Category Archives: food and cooking

Lebanese Spice

food and cooking,

This week I’m not able to spend much time here at the computer, but I don’t want you to think I disappeared, so I’ll just share with you a favorite staple recipe I like to keep on hand.

I have been using this combination of spices and salt for decades. It did come from an authentic Lebanese cook, perhaps via Sunset Magazine. My adaptation is lower in salt and cayenne pepper than the original. You can tweak the proportions to suit your own taste.

Typically it is used to flavor ground beef or lamb; the suggestion was to add 2 teaspoons to one pound of meat. I’ve used it in stews as well. I love that little bit of cinnamon surprise.

Combine the following, mix well, and store at room temperature in your spice cupboard:
3 tsp each cinnamon and paprika
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Mouth Fireworks

food and cooking


Trader Joe’s has come out with this dried fruit concoction I have bought a few times. Dried mango with paprika and cayenne pepper, a little salt and sugar. Zingy! An 8-oz package of this concentrated food would provide almost 800 calories, if you ate the whole thing. I have resisted the urge so far, to eat the contents in one day.

It’s not anything our American forefathers would have dreamed of. It’s not red, white, or blue, or a combination of the three.

But eating a couple of these slices is kind of like eating your fireworks. So good, I had to share.

Egg Lemon Soup

food and cooking,


I’ve been cooking some old favorites today. One of them is Egg Lemon Soup. I got my recipe from a Greek cookbook decades ago, so I stick by it, though I’ve seen other methods and ingredients for making this soup. I’m sure every Greek lady has her own version, as well.

GREEK EGG LEMON SOUP

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock

juice of 1-2 lemons (I always use 2)

1/4 teaspoon summer savory (If you don’t have this, use oregano. I think the savory is a relative of oregano). I used dried, but fresh would be lovely and leave you something to garnish with.

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup cooked rice (If you don’t have this, cook 1/2 cup raw rice in the stock until tender, and then the rice will just be in there from the beginning.)

Heat the stock to almost boiling, with the herb. Beat the eggs and quickly whisk in the lemon juice. You can add some of the zest if you want. While beating briskly, add a cup or two of the broth to the egg mixture. Then add it back into the pot, along with the rice. Keep it from boiling, or it may curdle. Serve.

A bit of fresh chopped parsley would be perfect for scattering on top of this soup, but I couldn’t find one leaf of it in the garden.

So…it’s too cool a climate here to be able to eat outdoors very often, but the flip side of that is, we get to eat soup all summer long!

A saint, a party, a hot day.

church, food and cooking, garden, , ,

The most important thing, today, is that it is the day when we commemorate Saint Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward and follower of Christ, one of the women who came to the tomb to anoint His body, only to find that He was not there, because our Lord had risen from the dead.

I took the name of Joanna as my Orthodox, baptismal name when I converted, so “her day” is my day, and thoughts of her and her example, our communion in Christ, our prayers for each other, overshadowed the day with a sweetness. This evening, I was able to go to Vespers, always a blessed beginning of The Lord’s Day.

But I also went to a tea party given by a young friend. It was hot today, and we ate out of doors under an awning. The colors were refreshing, including the tea: green or passion fruit. It was iced tea, served in teacups.

My friends’ garden is always full of flowers, of few of which were happy to float in plenty of water, and in the shade, on such a day.

Salad was the perfect main course, followed by ice cream. I had no time to photograph the ice cream as I was too busy eating it before it melted.

When I came home, Mr. Glad let me know that as the forecast is for more heat tomorrow, he invited some other young friends to come and swim after church tomorrow. I immediately thought of how hungry kids get after swimming, and remembered that I had some cookie dough in the freezer. I can’t remember if I made the dough for Christmas or for a tea party, but no matter, it baked up into nice Cardamom Butter Squares tonight. Even on hot days, in our area, the nights are usually cool. If one has baking to do, it is best to do it in the evening so that all that oven heat dissipates before the next day. This is one way we manage without air conditioning.

In the background of the cookies, you can see some crayons and paper, tools for a very preliminary step toward designing a baby quilt I hope to make this summer. One step at a time…”inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

It was a full and rich day, on many levels. As I drove home from Vespers, I even saw “my” goslings in the park!