A thousand and one ways to eat zaatar: on flatbread with avocado.
A thousand and one ways to eat zaatar: on flatbread with avocado.
Do you ever make something that you get overly excited about? My dinner tonight was SO GOOD. I shredded a cucumber, let it drain for a bit, mixed it with salt, a crushed garlic clove and some of the kilo of zaatar that I have to get through. Then I added a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt. So it’s more cucumber salad and less tzatziki.
I ate it on top of a grain salad that used all the leftovers from the granola bars: brown rice with sunflower seeds, pumpkins seeds, pecans, dried sour cherries, parsley, arugula and zaatar vinaigrette.
Cooking for the week but way more excited about my drink! Like a shandy and a michelada combined, I mixed beer and a ginger lemon spicy drink (it’s a brand of lemonade that has capsaicin in it) and it was really pretty good. I’m not sure if it would be good enough to serve to other people, but I know I would have it again!
I’ve decided it’s going to be ‘empty out the freezer’ week. I’ve been hoarding food in there for way too long and it’s starting to get out of hand. Plus, someone told me kind of a long time ago that food can actually go bad in the freezer. Who knew! We’ll see how spending the first week of summer eating mostly soup goes…
Breakfast was the last of the cornbread with the last of the mozzarella from pizza night melted on top, plus a granola bar (I ate half while waiting for the cornbread to bake).
Back from the beach and I desperately needed some vegetables. Unfortunately all I had in my apartment was some sad-looking, week-old watercress. I picked out the slimy parts, sauteed it with garlic, then put it on some bread with mozzarella and pickled peppers.
Spent the weekend at the beach and sleeping on a boat in Rockaway with a bunch of friends and I volunteered to make breakfast for Sunday. I came home Friday night after an event (with lots of free wine) and made these granola bars. I took the ingredients list from Early Bird Granola, and used the granola bar recipe from Good to the Grain (swapped olive oil for butter and maple syrup for honey and had to quadruple the amount of syrup since I had more dry ingredients, which in retrospect was too much). I’d like to keep tweaking the recipe, but they were definitely a hit!
Julia is in town from very far away. She brought over cheese, Pam brought over ramps and asparagus, I used more of the infinite supply of frozen pizza dough (and sauce!) I have in my freezer to make what turned out to be one very delicious pizza. I threw the dough and sauce in the fridge before I left for work to thaw, and at night sauteed the aspargus and chopped ramps briefly with red pepper flakes and salt to get them a little browned. Then topped with lots of cheese.
Angelines joined us later and it was a lovely little Thursday night reunion.
Tumblr has now deleted my draft of this post five times, so this is down to the basics. Lunch was more salad and two slices of cabbage pancake (those are two wedges crammed into my lunch box). This is one of my go-to cheap/easy/healthy recipes and also is a great vehicle for hot sauce (because that’s what comfort food is to me). Next time I might try this recipe, just to change things up a bit.
I’ve been using my final perk from our benefit this week: a pass to a fancy gym that apparently costs $1000 a month (!). WHAT. Anywho, I’ve been getting home pretty late, but was very excited to make this meal I was thinking about for the whole ride home: an egg cooked in a tortilla like this and sauteed radish and turnip greens with some panfried adorable baby turnips. Plus lots of hot sauce.
After two months, I FINALLY bought a container to hold the massive amount of zaatar that Ashley brought me back from Israel!
Breakfast was ‘muesli’ minus basically every step and all the extras except for mixing quick-cooking (raw) oats (the quick-cooking steel-cut kind) and yogurt overnight. And it’s still really good! I’m sure it would be even better with the dried fruit and nuts that are usually part of muesli. Topped with yet more of the rhubarb ginger jam and flax seeds.
Leftover black beans from the tacos I had for lunch last week with some added water and adobo sauce to make them a little better. Eaten with avocado, cilantro, pumpkin seeds and a tortilla. Perfect rainy day dinner.
Spring chopped salad (riffed off this): tons of parsley, rocket, sugar snap peas, radishes, chickpeas, feta and lemon-olive oil dressing.
Taking a break from out-of-town-guest restaurant eating: cheese and pickles from the market, white and rye bread and a rocket/avocado/zataar dressing salad.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really need to get better lighting in my apartment…
My mom is in town which means lots of eating out, though after the beige-food fest at The Commodore on Tuesday, that prospect is less exciting…
For dinner I made the Cauliflower, Almond and Tumeric Soup from Leon and it was really good! It’s also super easy to make: thinly slice a large onion and the stem of a large head of cauliflower. Throw them in a pot with some butter, three cloves of chopped garlic, 1 teaspoon tumeric, 1/2 teaspoon of fenugreek (which I figured out we actually had at home since I had to get on my phone and look up what it was and why I couldn’t find it at the grocery store. Don’t skip this ingredient. I think it’s what made my apartment smell amazing) and like half an inch of chopped garlic. Saute until the onions are soft, add 70 g ground almonds (I don’t know what 70 g looks like so I just used all the almonds I had left), then 1 liter of veggie stock. Simmer for 10 minutes, add the roughly chopped cauliflower florets, cook until they’re soft but not mushy (about 20 minutes), add ~500 ml milk (I used almond milk because it’s what I had) and salt and pepper to taste. Blend. Eat (with lime)!
