Sheep, goat, and buffalo milk create some of the world’s most flavorful cheeses. And if you are going an extra step and can find it, camel milk cheese might be one to try.

We tend to think of dairy as synonymous with cows, and it’s true that most commercial milk products start there. But cheeses made from the milk of other animals—sheep, goats, and water buffalo—are becoming increasingly common and often easier on digestion. Many people with mild lactose intolerance report they can tolerate these alternatives. If you’re curious about widening your cheese horizons, here’s a starter list of cheese made from non-cow milk. (DairyX makes a stretchy vegan cheese).

Feta

True feta is never cow-based. This classic Greek cheese is traditionally made from sheep’s milk, or a blend of sheep and goat. It’s firm, salty, tangy, and ideal for salads or pastries like spanakopita. Authentic feta is usually sold in blocks, with a crumbly, dry texture full of little fissures. Cow-milk “feta-style” products exist, so check labels if you want the real deal. Here is a feta dish you can make worthy of a Michelin star.

Manchego

This is an iconic Spanish cheese comes exclusively from the milk of Manchega sheep raised in the La Mancha region. It ranges from semi-soft to firm depending on how long it’s aged. A buttery interior and a signature herringbone pattern on the rind signal authenticity, along with the official D.O. (Designation of Origin) marking. Curado (aged 3–6 months) is smooth, slightly sharp, and perfect on sandwiches or a tapas plate.

Buffalo Mozzarella

Mozzarella di bufala is produced from the milk of Italian water buffalo, especially in the provinces of Caserta and Salerno. Its creamy, silky texture is notoriously difficult to replicate with cow’s milk. Real buffalo mozzarella carries protected status in Italy. Counterfeits exist globally, but the authentic version has an unmistakable richness and delicate tang. Loads of TikTok videos suggest how easy it is to make. It’s not. But this salad, a caprese is easy to make after you’ve bought some mozzarella from the deli. Fresh mozzarrela should be floating in water, not hard in a bag like cheddar. The hard stuff will work for pizza but the fresh stuff is a million times tastier.

Labbaneh / Lebbene

Common across Israel and the Mediterranean, labbaneh, labne, or labaney is a soft, tangy yogurt-style cheese made largely from sheep’s milk (though goat versions exist). It’s often shaped into small balls and stored in olive oil, sometimes rolled in herbs like za’atar. It might taste “off” when you first try it but the tang of the cheese grows on your. Spread it on bread, serve with vegetables, or add it to a breakfast mezze. It’s so simple that many home cooks make their own. We take 2 parts labne, 1 part heavy youghurt with a quarter cup of olive oil and wrap it inside laffe bread. Yummy. Here is a recipe for labne here you make from yoghurt.

Humboldt Fog

Created by Cypress Grove in Northern California, Humboldt Fog is an American original made from goat’s milk. Its signature ash line running through the center helps it ripen from the outside inward. The result is a cheese that starts crumbly but becomes increasingly creamy over time, with gentle acidity and a more intense flavor near the rind. It’s excellent on a cheese board or melted over vegetables.

Halloumi

Originating in Cyprus, halloumi is a mixture of sheep and goat milk. Its springy texture and high melting point make it ideal for grilling or frying—so much so that people often mistake grilled halloumi for chicken. Traditionally aged and unpasteurized, it’s now beloved throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and far beyond.

We even have an Amish friend in Ontario, Canada making her own halloumi and selling it in markets in Toronto. It’s texture is a delight and it’s best served fried or grilled. Our friend says that one avoids a strong goat cheese flavor when the goats are kept clean and no urine makes it into the cheese. Reminds us of the expensive cat poop coffee, or argan oil made from nuts that come from a goat’s butt.

Halloumi chews squeaky. Sort of like rubber sneakers in a newly painted mall parking lot floor. It’s kind of neat though, also a bit annoying.

Pecorino

Pecorino simply means “sheep’s milk cheese” in Italian, and it’s a key member of the great Italian cheese families. Pecorino Romano is the version most commonly found outside Italy—salty, sharp, and a great substitute for parmesan. Other regional styles include Pecorino Sardo (Sardinia), Pecorino Siciliano (Sicily), and Pecorino di Filiano (Basilicata). All add depth to pastas, pizzas, and anything deserving a savory kick.

Tzfat Cheese

Produced in the northern Israeli city of Tzfat since the 19th century, this semi-hard cheese was originally made from sheep’s milk. Today you’ll find versions made from goat and cow milk too. The HaMeiri family—descendants of the early cheesemakers—still crafts a traditional sheep-milk variety using free-range animals milked by hand. The small family factory offers tastings and tours. (See also Goat’s With the Wind)

Roquefort

One of France’s most renowned blue cheeses, Roquefort is made from the milk of Lacaune sheep and aged in limestone caves. Legend says a shepherd abandoned his lunch—bread and fresh ewe’s cheese—to chase after a woman. Months later he returned to find the cheese transformed by blue-green mold into what we now call Roquefort. Its veins create a sharp, smoky tang that pairs beautifully with nuts, figs, or crusty bread.

The post Best cheese made without cow milk appeared first on Green Prophet.

You need to fix a meal, but  it’s too hot to spend time in the kitchen. Let fresh tomatoes come to the rescue. Caprese salad, an Italian mix of tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, is the appetizer you can put together in minutes – the snack to serve with crackers or toasted baguette slices – the side dish for a summery meal like our grilled chicken wings or our vegan garlicky roasted cauliflower.

Caprese salad is seasoned with salt and olive oil, and made lively with basil or aragula. Couldn’t be simpler. If you prefer to dribble some good home-made pesto over the salad, even better. Scatter some olives around the vegetables and gently mix them in – better yet.

Have some dried, ground oregano or za’atar herb handy? Sprinkle a light seasoning of either on the salad, about half a teaspoon. Not traditional, but tasty.

Caprese Salad Ingredients

6-8 servings

Ingredients:

3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

12 oz. mozzarella cheese balls, halved

A handful of fresh basil or arugula leaves, or 2 tablespoons pesto

Olive oil to dribble over the salad, if not using pesto

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

The post Caprese salad ingredients appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s like finding a map back to your grandmother’s pantry, but with the tools of a climate-conscious chef.

Written with a deep reverence for local ingredients and a mindful kitchen, the book Think Eat Cook Sustainably teaches readers how to cook from intuition, not instruction. The philosophy behind the book is the method that surely grandmother’s knew once: and can now be passed in eco-conscious circles and permaculture kitchens. And it may be influenced from the authors experiences growing up in France. Everyone there knows that a soup stock needs celery, carrot and an onion.

The book by Rachel Khanna offers formulas—not rigid recipes—so that you can cook anything, from anywhere, with whatever the Earth gives you.

Are you drowning in recipes, influencer chefs videos, and master chefs showing you hot to cook with ingredients that are hard to find, or too expensive –– or simply not local to you? Do you find you get confused and can’t keep up with the latest Ottolenghis recipe?

Rachel Khanna offers something far more liberating: a formula for freedom in your kitchen. Her book Think Eat Cook Sustainably is not about following recipes to the letter. It’s about understanding the language of cooking—so you can improvise with what you have, honor what’s local, and reduce waste, all while creating deeply nourishing meals. She is a mother of four girls so no doubt earned her chops as a cook and it follows from her second book, Live Eat Cook Healthy. She understood the message of eating more vegetables and buying organic food was not enough to help people feed themselves more sustainably. She went for a “macro philosophy” in this book.

We were sent this book in 2020 and lost in the COVID madness, we just opened it recently and to our surprise, it’s a book that gives cooking tips along with a tour around the world to some of the most loved foods, which include meat, yes meat, and poke bowls and falafel and fish. It shows you in a handy guide on how you can choose a protein or a base for a recipe you want to cook and additional food items and seasonings to make a first class dish. It’s a guide on how to cook everywhere and anywhere, no matter what the pantry offers.

We have so many friends who have become global nomads and are now with kids living in rental homes in Thailand, in cheaper European countries like Portugal. This kind of book can also help you adapt to the palettes of children, working with local ingredients that may be unfamiliar at first.

Khanna, a former corporate strategist turned public servant and wellness advocate, writes with the clarity of someone who has lived many lives—and decided to root herself in the soil of sustainability.

With degrees from Columbia and a background in public policy and nutrition, she’s as comfortable discussing the US Farm Bill as she is fermenting vegetables in a glass jar. She served as a Connecticut state representative, advocating for food system reform, and brings this practical, community-grounded insight to her food philosophy.

Khanna worked for Morgan Stanley and Euromonitor International before entering politics. In 2007, Khanna started an organic meal delivery service Tiffin based in Banksville and serving Greenwich and Stamford and has now published two cookbooks.

Whether Rachel Khanna originated this movement of common-sense food philosophy or simply tapped into its rising current, I’m not expert enough in the culinary world to say. What I do know is this: in a time when food media often glorifies complexity, I found something refreshing in her approach.

I was especially taken by a recent and charming episode of With Love, Meaghan on Netflix, where a member of the royal family Meaghan Markle Sussex takes us into her life in California where she chooses to live with intention and simplicity—teaching others to do the same through the lens of food. The idea of returning to basic, adaptable formulas in the kitchen isn’t just empowering; it’s practical.

It nurtures community, teaches resilience to kids, and gently reminds us that sustainable living often starts right where we are—with what we already have. She also shows us, at least on camera, that preparing food and experiences for your children can be deeply satisfying as a parent and as a woman. The world needs more of that.

Some mouth-watering recipes on Green Prophet:

• Traditional Emirati Khameer Bread
• Turkish Winter Soup With Bulgur Gnocchi
• Rice With Noodles
• Baked Eggplant Slices In Tomato Sauce

The post Think Eat Cook Sustainably is a philosophy book in sustainable food, in edible form appeared first on Green Prophet.

Does this look like a pot you’d cook in? Soup, possibly? This 6000 year old clay pot was recently retrieved from a bog in Denmark. A neolithic householder had cooked seafood in it, according to the analysis made of food residues scraped off from the inside. Cooking in clay has been around for a long, long time.

Porous clay retains and releases flavors. I imagine everything cooked in that pot 6000 years ago tasted like fish. I’d advise modern cooks to save one or two clay pots only for seafood. And keep your dessert ramekins for dessert only – you don’t want your creme brulee to taste like garlic custard.

How about this ancient Greek setup? With the exceptions of the skillet and the grill, the whole stove and the pots are made of clay. Clay keeps a steady, slow heat going as long as the fuel lasts. The ancient Greek obviously expected to cook soup, stew, or pottage in the three pots poised on those funnel-like chimneys. I’ll bet the whole thing got hot enough to burn the hand. Since cooking in clay is a low and slow process, they must have started cooking early in the morning to be on time for lunch.

Related: can clay jugs filter water?

Dug out from the earth itself, clay needs patient processing to yield clean, malleable material. Most clay pots need a one-time preliminary seasoning in order to cook out the taste of raw clay. And they’re fragile. They must be protected from thermal shock to prevent cracks. Drying one isn’t a matter of wiping it out with a dish cloth; it has to be air-dried to prevent mold. And unless you’re lucky enough to live near a potter, you can expect to pay nicely for a beautifully-turned out tajine or Romertopf pot.

Unless you fly out to Morocco, where you can pick up a traditional tajine like this one in the souk:

So why bother to cook in clay when you can pick up all the metal cookware you need in your neighborhood supermarket?

First, flavor. Anything cooked in clay tastes better. If you appreciate traditional foods cooked low and slow, you’ll enjoy the deep flavors and textures that clay pots grant. Slow, even heat ensures that the ingredients’ flavors bloom and blend, and that foods requiring long cooking, like beans and tough cuts of meat, emerge from the pot tender and juicy.

The more often you cook in a clay pot, the better the food from it tastes. To put it poetically, the clay retains some of the soul of the food – the flavors of spices and fats – which it releases to the next potful. A well-used and cared-for clay pot, even a simple tagra like the one below, becomes a treasure over time. (The photo shows slow-cooked salmon and lemons.)

Then there’s the satisfaction of handling a pot made from sustainable prime material; especially if the pot is beautiful.

Clay pot styles vary a lot. Tajines, for example, require very little or no liquid for stews or braised dishes. Cooking vapors condense inside their conical tops and drop back down on the food, resulting in foods with undiluted flavor.

Romertopf pots are another specific type, with their glaze and two parts. Being soaked before cooking starts, the closed Romertopf releases steam around the food inside, producing deliciously roasted, juicy chicken and meat. (To create a golden, crisp crust, you remove the top and cook the dish a further 20 minutes.)

Cooking in clay takes longer, because you start with low heat and gradually increase it. But clay retains heat for a long time, which guarantees that the food stays hot for a long time after you take the pot off the stove or out of the oven.

There are clay pots for every use. Stews, soups, and beans are the first foods that come to mind, but there are traditional clay vessels for casseroles, frittatas, baked potatoes, bread forms and even custard cups. I love the pot that Green Prophet’s founder Karin Kloosterman made in her own kiln.

It could make slow-cooked stew or soup, but I prefer to use it as a bread cloche. Here’s the bread:

If you live within reach of a potter, or travel to places where clay pots are made locally, buy them there. Where I live, there’s a warehouse that imports housewares from Morocco. I’ve bought tajines and tagras there. A heavy guvec stew pot on my shelf came from Turkey. I’ve also found clay cookware in a trendy shop in the local mall. Otherwise, you can order clay pots online via Amazon, Etsy, and similar sites.

You don’t need a exotic spices and herbs ordered online to make good use of clay pots. Below is a chicken tajine I cooked recently. Just chicken, veg, and the ground spices I keep around: cumin, turmeric and paprika. I could have substituted thyme, bay leaf, and a splash of white wine just as easily.

Regarding safety and fear of lead in glazed pots: all cooking pottery sold in the U.S. is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If you like to use a slow cooker on these cold winter days, remember that all the inserts of slow cookers are made of glazed clay, so you’ve been cooking perfectly safely with what’s basically a clay pot.

Unglazed pots are fine.

Don’t cook in antique pots you pick up in yard sales. Keep them for display. If you’re determined to cook in an old pot – unless it’s your Grandma’s familiar, treasured and well-used one – buy a lead test in your local hardware store and apply it to the pot.

For an authoritative book on cooking in clay, I recommend Paula Wolfert’s classic, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking. In it the most common types of clay pots are detailed, with valuable tips on handling clay pots, cooking different types of foods, and incidental recipes like preserved lemons and tomato paste. The book includes lists of food sources and clay pot sources. The bibliography is worth going through. The recipes largely reflect the foods of Morocco, Turkey, France, and Italy.

Follow Green Prophet for delicious recipes cooked in clay (or other) pots:

Vegetarian Haricot Bean Stew Recipe

Tajine of Sweet Potatoes and Prunes Recipe

The post Cooking in Clay Pots: Sustainable, Traditional, and Cool appeared first on Green Prophet.

This common potted plant can now become part of your daily diet. Naomi offers 4 recipes for taking advantage of this healthful plant, which offers more than just sunburn relief. 

Growing up, my mother was always interested in natural remedies to mild health issues, whether it was burns, cuts or the flu. Aloe vera being so versatile was one of her favourites, but as much as we used it externally, aloe vera juice was never on the menu, it turns out that it can be a great addition to your diet.

There are many plants, like roses, which can be used in more than just one way and aloe vera – native to the Mediterranean region where it grows like a weed –  is one of them. We discussed previously some of the uses of aloe vera (like in ice-cream!) however the next step, beyond buying the potted plant, is to be able to make your own aloe vera drink. Granted this doesn’t sound very palatable but the benefits are significant to one’s health.

Your body has the tendency to hang onto food residues, various toxins and bacteria all of which block the intestinal lining of your digestive tract and prevent nutrients from being absorbed properly. Drinking aloe vera juice regularly can help get rid of all the junk your body no longer needs which in turn prevents various digestive problems such as indigestion, colitis, ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Some recipes for aloe vera juice: Your aloe vera drink will actually turn out different colours depending on the fruit you use, since the pulp of the plant itself is colourless

Recipe 1 – virgin juice

The most effective way to get the medical benefits is to drink the pure juice, so if you are game, this is the recipe for you:

1. You take a few leaves of aloe vera and cut them into pieces of a few centimetres long and put this in a pot to boil.
2. Let it boil for a few minutes, but make sure it doesn’t boil over.
3. Take it off the flame and let it cool for about an hour, sitting in the water.
4. Then take out the plant pieces and drink only the liquid.

If you are looking for something a little tastier, we have some other options:

Recipe 2 – light and lemony

Ingredients:
1 Cucumber
1 Apple
1 Lemon
2 tbsp Aloe vera pulp

Method:
1. Blend the apple and the cucumber
2. Add the lemon juice
3. Cut open an aloe vera leaf and scoop out 2 tbsp of the pulp and add it to the mixture

Recipe 3 – health

Ingredients:
2 Carrots
2 Green apples
1 Orange, peeled
1 tbsp of aloe vera pulp

Method:
1. Cut the apples, carrots and orange into pieces
2. Blend them into a juice
3. Then add the aloe vera

Recipe 4 – exotic aloe vera

For something a little more exotic you can try this one.

Ingredients:
1-2 cup Fresh pineapple
1 Carrot
1 Green apple
1 tbsp Aloe vera pulp
A few tbsp of coconut milk is optional

Method:
Basically blend all the ingredients together, adding the pulp of the aloe vera leaf. The coconut milk more than being a tasty addition, will actually increase the anti-bacterial and anti-viral qualities of this drink.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTtQaLIJc8[/youtube]

All of these recipes are simple and quick, but remember the same doesn’t apply to the results of drinking aloe vera. Like most things natural, it takes time until you see and feel the benefits of adding this to your diet, but it will be well worth the effort.

Read more on natural health remedies:
Natural Remedies for Late Pregnancy
Feel Better with Herbs of Kedem and Ancient Hebrew Medicine

The post 4 Unique Aloe Vera Juice Recipes for Summer and Health appeared first on Green Prophet.

When you think of carrots what is the first thing that comes to mind? One thing is for sure, you don’t think “Gee, you mean that long purple vegetable.”  Well here’s news for you, the original color of the carrot was not orange! Carrots originated in Middle Asia with some historians believing that they were known as far back as Ancient Egypt over 5,000 years ago. It is not clear if they were actually cultivated at this time, however by the 10th century in Afghanistan, they were being grown in the colors purple or yellow.

These weren’t the only colors around, however. In addition to purple and white, carrots were grown in red, yellow and even black. In fact to begin with carrots were not favored as a favorite vegetable, but rather in the times of the Ancient Romans, as a medicinal herb and even as an aphrodisiac. A “green” aphrodisiac at that.

Here’s a simple way to add colour onto your table 

Today we know that carrots have great nutritional value being low in calories. Not only that but carrots are an excellent source of carotene, which the body converts into Vitamin A. It is this particular vitamin that really helps with vision, which is why carrots are a great vegetable to add to your diet. If you ask us, your natural advisor? Search no more! Carrots are the thing!

Blame it on the “orange” Dutchmen

When you are preparing your carrots for eating, whether you plan on cooking them or eating them raw, there is something important to keep in mind: don’t peel the skin! In carrots, like many vegetables, most of the nutritional value is just below the skin, so instead of peeling, just scrub the skin clean. And choose organic varieties when you can.

So our popular orange carrot of today, isn’t even one of the original, natural color. Actually it is the product of cross breeding the red and yellow carrots. In the 16th century some Dutch farmers succeeded in growing the first orange carrots in honour of the House of Orange. It is this color carrot, which is most widespread today.

So when you are next making a delicious carrot salad, think just how much more colorful purple would look on your table. Try a local farmer’s market, or health food store near you and taste the difference. Or look for a way near you to order seeds of heirloom varieties of ancient carrots.

Read more on vegetables and health:
How green is your garlic
RECIPE – Flavors of Peasant Cooking: Majadra Means Lentils and Rice
Conserve What You Eat

The post This history of carrots and how they went from purple to orange appeared first on Green Prophet.

Fruits in season in May

The summer wave of colorful fruit has begun, to the rejoicing of cooks who love to put up preserves. Apricots, peaches, and nectarines have entered the markets, and are already sweet enough to be worth buying. Strawberries are still with us, although getting seedy in preparation for disappearing till next year. If you haven’t made your jam yet, here’s our recipe. Kiwis are sweet and ripe.

Cherries have arrived, but they are rather expensive. Some years farmers predict huge crops when there is a prolonged winter, which allows the trees to “sleep” and blossom after the windiest weather. Some years when the weather is intense, windstorms and sandstorms will blow the blossoms off the cherry trees.

Avocados are still in the market, but are getting expensive again as their season wanes. As expected in warm weather, all the melons are sweet and ready for eating. Fresh green almonds have a different character now, because the milky interior gel has hardened into soft, pale kernels already. If you like them, buy now, for they will soon disappear. Loquat season is here.

Citrus fruit are still in evidence, with oranges, pomelos, and clementines for sale. Lemons are big and juicy; some lemon trees give two yearly crops, which accounts for their almost year-round presence. Good news for those who like to put up salty preserved lemons.

May seasonal vegetables

Tomatoes are expensive and will remain until a new crop comes in. If budget-conscious, look for smaller, less glamorous-looking tomatoes; they are just as good and cheaper. Depending on the day, cherry tomatoes can be cheapest of all.

The best bargains in vegetables this season are cauliflower and all the cabbages, which are big, firm, and cheap. Okra is in season, although expensive. String beans, broad Italian beans and wax beans look fine now, as does sweet corn.

Parsley root and celeriac continue full and fat, but as summer temperatures rise, these roots will shrink back and won’t be worth bothering with. The same is true of celery, by the way. Kohlrabi, fennel, beets, turnips, and red radishes are very good now, at reasonable prices.

Summer loves white and red potatoes; time to make one of those Middle Eastern potato salads fragrant with olive oil and lemon. Cucumbers, corn, and eggplants are good now. Come really hot weather, get to the market early for decent eggplants. They are susceptible to heat and in full summer, they buckle in, languishing on the vendor’s stands.

All the peppers are good in May. Look for baby bell peppers for stuffing.  Grilled, and combined with grilled eggplant, peppers make a delicious dip, similar to muhamarra.

Here’s our recipe: just substitute grilled eggplants for the bread. Another well-loved Middle Eastern dish is stuffed zucchini – and zukes are looking good now too.

Pumpkins and butternut squash are in season. Combine one of them with a cob of local sweet corn, an onion, a tomato and your favorite herbs for a delicious soup. As every good cook knows, foods that come into season at the same time taste good together.

Two Middle-Eastern summer specialties are akoub, or tiny wild artichokes. Akoub is a spiky, edible plant found in a wide swath of the Middle East, from the mountains of Turkey down through the West Bank and Golan Heights to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. Akoub are akuvit hagalgal (the tumble thistle) in Hebrew and gundelia in English. Palestinians traditionally use the sturdy akoub stems and flower buds to make favorite dishes like stews, soups or fried eggs. It’s believed that akoub can treat many diseases from diabetes to bronchitis.

They’re very thorny and labor-intensive to clean, so they’re always expensive. But as a seasonal treat, they can’t be surpassed, with their unique, delicate flavor. Any prickles that remain after cleaning soften upon cooking.

Melokhia, or mulokhia (or jute), has started its brief season. Here’s our recipe for traditional melokhia soup. The leaves may be rinsed, patted dry, and hung up by their stems to dry for future soups.

Herbs in season in May

Basil is back again. At the herb vendors, there are plenty of parsley, coriander leaf, chives, celery, and scallions. Still in evidence are sorrel, tarragon, wormwood, Swiss chard, spinach, leeks and lettuces. Mint continues especially lovely. Grape leaves for stuffing are now being sold in stacks. You may find bunches of lemon verbena for sale now.

Fresh ginger root is in every spice vendor’s and also at the herb stands. Ginger root freezes well and is easy to peel and grate. Just put the remainder right back in the freezer after use, because it gets mushy once thawed out.

Love Middle East spices as medicine? We have a guide here.

Foraging guide for May

The landscape is drying up, with winter’s juicy wild greens just a memory. But there is always something for the alert forager to bring home.

Purslane

Purslane, summer’s featured wild edible, has started to appear on the ground. It’s tender now, so if you come across a nice patch of it, bring it home for your salads.

Honeysuckle

Make honeysuckle wine? For a sip of sweetness and to revive childhood memories, pluck a few honeysuckle blossoms. Honeysuckle can be made into wine: if you are determined and have access to a large quantity of pesticide-free blossoms, you can find the recipe below in a video. To capture that elusive flavor more easily, just drop a handful into a jar, cover with sugar, and wait a week.  Rosemary is flowering, and it’s worth robbing the bees of a few blooms to flavor tea.

Dandelion

The dandelion of the Middle East is Taraxacum syriaca. It flowers sparsely and can only be found in hilly regions where winters are cold and consistently rainy. Dandelion is famous for liver support and as an effective diuretic. It’s also a natural superfood, loaded with minerals and vitamins.If you’re lucky enough to live where dandelions grow, pick the tender young leaves to marinate in vinaigrette before adding to salads.

Older, tougher leaves are quite bitter, but a few cooked with almost any soup gives a delicious, not-bitter flavor.

Dandelion roots are excellent in soups and stews. I used to make dandelion beer from the roots and leaves when I lived in the chilly north of Israel. It was good beer, too. There are recipes online like this one by Leda Meredith who once lived in Israel but who is now in Costa Rica.

Chicory

Chicory shares all of dandelion’s medicinal properties, but is difficult to pick. The leaves are tiny, and the root almost impossible to dig out of the hardened soil where the plant is most often found. The fluffy blue flowers are a joy to behold early in the morning, though, especially when you catch just the moment when all of them open spontaneously at the same time.

Bindweed

Bindweed, shown below, is the bane of farmers for its strong, thin vines that strangle crops in the fields, still produces beautiful pink and white flowers. Fill a vase with sprays of honeysuckle and bindweed for a wildflower bouquet to rest your eyes on.

Recipes for cooking in May

 Baba Ganoush

Stuffed Zucchini

Basil Pesto

Photos honeysuckle/bindweed bouquet by Miriam Kresh. This story is updated from the original and was edited in 2022 by Karin Kloosterman. 

The post What’s in season May appeared first on Green Prophet.

April’s biggest bargain is fresh, green garlic

If you love the odorous bulb – and don’t mind your house smelling like a salami for a few days – now is the time to head out to the Middle East market, or shuk, and snatch up braided ropes of fresh garlic. Or braid your own, or simply hang it up to dry in a shady, dry place. It will keep for at least 9 months.

Think of all the delicious recipes there are with garlic – like our za’atar pesto.

Prices are about the lowest they’re going to go, so hurry to buy now, because garlic season will soon be over. And with a stash of  dried local garlic, you can afford to ignore the bleached Chinese garlic in the supermarkets.

What fruits are in season?

Fruit: Avocados are still going strong. Strawberries are wonderful now, with prices going down. Now really is the time to make strawberry ice cream and jam (recipe for strawberry jam below).

Homemade Strawberry Jam Recipe

Cantaloupes, honeydews and watermelons are all excellent, just in time for hotter weather that approaches. Fresh green almonds in their fuzzy pods are now sold in the shuk. Crack their shells open and scoop out the milky, gel-like kernel. It’s a taste like no other, and doesn’t last long because the kernels begin hardening within a few days of harvest.

Loquats are still falling off trees in neighborhood gardens, as are oranges, clementines, grapefruit and pomelos. For those who don’t have those trees, look for the fruit in markets. Small, squat peaches just appeared, but prime peach (and apricot) season will come in the next weeks. Lemons are still abundant.

Bananas are good, with reasonable prices. There are local apples and green pears, but they seem to have come from cold storage. There are plenty of flavorless imported apples.

Vegetables in season in April

Vegetables: Cauliflower heads are full, fat, and white right now with good prices. Broccoli, however, looks sad and not worth buying unless you chance upon a new crop. Fresh, green ful (fava) beans are in, as are string beans, broad Italian beans and wax beans.

For some reason, all those fresh beans are still quite expensive, although in season and looking good. Root vegetables continue good:  kohlrabi, beets, turnips, and red radishes. The exotic radishes such as daikon seem to be played out for now.

Cucumbers, zucchini, and corn are abundant and at good prices. Cabbages, both white and red, are very inexpensive right now – time to make sauerkraut before the weather goes really hot.

Artichokes are still available, but very much at the end of their season. All the nightshade vegetables are in and affordable: tomatoes, eggplants, and all the varieties of peppers. Fennel is in evidence and looking full and fat. Potatoes continue excellent, although the new-crop baby potatoes aren’t so new anymore.

Herbs in season in April

Herbs: Are much the same as in March, with the exception of new za’atar (chop some up to top pita, as in our recipe), oregano, and savory. The herb vendors display the usual lettuces (romaine, iceberg, ruffled white and purple), Swiss chard, leeks, mushrooms, spinach, parsley, sorrel, chives, wormwood, rocket, watercress, celery, parsley and green onions. Mint is especially big and beautiful now.

Get a bunch of mint and put in cold water with a slice of lemon for a refreshing drink. You can also dry some for future teas, and put a few big sprigs in water to grow roots. Some markets carry fresh grape leaves now.

Foraging in April

Forager’s notes: Local trees are full of citrus blossoms. Gather a small handful to flavor malabi or warm, sweetened milk. Use the blossoms to bake in sweets or treats or cocktails, alcoholic or non. Plantain still hasn’t dried up. Wild oats are everywhere – pick the whole aerial part for a soothing tea, and to give to pet birds. Birds love pecking at wild oats, either fresh or dried.

You may find wild rocket (eruca sativa) for your salad. Capers have started to bloom – brave the thorns and pick a few buds that have opened just enough to show a white stripe. Place the bud in a little bowl of water and it will open into a beautiful white and purple flower in your home.

Wild hollyhocks are in glorious bloom: snip off a few leaves and flowers to dry as a cough-remedy tea for winter.  Hollyhocks also grow easily from seed, so if you see any dry brown seed capsules, take a couple and plant them in your garden or in pots.

Recipes starring Middle-Eastern produce in season in April:

• • • Strawberry Jam
    • Preserved Lemons
    • 3 Ways to Cook with Fennel
    • Baba Ganoush

The post What’s in season April appeared first on Green Prophet.

At the start of the month, markets don’t always have much new. You can still find what’s in season in February. But newcomers like strawberries were still expensive and not sweet yet. Now, seasonal produce is on the upward swing towards summer’s abundance in the Middle East and those piles of strawberries fill the air with their fragrance as you move from vendor to vendor in the shuk. Strawberry prices will continue to fall slightly as spring progresses, but if you want to put jam up now, you won’t regret it.

Fruit and Avocados

Avocados must be the best bargain in fruit right now. Black, wrinkly Hass avocados are sold dead ripe and ready for eating right now.  Try our natural moisturizing blend with some of these ripe avocados. The larger smooth green varieties are mostly sold hard for ripening at home.

Melons have begun. The smaller varieties are sweet already, but I advise waiting for hotter weather to buy watermelons. Here’s our guide on how to choose the best one. Oranges and clementines are still around, but fading out of the picture. Lemons are still abundant and good. Bananas are attractive, with prices slightly lower than at the beginning of the month.

Apples and pears are mostly imported from colder climates like Europe and although attractive, not especially sweet. International shipping and perhaps refrigeration seem to draw the sweetness and flavor out of fruit. However, loquats are out in quantity, and they are a purely local fruit to the Near Middle East region.

Other springtime arrivals are passion fruit, and kiwi fruit, both highly priced. Passion fruit vines grow easily in the climate of Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Authority regions. Turkey and Jordan too. Find the fruit dropping off garden fences onto sidewalks, but kiwi is produced by farmers in colder hilly regions. Quinces are available and look beautiful, but are most expensive.

Papaya fruit has now arrived, although scanty and expensive. Yellow guavas, with their unforgettable heady odor, are another springtime newcomer.

Lebanese Quince Jam, A Sweet Winter Recipe

Vegetables in Season

Timeless cooking principle we live by: cook seasonal produce together. Right now eggplants, peppers and tomatoes are fat and glossy, so cooks here naturally grill, then blend them together with garlic and olive oil. It’s a delicious spread with the slightly charred flavor that says Middle East. Or try grilling chunks of vegetables, our way.

Another tip: garlic confit will never go to waste.

Shakshoukah, eggs poached in a tomato sauce with bell peppers, is another brilliant way to combine seasonal vegetables. It makes for a hearty breakfast to share. Great for brunch.

Those prime ingredients for Middle-Eastern chopped salad, cucumbers and tomatoes, are excellent now and prices are coming down as summer approaches.

Red, green and yellow bell peppers in all their colors are fat and prime for stuffing, grilling and pickling. Red bell peppers are slightly more expensive than their yellow, orange, and green cousins. Beware peppers imported from Turkey though. Buy organic if you can. Peppers are worth buying for salad or muhamarra spread now, but wait for full summer to buy quantities for pickling.

Eggplants again: both long, slender and full-bodied varieties, are worth buying now. Once the hot weather starts eggplants are the first to spoil and buckle in the heat. So buy now and enjoy some baba ghanoush with our tried and tested recipe.

Squash varieties like pumpkins and zucchini are handsome and excellent for light springtime soups.

Green string beans and yellow wax beans are more in evidence although their prices are still on the high side. Artichokes are full and heavy; this is prime season for them.

Red, white, and baby potatoes of both colors are excellent, as always in spring. Onions are improving – you can ignore the sprouty ones that vendors are still trying to get rid of for the fresh new crops.

Short-season vegetables:

Peas are in the markets now, as are green fava beans. Cardoons are in the markets. The cardoon, Cynara cardunculus, also called the artichoke thistle, is a thistle in the sunflower family. It is a naturally occurring species that also has many cultivated forms, including the globe artichoke.

Fresh green garlic is here and if you like it, now’s the time to buy for drying or preserving. Two ways to preserve fresh garlic are peeling and freezing it, or burying the cloves or entire cleaned bulbs in olive oil and herbs and baking till soft. This confit of garlic also freezes well. And eggplants yet again: baby eggplants for pickling are available in some markets. Buy now if you like them.

Some cold-weather vegetables are still firm and worth buying: cabbages, kohlrabi, beets, turnips, carrots, celeriac, parsley root.

Leafy vegetables like lettuces, Swiss chard and celery are very good. Broccoli has been looking rather old, but cauliflowers are going strong, fat, and white.

Season for herbs

Herbs are so exuberantly beautiful and plentiful that they deserve space all to themselves. Mint,  thyme, rosemary, parsley, dill, watercress, arugula,  rocket, bitter wormwood for a sprig in tea, coriander leaf, fresh  fenugreek leaves, which are favored by the Indian community, a garlicky Persian leaf called” richu,” basil, scallions,  leeks, fresh ginger and “shav,” or sour grass for soup.

A variety of savory that tastes like za’atar is being sold now.

If you are a forager

Forager’s notes: Mulberry trees will be starting to put out leaves, good for stuffing or drying and crumbling later for tea. Look for them. Shepherd’s purse is flowering and getting leggy, but the heart-shaped seed pods make a peppery accent in salads. Wild marigolds and chamomile flowers are very abundant wherever they’re allowed to grow.

Nettles, chickweed and mallows are no longer worth picking. It’s too late in the season. Plantain leaf is especially abundant now because of the recent heavy rains. Fumaria and cleavers are still good. Mandrakes may be seen in cold regions, but beware – the intriguing purple fruit is toxic.

We promised you eggplant ideas, and here they are:

Baba Ganoush

Eggplant with Tahin/Labneh Sauce

Creamy Eggplant Soup

The post Food in season in March appeared first on Green Prophet.

Early summer, and the basil plant in my container garden is tall and bushy.  Karin gave us a great pesto recipe, and I’ve already blended up handfuls of fragrant, dark-green leaves to make lots of that pungent Italian sauce. After trimming the tops off the plant, it took only two weeks for another healthy crop to grow in. What am I going to do with it all? Now I’m pondering other delicious ways to use up the basil bounty.

Basil’s flavor is dominant, and pesto is really where you can allow it to shine. But it’s a surprisingly versatile herb, and many foods accept its unique, almost clove-like taste. For example…

Basil and orange peel vinegar.

Peel an orange, avoiding the bitter white pith as much as you can. Drop the fragrant swirls of peel into a jar of apple cider vinegar. Push a good handful of fresh, rinsed and dried basil sprigs into the jar and close it up. Keep the vinegar in a dark place for a week, then use it in any salad dressing. It will keep up to a year.

Roasting an organic chicken or duck?

Separate the skin from the flesh with your fingers and carefully push basil leaves and slivers of garlic under the skin. Season the bird, dribble olive oil over it, and roast. This is especially tasty with duck.

Two-tomato and basil sauce.

This no-cook sauce tops pasta or lightly steamed vegetables, and is vegan. Drain 1/3 cup of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, but reserve the oil. Put the sun-dried tomatoes in the food processor or blender. Add 15 oz. (425 grams or 2 cups) fresh cherry tomatoes. Push 1 cup of fresh basil leaves onto the tomatoes.

Peel two cloves of garlic and add. Finish with the juice of one lemon. Whizz until you have the consistency you like, adding oil from the sun-dried tomato jar by tablespoons if needed. You can use dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes; then you’ll need to add olive oil to get a saucy texture. If you want a good, chunky texture, don’t process the tomatoes but chop them all up finely, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix it all up in a big bowl.

Summery herb cocktail.

Muddle (slightly crush) a healthy sprig of basil and an equally healthy sprig of mint in a glass with 1 teaspoon granulated sugar. Add 1.5 oz. Rum and squeeze some lemon juice in. Top with ice and seltzer or tonic water.

How about a salad with fresh basil?

Here’s our Caprese Salad.

More basil tips: Chop a small handful of basil and stir it into any marinade, for any food. Lay some basil leaves under the fish you’re about to bake. Make scented sweet cream according to our geranium-scented recipe, substituting basil for the geranium leaves. Pour over fresh fruit.

Get the picture? It’s amazing how many culinary uses basil has. Try some. You’ll feel good about using up your crop, and you’ll get a whole new view of its delicious flavor.

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