Broccoli with Garlic Butter and Cashews or Almonds

This popular, tasty and easy broccoli recipe has over 1,300 favorable reviews on allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/broccoli-with-garlic-butter-and-cashews/). 

I didn't have cashews at home, so I substituted almonds. That worked fine.

The recipe below serves 6. Since there were only two of us, I reduced the quantities of ingredients by two thirds. 

Ingredients

1 & 1/2 lbs broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces

1/3 cup butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

3 tablespoons soy sauce 

2 teaspoons white vinegar

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup chopped salted cashews

Directions

Place the broccoli into a large pot with about 1 inch of water in the bottom. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes, or until tender but still crisp. Drain and arrange broccoli on a serving platter.

While the broccoli is cooking, melt the butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Mix in the brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, pepper, and garlic. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat. Mix in the cashews, and pour the sauce over the broccoli. Serve immediately.

Pork Schnitzel - Nice & Easy

We recently enjoyed this easy pork schnitzel recipe from food.com (http://www.food.com/recipe/pork-schnitzel-261124). However, it took a bit more clean up than I wanted. I used pork cube steaks so I did not have to thin or tenderize the cuts.

The recipe below serves 4, but I cut it in half for the two of us.

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 cup plain bread crumbs

2 eggs (or 1/2 cup egg substitute)

4 pork cube steaks (1 & 1/2 lb), or 4 pork chops (1 & 1/2 lb), or 4 pork tenderloin (1 & 1/2 lb)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

4 tablespoons canola oil, divided (It is only necessary to divide the oil if you cook 4 pork chops - 2 at a time. If you cook only 2, as I did, you only need to use 2 tablespoons and don't need to divide them.)

Directions

Place flour in shallow bowl; bread crumbs in second bowl. Beat eggs gently in third bowl until well blended.

Preheat large sauté pan on medium high for 2-3 minutes. Season both sides of pork with salt and pepper. Dip pork in flour, coating both sides. Then dip into egg mixture, allowing excess to drip off. Finally, dip into bread crumbs to coat.

Place 2 tablespoons of oil into the pan, and swirl to coat the pan. Place 2 pork steaks in the pan, and cook for 4-5 minutes per side, or until internal temperature is 160 degrees F. Use a meat thermometer to accurate ensure doneness.

Remove pork from pan and cover to keep warm. Repeat steps with 2 remaining tablespoons of oil and 2 pork steaks. Serve.

Sauteed Zucchini and Tomatoes - Tasty, Fast, & Easy

I love zucchini and tomatoes. This recipe from food.com (http://www.food.com/recipe/sauteed-zucchini-and-tomatoes-24147) combines those two with nice Parmesan and basil flavoring for a fast and easy side. It would go well with a wide variety of main dishes, and it would certainly be amenable to substituting many other spice combinations.

A similar recipe I've seen adds garlic and red onion. It also substitute fresh basil as garnish, instead of dried basil mixed in.

The recipe below serves 4. Since there are only two of us, I use only 1 tomato and 1 zucchini. I also add a 1/4 tsp of salt.

Ingredients

2 small zucchini, halved lengthwise, then sliced into half moons. (I sliced the half moons about 1/2" thick.)

2 medium tomatoes, large dice

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated.

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/2 teaspoon pepper (Some might consider this too much pepper when only using one zucchini and one tomato.)

1/4 teaspoon salt (my addition)

Directions

In a large skillet, sauté zucchini and tomatoes in hot oil and butter for 5 minutes.

Add Parmesan and spices.

Stir to coat well.

Serve hot.

Levantine Green Bean, Onion, and Tomato Stew, with or without Lamb

Green bean (loubieh) dishes are very popular in the Middle East. This one, which can be prepared with or without meat, is delicious and very easy. It can be served with or over rice. We really enjoyed it. 

I made one major change to the recipe - I doubled the amount of lamb from 1/2 lb to 1 lb. A Palestinian version from my mother's recipe book replaces the cumin and cinnamon with 1/2 tsp allspice. That recipe also uses butter instead of olive oil.

I found this recipe at http://www.acedarspoon.com/lebanese-green-beans-lubee/. It is worth reading the whole article at the foregoing web page.

A popular name for the dish is Loubieh bi Zeit - green beans in olive oil.

Ingredients

1 lb green beans, fresh or frozen (I used fresh and cut them into bite-size pieces prior to cooking.)
1 & 1/2 cups onion, sliced
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 can diced tomatoes (I used a 14 oz. can)
pepper to taste
(I also added salt)
Optional 1/2 lb stew meat or diced ham (I used 1 lb of cubed lamb)

A separate side of rice can be added if desired. Alternatively, it can be served over rice.

Instructions

1. Lightly brown onions and garlic in the oil in a stock pot. If meat is used, add the meat at the same time and cook until browned on all sides.)

2. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Then cover and simmer slowly until the green beans (and meat if used) are tender - about 40-45 minutes. Stir a couple of times.

3. Check taste. Add more spices if desired.

4. Serve warm.

Green Beans with Onions and Warm Mustard Vinaigrette - Tasty, Fast, and Easy

There seems to be no end of tasty and easy green bean sides.This one, with onion and warm mustard vinaigrette is from myrecipes.com, and originally came from Cooking Light magazine. We really enjoyed it. 

The only change I made was to use 1/2 pound of green beans instead of 1 & 1/2 pounds. That was because there were only two of us. I did not change the amount of sauce. Since I like lots of sauce, that worked fine. 

The original recipe, from http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/green-beans-red-onion-with-warm-mustard-vinaigrette, is below.

Ingredients

1 & 1/2 pounds of green beans, trimmed (I cut the green beans into bite-size pieces prior to cooking.)
1 cup vertically sliced red onion
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preparation

Cook green beans in boiling water fro 6 minutes or until crisp-tender, and drain. Combine the green beans and onion in a large bowl.

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add vinegar, Dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, and black pepper; cook over medium heat for 30 seconds or until thoroughly heated, stirring vinaigrette constantly with a whisk.

Drizzle vinaigrette over bean mixture; and toss well to coat. Serve immediately.

Terrific Avocado, Corn, Tomato, Onion, and Bell Pepper Salad / Side Dish

In searching for a side dish to go with enchiladas on Cinco de Mayo, I found this terrific & easy avocado, corn, tomato, onion (and bell pepper) salad by Paula Deen on foodnetwork.com (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/corn-avocado-and-tomato-salad-recipe.html). I made a few adjustments to match what I had available, and added bell pepper to the main ingredients.

One could easily add finely chopped fresh jalapeño pepper to spice it up a bit. I loved it so much, I made it again within a week of the first try.

Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked corn, fresh or frozen (I used a 15 oz. can of Libby's whole kernel cooked sweet corn)
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes halved. (I diced a whole Tasti-Lee tomato)
- 1/2 cup finely diced red onion (I used yellow.)
- 1/2 a bell pepper, diced (I added this ingredient to the Paula Deen recipe.)
- 1 avocado cut into half inch pieces (I used a small Hass avocado and cut it last so that I could immediately put the lime sauce on it and keep it from changing color. Next time, I'll probably use two small avocados. There are a number of YouTube videos with easy instructions on how to cut and deseed an avocado.)

Dressing
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest (Instead of measuring, I used zest of half a small Persian lime.)
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (I used the juice from the half a lime I had just zested.)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions
Combine the corn, tomato, onion, bell pepper and avocado in a large glass bowl. Mix the dressing ingredients in another bowl, pour over the salad, and gently toss to mix.

Baked Kibbeh - A Terrific Levantine Arabic Dish

Kibbeh is considered a Levantine Arabic dish, but it is popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It comes in many cooked variations and shapes, and at least one raw version. The main ingredients are lean ground meat (normally lamb, but alternatively made with beef, goat, or camel), bulghur wheat (burghul in Arabic), onion, and spices. For a thorough introduction to Kibbeh, see the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbeh.

My mother used to make at least three versions, including the raw version. I loved them all. I decided to try the baked version. It turned out to be fantastic, and much easier than I anticipated.

For a dinner menu with Kibbeh as the main dish, I recommend the following accompaniments - tabouleh salad, hummus and pita bread, laban (Arab yoghurt), and baklava for dessert. Laban can be found at Middle Eastern grocery stores. Buy pita bread at a Middle Eastern grocery if possible, not a supermarket. There's a world of difference. Another nice accompaniment would be Armenian or Syrian string cheese. It is mild, delicious, and pulls apart in string-like pieces.

Although I had several recipes in Middle Eastern cookbooks at home, I decided to try a YouTube search to see if I could find a chef making Kibbeh. I found several, but one in particular was terrific. I strongly recommend viewing it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dxTr1iOeNc. The chef - Kamal - is terrific. His home page is http://www.cookingwithkamal.com/. He has written a Lebanese cookbook called Classic Lebanese Cuisine.

Baked Kibbeh is known in Arabic as Kibbeh be Saniyeh or Kibbeh bi Sinniyeh, which means, "Kibbeh in a pan."

Below is the recipe Chef Kamal and others use for Baked Kibbeh. The version below has a few changes I made - I used ½ pound of lamb in the filling instead of ¼ pound. I used almonds instead of pine nuts. Pine nuts are traditional, but I don't care for them.

As indicated above, it can be made with some meat other than lamb. Chef Kamal also mentions chicken.

Chef Kamal mentions that both cooked and uncooked Kibbeh can be kept in the freezer. Consequently, you can prepare it in advance.

The recipe below can serve 8. I think I could devour half.

Baked Kibbeh has three layers - a layer of dough, covered by a layer of filling, covered by a top layer of dough.

Dough Ingredients

1&1/4 cups bulghur fine - soak overnight with 1 cup water, (Bulghur wheat comes in different levels of fineness. Use level 1, which is the finest. If you can't find it at a local store, it is available on Amazon.com.

1 & ½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

½ tsp allspice

¼ tsp cinnamon

½ lb lean ground lamb - ground very fine (Do not use a meat processor. I do not have a meat grinder, so I used two different approaches, both successfully - 1. Ask your butcher to grind this portion of lamb as fine as possible. The butcher at Publix was happy to do this. 2. The second time I made the Kibbeh, I bought a package of Australian minced lamb. It worked perfectly.)

¾ cup coarsely chopped yellow onion

1/3 cup olive oil

Filling Ingredients

1 & 1/2 tbsp toasted pine nuts / almonds

1 tbsp olive oil in frying pan

½ lb coarsely ground lamb

¾ cup diced yellow onion in 1/4 " pieces

½ tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

¼ tsp allspice

1/8 tsp cinnamon

Dough directions

Put spices in large bowl

Grind onions very fine in food processor (be careful not to purée)

Mix onions with lamb - massage them together with the spices

Put kibbeh in bowl and aggressively massage ingredients together

Divide dough in half - one half for bottom and one half for top

Filling directions

Put olive oil in skillet

Preheat skillet over medium high heat

Put lamb in skillet

As lamb is cooking, break it into very small pieces with wooden spoon until lamb is no longer pink

Add spices & onion and mix with lamb

Turn heat to low and sauté until onions are translucent

Directions for combining dough and filling

Place one half of dough between two pieces of plastic wrap and roll flat into circle with rolling pin. Roll from the center to the outside.

Take off and keep top sheet of plastic wrap (for rolling of second half of dough)

Pick up the dough with the remaining sheet of plastic wrap in flip into bottom of 9" pan

Place a small bowl of cool water next to the pan

Put a little water onto the bottom dough and pat it down and up against the sides of the pan

Spread filling on top of bottom dough, being careful not to let filling touch the sides of the pan (to keep from burning filling during cooking).

Sprinkle nuts across filling.

Roll second half of filling in the same way as the first, making sure it's large enough to cover the top, and even a bit larger.

Use water to press down top.

Using a knife, separate the kibbeh from the sides of the pan

Cut kibbeh into quarters

Score top of kibbeh into squares or diamond shape

Pour olive oil over the top. Tilt pan so entire surface is covered with olive oil.

Baked at 400 for 35-40 minutes

Recut the ¼ pieces. Then recut into smaller pieces.