A while ago, when I was still in practice, my office held a special lunchtime celebration to honor a staff member expecting her first baby. Heather contributed this salsa, and it was so GOOD. By popular demand, the recipe was distributed via e-mail the very next day. Continue reading
Category Archives: Recipes
David Leite’s Orange Cake: Baking with Olive Oil
Some years ago the Jewish Daily Forward published an essay of mine entitled Trans Fat: How a Staple of Pareve Foods is Hurting Our Waistlines. In this essay, I explained that processed-food manufacturers at the turn of the twentieth century attracted large numbers of customers from among recent Jewish immigrants with marketing campaigns based on the fact that the partially-hydrogenated (i.e., trans) fats in newly developed shortenings were pareve, meaning that they contained no meat nor dairy ingredients. This was revolutionary, because it allowed desserts traditionally made with dairy ingredients to be made suitable for meat meals. Procter & Gamble advertised that “The Hebrew Race has been waiting for 4,000 years” for a solution to its shortening problems. Endorsements were received from rabbis and other community leaders. Margarine, Crisco, and non-dairy “whiteners” rapidly supplanted traditional fats to become an integral part of what we now consider traditional Kosher cooking. In fact there is nothing traditional about it, and a thousand years of kitchen wisdom were lost in just two generations. Continue reading
Cooking With Heat, with a Recipe for Red Dal
I have learned, mostly over years of reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows with my dad (of blessed memory), that one way to make spices really bloom is to heat them briefly in some olive oil. Last month, I made shakshuka for my entire book group, and I did not skimp one bit on the spices called for in the recipe. A double recipe of this shakshuka meant 4 teaspoons of sweet paprika, 2 teaspoons of cumin, and 1/2 teaspoon of the Serrano chili powder I discovered the last time I was in Napa. I mixed together all the spices and, when it was time, I slid them into the frying pan along with five cloves worth of chopped garlic. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lovage Soup
Many years ago I brought home some lovage from a neighbor’s garden, and I planted it along the eastern side of our house, under a screened-in porch. For a long time now it has grown there in abundance every spring, and there is always more than enough to share. This year I’ve been feeding some of it to the chickens, who love greens, especially the lemon balm that grows all over our property. Lovage tastes something like celery, but it grows up to five feet high on thick multi-branched stalks. It’s impossible to use it up. It’s quite beautiful, and would make a great addition to any herb or flower garden. It self-seeds every year, and my patch is easily 20 years old, if not more.
Here’s a lovely soup you can make with lovage. If you don’t happen to have access to any, you can make this soup with celery instead. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Cole Slaw
I have made coleslaw twice in the past few weeks, so I thought you might like to see the recipe. The first time I made it with green cabbage with a little bit of red cabbage for color (and because there was some in the refrigerator). The second time I made the whole recipe with red cabbage and it was exceptionally attractive. Both versions were delicious. Great summer food. Cole slaw is not particularly complicated to make, and the homemade version is always worth it. Continue reading
Salmon Teriyaki by the Lake
The first week of May, we spent a long luxurious weekend with old friends who live at the confluence of two quiet lakes north of Detroit. Twenty-four hours a day, we found ourselves looking out large windows at the mesmerizing ripples on the surface of the water, lakes filled with Mallard ducks, geese, swans, a pair of loons, and even the first egret of the season. We saw four waddling yellow puffballs following closely after their Mallard parents. No matter the time of day, no matter the weather, the view out those windows was stunning. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Strawberry-Pecan Spring Salad
A quintessential springtime salad. Tiny sweet strawberries bursting in your mouth? Soft, gently flavorful leaves of spinach, fresh from the ground. A bit of bite from the onion and satisfying give from the pecans. And, finally, an inspired sweet and sour dressing filled with fresh fruit flavors. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Tomato Soup
Do you know that feeling when you have a dozen gorgeous tomatoes on the counter and you go grocery shopping, and you forget, and you come home with another eight gorgeous tomatoes? Yes, of course you do.
This week, I decided to make fresh tomato soup, which I had never made before. I have loved tomato soup since I was a kid. I especially loved my friend Mendy’s tomato soup when we were in graduate school, which was half a lifetime ago. I added white beans to this recipe, but no one will know unless you tell them. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Cauliflower & Tahini
In 2020, during the pandemic and lockdown, my newly married daughter and son-in-law discovered that they could reduce their grocery shopping frequency from once a week to once every other week by thinking of their produce as “first week” items, which were likely to go bad quickly (e.g., berries and spinach) and “second week” items, with a longer shelf life (e.g., cabbage and apples). Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Lisa’s Date-Nut-Chocolate Bars
My friend, Lisa, brought these date pecan chocolate bars to book club once and OMG they were pretty wonderful. Technically they are intended for dessert, but honestly there is no reason they wouldn’t be great for breakfast, too. Dates, nuts, dark chocolate. Why not? Frankly, they have a lot more nutrition and a lot less sugar than the standard American breakfast. So, yes, I would go for it. Continue reading