Caponata

When I’ve found some ripe tomatoes, eggplants and peppers at the farm stand, I’ve decided it’s time to prepare a nice batch of Caponata – a tasty sweet and sour Sicilian eggplant dish.
Caponata is wonderful as a side dish, especially with fish and seafood, but also with chicken and other meats. It is also wonderful as a topping for Crostini, and can also be served as a dip, with crackers or toasted points.

Seven Vegetables Soup with Semolina

Many times when the temperatures drop, a simple rustic soup is all that is needed to feel good. Here is a hearty and filling soup, that is loaded with vegetables and thickened with semolina. It is highly nutritious and just perfect for a cold day.

Roasted Duck Legs with Potatoes and Carrots

As much as I love cooked duck, or duck confit, roasted duck is another favorite. Not only the meat is perfectly cooked and still keeps its unique texture and flavor, in this method we get an extra bonus with the crispy skin.

Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

This rustic dish, of beautifully roasted chicken with potatoes and other vegetables, makes entertaining of a fairly large group of guests an easy task. Everything is prepared in advance, and roasted in one pan about an hour before serving.

Pot Roasted Chicken with Celery and Carrots, Sephardic Style

This simple chicken dish, from the fabulous Sephardic cuisine (find explanations about it HERE, or in THIS wonderful blog), is as tasty as it is easy to prepare.

Colorful Potato Salad

Most potato salads are, how shall we put it politely, “aesthetically challenged”… They are pale and heavy, with way too much mayonnaise and in many cases, too much sugar.
Here is a lighter and more colorful version, inspired by a Russian potato salad, named “Olivier” after the Belgian chef who created it when working in Moscow. The original salad contained many rare and expensive ingredients, so later on more down to earth versions were created. The majority of these versions contain a large amount of cold cuts and canned peas and carrots, and even though they are more colorful than the average potato salad, they are still quite heavy.

Chicken, Carrot and Dried Currants Rice Pilaf

“Pilaf” is a dish in which Rice is cooked with vegetables and meat, to create an “all in one pot” meal.