Category Archives: Olive oil

Grandma Rosie Hits a Home Run (the holidays are coming!)

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Today I want to share a recipe that is a wellspring of memories. The women, the teamwork, the heavenly aromas, the busy kitchen, the arriving family, the great big table, the special dishes, the silver. And the food. Simple recipes with amazing flavor. Here is my Grandma Rosie’s recipe for vegetarian chopped liver, which she made the way her own grandma did, with a wooden bowl and mezzaluna. If you’ll be using a food processor instead, which is probably the case, read to the very end for those instructions.

I have exceptionally fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table with the grownups while they worked to prepare the food, listening wide-eyed as they debated the relative merits of various ingredients and their provenance, chattered about errant siblings, and bragged about their above-average children and grandchildren. I remember feeling very grown up when I was finally old enough to take a place in the lineup. When my chopping arm got too tired to continue, I would pass the bowl, usually to my mother, an aunt, or one of my grandmothers. Continue reading →

Commercial Salad Dressings Are Not What You Think

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Many, if not most, commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious, nourishing vegetables in water and corn syrup. These products are not food, and they do not nourish you. Instead, they waste your money, and they markedly reduce the nutritional value of your salad. A while back I decided to stop at the supermarket to check the ingredient lists on four popular salad dressing brands. I think you will be very interested in what I discovered. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Pesto

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I am a diehard waste-not-want-not kind of girl from way back. In the past, I tended to make a lot of surprises from whatever was left in the kitchen, and they could either be great or they could turn out as what my kids used to call “refrigerator soup.”

But every once in a while, I hit the jackpot.  Continue reading →

Making Special Meals Even More So (plus a recipe)

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The other day my son-in-law and I were talking about my upcoming plans to pass along some of our dishes (the ones we use for meat meals), and instead start using my mother’s beautiful china. Those dishes, which lived happily and visibly in my parents’ house for sixty-plus years, have not been used at all for the past 10 or 15 years, and it seems a waste for us not to be using them now. So it will be out with the new, and in with the old. And also, since we don’t eat meat very much anymore, chicken and turkey not more than once or twice a month, and beef no more than once or twice a year, I had the idea to move the meat dishes out of the kitchen itself, and into a little pantry off the kitchen. That way, they will be nearby when we need them, but the rest of the time we will be able to fill the kitchen cabinets with items we use a lot more often.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Delicata Squash

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We have been roasting a lot of delicata squash this past month, sliced open, seeds scooped away, and sprinkled with olive oil, salt and cinnamon. I can eat delicatas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still never tire of them. I love the delicate flavor, the gentle skin that doesn’t need to be cut away, and the sweetness of the orange flesh. This way of preparing delicata squash is about as simple as it gets, and somewhat of a contrast to my first introduction to delicatas. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Gazpacho!

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If your counter looks anything like mine, it’s probably that time of year when you gather up your haul of tomatoes and turn them into soup. Tomatoes are best stored and eaten warm, so you’ll probably be starting with tomatoes at room temperature. Plan on making this recipe early enough in the day that it has time to cool thoroughly. It will be worth it, especially on these hot, humid, late summer days. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Quinoa-Pistachio Salad

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Thank goodness for quinoa and pistachios. If your mint isn’t coming up yet, feel free to substitute lemon balm, which grows wild and crazy around my house. This is a very forgiving recipe, and if you have other things you’d like to add or use up, like shredded carrots or chopped red pepper or a little lemon juice, then go right ahead. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: French Lentil Salad

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If you like lentils as much as I do, this simple recipe is probably looking pretty good to you. I would not have thought of mixing a classic dijon vinaigrette with lentils, but it works oh-so-deliciously. These lentils are exactly the kind of thing I love to find in the refrigerator when I don’t know what I’m looking for. To make this recipe easier (pandemic style), feel free to skip the bay leaf, substitute 1/2 tsp. garlic powder for the garlic, and use some kind of halfway decent Italian dressing instead of the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and spices. Then if you can get yourself or someone else to peel and slice a carrot and onion, the whole recipe will come together. Good enough. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Orange Soup (Marak Katom)

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In the past week I received a lot of requests for Orange Soup (marak katom), which I mentioned as having been my inspiration for last week’s Purple Soup (marak segol) recipe. So I checked out a whole lot of recipes, and I used those plus the large pot of Orange Soup I made two weeks ago to come up with a version to share here. Please note that you will need an immersion blender to make Orange Soup. And, in case you like words and their derivations, Marak Katom is named for its orange color, which happens, in Hebrew, to be a completely different word (kah-tome) than the fruit (tah-pooz).  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Purple Soup

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In Jerusalem, “Orange Soup” (Marak Katom, or מרק כתום), made with a mixture of sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash, is very popular at this time of year. When I was at the market last week buying ingredients for orange soup, I also noticed some beautiful purple potatoes and, nearby, packages of carrots like jewels, ranging from butter yellow to crimson to dark purple. Prior to the vendor realizing I was buying the ingredients for orange soup, he tried to convince me to buy the purple potatoes instead of the sweet potatoes. He had a recipe in mind, too, and suggested that I consider making mashed purple potatoes. A nearby customer even joined in to say that they are delicious with a little bit of thyme and date syrup. “You won’t regret it!” she said. Once the vendor realized my intention for the sweet potatoes, however, he raised his palms toward me, tipped his head slightly, and said something to the effect of “Oh, well, okay, in that case!” Orange soup is the kind of recipe that everyone makes in their own slightly different way but, at the end of the day, orange soup is orange soup and it’s not to be messed with. Continue reading →