Category: Lunch

A Week of Cruciferous Crunch!

It’s been a cruciferous week here, and not on purpose! I had been eating all the wrong things, and my skin (and clothes!) were showing it, so I decided to clean up my diet a bit. I started with an apple cider vinegar detox – 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (raw, with the mother!) mixed into 8 oz. of water + the juice of half a lemon each morning. The enzymes, probiotics and protein in the vinegar help to give the gut lots of healthy bacteria that aids digestion, lowers blood sugar, helps to reduce acne and belly fat, to name just a few benefits! Just make sure to rinse your mouth out or brush your teeth after because the acid can ruin teeth enamel.  And as always, consult your dr. first before starting any new regimen!


But I digress…onto the cabbage…. I made this amazing roasted cabbage pizza because I wanted something cheesy that was low carb and it came out BEYOND AMAZING! I was inspired to make the dish when I bought Trader Joes new pizza spice, so I cut the cabbage into thick slabs, brushed it with olive oil, sprinkled on the pizza spice (you can sub with Italian seasoning) and roasted at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Then I topped it with marinara sauce, shredded cheese and different toppings (jalapeno, olive, sliced onions) and returned to the oven until the cheese was melted. Holy Moly was it good!! Give it a try!

Watch me make it on Instagram!

I love cruciferious vegetables, and thankfully, so does my stomach! I whipped up this Salsa salad another day this week, and it was everything you want in a salad – lots of great textures and delicious flavor.

Salsa Salad!

1/3 cup salsa
3 tbsp light olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 tbsp honey
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium head cabbage, chopped (I like to cut it into squares for this salad)
1 avocado, diced
1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
Bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped
1 cup crushed tortilla chips

Whisk the salad dressing at the bottom of the salad bowl and add the salad ingredients. Toss to combine and serve!

Watch me make it on Instagram!

And lastly, with all the rain and cold weather, I wanted some comfort food – so Bubby’s Cabbage Soup for the win. I seared the meat and bones, sauteed the onions and added some tomato paste to really take it over the top. So. So. Good!

Watch me make it on Instagram!

Related Recipes:

stuffed cabbage bolognese
cabbage bourekas
kale crunch salad

What’s your favorite way to eat cabbage? Share it with me in the comments below!

Kale Crunch Salad

All I can say is even though I had a boatload of this salad on Shabbos, and then again yesterday when I photographed it, I need it again like NOW, and that, my friends, is a sign of a delicious salad – one you want to eat over and over and over again!

Yes, the flavor combo is bomb but what really makes this salad extra special is all the crunchy elements and it’s like a party in your mouth. A party!!!

I debated calling this the Cruciferous Crunch Salad but then I tried to say cruciferous on my Instagram and I ended up saying cruciferouSH, so I nixed it lol! Kale Crunch Salad has still got that alliteration ring to it that I love, so we’re going with that!

What is really great about this salad is that it’s really adaptable – sub in your favorite candied nuts, seeds and croutons,  the important thing is you want things with lots of different textures in every bite.

And with Rosh Hashanah just a few short weeks away, we’re hoping on the pomegranate train and I couldn’t be more excited!

Related Recipes:

smoky kale and farro salad with balsamic fig dressing
wilted kale and kabocha squash salad
fall farmer’s market salad
kale persimmon salad

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Sweet Chili Broccoli Salmon

I have a confession to make: I can’t spell brocolli. I mean broccolli. No broccoli! Thank G-d for auto-correct because I just can’t get it right.

I’ve always been a good speller but I’ve got a few mindblocks:
broccoli
nauseous
exercise

It’s a good think I don’t get nauseous from eating broccoli after I exercise otherwise I’d have 3 typos in the same sentence, ha!


Actually speaking of broccoli, it’s one of my favorite veggies, and I can legit eat an entire tray in one sitting! I love it raw, I love it steamed, roasted and stir fried. I’m not even partial to fresh broccoli, the frozen stuff is just fine for my standards, so long as it’s thawed properly and not mushy. Mushy brocolli is gross, Mushy brocolli doesn’t deserve to be spelled correctly.

So for all you broccoli lovers out there – thaw your frozen broccoli, never boil it! I like to run the frozen broccoli under cold water just to lightly thaw and then stir fry over high heat. That’s it. Perfectly tender broccoli every time.

Related Recipes:

sweet chili salmon with wasabi crust
broccoli parmesan poppers 
fish tacos with broccoli slaw

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Sabich Burgers with Peach Amba

On my recent trip to Israel, a humble pita sandwich filled with unlikely ingredients stole the show: The Sabich. A combination of fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus and Israeli salad  is stuffed into a pita and drizzled with tahini and amba, a pickled mango sauce similar to Indian chutney.

The origins of sabich go back to Iraq, where the sandwiches were traditionally eaten on Shabbat mornings. The Iraqi’s brought it with them when they immigrated to Israel in the early days of the state, and it’s named is said to be an acronym for main sandwich components:  salat, beitzah, hazilim (salad, egg, eggplant).

What makes sabich so good? it’s the mishmash of textures and flavors which seem to work so well together — crunchy, creamy, tangy and spicy in every bite!

But above all, it’s the amba that really makes the sandwich and everything else it comes in contact with! I first tried traditional jarred amba a few months ago and let me just say, it was NOT love at first bite. Unripe mango was cut into sticks and pickled in a spicy brine which did not please my palette in the least. But then, I tried the amba at Goldie Falafel in Philly and I was like WHAT. IS. THIS. SORCERY. So, I went to the source of all things Israeli Cuisine, Mike Solomonov’s cookbooks and I was on my way to the most amazing chutney I’d ever had.

So the best amba, I learned, is not, in fact, pickled. It’s cooked down into savory sauce that makes everything better! You can even blend it up into a smooth dip and use it to marinate meat or poultry – all of which I have tried with much success!

This summer, I decided to swap out mango for peaches, for a more seasonal sauce and it just blew it out of the park! Solomonov has done it with apples for topping latkes, and strawberries in the summer, which I’d love to try sometime too. Feel free to switch up your fruit to make it your own – just do it, you won’t regret it!

 

Related Recipes:

sabich latkes
amba bloody harry 
roasted eggplant shakshuka
harissa whipped feta with za’atar eggplant “chips”

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Shaktuna (Tunisian Tuna Shakshuka)

Having recently traveled to Paris, I have a newfound love of tuna – and not the type we mix with mayo and stuff in a bagel. But the kind that’s canned in good quality olive oil and served with sesame bread. Or the kind that’s stuffed into a teeny tiny sandwich with potatoes, eggs, capers and olives: the Tunisian tuna sandwich known as Fricassé.

I made my way to Charles Traiteur, the popular kosher catering/take-out to taste their renowned Tunisian Tuna Sandwich, a soft sesame baguette stuffed with tuna, eggs, harissa, olives and a hint of mustard. It was good, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype, maybe because the bread was soggy.

But then I went back before Shabbos and got their Tunisian Fricaseé sandwich – mini bites of heaven with the same ingredients of the tuna sandwich, only on delicious fried bread and I haven’t stopped dreaming about it since!

Now lets go back a couple of months, when I was introduced to Finer Fin tuna, aptly named because that tuna is FINE!!! I have been hooked on their amazing flavors, including Mexicana, 3-Bean, Zesty Lemon and Spicy Chili. Each filet is hand-sliced and packed in extra virgin olive oil. The tuna is wild caught, a great source of Omega 3, Non-GMO, low in mercury and sustainable caught. It basically sells itself!

So, back to Paris, I came home re-inspired on the tuna front and decided to do a riff on shakshuka and the classic Tunisian Tuna sandwich and let me just say…WOW. Like seriously this makes the perfect breakfast, brunch, lunch or even dinner. It was just THAT good.

Because Finer Fin’s tuna is already packed with flavor, it needed only a small can of tomato sauce to create a base for shakshuka. I added the other classic elements of olives and capers, but you can easily leave those out if you’re not a fan of briny flavors.

You can also throw in some spinach or kale into the mix if you’d like, which is really what I love about shakshuka – it’s just so versatile! (see the gazillion different combos I linked to below, I can’t get enough!).

So if you’re looking for a taste of Paris, or you just want a quick and easy dinner to get on the table, look no further than SHAKTUNA!

This post has been sponsored by Finer Fin. All opinions are my own.

Related Recipes:

roasted eggplant shakshuka
Mexican quinoa shakshuka
beet, kale and goat cheese shakshuka
zoodle shakshuka,
garbanzo bean shakshuka with labneh
spaghetti squash shakshuka
stuffed portobello shakshuka

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