Quick Chili

Last week we were looking for an easy lunch to make with a short prep time. Feeling brave, we decided to make chile without a recipe! We chopped up an onion, a few tomatoes and some garlic. Then we drained and added to the pot cans of chickpeas, black beans, baked beans and cannellini beans. We let it simmer for half an hour, and then served it over orzo. Optional toppings: shredded cheddar cheese, red pepper flakes, sour cream (but we can't seem to find sour cream here, even in the supermarkets).

Friday Night Dinner

Once again, as Friday rolled around, we weren't quite up to the task of making chicken. So instead we made the side dishes: rice (well, really orzo), salad, and roasted vegetables. Check back next week, we might actually be making chicken!

The rice was relatively easy to make. First, we toasted it for five minutes in a pan on the stove with a little bit of olive oil. Once the rice was brown, we transferred it into a pot filled with four cups of boiling water. After six minutes of cooking while partially covered, we turned off the flame and let it sit for another five minutes. Then we put it in a tin pan and reheated it before dinner. 

This week's salad was also not so Israeli - we put lettuce in it. Even though it is hard to find in the Shuk, we did find it and made a delicious salad. Our secret ingredient? Pears. The salad was accompanied by a new homemade salad dressing: Balsamic Vinaigrette. Thank you to Beth for this great tip: In order to emulsify (turn the oil and vinegar into one substance) your salad dressing, blend it together. Not only did our salad dressing look more like a Balsamic Vinaigrette, but it tasted better too. Thanks Beth!

The last dish we made was roasted vegetables. We were going to grill them, but then we remembered that we don't have a grill! We settled for roasting in the oven and they ended up tasting great. First we sliced the onions, red pepper, zucchini, and eggplant. Then we salted the eggplant to remove the bitterness, as mentioned in an earlier post. Once all of the vegetables were ready, we tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and chopped fresh rosemary. Then we popped them in the oven and we were done. Very easy, very delicious. 

Pizza Night

We decided to have pizza one night. We went to the Shuk in the morning and got ingredients that people would want on their pizzas. We got green olives, mushrooms and tomatoes. We also got laffas for the pizza crust. Laffa is a thin, round bread. Each person told us what they wanted on their pizza and how many pieces they would like. We cut each laffa into quarters and put sauce and cheese on each piece. Then, we put whatever people ordered onto their piece. Unfortunately, we only had room for five quarters of laffa on the pan we were using, so we had to eat in shifts and wait for the next piece.
First batch before going into the oven:

A different batch after being in the oven:

Picture This Ratatouille

Last night we made Ratatouille Casserole. After a long day at the bus station getting "RavKavs" (bus passes), we were ready to make an easy dish. So we stopped at the Shuk, picked up the vegetables we needed, and headed home.

The recipe says to create layers of different vegetables, and then bake it all together for a delicious casserole. We chopped up eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini and mushrooms. For the first layer, we sauteed the eggplant with garlic and rosemary.

Tip: When cooking with eggplant, try to avoid overly bitter dishes by salting the eggplant first. We cut it into slices, laid it in a pan, sprinkled some sea salt on it, and let it sit for about 45 minutes. The salt draws out some of the bitterness and moisture. We lightly washed the slices, dried them, and put them in the pan to be sauteed.

Then we layered the rest of the vegetables and mozzarella cheese in the pan and baked it for 45 minutes.

To accompany the Ratatouille, we made orzo. First, we toasted the orzo in a pan on the stove for about 5 minutes. Then we boiled a pot of water and stirred in the toasted orzo. It only took 6 minutes for the orzo to cook completely and absorb all of the water.

The Ratatouille over orzo was definitely one of our more successful dishes. Sadly, the memory card was not in the camera so none of our pictures were saved. Maybe we'll just have to make the dish again...

Hot Quiche

Sunday morning, we got up early and went to the supermarket to buy the ingredients for our latest adventure in cooking - quiche! We made our own dough for the crust, and mixed it by hand.

Then, we needed to roll it out, but couldn't find a rolling pin. Instead, we washed and used an empty wine bottle. It worked surprisingly well!

Then, with help from Abbe, we laid it into the pie tins and fixed up the edges for a beautiful crust.

Tip: When making quiche or pie, don't let the crust dry out while you create the insides. Place a damp paper towel over the dough to keep it nice and moist. 

We made two quiches: mushroom-spinach and spinach. Both quiches also had feta cheese, cheddar cheese and of course, eggs. They came out of the oven looking delicious, and they tasted delicious too.

We had some leftover dough so we attempted to make croissants, but they didn't fluff up in the oven. Moral of the story: if you want to make croissants, you have to use a croissant recipe.

Mystery Wheels

When Friday rolled around, the family (minus the two vegetarians) wanted meat for dinner. Sadly, we are not up to that just yet. So we decided that we would buy the chicken already prepared, and we would make the side dishes.

We decided to make a classic green salad with lettuce. Unbeknownst to us, lettuce is hard to find in Israel, so most salads are chopped. Luckily, we were able to locate some lettuce in the Shuk and we combined it with some baby spinach. We chopped some cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and grapes.

Then we realized that we needed salad dressing! Earlier in the week we found a special salad dressing maker in the apartment, so we cleaned it out and experimented. Mixing together red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and honey, we made our first salad dressing.

The other side dish we made was zucchini wheels! First, we cut the zucchinis into fifths and scored an "X" into the top of each of them. 

In the food processor, we ground up a bread crumb pesto. When we were ready to cook the dish, we placed them into a medium sized skillet and put about a teaspoon of the pesto mixture inside. Then we poured a cup of water in the skillet, covered it, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. 

Here was the end result:

We had doubled the recipe because it had originally only been enough for four servings; however, we had a LOT of leftovers. Once again, the mothers liked them and the little kids didn't. Sophisticated food calls for sophisticated taste!

We also want to put in a little shout out to our guest/sou chef Ilana! We loved having you over and cooking with you. 

Risky Bisque

Every time we ask for suggestions for dinner, Abbe pulls out the cooking magazine that we have, and requests Avocado Chipotle Bisque. Cautious of cold soups, we continuously reject the suggestion. However, last week, we gave in. So here it is for Abbe: the cold soup, our experience, and the pictures to prove it really happened. 

We've learned from our experiences so far that some ingredients are very challenging to find in Israel, even in the Shuk. The Avocado Chipotle Bisque recipe calls for miso paste and chipotle powder, two ingredients we were unable to find. So, being the resourceful thinkers that we are, we decided to substitute. Instead of miso paste, we sprinkled some sea salt into the pot. Instead of chipotle powder, we bought a few dried hot peppers and chopped them up ourselves. We didn't make the soup too spicy because we wanted the kids to eat it, but we had optional red pepper flakes on the side to give it some more flavor. The garnish you see in the picture is slices of fresh red pepper. How are our plating skills?

We needed a vegetable side dish, and we found some broccoli in the fridge. We minced a few garlic cloves, drizzled the broccoli with olive oil, and roasted it in the oven. The broccoli was well received by the family and very easy to make, so we will definitely be making it again! 

The bisque ended up being very light and good for the summer, but it wasn't such a hit with everyone. Better luck next time?