shain

@Anna N The tanjia looks delicious, and I'm really glad to hear it's to your liking!

Makloubeh - rice with chickpeas, roasted vegetables (eggplant, carrot, cauliflower), browned onion, tomatoes. Spiced with baharat (allspice, cinnamon, pepper), cumin, turmeric, garlic and herbs. And a crisp top (or should it be considered bottom, since it's facing down until served). Served with yogurt-tahini sauce.

I like white (cheese only) pizzas with fruit. My go-to is ricotta and motz with figs, but any fruit that does well when grilled should work in this format (peaches and cherries for example). What I just can't get is nutella on pizza

Sure, the tanjia is made by thinly slicing and deeply caramelizing a couple of onions. Then you add a couple of handful of dried fruits - apricots are a must, I also included prunes, figs and a few raisins (date syrup (silan) is also a very good and common addition, but I opted to make it less sweet this time). Add a handful of almonds and walnuts. Add turmeric (1/2 tbspn), 2 cinnamon sticks (or powder), chili and salt to taste. Add water (about a cup) and cook gently, covered. Follow your favorite meatballs recipe, using about 2-2.5 pounds of ground meat. Use cinnamon, chili and cumin as spices in the meatballs mix. Shape the meatballs small and with an elongated or flat shape (for greater surface area). Pan fry. them and add to the sauce. Simmer gently until it is thickened, the dried fruits are soft (but not falling apart) and the meatballs soaked the flavors. Serve on top of couscous or long grain rice.

Rosh Hashana eve. Challah, since I don't keep kosher, I always make it with butter, which I think makes it taste much better than the ubiquitous oil based challahs. Ricotta with pomegranate and thyme (it's the first year I get to enjoy pomegranates from my own garden). Meatballs in tanjia (also made a vegetarian version). Served with allspice flavored rice. Mushrooms in butter, garlic, lemon thyme and honey. Eggplants in matbucha style tomato and pepper sauce. Plus black eyed peas. Works well with the challah to mop up sauce. Quick pickle salad using apple cider vinegar. Apple strudel, with raisins, nutmeg and only a little cinnamon. And obviously plenty of wine

Muesli with peach, figs, grapes, hazelnuts and almonds. I usually like to add some grated apple, but all went into a strudel, so it was soaked in yogurt alone.

Burritos with freshly made tortillas & bean and corn salad with fresh chili, onion, mayonnaise, chipotle and lime.

Grilled corn in Thai red curry and coconut sauce, with chopped peanuts and aniseed. Noodle salad with pepper, chili and cucumber in savoury peanut sauce, basil, scallion, lemon, palm sugar, toasted cashew.

Pasta salad with roasted peppers, soft feta cheese, kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, basil, olive oil, vinegar.

Sorry for the poor picture, this is however one of my favorite cakes for almost a decade. Poppy seed and coconut cake, with thin white chocolate ganache flavored with cognac.

Pad thai with tofu and eggs; eggplant, mushrooms, onion in ginger-garlic sauce.

Malai kofta style dumplings with paneer and poppy, in cashew and light cream based sauce, with peas. Okra, chickpeas and paneer in caramelized onion and fenugreek based curry. Lemon and mustard seed rice (inspired by @sartoric). Raita with cucumber chili and hing. Mango chutney.

Crunchy cornmeal cookies with a thin coating of peanut butter.

Fattoush salad with leben (buttermilk), mint, garlic, olive oil, sumac (there is more sauce then visible, I didn't want to mix it too soon for the pita bread not to get soggy). Notumuss (not hummus) with roasted bell peppers, tahini, soft feta, chili and plenty of sumac.

Pizzas ~ Pesto, ricotta, motz, cherry tomatoes. Eggplants, mushroom, smoked motz, ricotta, thyme, pepper. Ricotta, motz, figs, fennel seeds. Underskirt & crumb shot.

@cakewalk What you're describing is 'leben'. Eshel and Gil are brand names (there was a time in Israel when for some reason it was common to give names to commercial dairy products, from hard cheeses to puddings, many stuck to this day). Those days very few eat leben as is, since yogurt became much more popular. It is still extensively used for cooking, in fact I have it right now on my shopping list. It differs from yogurt by the fermentation process, which if I recall correctly, is done at a lower temperature. The resulting flavor is more akin to sour cream and buttermilk, but with the thickness of yogurt. I find it to be more savory.

It won't be good for salad, but should be fine for cooking. There are endless casseroles and quiches where feta will do good. It can also be blended to a paste, or used in panini. And you should also be fine storing it refrigerated for quite a while, I never had a feta go bad. Actually, a good feta can develop more flavor as it ages.

Birthday cake for my dear father Pistachio and mocha mousse cake - bottom layer is flourless dark chocolate brownie with chopped pistachio. Middle is white chocolate, coffee, vanilla, and some milk chocolate + chocolate flakes. Top is pistachio and white chocolate. Coconut for decoration.

@Thanks for the Crepes The pancakes are essentialy sponge cakes, so they are soft but heafty with an eggy flavor, I reduced the sugar called for in the recpie, so they where sweet, but not cloying. The edges are crisp while fresh, and tastes a little like waffle cone. The filling is more nutty than it is beany, somewhat akin to chestnuts. I pureed most of it and kept some beans whole. It's a little sticky and I found it to work well with the pancakes. I also added chopped peanuts to one and quite enjoyed it.

Dorayaki

Massaman curry with pan fried soft tofu, home made yuba, ,mushrooms, carrot, charred onion. Mango salad with luttace, scallions, cilantro, cashew, chopped peanuts, orange juice, chili and rice noodles to soak the extra sauce.

Fresh out of a British Airways flight to San Francisco and back. Most of the food wasn't very good, but edible. First leg (Tel Aviv to Heathrow) - Fruits, slightly stale bun, cheese plate (good gauda, but I just can't eat more than a few tiny bites of this kind of cheeses, they feel so heavy and fatty when. I do like them melted), bad feta and olives. Most left uneaten. Omelette with roasted vegetables - very bad, I would never had chosen a reheated omelette, but it was the only vegetarian option. Had some time to pass in the lounge at Heathrow. It had a well stocked bars and luckily some edible food. The flight from Heathrow to SF had slightly better food (I assume because the kitchen is there is managed by the airline). Interesting, if not overly tasty appetizer tomato jelly, mozzarella balls (way too cold), basil mousse and some sry tomato foam thing. Warm cheese coated bun. Not overly-overly cooked (but not al dente) pasta with cream sauce, grated carrot (?!) and sunflower seeds (?!?!). Mozzarella balls reallocated to a place where they can get warm. Some very good red wine (Pinot Noir if I recall correctly). Some hazelnut flavored mousse or something (not very good). Fruits and, and a plate of orange slices with cream cheese balls. I expected more from an ale on a British flight. Got back to wines after that. Flight back, SF to Heathrow: Bun, salad, fea, vegetables, olive "tapenade" (i.e. chopped olives). Good wine. Pasta with kale, cream and tomatoes (what's wrong with spinach?). Chocolate mousse cake, not good. Fruits. Frittata and grilled potatoes. Heathrow to Tel Aviv - again, better food when leaving from Heathrow. Warm bun, caramelized pears, good roquefort, hazelnuts. Good wine. Pasta with tomato sauce. Too oily and badly cooked. Cheese plate with cardboard flavored crackers, onion jam. OK roquefort, too mild cheddar. Tasty white chocolate and raspberry mousse.

More pasta for lunch (because pasta is always good and i have so many tomatoes to use). Linguine alla puttanesca.

That's nice to know I did a quick google search, and while the "regular" preparation looks delicious, I stumbled on this: http://glanne.blog.sohu.com/13482098.html know I'm going to have to practice my mediocre tofu slicing skill. Dinner - Chana masala. Rice with black lentils, okra, coconut milk and thai red curry. Scrambled eggs and green beans with yogurt and asafetida based sauce. Yogurt and mango chutney.

Carefully picked prickly pears - that's a dangerous fruit (although I never yet heard of someone killed by it, so coconuts stay on top). A good trick is to quickly burn the sharp bristles, then wash well to remove any left. When served well chilled, they definetly worth the trouble.