginger, chili, garlic, soy sauce, rice vinegar, smokey sesame oil. Scallions, toasted sunflower seeds. Served with rice flavored with coriander seeds and a poached egg. I like a lot the grilled flavor of high-heat stir frying, and the sesame oil smokiness backs it well.

Stew of red lentils, onions caramelized in butter, carrots, sweet potato, kohlrabi, celery, cooked until soft and thick. Added some creamy chickpeas (pressure cooked). Zucchini, stir fried separately until charred yet very crisp and added to the stew later on. Spiced with cinnamon, pepper, chili, bay leaves, some paprika and parsley. Served over whole wheat couscous (not for health reasons - I like the taste).

I actually back my recpies with git, and I thought that I'm crazy for doing so... Versioning is helpful when I start to screw a recipe and want to see what I changed in the past. But really, it's mostly for backup.

Risotto with butternut squash, sharp gorgonzola, crisp apples, pumpkin seeds. The risotto is flavored with onion & celery, sauteed in butter, glazed with wine and blended; oregano, thyme and pepper. It's hard to tell from the picture, but I promise that there is some rice under all the veggies and cheese...

Revisited the quick zaatar bread. I've added diced tomato and some Edam cheese (in addition to the greek yogurt and zaatar). Cooked in a pan with olive oil until browned crisp. Along with a few sliced veggies.

Chestnuts and pecans.