Recipe Category Archives: Garden Vegetable Levana Meal Replacement

Chickpea Tajine Dates and Swiss Chard Recipe

By on January 25, 2018 in

Adapted from Levana Cooks, using Garden Vegetable Levana Nourishments

chickpea tajine

My Chickpea Tajine is chock-full of delicious stuff:

Dates, Swiss chard, almonds. Does this sound fabulous and nutritious or what?
I just spotted fresh dates!
I grin nostalgically at this unusual New York site, as if I had run into a long-lost friend. Which of course I had in a way.
In Morocco the avenues are lined with majestic palm trees. So we only needed to bend and pick up the dates fallen from their branches. What a heavenly treat!
Last week I was shopping for my annual big bash which my husband and I host on the last day of Tishrei Yomtovim. So of course when I spotted the gorgeous dates in neat symmetrical rows on their stems dates, I decided right there and then to give them the rock star treatment. It was all decided: I would make a vegetarian menu, drawing liberally from Moroccan flavor influences. Trust me, this dish needs no meat or poultry, it is really powerful!

Chickpea tajine makes for a very substantial vegetarian main course:

So it is really worth the extra minimal step of soaking the chickpeas and partially cook them before adding them to the remaining faster-cooking ingredients. Still in a pinch I would say OK to use canned chickpeas. In this case, add all the way at the end of cooking.
Play with other leaves to make chickpea tajine:
Spinach, mustard greens, collard greens, etc…

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Moroccan Mixed Olive Salad

By on January 24, 2018 in

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

By on January 24, 2018 in

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

By on January 24, 2018 in

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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Caprese Salad Recipe

By on January 22, 2018 in

Adapted to Levana Nourishments from Levana Cooks.

caprese salad recipe

Caprese Salad Recipe heralds spring as surely and as exuberantly as Forsythia and Daffodils

We all love its intoxicating fragrances and bright Italian Red-White-and-Green Flag colors. In spring and summer the basil and the tomatoes are at their very best, and a Caprese Salad Recipe is a delightful way to showcase them and the Mediterranean Diet.

The three ingredients that must be present in Caprese Salad are tomatoes, basil and mozarella. Likewise, the trademark ingredient in the dressing is a luscious and very easy balsamic reduction. But I love these flavors so much I just play with them and take them places, often making my Caprese Salad main course: hey it’s your lunch, right? so don’t hesitate to cheat and make it grow, as do I, so it can wear more hats and you can enjoy it more often: Start with the easy basic Caprese Salad, eat it as is with your main course, or in a sandwich, or add a few goodies and make it your main course, gluten-free all the way.

Balsamic reduction is such a treat that it would pay to make a bigger batch and store it in a bottle, so you have it on hand, not only for Caprese Salad but to use as a glaze over grilled fish, poached chicken and other favorites.

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