Potato soup
When soup is so easy to prepare, why but why do I not make it more often? I had bought a roasted chicken; used the carcass to make the chicken stock, had some potatoes laying around, some cilantro pesto in the freezer waiting to be used up and voilà!...
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Apple Pockets
I am one of those people who totally subscribe to the slogan: “ An apple a day keeps the doctor away” . I eat apples all the time, I love their crunchy, juicy, sweet texture. Except some apples end up being not-so-great and get tossed into the lower vegetable...
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Brie pot-pie
My family lived in France in the seventies and eighties and I lived there also, finishing up high school. We lived in a town, Melun, famous for one thing: its Brie cheese. Every Wednesday and Saturday, there was an open-air marché and I would often go there with my...
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Kibbeh pie (Kibbeh bel-saniyeh)
Happy Hannukah to all my friends of the Jewish faith! This is the classic Lebanese dish, par excellence. A testament to the prowess of a Lebanese cook. This pie was a welcome gift from the only woman to be appointed in the south of Lebanon in the position of notary...
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Banana Bread
I have tried probably hundreds of banana bread recipes over the years; this is the last one I tried, a recipe I read on the inside cover of a Reynolds parchment paper box and adapted to my own taste. As a result this banana bread is not very sweet...
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Soup of lamb shanks and turnip greens
It happens to be cold and wet outside and you want something to warm you up and make you feel good. That’s easy! Grab some lamb shanks and some turnip greens and get them going on the stove. Did you ever eat the bone marrow of a lamb shank?...
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Zaatar sticks
Zaatar is a food I simply can’t live without. So, every so often, I make something with zaatar; this time, I saw neat little packages of puff pastry at the Middle-Eastern grocer, already cut in small squares; this puff pastry is not unfortunately made with pure butter from Danish...
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Chicken with potatoes and onions
My friend Kerene uses an expression which always makes me smile: “It’s a no-brainer!“ When I was fretting over a catering job that I felt ill-prepared for, her answer was: “Come on, Joumana, it’s a no-brainer!” Well, this herewith is truly a no-brainer, Lebanese-style. Stir-fry some chicken and veggies...
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Cranberry tart
I have been lazy this year, leaving all the cooking to my friend Kerene. In order to relieve some guilt, I figured I would make this tarte, filled with my favorite fruit of the season, cranberries. Plucked the idea for the filling from Lisa’s who made dainty, adorable, mini-tartlets...
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