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Recipes
"Would you like pasta for lunch today?" I asked the L&M and his eyes lit right up! He loves pasta, in any and every form. It is always a special meal for him. I had two meat balls left over, so there was the basis of an exellent sauce. I crushed them, put them into a pan with hot oil and a crushed garlic clove. Mix-mix. I added some chopped tomato and some sauce I had, some gin, salt-pepper and I had a few slices of salami left over from a previous "favorite" lunch, which the L&M had a few days ago, consisting of a fresh French bread, slathered with mayo and at least three layers of salami, with a chopped up tomato, sliced red onion and heavy sea-salt. I decided that the L&M must be pregnant! I mean that sandwich made him moan with pleasure and the pasta... Anyway, back to the sauce: I chopped up the few slices of that salami and added that to the sauce and simmered it together for a few minutes. Then added the pasta and served it to the L&M who just looked at it with pleasure for a few minutes! And guess what? He ate up every drop of the sauce and did not touch the pasta! I got so mad at him that instead of giving the pasta to the birds, I chucked it out!

And just to put the pasta to bed for the time being, I thought you may want to try this lovely very easy sauce: mix together a can of anchovies and crushed roasted garlic in some olive oil, plus 1 clove of fresh crushed garlic, with an egg yolk! Yes, that is supposed to be quite good. No, I have not tried it... Yet!

I do a lot of "re-cooking" here; the food which the L&M receives is quite ample and I only have to make something extra once a week and we have enough for the two of us! And most of the time I redo things in mushrooms, because we both like them and they are easy to make. The other day cubes of beef were delivered. The L&M tasted a bit and pushed the plate away; totally tasteless. The next day, I ordered the same cubed beef, I fried in oil a large sliced onion, added a clove of chopped garlic and added a lot of sliced mushrooms - mix-mix - and some gin! Oh yes! My new pet!... And then the beef. I covered it and simmered it for a while... It was delicious!

And we had some left over, so the next day, I dumped it into the processor with mushrooms and even some mashed potatoes which came on the tray. This went into hot oil and when it was nice and hot, I broke some eggs over it and covered it for a few minutes; "it will need ketchup" said the L&M when I presented the pan to him... And let me tell you, ketchup or not, this was one happy boy!

And, I collected some of what they call here "grilled chicken", which is dry and tasteless! I have no idea why their main courses are so tasteless; they use an enormous amount of fresh herbs in their salads, which is quite amazing and I feel its really much too much! OH! I had a letter from a reader asking me why do I not use fresh herbs? Well I do, but very sparingly! I love to watch cooking shows on TV and lately our TV has gone to the dogs! I have no idea who is in charge, but there is absolutely nothing to watch! But there is always "Master Chef" or such and so I succumed to that! And in those programs, they go mad with herbs! They will use a bunch of that, chop-chop-chop! And a bunch of that and another... They turn me off completely! How can one taste anything if you do that? So, I will use some thyme, or basil or another herb occasionally, but very sparingly and not often!

Where were we? Oh! Chicken! Again, I crushed a huge clove of garlic into hot oil, added the chicken, swoosh-swoosh, added some chicken stock, some ketchup and gin, of course! A few drops of lemon juice and some orange marmalade; you really have to keep on tasting it to get it right, but once you got it, its really good! This simmered for a few minutes and was delicious!

We do not make a lot of desserts, but I like to keep something in the freezer just in case we are out of chocolate... So let me give you two marvelouse things I tried the other day. One, you slice 3 bananas and freeze them for 1 hour. Then blitz them in a procesor add some honey, a pinch of salt, blitz some more and freeze! The other one is just as easy and just as good. Plums! You have about 1 kilo of plums which you pit, chop up and puree. Now, 'melt' 200 gr. sugar in 100 ml of boiling water and add to the plums plus 2 large spoons of vodka and a pinch of salt. Freeze!

Send your questions to The Wacky Cook: email: debbiemorgenshtern@gmail.com      

Debbie Morgenstern is the author of "My Life in Israel" and other short stories.
"My Life in Israel" can be purchased by accessing this link: "My Life in Israel"