In this day and age, with the superpower of Google, you can locate any recipe, and find infinite recipe ideas, online. So what’s the point of owning a cookbook? Aren’t cookbooks a little outdated? The answer, in my opinion, is no. An analogy could be made comparing “real books” to “E-books,” such as those purchased […]
Opposites attract; just ask salted caramel, chocolate-covered pretzels, or kettle corn. These treats are all sweet-and-salty food combinations and here’s a new one to add to summer – just before the season ends.
Eating sustainably can make a huge impact on our planet. We all know that eating sustainably, and eating local is good for the planet and good for the economy. Now that your New Year’s resolutions to eat better have come into effect, check out your local bookseller for seven recycled titles that will help bolster […]
My collection of Pyrex baking pans: An explosion waiting to happen? A hot Pyrex type glass baking dish can literally explode if placed on a cool surface like a sink counter top…In an illuminating article about the dangers of non-stick ceramic cooking ware, we advised readers of the risks involved in cooking with some types […]
Overexposure by pregnant women to cookware coatings like PFC in microwave popcorn bags may result in underweight newborn babies. Be mindful of the risks when you cook. We wrote a few articles about the potential dangers of cooking with ceramic coated cookware, and the resulting lawsuit filed by one of these cookware manufacturers against the […]
Try something a little different than plain-old tomato sauce on your pasta. Try tahini! On my first night CouchSurfing in Haifa, Israel, in the cozy apartment of a young married couple, the three of us sat down, along with a local friend, at the table on the balcony to eat dinner – which, surprisingly, the […]
Kelly learns to cook like a local (vegetarian) Jordanian at Beit Sitti in Amman. For all those tourists in Amman who want to gain authentic Arabic cooking experience to bring back home and impress their dinner guests, or for the local Jordanian who wants to throw a unique rooftop party in the area, Beit Sitti, […]
Recipes US offers a portal into hundreds of thousands of blogger recipes, many connected to the Middle East. There is no doubt that home cooking is a good thing for our planet. Forget about the packaging waste you save by cooking up a storm at home, but there is all that petrol going out to […]
Looking for a quick, delicious and healthy side dish? Grab some sweet potatoes. There’s lots of cooking going on at this time of year. Passover, Easter, vacation time – guests coming over, family at home, and festive meals to prepare. A busy cook needs easy, reliable recipes to fill out her or his menus. Sweet […]
Maurice goes to the store in Israel and sees a “fire sale” of ceramic cookware in Israel – 70% off. Public awareness of product defects and dangers can work wonders. This appears to be the case with the recent Israel consumer awareness program Kolbotek that pointed out the dangers of cooking with some brands of […]
So-called eco-friendly, ceramic utensils may contain toxic metals like arsenic, an Israeli journalist investigates. It’s in the colors, so also be wary of color-coated knives! We buy them at health food stores because the ceramic coated pans are supposedly safer than teflon, and good for the planet. A new investigative report by an Israeli consumer […]
Do you smile when you walk into your kitchen or does it make you frown? Maybe it is time to change your kitchen into a room you like. Summertime can be stressful with vacation from school, children around, not to mention the incredible heat we have been having here in the Middle East. When it […]
Salt comes in many forms and has many uses. How many are you aware of? One of the most common features of a set table is the salt shaker sitting neatly next to the pepper grinder. Saltiness is not only one of the basic tastes next to sweetness, bitterness and sourness, it is also one […]
Have you ever looked at vegetables and thought “I can base a whole meal on all of this?” Seared salmon, braised lamb, sauteed beef: sounds delicious, but what about vegetables? Here in the Middle East we love our kebabs, shawarmas and barbecues, but recently The Food Network aired an episode of Iron Chef America that […]
Golden-pink apricots are in season now in the Middle East. Preserve some as chutney for year-round enjoyment. Do you like chutney? Cooking your own seasonal (and preferably organic) fruit, you can enjoy locavore preserves that you won’t find in any supermarket. And you choose the sweetness and chili heat of your chutney according to your […]
This light, creamy cheesecake fits into your green Shavuot, especially if you make it with organic cheese and eggs. It’s also light on sugar. The ancient Romans left a simple cheesecake recipe: ricotta cheese, honey, and eggs. Pour into a clay saucer. Bake over coals. That still works, but for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, we […]
Mulberries make delightful jams and chutneys. Miriam shows you how. Wherever you see several old mulberry trees standing together in the Middle East, you can be sure that they are descendants of trees once cultivated to provide fodder for silkworms. And although the leaves have medicinal properties that humans can also enjoy, we two-legged folks […]
Do you love artichokes? We do. Here’s a healthy recipe perfect for the Middle East. It’s springtime, and the markets of the Middle East display piles of these artichoke thistles with the succulent hearts. The hot climates of North Africa and the Middle East produce a fantastic variety of vegetables that are easy to stuff […]
Miriam continues the fourth part of her series on medicinal herbs from the Middle East. To keep things simple for this series, we’re only considering the medicinal properties of dried seasonings. (See parts I, II, and III here on Green Prophet.) Some herbs don’t amount to much when dried. Basil, parsley, and coriander leaf, for […]
Hungry? Run on down to your local shuk and get yourself a butternut squash. Butternut squash is still in season. Try stuffing it with quinoa, the seed that the pre-Columbian Native Americans called “mother of the grains.” With its nutty taste and high nutritional protein levels (not to mention amino acids and minerals), quinoa’s a […]
You won’t be able to keep these halvah-like cookies around for long. And they couldn’t be simpler to make. We never thought to use tehina (or tehini as you might know it) in baking, but this recipe produces the most meltingly delicious cookies you can imagine. If you’re looking for ways to use up your […]
Dried galingal root is a Middle East spice great for nausea and flatulence. In Mama Nazima’s Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine, author Rivka Goldman mentions that her mother cooked soup to help invalids regain strength. Well, all the recipes involve spices: curry, black or red pepper, turmeric, ginger, cloves, and cumin. Mama Nazima, with her rich fund of […]
Purim, one of the most colorful and popular holidays in Judaism (probably because it is a mitzva to get, ahem, inebriated), is coming up this Saturday evening. Colorful because it involves getting dressed up in costume, and popular because it’s fun to see everyone else’s creative costume ideas, eat delicious pastries, hear the story from […]
Eggplant seems an unlikely soup ingredient. But blended with vegetable stock, herbs, and cream, the shiny purple vegetable makes a creamy soup full of Middle-Eastern flavors. Now is when eggplant is coming into season in the Middle East. In any market there’s a table piled high with long purple-black eggplants, round eggplants, ridged eggplants, purple […]
There’s really no better way to get to know someone than by sitting down and sharing a meal. Sarah Melamed, plant biologist and naturalist, aims to make those connections happen by recreating recipes from all over the Middle East and the Mediterranean on her eclectic blog, Foodbridge. In multicultural Israel, where Melamed lives, every kitchen offers […]