Mexican Meatball Soup with Limes

On a beautiful Sunday in March of 2006, I left my apartment in Jerusalem and drove due north for about 200 km, until I arrived at Moshav Shtula, which sits on the border between Israel and Lebanon. (On the border, as in: on my morning run, I got about 10 minutes before hitting the UN blue line and turning around.) I went to spend a week with Sara Hatan, a Kurdish immigrant who had raised her family (14 children!) on Shtula and established a reputation as an excellent cook. My friend Neil, who sent me to Sara, told me that people came to visit her restaurant from across the tiny country. They said her kubbeh was the best they'd ever had. And friends, as excited as I was to spend the week washing Sara's dishes and waiting on Shtula's guests, what led me there in the first place was kubbeh.

Kubbeh are meat-filled bulgur and semolina dumplings that are either fried and served as an appetizer, or boiled and plunked into soup. I was after boiled kubbeh, specifically those that find their way into kubbeh hamusta, a sour, sorrel-based soup that I love.

Sara taught me to make kubbeh hamusta. By "taught," I mean that she poured water into a big pot until the water rose halfway up her arm, then said -- in Kurdish-inflected Hebrew -- "See how much water to use? Good." She shaped five kubbeh in record time, without even looking down, and then had me do one.  I started to curl the semolina dough around the meat, when before I knew it, she'd snatched the thing right out of my hand, managing to salvage it in the nick of time. Over five days cooking with Sara, I five pounds fuller and (maybe?) five pennies wiser. She was hilarious and accomplished, but she had no interest in teaching me. Fortunately, the internet exists. I've since taught myself to make a not-all-together terrible kubbeh hamusta.

I recently learned that kubbeh hamusta is just one in a large family of sour meat-based soups. According to my brother, soups like this exist in Turkey and elsewhere across the Middle East. Needless to say, I want to try them all. For now, I'm settling for two. The second? Agrio.

Agrio comes from Henry's mom, who is Syrian-Mexican. Henry's wife Rachel -- possibly more obsessed with Agrio than I -- shared this recipe, and for a while, all we did when we saw each other was gush about how delicious it is.

The basic idea is this: make little meatballs, the float them and little baby potatoes in a broth full of celery, parsley, and spearmint. Just before serving, squeeze a whole bag of limes into the soup. You wind up with something not unlike kubbeh hamusta: salty, meaty, and surprisingly, pleasingly, sour.

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I was going to say that this was by far the best thing I served over the high holidays, but then I remembered that insane lamb shoulder and possibly my best batch of challot, ever. So it's a close contest. But this was a huge hit, and I'm thrilled to have yet another sour, meaty soup in my arsenal.

Agrioadapted from Rachel's mother-in-law's recipe Serves 4-6

Like all good family recipes -- like kubbeh hamusta, come to think of it -- the original formula for Agrio contains the occasional measurement, but mostly refers to quantities like "a bunch" or offers no quantities at all. ("Some beef broth" is one item in the recipe.) The quantities offered here, therefore, are very flexible. Feel free to alter them if you prefer a different balance, or if you only have 3 limes but still want to make the soup. But don't skimp on the parsley; you really do need all of it.

2 lbs. ground beef 2 tablespoons olive oil One whole head of celery, stalks and leaves, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 medium onion, diced 3-4 cups baby potatoes, halved fingerlings, or diced yukon golds 4 cups beef or vegetable broth 1 large bunch parsley (at least 3 cups packed) 1 cup lime juice (I needed about 8-10 limes) 1 bunch spearmint, leaves only Form the beef into meatballs the size of quarters.

Add the oil to a large soup pot and set over medium-high heat. Add meatballs in batches, making sure not to crowd the pan. Cook meatballs for 2-3 minutes, until the bottom side is brown, then flip and cook an additional 2 minutes on the second side. Remove finished meatballs to a plate.

When all meatballs have been cooked and set aside, you should have a nice layer of olive oil mixed with beef drippings -- perfect for your mirepoix. Add celery, garlic, and onion to the pot, turn the heat to medium, and sweat the vegetables until they start to soften but have not browned.

Add the broth and potatoes to the pot along with all but a handful of the parsley and 4 cups of water. Turn the heat to high, and bring the soup to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes are fully cooked. 10 minutes into cooking, add meatballs back into the soup.

When soup is finished cooking, turn off the heat, and add the line juice. Stir to incorporate. Add the remaining parsley and all of the spearmint and give a couple more stirs. Serve hot.

Purslane Salad with Cantaloupe and Feta

Purslane is in season here, and if you've had the chance to buy it straight from a grower, you know that it's far more active of a plant than it might look on the shelf of Whole Foods. Purslane is no wimpy pile of leaves; it's a big, flowery, almost overgrown plant, with thick stems the size of garlic scapes and row after row of firm, round leaves. It announces itself by looks alone, and with its bright, tangy flavor, boy does it pack a punch.

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The stems of purslane, I recently discovered, are quite mucilaginous, not unlike okra. I tried to saute them in a bit of olive oil and I ended up with a stew the texture of gumbo. Next time, I'll leave the stems whole and either grill them, or saute them in a very hot pan with very hot oil, to keep the goo at bay.

But the leaves, that's where the fun is. Purslane is tart, like sorrel, which makes it a perfect pair for summer's sweetest melons.

Last week, when most of what we had in the house consisted of tomatoes in one form or another, I did manage to get my hands on both this purslane and a beautiful cantaloupe. I'd also bought a fresh block of feta, which added the much-needed salty component to this salad. The dressing was an entirely unfussy combination of sherry vinegar and good olive oil (substitute red wine vinegar if you don't have sherry), with a bit of flaky salt and pepper. And because I couldn't resist using some of the beautiful spearmint that I'd bought for the most amazing soup ever (stay tuned), that went in, too. Super simple, really refreshing.

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If you've found purslane and are looking for other things to do with it, here are a few recommendations:

• Use as a bed for steak salad or duck confit
• Add to potato salad; dress with a spicy, mustard-heavy dressing
• Toss with sesame noodles; dress with a thin, soy-based dressing heavy on the sesame oil
• Combine with sauteed tofu, julienned carrots, and some avocado in rice paper rolls; serve with peanut sauce

And if you want even more ideas, Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini wrote a post with more suggestions that you can fit into a single season.

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Happy purslaning!

Purslane Salad with Cantaloupe and Feta serves 2 as a main course, 4 as an appetizer or component of a meal

1 big bunch of purslane 2 cups diced cantaloupe 5 oz. good, briny feta cheese, crumbled or cubed (your choice) 3 sprigs spearmint or peppermint, just leaves 2 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar 1/4 cup good olive oil flaky salt and pepper (about 1/4 teaspoon each, less if your salt is fine)

Separate the thin stems and their attached leaves from the thick central branch, and cut them into smallish sprigs.

Toss purslane, cantaloupe, feta, and mint in a large bowl.

Combine sherry, olive oil, salt, and pepper, and whisk until combined. Drizzle over salad and toss to combine. Spoon out onto small plates and serve immediately.

Tuscan Baked Tomatoes

A perfect tomato is a thing of wonder: its perfectly smooth red skin, its firm flesh, its juices suspended just so. I hesitate to do anything but drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt, and eat up.

But then the end of August rolls around, and farmers start in with the deals: a half-bushel of near-perfect "seconds" for $12.  I can't resist a deal like that. So I buy 'em, and over a week or so, the tomatoes make their way into salsa, tomato sauce, and other things that I jar and process for winter.

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This summer, I got even luckier. Zach and Clay are the bloggers behind The Bitten Word; they're also my neighbors. Every year, they go to their CSA farm at the end of August and pick their weight in tomatoes -- in fact, one year, the Washington Post did a story on their adventure. This year, they overshot it on the picking. Lucky neighbor that I am, I got to share in the spoils.

We jarred a bunch as crushed tomatoes and a few more pounds as sauce. I'd already done salsa and jam, and there aren't many other tomato-based staples that I use during the year. A cardinal rule of canning is "if you won't use it, don't can it."  So, with about 10 pounds of tomatoes to go, I cooked up tomato feast for weekend lunch.

We started with pan con tomate, the Spanish tapa of grilled, garlic-rubbed bread (we used sourdough) topped with grated tomato and some olive oil and salt. We had a bit of Andalusian gazpacho, thickened with more of that same homemade sourdough and topped with more olive oil. (Come to think of it, about 80% of what we ate yesterday was tomato, bread, and olive oil. I'm not complaining.)

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We did change things up with a purslane salad, which I'll be blogging about later in the week. But the main course at yesterday's lunch was a tray of baked tomatoes, their supple flesh topped with a crunchy mix of bread crumbs, tuscan spices, and plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. They take almost no effort to prepare, and they're a really fantastic way to celebrate the peak (and almost the end) of tomato season.

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Tuscan Baked Tomatoes Adapted from Ina Garten Serves 4-6

6 large, ripe tomatoes (regular beefsteak tomatoes work great here) 1 cup bread crumbs 1/4 cup basil leaves, julienned 2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley 1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano leaves (or substitute 1 teaspoon dried oregano) 2 small cloves garlic or 1 large clove, minced 1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano cheese salt and freshly ground pepper good olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Use a small paring knife to cut the cores from the tomatoes, removing as little of the flesh as possible. Cut them in half crosswise; if they are very large or if you want more pieces, cut into three very thick slices. Place the tomato halves or pieces in a baking dish or on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the tomatoes.

In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, basil, parsley, oregano, garlic, and cheese. Pack the bread crumb mixture onto the tomato slices and if you're feeling really crazy, top with another drizzle of olive oil. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until tomatoes are sizzling and bread crumbs have started to brown. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Ask my colleagues what I did this weekend, and they'll tell you what I told them: relax, relax, relax.

And truly, that's what I intended to do. It's been an intense month at work, and I've been looking forward to this labor-day-without-weddings weekend for a long time. I had my sites set on the couch, a couple of movies downloaded on my ipad, and a bag of fantastic coffee beans ready for some pour-over action.

Turns out, I'm not so good at relaxing in the traditional sense. Sitting on the couch too long makes me twitch. I start poking around at the tomatoes on the counter, seeing if any is particularly soft and needs cutting. The second peaches in the fridge call my name and I'm up, flipping through cookbooks for that brown-butter cobbler recipe I've been meaning to try. And I can't even blame it all on the last glorious produce of summer. Partly, I'm just a mad woman. At 8 am I'm reading The Kitchn on my ipad, and at 8:15 I'm in the kitchen, mixing up dough.

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I've been eyeing a version of this loaf for over a year. Leite's Culinaria first posted a recipe for lemon pull-apart bread by Flo Braker, she of best tea cookies on the planet-fame. Those cookies are so good, I'll try pretty much any other recipe she writes. Lemon pull-apart loaf looked like cinnamon buns, minus the cinnamon, minus the bun, if you know what I mean. Doesn't that sound delicious and totally self-explanatory? Lemme try again: it's cinnamon bun dough, cut into squares, brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with lemon delicious stuff, and stacked into a loaf pan. As it bakes, the strips rise up and fan out, so the edges crisp and the sugar and butter caramelize. Now then: delicious, am I right?

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I made the loaf a couple weeks ago, and I added some chopped rosemary to the lemon-sugar mixture. Definitely a winner.

But then I made it again, and this time, I added a bit of cinnamon. Lemon and cinnamon work together to make fruit crisps sing; I figured they'd make a great pair in this bread.

Spoiler alert: Not so much. The lemon-cinnamon bread was 100% mediocre. 

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Turns out that what I really craved was the old faithful, cinnamon pull-apart bread. So on try #3, that's what I made.

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It's every bit as good as it should be, and, if you can believe this to possibly be the case, it doesn't even need the cream cheese frosting. Not that that should stop you.

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Cinnamon Brown Sugar Pull Apart Bread or Lemon-Rosemary Pull-Apart BreadAdapted from Leite's Culinaria

For the dough: 2 3/4 cups (12 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) instant yeast 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup whole milk 4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter 1/4 cup water 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 large eggs

Pick your filling...

For lemon filling: 1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar 3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from 2 to 3 lemons, preferably organic) 1 tablespoons finely grated orange zest, preferably organic 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter, melted

For cinnamon-brown sugar filling: 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 tablespoons cinnamon 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) salted butter, melted

For the cream cheese frosting: 3 ounces cream cheese, softened 1/3 cup (1 1/4 ounces) confectioners’ sugar 1 tablespoon whole milk 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, only if using lemon filling

Make the sweet dough:Stir together 2 cups (9 ounces) of the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter over low heat just until the butter is melted. (You can also do this in a pyrex bowl in the microwave; the mixture needed about 1 minute in mine.) Remove from the heat, add the water, and set aside until warm, about 1 minute. Add the vanilla extract.

Pour the milk mixture over the flour-yeast mixture and mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened. With the mixer still on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing just until incorporated after each addition. Stop the mixer, add 1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) flour, and resume mixing on low speed until the dough is smooth, 30 to 45 seconds. Add 2 more tablespoons flour and mix on medium speed until the dough is smooth, soft, and slightly sticky, about 45 seconds.

Sprinkle a work surface with 1 tablespoon flour and turn the dough onto the flour. Knead gently until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky, about 1 minute, adding an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons flour only if the dough is unworkably sticky. Place the dough in a large bowl, cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise in a warm place (about 70°F) until doubled in size, 45 to 60 minutes. Press the dough gently with a fingertip. If the indentation remains, the dough is ready for the next step.

Make the filling: While the dough is rising, mix together in a small bowl either the sugar, lemon zest, and orange zest, or the cinnamon and brown sugar. Set aside.

Assemble and bake the cake: Adjust the oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan with parchment using this awesome trick from Alice Medrich: wrap the outside of the pan as if you were wrapping a gift, then take the folded parchment and ease it into the pan. Brilliant!

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 20-by-12-inch rectangle. Cut the dough crosswise into 5 strips, each about 12 by 4 inches. (A pizza cutter is helpful here.) Using a pastry brush, spread the melted butter generously over each strip of dough. Sprinkle 1 1/2 tablespoons of the filling over each rectangle. Then stack the 5 rectangles on top of each other. Work carefully when adding the crumbly zest filling, or it will fall off when you have to lift the stacked pastry later.

Slice crosswise through the 5-layer stack to create 6 equal strips, each about 4 by 2 inches. Fit these layered strips into the prepared loaf pan, cut edges up and side by side. (Flo Braker recommends fitting the pieces widthwise in the pan, which creates a taller loaf with lots of room on either side. I opted to stack them widthwise, which was quite tight but rose into a shape I liked more. Your choice.) Loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place (70 °F) until puffy and almost doubled in size, 30 to 50 minutes.  Bake the coffee cake until the top is golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove from the pan.

Frost the cake (optional): Combine cream cheese and sugar, and mash/whisk with a fork until fully incorporated. Add milk (and lemon juice, if making lemon bread), and mix vigorously with fork or electric mixer until very smooth. Set cake on the sheet of parchment used for baking, and drizzle with glaze using a fork or brush using a pastry brush. Serve warm.

Word to the wise: day-old slices of this bread could use a spin in the toaster, but boy are they amazing post-toast.