Ah, babies are unpredictable. The first time I made these vegetable patties, my son scarfed them down. Crispy and soft inside, I handed them to him hot off the stove and he couldn’t get enough. I was thrilled. It’s not like he doesn’t eat vegetables, but he’s given to bouts of pickiness and it always makes me happy when he eats more vegetables, you know? And all those lovely fresh herbs!

So like any mother, I made these patties again. But oh, the fickle nature of 1-year-olds. He gleefully smashed one between his hands, and watched it crumble to pieces.

I tried again. He turned his head as the patty approached. Some might have made it into his mouth. A significant amount made it onto the floor. An even larger amount was left over.

Fortunately, these aren’t only for children — there’s no reason adults shouldn’t enjoy them as well. Spinach and mixed herbs — dill, parsley, cilantro and green onions — add freshness, while cauliflower and zucchini lend sweetness. The vegetables are slowly stir-fried until lightly caramelized, before being formed into little patties and fried into bite-sized pieces with crispy exteriors.

Really, when my son doesn’t eat these, I shouldn’t be complaining. More for the rest of us, after all.

For about 18 patties, depending on how large you make them:

250 grams cauliflower (most of a small head)
250 grams zucchini (one medium zucchini)
150 grams onion (half a large onion)
250 grams fresh spinach (about half a bunch)
big handful fresh dill (1/2 cup chopped, loosely packed)
big handful fresh parsley (1/2 cup chopped, loosely packed)
5-6 stalks green onions (3/4 cup chopped, loosely packed)
small handful fresh cilantro (1/4 c chopped, loosely packed)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch cumin (1/8 teaspoon)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs or matzo meal
2 eggs
oil for frying

Finely chop the cauliflower and onion, and coarsely grate the zucchini. Put the vegetables in a pan with some oil for frying, and let cook until all the vegetables are lightly browned and somewhat soft (I know people generally start with onions, but I really don’t think it matters here — everything needs to lightly caramelize). The pan will be quite full, so you’ll have to stir intermittently so that all the vegetables cook.

Chop the spinach and the herbs (dill, parsley, green onion and cilantro), and add to the pan. Cook for a few more minutes, stirring to incorporate, until the greens have become limp and reduced in volume.

Scoop the vegetables into a bowl, and mix with the spices (salt, pepper, paprika and cumin), the breadcrumbs or matzo meal, and the egg.

Reheat the pan on a medium flame, adding enough oil to cover the base. Scoop spoonfuls of the batter into the pan, pressing down slightly to flatten into patties. Once they’re browned on the bottom, flip to cook on the other side. Once both sides are cooked, remove to a plate lined with paper towels to blot up extra oil.

Repeat with the remainder of the better.

To market, to market. It’s been a busy few months, and not because we’ve been up to anything in particular — mostly just due to life. Raising a toddler, working, toddler, work, and then the day is over. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking — cooking has become even more important now that my son is eating regular meals. But somehow it seems that everything gets eaten before I have a chance to photograph it. Or it just bears a striking resemblance to something I’ve already blogged about. Or both.

But we still manage to find time to market hop — least of all because we need to buy food. And I like nothing better than sitting down to lunch at one of the many lovely restaurants that you’ll find alongside markets in this country, restaurants that specialize in one, maybe two kinds of food at most. Lunch can turn a grocery trip into a family outing.

Bourekas and hummus in Ramle

Markets are particularly nice at this time of year, when the weather is pleasant and all sorts of green, seasonal things are coming into season. Here’s one of my favorite stands at the Ramle shook, which I visited with Sarah not long ago (top photo). Ramle is one of the poorer cities in the center of the country, and it is home to a very diverse population — Jews of all colors, including members of the Indian and Ethiopian communities, and also Christian and Muslim Arabs.

What is the seller offering there? All sorts of vegetables beloved by the Arab community in particular — big flat grape leaves waiting to be stuffed; bottleneck squash, also waiting to be stuffed (far left); small eggplants and zucchinis, also waiting to be stuffed (notice a pattern?); hanging bags of fresh green chickpeas; fava beans in their pods; mucousy molokhiya; and tiny little okra, oh-so-time-consuming to trim and prepare. Lo and behold, my 1-year-old loves okra.

We were also there for the garlic — to buy our annual supply, because that’s what you do in garlic season.

And where to eat after all this shopping? There’s Khalil, which offers some of the best hummus and musabaha around, served doused in pepper sauce and good olive oil. There’s also the Turkish bourekas in the middle of the shook, offering spinach or cheese enclosed within crispy, spiraled pastries. They’ll gladly cut the boureka open and add chopped-up hardboiled egg and spicy sauce for you. Add a cup of lemonade, and the whole package will set you back all of NIS 12.50.

Kubbeh in Hatikva

Danny and I have also been visiting the Hatikva shook a little closer to home, in southeast Tel Aviv. Hatikva is one of Tel Aviv’s poorer neighborhoods, home to a veteran community of Jews with origins in countries around the Middle East. Travel southward from north Tel Aviv, and you can see the identity of the pedestrians changing — less trendy, more religious.

You also can tell as you’re approaching the shook in that working-class neighborhood — as our bus headed south, we passed more and more people trudging home their shopping trolleys, crammed with massive bunches of garlic that stuck out haphazardly from the top. The neighborhood also has at least half a dozen toy stores and countless restaurants, most of them Iraqi, Yemenite or meat grills (most all are kosher, but very few are vegetarian-friendly).

At Israel Mercaz Hakubbeh, Danny and I indulged in this massive, steamed kubbeh — savory spiced beef encased a semolina shell, served alongside bright yellow amba sauce — basically, Iraqi mango chutney, made from a liberal amount of turmeric and fenugreek seeds — plus amba-flavored pickles, and the freshest flat pita you could imagine, hot from the cavernous ovens of a bakery down the street (Yehezkel and Sons, Ha’Etzel 76). The kubbeh and condiments will set you back about NIS 17.

Another beloved restaurant down the street is Achim Boaz, a Yemenite restaurant that offers beef and chicken soups, beans, and hummus. Food from a different culture, where the turmeric and the fenugreek take different forms — the fenugreek is served as a different kind of condiment, whipped into a frothy, spicy mix known simply as hilbeh (“fenugreek”), while the turmeric is part of the hawayij spice mix that makes up the base of many a Yemenite soup. Our beef soup had a light, bright-yellow broth, and came served alongside those same fresh pitas, even fresher than at Mercaz Hakubbeh — the bakery is right next door. (NIS 35 for that dish.)

As we were served, the man sharing our table held the pita up to his nose, closed his eyes and inhaled the rich scent of yeast.

Vegetarian-friendly options can be found at Maafiyat Hasalouf, which serves omelets pan-fried into Yemenite bread, a hummus-shakshouka mashup known as the “hamshuka” and malawach, flat pan-fried Yemenite filo pastries.

Vegetarian stuffed vegetables at the Tel Aviv Port

Why is it that traditional dishes, and the traditional restaurants that make them, are often so meat centric? Suffice it to say, part of what I hope to do through my blog is make traditional dishes accessible to vegetarian audiences. But it’s always nice to find others doing this as well, especially when it means you can enjoy vegetarian options while eating out, as opposed to cooking it yourself.

We found one such option at the farmer’s market at the Tel Aviv Port. This market is the diametric opposite to those in Ramle and Hatikva — nestled into one of the most expensive parts of the city (and the country?), offering unusual varieties of produce to an audience that barely flinches at the price. Vegetables and fruits are arranged at stands with a view of the Mediterranean sea lapping at the port’s wooden planks. It’s beautiful and fun, if you can afford it.

But this audience is also much more interested in eating vegetarian, as one of the sellers noted, perhaps with a touch of surprise. Among the various stands offering produce and prepared food you’ll find one little stand selling stuffed vegetables, traditional dishes from a mix of Middle Eastern cultures such as stuffed grape leaves, stuffed onions, stuffed beets and stuffed peppers — traditional except for the omission of meat. You can mix and match; it’s all NIS 65 a kilo. For NIS 45, we had a light meal for three (including a 1-year-old), eaten while sitting to the side of the bustling market.

We finished off with pomegranate juice from the juice stand inside, where dozens of prepared glasses stand waiting like so many brightly colored candies with straws. Pure delight for my son, who likes few things better than drinking colorful things through straws.

In Ramle:

Khalil, Kehilat Detriot 6. Vegetarian and vegan friendly, no kashrut certificate.

Original Turkish Bourekas, Jabotinsky 3 (inside the Ramle market, near the first intersection south of Herzl). Open until the burekas sell out by early or mid-afternoon. Vegetarian and vegan friendly, kosher.

In Hatikva, Tel Aviv:

Israel Merkaz Hakubbeh, Vatik 1, open weekdays for lunch. Not vegetarian friendly, kosher.

Achim Boaz, Haetzel 47. Open for lunch. Not vegetarian friendly, kosher.

Yehezkel bakery, Haetzel 49. Vegetarian and vegan friendly, kosher.

Maafiyat Hasalouf, Hatikva 1. Vegetarian and vegan friendly, kosher. (I’ve written more about them here and here.)

At the Tel Aviv Port farmer’s market:

Vegetarian stuffed vegetable stand, at the northern open-air market on Fridays, outside next to the Arcosteel store. Vegetarian and vegan friendly, no kashrut certificate (to the best of my knowledge, at least).

Kubbeh got a brief blast of attention when a pop-up kubbeh restaurant briefly appeared in New York City last month. Reading about it from afar, I was pleased that kubbeh was getting some much-deserved focus — kubbeh is quite popular in Israel, but nearly entirely unknown in the United States. That said, I was dismayed by the lack of information — as well as the disinformation — that characterized the articles reporting on the matter.

After all, kubbeh is serious business for some people.

Here’s the main fallacy that appeared in the news articles: This food you never knew existed is rapidly disappearing.

The project named itself “After Hours Kubbeh Project @ Zucker Bakery: A Modern Attempt to Preserve Endangered Foods,” and it seems like nearly everyone reporting on it swallowed that line without a modicum of criticism (see WNYC). So maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but isn’t this a bit condescending? What were all these editors thinking? Gee, I don’t know much about this food, but clearly it’s not due to my own lack of knowledge — it’s because this food is on the verge of extinction.

Maybe there are fewer people in Israel making kubbeh than before, but that’s reflective of changing cooking trends in general — more people are buying more of their food ready-made, while others cook because it’s their hobby. And there’s still plenty of kubbeh to be found particularly in restaurants — a lovely new kubbeh restaurant opened up just outside my office a month ago. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the other countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and Syria where people traditionally make kubbeh. The art of kubbeh making is hardly being lost.

But let’s back up a bit, for those of you who aren’t familiar with kubbeh in the first place. In Israel, kubbeh refers to a wide range of stuffed dumplings, generally made from a starchy shell and a ground meat filling (there are Lebanese kubbeh/kibbeh dishes that do not fit this model, but I digress). Here the dish is traditionally made by Jews of Iraqi and Kurdish descent, as well as by Syrians (both Jewish and non-Jewish, such as the Druze community in the Golan Heights) and Arab-Israelis/Palestinians. Am I leaving out some kubbeh makers? I may well be, and I apologize.

From there, the dumplings take all shapes and sizes — there are deep-fried kubbeh with a semolina shell and cinnamon-spiced ground beef inside; there are fat kubbeh the size of your hand with a shell of rice or potato; and there are all sorts of soup kubbeh, semolina dumplings boiled in traditional broths such as beet, tomato-okra or a tangy, herbal broth known as hamousta. (The New York Times called it “palate-challenging.” Humph.)

It seems like many people have been long expecting kubbeh to meet an untimely demise. The Kubbeh Project states, “Today, with assimilation and massive cultural changes, many recipes that require intensive time and labor, may soon be lost,” an echo of a statement by Claudia Roden in her 1996 cookbook “The Book of Jewish Food” — “When the last generation who makes Kubbeh has disappeared ‏(I expect these dishes will not be carried on, because they take too long‏), I hope Jerusalem keeps up her reputation as the capital, and that some food producer will decide to make them commercially, so that a whole little world of our culinary culture does not disappear.”

Was Roden a prophet? In Israel, these kinds of traditional foods have never been more popular, and kubbeh is rapidly entering the mainstream. Restaurants serving kubbeh soups are flourishing (check out Mordoch (info in Hebrew/English) or Ima (Hebrew/English) in Jerusalem; or Kubbeh Bar, Tzarum and practically the entire Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv), while the deep-fried and pan-fried kubbeh make great street food, sold at holes in the walls in various markets as well as at the occasional falafel shop.

As for the kubbeh pop-up restaurant in New York, from what I can tell they’re not exactly preserving traditions — rather, they’re a chef’s interpretation of traditional recipes (so says Haaretz, while the Huffington Post reports that there’s coconut in the beet kubbeh and the pumpkin kubbeh is actually a pureed soup with sage — interesting variations but far from traditional).

A food so basic and popular that it’s being reinterpreted by a chef? Kubbeh isn’t on the verge of being lost — no, kubbeh has arrived, and is here to stay.

And now that we’re done with that: The biggest hurdle facing vegetarians who wish to indulge in kubbeh is that they’re generally stuffed with meat — this certainly applies to traditional homemade kubbeh, and it applies to most of the restaurant kubbeh as well. (Of the places listed above, Ima makes some vegetarian kubbeh, but that’s it.)

Aside from all the places above, one of my favorite places to get kubbeh is from Amuma (info in Hebrew), a gruff woman who sits outside her little shop on an alley between the central Carmel Market strip and the stinky meat market. She makes several types of kubbeh, all of them so large that one is a meal. They sit unceremoniously in glass bowls — rice kubbeh, potato kubbeh and massive torpedo-like bulgur kubbeh for the incredible price of 5 shekels apiece (check them out in the photo above). One storefront down is another, equally gruff woman selling her own kubbeh. Maybe it’s me, but after buying a kubbeh from one, I feel the piercing stare of the other boring into my back.

Sadly, I haven’t seen Amuma around in a while. Either way, I made these potato kubbeh in an attempt to echo the flavor and experience of her potato kubbeh — ground beef spiced with the warm flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg, encased in a cloud of turmeric-yellow potato with a lightly crisp pan-fried exterior. My version uses mushrooms instead of beef, and adds some pine nuts and parsley to the filling. I think it’s a pretty decent imitation.

Note: This can easily be made vegan by omitting the egg.

For about 12 kubbeh (the quantity varies, depending how large you make them):

For the filling:
1 onion
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts
500 grams mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

For the shell:
1 kilo potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon pepper

For assembly:
1-2 eggs
oil for pan frying

Finely chop the onion, and put in a frying pan with the oil on a medium flame. Chop the pine nuts, and add to the pan. Let fry so that the onion gets translucent and the pine nuts brown slightly.

In the meanwhile, use a food processor to finely chop the mushrooms. You want small pieces that approximate ground meat, but you don’t want to create a paste. Add the mushrooms and the spices to the frying pan and let fry, stirring occasionally. The mushrooms will release a lot of water. The filling is done once the water has evaporated and the mushrooms are cooked (they’ll be a darker brown than when they started). Add the chopped parsley last.

To make the shell: Chop the potatoes into large chunks, put in a pot, cover with water (pre-boiled water makes this go quicker) and bring to a boil. Let cook until the potatoes are cooked, meaning that they can be pierced easily with a fork.

Drain off the water, add the spices to the potatoes and use a potato masher to mash them by hand. DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO USE THE BLENDER — you will get useless goopy puree. (Trust me, I know.) The potatoes should still have some ricey texture to them once mashed.

To assemble the kubbeh: Crack an egg into a bowl, and beat. Put some oil in a pan and heat on a medium flame.

Wet your hands and take a handful of potato around the size of a large golfball. Flatten into a disc in your palm, and top with an equal quantity of mushroom filling (to start, you can use less filling; it’ll be easier, but the best kubbeh have an equal shell-filling ratio). Fold the potato up around the mushroom, and place a bit more potato on top to seal. Use bits of potato to patch up any holes, and then flatten slightly into a fat disc.

Dip both sides of the kubbeh into the egg, let any extra egg drain off, and then place the kubbeh into the pan on the flame. Let the kubbeh fry until golden on the bottom, and then flip to fry the second side. Then transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to absorb any excess oil.

Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.

Want to read lots more about kubbeh?

Among the local English-Israeli bloggers, Sarah is our resident kubbeh expert. Her blog is the ultimate kubbeh resource. Here are some of her posts:

• Potato kubbeh
• Boiled semolina kubbeh
• Tomato kubbeh
• Beet kubbeh
• Kubbeh hamousta
• Iraqi-Iranian fusion kubbeh
• Sarah’s favorite kubbeh restaurants

Leek dumplings are a traditional Passover food for many people of Turkish and Balkan descent, my family included, though I couldn’t tell you what makes this specifically Passover food. To be honest, it’s not really a dish that my family makes anymore — at this point, the koftes de prasa have largely been relegated to tales of my mother’s childhood, yet another delicacy that her grandmother and aunties (great aunties?) would make. Plus, our family’s recipe isn’t one I’m likely to make — it calls for leek mixed with ground beef, fried into patties and then simmered in chicken broth.

That said, though, koftes de prasa — literally, leek patties — are pretty much good all the time. And even though many versions are very much meat-based, like my family’s, these patties can easily be made vegetarian. Plus, they’re super-simple — this recipe contains all of five ingredients.

Leek patties are made by Sephardic Jews from parts of the northern Mediterranean and through the Levant, and as is typical of a traditional dish, each family has its own variation. Likewise, the seasoning varies depending where the family is from. Levantine versions contain a longer list of spices (some examples cited here) — think of the spices commonly found in baharat, many of which are known in the west as pie spices. My spicing is simple, though. As is typical of Turkish Jewish cooking — well, at least in my family — I’ve seasoned mine primarily with salt and pepper, so the main flavor is, well, leek.

These leek patties were a nice addition to our Passover seder. It’s a miracle there were any left over to photograph, as they were quite good. Given the price of leek around here — I think I paid 25 shekels a kilo for a fat, handsome specimen — they really are a delicacy.

For about 18-24 patties:

• 700 grams leek, white and green parts
• 1/2 cup olive oil for frying the leek
• 1 cup matzo meal
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• matzo-based bread crumbs or matzo meal for coating the patties — about 1 cup if not more
• more oil for pan frying

Rinse the leek well to remove any grit, and chop into thin slices. Place in a pot with the olive oil, and let simmer on a medium-low flame, stirring occasionally, until the leek is thoroughly soft (this can be done a day before you make the patties).

Mix the sauteed leek with the matzo meal, the eggs, the water, the salt and the pepper.

In the meanwhile, heat a pan to fry the patties. I like using cast iron. Pour some oil into the pan — it should coat the bottom of the pan. Once the pan is hot, lower the flame to a medium or medium-low setting.

To bread the patties, pour more matzo meal into a bowl (you can also find matzo meal-based products meant specially for breading — basically, matzo meal with some seasoning). Wet your hands to keep the batter from sticking to them, and take a lump of leek mixture slightly larger than a walnut. Form it into a ball, and then flatten it slightly into a fat disc. Drop it into the matzo meal and coat on both sides.

Put the patty into the hot pan. In the meanwhile, make more patties and add them, too — I can fit about 7-8 into my pan at once. Once each patty has fried until golden on the bottom, flip and fry the other side until golden as well. Add extra oil as needed so that the patties are always sizzling in a small amount of oil and not sitting in a dry pan.

Remove cooked patties to a paper-towel lined plate to absorb extra oil. Serve warm.

If you intend to refrigerate these in order to eat later, you’re best off reheating them in a frying pan with a small amount of oil, or at least in the toaster. Microwaving them will make them soggy.

There’s something invigorating about visiting the market on one of the earliest days of spring. I don’t mean spring in the true calendar sense, as sticklers will point out that officially we have a week or two of winter left. And I also don’t mean it purely in terms of the weather — we’ve been getting warm days on and off for a while now.

I mean spring in the sense of the land, and its bounty — cucumbers that are pale, gnarly and tart, a far cry from their fat, glossy winter hothouse cousins; sour young almonds; grape leaves; thick pods of ful, fava beans; baladi green onions, a heirloom variety that look like a cross between a scallion and a full-blown onion; and of course fresh garlic, thick stalks whose pungent scent permeates the air throughout the market.

It’s exciting to see all these familiar faces again, after the relative monotony of winter vegetables. I’m attempting to empty the fridge in preparation for our move, but I couldn’t help myself — a little bag of this, some more of that, and lo and behold, my cart was full.

Check out those scallions:

And on an unrelated note, it looks like someone was trying to hide a few bananas:

Anyway.

If you were to pour many of these fresh, springtime goodies into a pot, this is one variation of what you’d get. It’s similar to the mushrooms you’ll occasionally find topping hummus at a little hummus restaurant. The mushrooms, by the way, are rough-looking overgrown button specimens that sell for a cheap 18 shekels a kilo.

My version omits the cumin and instead uses fresh heads of garlic and scallion, and gets served atop rice.

For about 4 servings:

• 500 grams mushrooms, coarsely chopped
• 500-800 grams fava beans in their pods, which should give you 150-250 grams of actual beans
• 2 young garlic heads, with a few centimeters of stem still attached (mine were about 4 centimeters in diameter)
• 2 fat baladi scallions, mostly the white part (alternately use 4 regular scallions, mostly the white part)
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 1 cup water, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• Optional: Fresh herbs such as chopped parsley or the green part of the scallion for topping

Remove the outermost layer or two of garlic peel. Chop the garlic down the middle and remove the hard core that runs through the head and up the center of the stalk. Coarsely chop the garlic head, and finely chop the stem.

Dice up the scallion.

Toss the mushrooms and fava beans into a pot with the oil, the garlic and the scallion. Heat on a medium flame for a few minutes, and then add half a cup of water, the salt, the turmeric and the pepper.

Put a lid on the pot and leave to simmer, stirring occasionally. When the water is mostly gone, add another half cup.

The dish is done once the lava beans are silky soft. Add a little more water if you want to create more sauce.

Serve over rice. Top with the fresh herbs if desired.

Is it that time of year again? The time when it becomes socially acceptable to start planning for Passover? My, how time flies.

Our Passover is likely to be a particularly hectic one, since we’ll be spending it in a new apartment. After 6-plus years in our little Tel Aviv apartment, we’re moving to one that’s significantly larger. First into boxes was my massive collection of plates and pottery. Since, to be honest, I don’t really need to have 4 different sets of plates and 20 serving bowls on hand at any point in time. I’d say this might crimp my blogging style, but then again, so do having a baby and a job.

Either way, spring is in the air, and vibrant green vegetables like asparagus and fennel are appearing in the markets. This fragrant vegetable soup was part of our little seder last year. When I say little, I mean it — me, my husband and my 9-month pregnant belly. We read the Haggadah, filled up on appetizers and then fell asleep on the couch. Four cups of wine? Ha, who needs it? Yet we managed to have hefty bowlfuls of this lovely soup before passing out.

This soup works just fine without the accompanying matzo balls, though it is more filling if you add them.

For 4-6 servings of soup:

• oil for frying

• 1 onion
• 1/2 zucchini or green squash (“kishu” in Hebrew)
• 1/2 fennel (chop rest to make this fennel salad)
• 1 carrot
• 2 celery stalks
• 1/2 fresh garlic head (or 1/4 a head of regular garlic)
• thumb-sized piece of Jerusalem artichoke
• 8 asparagus (1/2 bunch)
• 1.5 liters water or broth
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Chop the onion, zucchini, fennel, carrot and celery into large chunks, and fry gently in a large pot with some oil on a medium flame. Chop up the garlic and Jerusalem artichoke and add as well. Peel or chop off any tough bits from the base of the asparagus’ stems, and add alongside the water/broth, bay leaves, salt, turmeric and pepper. Simmer gently until the vegetables are just soft enough to eat.

To make the matzo balls (which are pretty much from this recipe):

• 1 cup matzo meal
• 5 medium eggs
• 6 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• pinch black pepper

Mix together all the ingredients, and let sit for a few minutes so that the matzo meal absorbs the liquid.

Bring a pot of water to boil on a medium-high flame. Using a spoon or wet hands, shape the mix into balls and drop into the boiling water. Let boil until the matzo balls fluff up and float. Remove them from the water and serve with the soup.

Look at us Mediterranean folk — all fit and healthy thanks to our diet heavy on vegetables, fish and olive oil. Or so the story goes. It’s trendy to speak of the “Mediterranean diet,” but there are so many variations in the food people eat around the Mediterranean basin. And not to burst any bubbles, but the obesity epidemic hasn’t exactly skipped over some parts of this region. (Though some people say this is because we’re abandoning traditional Mediterranean diets.) But I digress.

I was reflecting on the different cuisines around the Mediterranean basin as I made a Spanish tortilla for the first time in several years. Spanish tortillas are similar to what others might call a potato quiche or frittata. The ingredients are overwhelmingly simple — egg, potato and olive oil — though there are variations that include other vegetables.

In general, it’s fair to say that this carbohydrate cake may not be the first thing to come to mind when you think Mediterranean food. And to show just how broad Mediterranean food can be, this certainly is not like anything you’d find in Israel — the closest relative is quiche (generally with actual vegetables) or potato kugel in Ashkenazi homes (which omits the olive oil and uses much less egg).

But a Spanish tortilla is an enjoyable dish — because it brings back memories of afternoon tapas in Madrid, because it can sit in the fridge and make for easy (and baby-friendly) meals, because it requires basic ingredients that you’re likely to have around even if the pantry is nearly empty.

You also can do amusing things with it:

This is another dish I learned from Sra. Pilar, my landlady in Madrid. As is often the case for traditional foods with few ingredients, getting it right is all about the technique. The potatoes are pan-fried in a generous amount of olive oil — no lid, or the potatoes will steam and the tortilla will taste watery. Then you add the egg and cook it all on the stovetop — hopefully without letting it burn or stick. To cook the other side of the tortilla, you have to flip it using two plates — a trick in and of itself. To make matters more difficult, I’ve stopped using coated cookware such as teflon, so I do all this pan-frying in a cast iron pan.

If all goes well, you have a beautiful, golden yellow tortilla that would do a Spanish mother proud.

I fed little slices of tortilla to my baby, who gleefully mashed it against his face. Yet I couldn’t help but feel a little closer to those carefree younger times in Spain.

For one 25-centimeter/10-inch tortilla:

• 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) potato, peeled
• 6 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, divided (you may not need this whole amount)
• 1.5 teaspoons salt

Slice the potatoes into thin discs, about 2 millimeters (between 1/8 and 1/4 inch) thick. Roughly chop the discs into pieces no more than 2 centimeters (1 inch) square — the precise shape or size doesn’t matter, but the thickness of the slices determines the texture of the tortilla.

Heat 4 tablespoons (50 grams) of oil in a 25- or 26-centimeter (10-inch) frying pan. I you’re using a teflon or other form of non-stick pan, you may not need the whole amount, so add the oil gradually. I use cast iron and I found this was a good quantity.

Toss the potato slices into the pan, and pan fry on a medium flame, stirring often so that the potatoes don’t stick and don’t brown too much. You want them to soften, but not to turn dark. This could take 15-25 minutes.

In the meanwhile, crack the eggs into a bowl, add the salt, and beat.

Once the potatoes are mostly soft but not fully cooked (they can have a light crunch still — they’ll be cooked more inside the tortilla) scoop them out of the pan and into the eggs, leaving behind whatever oil is still in the pan. Mix the eggs and potatoes until incorporated — it’s OK if the hot potatoes cook the eggs slightly.

Make sure the pan is still oiled, add more oil if necessary, and then pour the potato-egg mixture into it. Shake the pan so that the tortilla is relatively even on top. Cover with a lid and let it cook on a low flame for about 5 minutes (the lid isn’t traditional, but I find it helps here).

Once the tortilla starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, it’s time to flip it. For this, you need two plates, both at least as large as your pan. The center of the tortilla will still be liquid at this point. Remove the pan from the flame and place plate #1 upside down on top of the pan. Carefully flip the pan and plate together, and then remove the pan — the tortilla should drop out of the pan and onto the plate. A bit of liquid egg will ooze around the sides.

Then, put plate #2 upside down on top of the tortilla and plate #1, and flip again. Now the tortilla should be sitting uncooked-side up on plate #2.

Make sure your pan has oil in it, adding more if necessary. Put the pan on top of the tortilla, and use plate #2 to flip the tortilla back into the pan.

Now you should have your tortilla sitting in the pan, cooked side facing up.

Put the pan back on a low flame for another 2-3 minutes. To serve, flip the tortilla out of the pan and onto a clean plate. You can choose whichever side looks nicer as the top.

Serve in slices like a pie or cake.

My greens guy must really like me. I mean, given how much I spend at his stand every week, how could he not? One day he went chasing after me as I made my way through the Carmel Market. Admittedly, I’d just paid for a big bag full of vegetables and absentmindedly walked away without it, but still.

Actually, I have two greens guys. One sells me fat bunches of herbs and loose salad greens — I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the one who on any given week has a few kinds of green beans, usually some broccoli, bright green turkish spinach when in season, and occasionally things like brussels sprouts, napa cabbage, birds eye chilis and other vegetables loved by East Asian foreign workers and erstwhile Thai backpackers.

One week, after filling my bag there with everything leafy and green, and racking up quite the bill in the process (well, in shook terms; at least I splurge on spinach and not, say, shoes), I spotted a bunch of rough, ragged green leaves that I didn’t recognize.

Mustard greens, the seller told me.

Mustard is one of the many plants that grows wild here, and this is the season for all things leafy and green, but you’re unlikely to find mustard shoots quite that beautiful growing randomly in central Tel Aviv. OK, I’ll take a bunch of those too, I told the seller. He smiled approvingly. Hard sell, right?

I spent the rest of the week thinking about what to do with them. They’re sturdy but still soft enough to eat raw, and have a distinctive flavor — slightly spicy, slightly bitter — and I wanted to give them pride of place as the focus of a dish. What better way to do so than served raw, as the base of a salad?

I paired them with some other market finds — sweet fennel and pear, marinated until soft — and tossed in some tarragon to accent the light licorice flavor of the fennel. The result is an elegant salad in shades of green with a distinctive bittersweet flavor, perfect for an early spring day such as Tu Bishvat — Arbor Day.

As for the other greens guy — I have the best photo of him with my son, back when the latter was a tiny thing, only two months old. He’s staring at all the people passing in front of the stand on that busy shopping day in the Carmel Market. Baby. Mind. Is. Blown. Nowadays he’d be grabbing at all those greens and trying to eat them. Rightly so.

For about 4 servings, depending how you define a serving:

• half a medium-sized fennel, thinly sliced (about 100 grams, or 1/4 lb.)
• one medium-sized pear, thinly sliced (about 100 grams, or 1/4 lb.)
• half a medium-sized onion, sliced into thin rings (about 50 grams — 2 oz.)
• 2 tablespoons wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar (you could try date honey instead; I was all out)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 bunch of mustard greens, coarsely ripped (about 200 grams, or 1/2 lb.)
• big drizzle of olive oil (25 grams — 2 tablespoons)
• Optional: 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
• Optional: 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon

In a bowl, mix the fennel, pear slices and onion with the vinegar, sugar and salt, and let sit for about 30 minutes, tossing occasionally to make sure the dressing is coating the fruit and vegetable slices. They should reduce in volume somewhat as the dressing pulls out their liquid.

Toss the marinated pear, onion and fennel (without the liquid) with the greens and the herbs, and drizzle liberally with olive oil. Serve.

Can recipes become out-of-date? I certainly hope not. I made this lovely wintry stew a week and a half ago, in the midst of one of Israel’s fiercest winter storms in decades. But life happened — I was busy, least of all redesigning this site, as some of you have already noticed — and then in the blink of an eye, the rain abated and we’re now enjoying some of the sunniest days you could ask for. It’s still chilly, particularly at night, but it also kind of feels like early spring. In January. Global warming, anyone?

Anyway, I’m guessing this is just a brief respite from winter — all the more reason to get outside. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea this week, what with the country off work for election day. You vote for your favorite party in the morning, and then you vote for your favorite falafel stand/coffee shop/open-air market by early afternoon (our vote that day went to Falafel Benin, on Tchernichovsky 2 right off Allenby, with its fabulously crispy falafel balls).

Speaking of which — we ran into our mayor at the voting booth. We now know exactly what we’d say to him, given the chance. Not that we didn’t vote for him last time but we like how he’s increased his focus on young, middle-class families in his current term; not that we really appreciate all the new bike paths, even if the ones on the sidewalks are less than optimal. Always thinking on our toes, we managed to stammer “Hi.”

But back to this hamin — this slow-cooked Sabbath stew is based on wheat berries, preferably the tougher unhulled ones, which retain a good degree of chewiness despite the long cooking time. The mix of sweet vegetables — squash, carrot and fennel, the latter of which you won’t find in too many hamin dishes — become infused with a deep caramel flavor, with the sweetness accented by prunes.

It remains to be seen whether the groundhog will see his little shadow, but I’m guessing we’ll have plenty more chilly weekends to make this before spring truly is here.

And on an unrelated note — feedback is welcome on the new blog design, which is still a work in progress.

For about 3 liters of hamin:

• 2 cups unhulled wheat berries
• oil for frying
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4-6 fat garlic cloves, peeled and slightly crushed under the blade of a knife
• 3 carrots, chopped into large chunks
• 1/2 butternut squash (±500 grams/1 lb), chopped into large chunks
• 1 medium fennel (±500 grams/1 lb), chopped into large chunks
• 6 prunes, diced into little bits
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• about 1.25 liters boiling water (5 cups)

Leave the wheat to soak in advance if you have time.

Note: I generally make my hamin in a slow cooker, so I fry my vegetables in a different pot. If you’re making it in the oven, you can use the same oven-safe pot for both frying and baking it afterward.

Put a bit of oil in your pot and start frying the onions. Add the garlic cloves, then the carrots, squash and fennel (I add each vegetable as I chop it). Stir and let fry until the vegetables are golden and slightly soft.

If the pot is going in the oven, add the wheat and the other ingredients to the vegetables. If you’re using a slow cooker, arrange the wheat across the bottom of the pot, and top with the vegetables. Pour some hot water into the pan to deglaze (remove any juices) and then empty that water into the slow cooker. Fill your pot/slow cooker with water, leaving the top centimeter/half inch of vegetables exposed.

Let cook at a low temperature — 110 degrees Celsius in the oven, or on the automatic setting of a slow cooker or Shabbat hot plate — for 12 hours or so.

There are soups for every season. This is a soup for winter.

We are in the midst of Israeli winter at its most intense. It rained for three days straight, and oh, what rain! Some places even had a bit of snow.

Fine, laugh. I know it’s not exactly winter in Siberia, but rain manages to paralyze the country every time. Yesterday the rain flooded one of the country’s most central highways, causing traffic jams that lasted for hours and leading the police to recommend against even attempting to enter Tel Aviv.

As for those of us already in the city? I probably should have stayed home for the third day in a row, but I didn’t, and a short trip across town — a 5-10 minute drive in normal weather — turned to a 40-minute opportunity to bond with the cabby.

On the bright side, we were seated in a cab while the rain was falling sideways. Though as my husband points out, if it’s going sideways, it isn’t really falling now, is it?

In one way, this soup is strikingly similar to another tomato-wheat soup I posted — chewy bits of wheat amid a tomato base. But that soup — made of freshly harvested green wheat and fresh chickpeas, is a soup for spring. This is a soup for winter — hardened wheat berries harvested long ago and dried for storage, and sturdy mangold leaves. The fresh tomatoes have been replaced with tomato paste — a product I’ve been trying to avoid lately, though not at all cost. Different shades of soup, if you will.

Unhulled wheat berries are tougher and chewier than hulled wheat berries. If you use hulled wheat, the soup will likely be ready within an hour; with unhulled wheat, it will take closer to two hours.

For about 6 servings (2.5 to 3 liters/quarts of soup):

• oil for frying
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 very fat garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
• 2 carrots, chopped into discs
• 100 grams tomato paste
• 1 cup wheat berries, ideally unhulled
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 loomi lemon, cracked and any seeds removed (dried lime, a prominent spice in Persian cooking)
• 1 teaspoon sugar (you can skip this if your tomato paste — or better, fresh tomatoes — are sweet enough)
• 1 big bunch mangold (Swiss chard), rinsed and chopped

Put some oil in a thick-bottomed pot on a medium flame. Add onions, and let cook for a minute or two until translucent. Add garlic, let cook for another minute, then add tomato paste and carrots. Let that heat up, too.

Add the wheat, salt, pepper, loomi lemon, sugar, and 1.5 to 2 liters (quarts) of water to the pot, and bring to a boil. Cover and cook on a low flame until the wheat is soft but still al dente — this will take 40 minutes to 1 hour for hulled wheat, and as much as 2 hours for unhulled wheat.

Once the wheat is nearly cooked, add the mangold and simmer until cooked — another 10 minutes or so.