Notable Meals in Israel

DAY 1
Brunch: Shakshouka and a cappuccino at Si Coffee at the gas station just below the Latrun tank museum. The Sherbs already went over this, but the tomatoey dish with eggs and cheese cooked on top was pretty amazing, even for a chain cafe. Especially with the whole grain bread.

Dinner: Italian in Tel Aviv. Pizza, appetizers (including eggplant parm in individual ramekins), and a gnocchi in meat sauce.

DAY 2

Brunch: "Couples Breakfast" for the Sherbs and I at Cafe Rimon on Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem. Each of us got two eggs, any way we wanted, and a salad, with a plate of cheese, tuna fish, and lox to share, as well as a bread basket with two croissant and four bagels. More than decent for a remarkably touristy establishment.

DAY 3

Lunch: Chicken shnitzel sandwich at a small shop in Old Acco at (I think) the end of Chaim Weitzmann Street. Breaded, fried, and stuffed in a toasted baguette with all usual falafel fixings and a couple french fries for good measure. Not the best food ever eaten, but better than average and unbeatable at NIS 20 for sandwich and drink.

DAY 4

Samir's in Ramla. Ramla is a small city near to Tel Aviv, and contains, in one of the many 12th-century structures still standing and in use, a restaurant called Samir's.

I've probably mentioned this place before. But there is nothing bad at Samir's. Today's assortment (when we go with the Sherbs's uncle, it's always the chef's choice for the menu) was chicken kabob, ground lamb kabob, falafel, and a mixed plate of animal hearts and livers cooked with onions and pepper. I am not being facetious to say that the organ meats were incredibly delicious - as I said, there is nothing bad at Samir's. From the pitas to the salads to the baklava at the end (and the coffee with cardamom), everything was tasty-riffic.

The Sherbs's uncle's ice cream. My better half's uncle makes his own ice cream, and has spent much of his life learning and perfecting the food chemistry of homemade ice cream. The flavors which we had too much of were a pineapple sorbet, a mint chocolate made with fresh mint (so much better than that spearmint oil stuff you get at the supermarket), and a dark chocolate ice cream with coffee and chocolate chunks mixed in.

More Weekly Cooking

UGH! We have become such neglectful bloggers...It seems we have little time to cook, let alone post, except for weekend updates. So, here is (yet another) weekend update.

Saturday, I had a GREAT training run for a 10 mile race coming up next month. 9 miles in 1:35:50! I was PUMPED. So, to celebrate, (although WW hates when I treat myself with food...) The Pedant and I headed off to our local sushi place. I did eat a bit too much, but had a great appetizer of complementary fired tofu (I guess they were out of miso? Sad.), green salad with super tasty ginger dressing, edamame, avocado roll, kampia (squash) rool and tamgo (egg). It was as tasty as ever. For dinner, we enjoyed a homemade fiesta! We repeated the jicama and avocado salad from the best salad cook book and ate it with an Atlantic Magazine Food Channel recipe based off of Bobby Flay's Black Bean Jalapeno soup. I had made the soup before and it was amazing. This time, it was good but the jalapeno peppers were not quite as spicy as before and the kick wasn't as intense. Oh well. We also bought some Edy's slow churned Thin Mint ice cream.

Sunday we had a wedding and enjoyed our time there. Since the wedding was in the afternoon, we stopped off at the supermarket for some veggies to make a light salad for dinner. We also did some cooking for the week. It included making our own smoked paprika hummus and a sweet potato and quinoa salad. The hummus came out really well. But, it's hard for it not too. Not as smooth as some brands but I'm NOT removing the skins of the chick peas in order to get the smoothness that requires. The quinoa salad was a Bittman recipe for lunches. I've read a few places sweet potatoes are great for runners and they are also SUPER tasty. This salad was pretty easy - boil sweet potatoes diced into bite size pieces, add quinoa, red pepper, shallot. Vinaigrette dressing of EVOO and sherry vinegar. Salt and pepper. Enjoy.

Saturday Night Fiesta Dinner

I'm training for a 10 mile race coming up in April and have been going on long runs. Saturday morning, while running 7 miles (!!!!) I had plenty of time to think about food, which is the only reason I run. We had some leftover mini potatoes that needed to be used and what better way to make potatoes than in Tortilla Espanola. So The Pedant and I had a Spanish/Mexican dinner that was fantastic.

Tortilla Espanola

I sliced the potatoes very thin. We sauteed them up with 1/2 a vidalia onion and a bunch of garlic in (too much - my hand slipped!) olive oil. Sadly, it was not Spanish olive oil like Jose Andres would have liked, but whatever. We let that cook until the potatoes got cooked and the onions browned really nicely. We then used egg beaters to make a tortilla. Sadly, it didn't flip as well as hoped, but it was super tasty.

Jicama Avocado Salad

While looking for food for the week, TP passed this salad recipe in the best salad cookbook and wondered why we hadn't made this salad yet. We decided it was similar to the "Spanish" theme and cooked it up. It was very simple - chopped jicama, chopped avocado, cilantro, red onion, lemon juice, olive oil. It was really amazing.

Dinner was just lovely. We bought some Ben and Jerry's light Phish Food which made it even better.

Snow Prep

As I'm sure you've hear, dear reader, the DC area has been dumped with snow this weekend. The Pedant and I were somewhat prepared since we bought lots of food last week. Therefore, I think we were the only ones in the city who didn't spend Thursday night in line at a supermarket. We were snowed in a bit, but thanks to living in a somewhat urban area, we ordered in Chinese food Friday evening and had Ben and Jerry's from the little store in our building. Now that's what I call surviving a snow storm!

We made some pasta and a salad for dinner Saturday evening and by Sunday were able to venture out to TP's parents for an amazing Red Beans and Rice dinner (in honor of New Orleans in the Super bowl). I took a copy of the recipe and will eventually blog about it I'm sure.

Today, TP went to work while I stayed home and did some cleaning. I made a new favorite lunch: pasta with edamame in a sauce of miso, ginger, ponzu, mirin and a touch of sesame oil. It's really easy and very good. I ventured out to the supermarket which was quite bare. I came up with some ideas for food for the week (since we're probably getting another snow storm tomorrow) and a few ideas were thwarted since there was very little food left in the store. Good thing I didn't want milk...I did want onions but settled for shallots.

I took advantage of some free time this afternoon to make some pizza dough. I used Bittman's whole wheat recipe which was great (we made it once before) and doubled it to freeze. I made a bit of a mistake when I did a double batch in the food processor - it came out much gluier than I had hoped. I think it will be fine though. I used about 1/4 of the whole thing (1/2 of a regular recipe) and made a REALLY AMAZING pizza tonight. First, I put sun dried tomatoes and some roasted garlic (which I cooked in some EVOO and then reused the extra oil for the soup I'l describe next paragraph) into the crust which I found out worked before. Then, TP and I sauteed some shallot, garlic and portobello mushroom (all they had left today...I wanted baby bella or cremini...) and put it on top of the crust. I added a bit of a granny smith apple that was on it's way out plus some walnuts and a bunch of Gorgonzola cheese. I baked it for about 12 minutes and it came out PERFECTLY. Really, really great.

I made a minestrone soup with the few veggies left in the store: carrots, parsnip, zucchini, canned tomatoes, kidney beans and some mini bowtie pasta. I ended up adding in more water than I originally intended but it came out well and now we have 3 containers frozen which will make for great lunches in the future. I let the soup really thicken up and get all flavorful thanks to the pasta and the beans.

For dessert, we had Ben and Jerry's light ice cream (I sometimes just have too much guilt buying regular B & J but not enough guilt to buy the slow churned ice cream...which is so much better for me...but much less tasty...) because that's what I need to survive a storm.

I'm actually going to be one of the very few going into work tomorrow. We'll see how I fare.

Election Party!

So, the Sherbs and I are planning an election results-watching party. I want the party to have election-themed foods, but I have some difficulty with foods related to the vice presidential candidates.

My tentative munchies menu is as follows:

1. Obama-themed food: Vegetarian "Hawaiian" pizza - pizza with fake ham and pineapple. Combines Obama's Hawaiian and Chicago heritage, plus those doubts that pineapple on pizza is "real" pizza are equivalent to some critics' take on Obama's ethnicity.
2. McCain-themed food: Vietnamese spring rolls. There was a really tasty-looking recipe in Vegetarian Times, and McCain does occasionally mention that he spent some time in Vietnam.
   
3. Palin-themed food: Baked Alaska (maybe). Baked Alaska is kind of hard to make, plus it's a little lazy. I may do a chocolate mousse instead, but that's merely a pun, and not very clever. I did a search on Russian snacks, for an "I can see Russian snacks from here" joke, but most Russian snacks involve foods that make the Sherbs gag, like salted fish or fish eggs.
4. Biden-themed food: California rolls (maybe). Neither Scranton nor Wilmington has a famous local food. Delaware sort of has crab, so we could do imitation crabmeat, but no one really wants to eat that as is. So, California rolls.

If anyone has better VP foods in mind, let us know.

Puccini, or Not

I said in my last blog post that we were going to dinner. It was a good dinner. As is our tradition, I'll blog my side.

Went to Tosca last night here in DC, and did not know that the waiters were refilling my glass with pinot noir as I focused on my food. I was a tad loopy on the Metro home (the Sherbs, as always, was very tolerant of my shenanigans).

My meal was as follows:
1) Red mullet and sardines with fava beans and tomatoes - did not taste like the sardines one's used to. Salty, tasty, and the beans were terrific.

2) Quail stuffed with shiitake mushroom. I love me some quail, and this was deliciously moist, on a bed of wilted swiss chard and grilled artichokes. I have never had chard so good, but I tend to stay away from chard and kale because they can be bitter as all get out (still, we're making a dish featuring kale at home in a couple nights - and may make more if kale stays at 99¢ per pound).

3) Gorgonzola ice cream with candied celery and rosemary - as soon as I saw this incredibly Iron Chef-y dish on the menu, I knew I had to have it. Verdict: I loved it. My father (for whom dessert is chocolate) would not.

I believe, in my drunken stupor, I told the Sherbs "it's like an appetizer, for dessert, but sweet." It's a little more than that, but the drunk summary suffices for rough work. The ice cream itself is not sweet; it's more neutral and gorgonzola-flavored. It's eaten with the candied celery, which is like a relish or a fruit topping, and also mixed with the honey syrup that the ice cream is placed in.

The sommelier's wine selection was excellent (we took advantage of his recommendations), and I loved the plum tomato foccacia in the bread basket.

Two Vast and Trunkless Legs of Topping Stand in the Dessert

Look upon my dessert topping, and despair!

Well, only because it was so tasty. I took the leftover sangria, added a tad more cranberry wine and some Splenda baking mix, and boiled it for what seemed like eternity.

It tasted awesome over ice cream.

And now Mark Bittman is trying to steal my dessert topping thunder with his own ice cream topping. I'll have you know that his recipe does not involve local Virginia fruit wines, so it is not as good.