shain

To keep up with the salad theme: Beet and citurs salad (recipe by Kenji from Serious Eats). Roasted beets, arugula, Valencia orange, sweet red pomelo (all but the beets were picked from our garden). Pine nuts, vinaigrette with honey and orange zest. Roasted brussles sprouts, shallots, and tofu with white pomelo and orange in a sauce made from the fruits drippings spiced with aniseed, fennel seed and cinnamon, a little extra brown sugar and cilantro. Recipe inspired by a recpie from "Plenty More" by Yotam Ottolenghi. It was a serious practice on my orange supreme cutting skill

Kube in thick beet soup. Gently sour-sweet from lemon and beet sweetness, enhanced with a little date molasses. Sugar apple (anona) from our tree. Plenty of those this year, probably due to the short winter.

My favorite umami bomb is nutritional yeast. It has a mild cheesy note, and it's flavor is bearly notable in most preparation. That said, I do find the flavor pleasant in many dishes even when used in larger quantities. I buy the finely powdered version of it as it dissolves better. It's also rich in protein.

I'm far away in Israel. But even over here it's not common, I stumbled on them in a health store kinda place and wanted to try. I almost throw it away at first, but then I tried cooking with it and there you go.

I do not make them myself. They are labeled as organic bananas and I bought them in bulk. It looks something like that: It smells somewhat nasty and has an unpleasantly chewy texture. But once saoked in water, they are delicious, very sweet and raisin like, with mild banana flavor. I do however have a soft spot for banana chips

Took out the fennel plants. Leaves and bulbs for today's launch, stalks and roots for upcoming soup or stew. I can't make them grow as big and sweet as the ones on the market, but it's worth it just for the scent when you pass bay the plant. Also, lovely wild allium of sort (can someone tell by the photo?). I ate one a month ago, had a small bulb with a nice leek-like flavor.

Peas with red pepper, fennel bulb, garlic, fennel leaves and black pepper. Snappy and sweet peas are a true joy

Cavatappi pasta with broccolini, tomatoes, raisins and pine nuts. Some parsley, chili and a little smoked paprika.

Banana bread (it's nice to be able to call a cake "bread", it makes eating plenty of it feel almost healthy ) Had to make it before the weather gets too hot. Banana bread is a cold weather food for me, I like it best warmed or lightly toasted with a cup of hot tea. Iv'e used overly ripe bananas, which I froze a while ago, toasted walnuts and dehydrated banana chunks (which are yummy in this cake, better then raisins and chocolate IMO). For flavoring, mostly brown sugar, cinnamon, orange zest and a little ginger.

Baklava with almonds and hazelnuts,cinnamon, and a some coffee and cardamon. Drizzled syrup with honey, rose water aand lemon juice. Topped with powdered pistachios. I use a moderate amount of syrup with a touch of salt and lemon acidity to keep the baklava crisp and gently sweet (compared to too many cloyingly sweet and sticky versions).

Fava beans with chard, leek, chili and garlic; cumin, paprika, lemon juice and sumac. Burnt eggplant with tahini sauce and same spices. Greek yogurt and cherry tomatoes Soft and fluffy wholemeal pita.

Toasted spaghetti with roasted bell peppers and some roasted cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, toasted almonds and peppery arugula. A little chili, lemon juice and zest, olive oil and extra black pepper. I'll use fusilli next time, the spaghetti doesn't hold well to the roasted vegetables.

Rich poppy seed cake with white chocolate and vanilla topping.

Bagels. Not pictured: cream cheese (also, thinly sliced onion, capers, and cured salmon - to be applied as desired). By the way, what kind of bagel is your favorite? I'm a poppy person, but I also really like an "everything" bagel.

I see what you mean, and yet shakshuka has versions from many countries, I am most familiar with the Tunisian version, which has cumin, paprika and loads of garlic. Spiced up with some chili. The Turkish shakshuka is called menemen and the eggs are mixed into the sauce.

I think that I like the idea of this dish. I might try to take a spin on it. It looks that your cheese chunks are quite large, maybe using finer crumbs will help the flavor meld better. Maybe using a more mellow gorgonzola dolce or a less assertive, more rounded roqfouet will work better?

@Nicolai looks tasty. What makes a shakshuka Egyptian?

Wen't out to get ramen for lunch. Mine was a vegetarian one (first picture) with plenty of thin springy noodles and okayish broth (hint of mushroom, but lacked depth and not savory enough for ramen). It had a very good soft boiled egg, arugala leaves (interesting chooise...), toasted sesame seeds, grilled corn and scallions. It came with a very nice tofu skewer. My friend got a spicy chicken and miso based broth with chicken skewer (second picture).

Mushroom risotto, used portobello and dehydrated porcini. It's a classic for a reason. When cooking dry and fresh mushrooms together, I usually skip soaking the dry mushrooms in water, as they will absorb plenty of moisture released by the fresh mushrooms.

Indeed so, and for a good reason - they are delicious and easy. My grandmother wasn't much of a cook, and she left Hungary while young so she didn't knew much Hungarian cookery, but this is one of the things she did make and I loved them since childhood.

Burnt eggplant with tahini sauce, lemon juice, date molasses (silan), cumin, chili, parsley, paprika. The eggplants were placed on a gas+coals grill and cooked in the flames until bunt from outside, peeled and topped with flavorings. I've placed it on a pan to heat before serving. It was served with the bread Iv'e posted about in the bread topic.

Bread with part whole spelt and a little oat bran. Flavored with malt extract, toasted sesame, flax, aniseed, fennel seeds, black pepper and orange peel. Apx. 77% hydration. Sprayed with water and baked on an iron plate at 230dC for 30 minutes and another 15 minutes at 210dC. The crust was quite crispy and slightly chewy. Crumb is relatively light, chewy and medium moist. The spices are very aromatic, but are gentle flavor wise. I felt that the scoring on the bread was OK, but sadly i got not much of an ear. I made some ghee earlier, so I had some browned milk solids that were very nice when served warm on this bread, with a sprinkle of salt.

This is another batch of hummus, made using the second half of the chickpeas I cooked earlier this week. Having an empty stove, I decided to cook fava beans for topping mature and dry, not green). A long slow swimmer, assisted with a little baking soda, gives the beans a dark color, soft texture and a rich earthy-savory flavor. Also hard boiled a couple of eggs in the same pot as the beans. Also some lemony tahini sauce. Parsley, plenty of cumin, paprika and good sharp olive oil. 3 The few remaining chickpeas where coated with a little oil and baked until browned, dried and crisp. Tossed to coat with curry powder, chili and very little sugar. Makes a nice healthy snack. It is also good with yogurt.

@liamsaunt This mushroom grilled cheese makes me drool...

@scubadoo97 Yes, this is not a very common variety, I believe that it's called Himalayan mulberry. Iv'e heard the leaves can be used for cooking, but have never used them for it, since it's also the season for grape vine leaves, and so I opt for those instead. Can you describe their flavor? Grape leaves taste likes a lemony green tea IMO. Speaking of leaves, Iv'e recently bean given rice stuffed nasturtium leaves, they are less flavorful but very tender, might be worth a try.