Recipe Category Archives: 30 Minutes or Less

Minted Watermelon Salad Recipe

Adapted to Levana Cooks, using Mixed Berry Levana Nourishments.

minted watermelon salad

Minted Watermelon Salad with Feta and Tomatoes:

Huh? Does this salad combo sound wacky enough for you? I admit this watermelon salad is quite a stretch from the way watermelon is usually enjoyed: only one small good problem— watermelon salad is fabulous, so go for it! You must have noticed as I did that seeded watermelon is much tastier than the “convenient” and bland seedless hybrid. I recommend using the familiar watermelon; just spit out the seeds discreetly, OK?

Just one more wonderful thing while you are making watermelon salad: did you know you could juice watermelon, rind and all?

Watermelon juice: Who knew?

Delicious, and a nutritional powerhouse!

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Moroccan Mixed Olive Salad

Adapted from Levana Cooks, using Garden Vegetable Levana Nourishments

mixed olive salad

Mixed Olive Salad. That’s right: Not Salad with Olives!

We Moroccans grew up eating olives at every meal, not only in salads but cooked with our dishes. In this dish, they ARE the salad.

I love mixing and matching good quality olives for this olive salad.

The lemon here is not a garnish, but a real ingredient in its own right, and gets eaten, skin and all.

This recipe is in my first and most enduring book, Levana’s Table: Kosher Cooking for Everyone, where you will find some fabulous classics, including a whole chapter on favorite recipes from the former Levana Restaurant, and a chapter on entertaining in style.

In this salad, the olives are the star, practically all by themselves (no other salad ingredients) If you poke around online, there’s no olives you won’t find, best quality and well priced too.

Any olive salad leftovers can be eaten in the next several days, so make the whole batch.

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Mixed Grilled Vegetables Recipe – Pasta Variation

Adapted from Levana Cooks, using Levana Nourishments Garden Vegetable

grilled vegetables

Mixed grilled vegetables are one of my favorite go-to dishes.

Everyone loves a plate of grilled vegetables, to eat as is or to use as a filling for sandwiches. I have chosen to share the most ridiculously simple way. First of all, please don’t find me disingenuous: Some of us, including yours truly, were not blessed with a backyard or porch or any outdoor cooking amenities whatsoever, so my “grilled” vegetables are roasted at high temperature in one layer, and just as delicious as grilled, requiring no turning over and no maintenance. Second, the trick is to combine your veggies according to their cooking time.

To the basic selection below, you can add string beans, asparagus, endives, radishes, Brussels sprouts, and fennel; but you will roast carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, potatoes separately because they require a longer cooking time. Roast beets all by themselves so they don’t bleed into your other veggies, or use the wonderful golden beets now available at all good produce stores. For all roasting, remember, one layer, no piling! Lining the baking sheet with foil reduces, or sometimes even eliminates, cleaning.

When the vegetables are roasted, go ahead and get a little fancier if you wish: toss in a little olive oil, chopped fresh basil, a few drops of balsamic vinegar, and a little ground pepper. Most often, I add nothing at all: It’s that good!

Variation- Pasta with  Mixed Grilled Vegetables:

Dice your grilled vegetables , and toss them with 1 pound cooked pasta of your choice. Serve hot or at room temperature.

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Potato Salad Recipe – Main Course Variations

Adapted from Levana Cooks, using Levana Nourishments Garden Vegetable

potato salad

A Potato Salad Recipe? Seriously, what’s the big deal, and why even dignify such a mundane dish with a formal recipe? Why can’t we just, ummm, dice some potatoes, slather them with mayo, throw in some seasonings and chopped onions, and bingo, we got potato salad?

Nonono, this is much more delicious, and much more substantial than that, and with a little accessorizing, can amount to a whole wonderful main course. Scroll down! No more dissing potato salad, you hear? You’ll never go wrong with the classics!

Let me start by saying my potato salad has no mayo whatsoever.

My secret is much simpler and much healthier: I pour olive oil and vinegar over the diced potatoes while they are still boiling hot so they absorb them right on the spot, and add a whole layer of deliciousness!

Potato Salad as a Main Course? You bet!
– Vegetarian: Throw in 1 granny smith apple, unpeeled and diced small, and 1 cup full-fat cottage cheese or plain yogurt.
– Fish: Throw in a can of tuna or sardines, or a few slices lox, shredded, or flaked poached salmon.
– Chicken or Meat: Throw in diced poached chicken breast or smoked turkey breast, or diced leftover roastbeef or pastrami.

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Cold Pasta – Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Roasted Peppers, and Olives Recipe

Adapted from Levana Cooks using Levana Nourishments Mushroom Medley. 

cold pasta

Cold Pasta – Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Roasted Peppers, and Olives Recipe

Cold Pasta dishes are wonderful for summer and all buffet displays. And the best part is, beside for boiling the pasta, this cold pasta dish doesn’t require any cooking. If you are watching your starch intake, or if you are simply, as I always am, looking for better grains, this is your chance to experiment with soba or rice noodles: Respectively low-gluten and gluten-free and prepared in a snap, they will do the job with flying colors!
For this cold pasta dish, you have a wide choice of pasta, but please don’t select a tubular pasta; in other words, no ziti, no bucatini, or other pasta with holes running through their centers. The only time we want tubular pasta is when we have a not-too-rich pasta sauce, such as tomato or vegetable sauce.
Although this cold pasta dish is delicious as is, frozen artichokes hearts or bottoms would be a great addition, at no extra labor cost (just let them thaw!), and would be a good chance to sneak in the delicious, nutritious and low-calorie artichoke, which is still so underrated in America.

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