Israeli Kitchen

This challenge is really giving me something to think about. Like: why on earth did I buy three packages of instant couscous? Oh yes, it was on sale, several months back. All three packages have been sitting around ever since. What’s the deep lesson to be learned? If you ain’t gonna use it up, it ain’t no bargain. This isn’t always clear, until you see how much space unused food takes up and how much potentially wasted money it represents.

Well, it looks like we’ll be eating instant couscous instead of rice or potatoes, at least a few times this week. My Tunisian son-in-law likes to eat it sweet, with hot milk and topped with raisins,  like oatmeal. That’s one way to do it. Any other suggestions, readers? I’d love some recipe ideas.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to refrain from buying flour either, so I can make challah from for next Shabbat. I will put on my safari hat and intrepidly venture into my freezer – maybe there’s some white flour there. The family, you see, insists that challah has to be white. I guess if flour is a staple and you run out, it’s an honorable exception to this challenge. But I haven’t looked that deep into the freezer yet.

So, today.

• There were two packages of lamb chops that really needed to get eaten already. Good, I thawed them out. Marinated them in plenty of crushed garlic, thyme, cumin, lemon juice, freshly-ground pepper, wine, and olive oil. Then invited my mother for lunch (it’s not every day we eat meat).
• Half a package of oyster mushrooms was sitting in the fridge. The mushrooms looked sort of sad. Sliced them
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and put them to marinate with the lamb chops. They absorbed quite a bit of the marinade, which surprised me.

• Another search through the freezer yielded some lovely pesto.

Oh. Howcum I didn’t remember making and freezing so much pesto? There were two packages of it. So let’s ignore the couscous for the moment and see what pasta lurks in the pantry… Aha. Two half-empty boxes of bow-tie noodles. I put them together in one to see how much there was, and it was almost a full box.

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• Was I really going to do something with these two hunks of cabbage and these two sort of elderly carrots?

Sure, a stir-fry.

So I grilled the lamb chops, putting the oyster mushrooms on the bottom of the pan to catch the drippings.

Sautéed a medium onion and when it was golden, added the carrots, sliced, and the red cabbage. As soon as the red cabbage was wilted, in went the white cabbage, salt and pepper. It took longer than usual stir-fries – maybe 15 minutes. Tasted pretty good.

There was too much pasta for the four people eating, but leftovers will combine nicely with the kasha I plan to use up tonight. No takers for the oyster mushrooms, but I will sneak them into the kasha. I passed the pesto to everyone else and topped the bowties with stir-fry. Here’s my dish.

Afterthought: isn’t a good thing I make wine? No need to spare the glass I have with lunch.