In honor of BridgetownBites Salad Week and the fact that my porch thermometer reported 100F today (it's still 88F at 7pm), I thought I'd make two salads for dinner, neither requiring any heating at all, just cutting, washing, and marinating. Each also requires one obscure ingredient, but hopefully you can still make use of them for your own heat wave days.

When we have a heat wave like this, I don't want to turn on the stove, and I also don't want to go outside to the grill. So I look for dishes I can prepare which require no heat. Salads top the list, of course, and I could just do a green salad. But in the middle of summer, I can be more creative. Also, the heat wave already killed my lettuce.

I also wanted to take advantage of some produce I had. First, we'd recently been to Walla Walla and brought back a bag of their famous sweet onions (it's the season). Second, Nathan the Watermelon Man started deliveries this week, so I had a delicious Hermiston watermelon. This led to a Persian onion and barberry salad, and a Greek watermelon salad.

Persian Onion Salad

This onion salad comes to us from Naomi Duguid's Persia, with my usual tweaks, of course. It's a very traditional Persian salad, usually served to accompany grilled meats, but delicious on its own if made with sweet onions like the Walla Wallas. I don't recommend making it with regular brown onions except as a topping for meat; without real sweet onions, it would be too sharp to eat by itself.

The obscure ingredient here is dried barberries. These are a staple of Persian cuisine but only found in good Middle Eastern markets here in the US. Fortunately, I live near one. They are quite tart, so if you can't get them, try unsweetened dried cranberries, chopped. The recipe also requires the spice ground sumac, but most major supermarkets carry that these days.

The onion requires a bit of sitting, so start this recipe early.

• Two large Walla Walla, Maui, or Vidalia sweet onions, about 2lbs
• 1 Tbs or more kosher salt
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup dried barberries
• 1 tsp dried mint, or about 2 Tbs chopped fresh mint
• 1 tsp ground sumac
• 2 tsp sherry, champagne, or cider vinegar

Halve, peel, and thinly slide both onions. Layer them in a colander with a sprinkle of kosher salt over each of 4-5 layers of sliced onions. Let sit in the sink for around 1/2 hour. Soak the barberries in 1 cup cold water for the same period of time.

Drain the barberries. Put the sliced onion in a large bowl, fill it with cold water, mix it around, and drain. Then put the onions back in the bowl, fill it with cold water again, and let sit for another 15-20 minutes. This should remove most of the salt and any sharpness from the onion. Then drain the onions, maybe even drying them on a towel.

Toss the onions, barberries, mint, and sumac together. Drizzle over the vinegar. Let sit for a few minutes, then serve.

Greek Watermelon Salad

This type of salad will be more familiar to many readers. I got it from Diane Kochilas Meze years ago when it was less familiar to Americans, and have made it ever since. It's a very tasty salad, and a great way to use up leftover watermelon. Do use quality watermelon, though; if yours is bland or too watery the salad will be meh.

Kochilas' recipe includes a traditional, and hard to find, ingredient that most American recipes leave out: barley rusks. These add a strong, earthy flavor to balance the salad, and absorb the excess watermelon juice. The salad really isn't the same without them, so they're worth mail-ordering.

• Around 3lbs peeled and cubed watermelon
• 2 oz barley rusks
• 1/4 of a large (or 1/2 of a small) red onion, peeled and minced, around 1/2 cup.
• 2 Tbs chopped fresh mint
• 8-12 oz mild, creamy feta cheese, cubed or crushed
• black pepper
• 1 Tbs red wine vinegar

Crush the barley rusks, breaking each rusk into 4-6 pieces. Put these in the bottom of a large serving bowl. Cover them with the watermelon cubes, and then pile the feta, mint, and onion on top. Sprikle with black pepper, and drizzle the vinegar over.

Leave the salad 10-15 minutes for the watermelon juices to soak into the rusks. Then toss thoroughly. Some of the feta will break up during tossing, which is desireable. Serve.

I hope both of these recipes give you some options for dining during a heat wave, too. Have a good Salad Week!

Who would have believed that one day the abandoned filling station at 72nd & Prescott would host a real food cart pod? Certainly not me. And yet, today, it definitely does, with a taproom, coffee, five carts and a restaurant across the street.

This page is the best guide you'll find to all these food carts. Bookmark it; I'll update it periodically with the changes in the pod.

They are carts, though, so opening hours and menus can vary. Particularly, most of the carts cut back on hours during the rainy season, and expand them during the summer. But sometimes, carts are just closed.

The Pod consists of the old filling station and its grounds, and neighboring properties. Inside the filling station is Junior's Coffee in the mornings and early afternoon, and Upright Brewing in the late afternoon/evening. Three carts sit on the Upright/Juniors property. Next door, in front of a disused HVAC shop, are two additional carts. Finally, there is a middle eastern deli (Samo's) across 72nd from the whole complex.

The food cart pod has ample outdoor seating, about 1/3 of which is covered from rain. Because of the angle of the sun, during sunny days you'll want to move around the outdoor seating; only about 1/3 is actually shaded in the aftenoon. Upright/Juniors has a small amount of indoor seating, including three small tables, and around 12 bar seats. If you're eating inside, you should really order a drink from whichever business is open (Juniors or Upright).

Information last updated November 9, 2024

Junior's Coffee

Serves: Coffee, espresso, and tea

Location: Inside the main building

Hours: 7am to 3pm, 7 days a week

Junior's coffee is the 2nd coffee outlet by the folks who also own Guilder (the Princess-Bride themed cafe). They offer espresso drinks, coffee and tea 7 days a week, and a very small selection of pastries. They roast their own fair trade, organic, family-farm coffee, which is also available by the bag.

Juniors/Guilder is the only coffeehouse I know of in Portland that offers shakeratos in the summer.

Upright Brewing

Serves: 10-12 beers on tap, plus assorted things in bottles and cans.

Location: Inside the main building, behind the bar

Hours: 3pm-ish to 10pm, weekdays, noon-10pm Sat & Sun

This is the 2nd taproom for Portland-based Upright Brewing. Their beers skew towards real ale, side-taps, and other artisan service, including sours, a British-style bitter, lager, pilsner, and saison, as well as the mandatory IPAs. Particularly, if you appreciate a lower-alcohol beer (4.5-5.5%) so that you can have multiple pints without falling off your stool, this is your place.

DesiPDX

Sadly Closed

Maybe they'll come back someday. Their original location, in the Prost! foodcart pod, is still open.

Schmunchburger

Serves: Burgers, fries, and the Schnitzelwich

Location: Cart along 72nd ave

Hours: 1pm to 8pm Tues-Sat (usually)

Schmunch adds a burger-and-fries option to the food cart pod, although their burgers are a little special.

Yes, they do have a veggie burger option. They also theoretically have schnizel sandwiches, although those seem to run out a lot.

Niños Birrieria

Serves: Tacos, quesadillas, birria, quesabirria, chips, etc.

Location: truck in front of 7131 Prescott Street

Hours: 10am to 9pm 7 days a week

Niños is the always-open standby for this pod, rarely closed during dining hours. Birria lovers will find lots to eat here, but others have options as well, including fish tacos and taquitos; they have quite the menu for a food cart.

Note that when they say "hot", they mean it. Do not take the "bomb shell challenge" unless you regularly participate in hot pepper eating contests.

They have a breakfast menu too.

They're also a good option for non-beer-drinkers since they regularly have aquas frescas.

R-Haan Thai Kitchen

Serves: Thai standards, including noodles, stir-fries and rice dishes

Location: cart in front of 7131 Presscot Street

Hours: 11am to 8pm Thursday-Monday

R-Haan is the newest cart, and I've eaten there only once so far. The cart offers everything a typical American Thai restaurant would offer, including Pad Thai, Tom Yum and Panang Curry.

Pine State Biscuits

Serves: Biscuits and Gravy

Location: Airstream on the left side of Upright building

Hours: Friday 4pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 8am-2pm

This is yet another outlet of the Portland-leading biscuit franchise. They offer biscuits, biscuit sandwiches, and biscuits with both meat and vegetarian gravy, plus assorted seasonal specials. They're pretty much just open for brunch on weekends.

Samo's

Serves: Middle eastern street food, plus diner griddle standards

Location: Across 72nd ave. from the food cart pod, in the Samo's building

Hours: 9am to 10pm 7 days a week

You may have noticed the lack of a felafel/schwarma cart. Well, that's because Samo's is just across the street. If that's what you have a yen for, hop across the street, get your schwarma wrap, and come back for an Upgright beer.

I love tabouleh, which can be a bit of a problem around our house. Not that my sweetie hates it; it's just that she likes tabouleh as a bulgur & tomato salad with parsley, and I prefer it as a parsley salad with tomatoes and bulgur. So, there's a bit of compromise. Mostly by me.

Some of those compromises led to me thinking about making tabouleh into a whole meal, instead of just a meze. So I started adding stuff to it, making tabouleh a "main dish", that could be a lunch on its own. The end result was something that isn't really tabouleh anymore, it's some kind of bulgur salad, but we like to call it "tabouleh plus plus".

The recipe below is less a set of instructions and more an assembly kit. You can add or subtract many things from this tabouleh++, so it's more a matter of needing a few things from each group instead of needing them all.

As always, a quick note on bulgur: this recipe requires fine bulgur, sometimes labeled "#1" for the grain size. These grains are around the size of large-crystal sugar or kosher salt. It's the same bulgur sold in overpriced instant tabouleh boxes. Larger grains, or cracked wheat (which sometimes gets mislabeled as bulgur) will not work. Small-grain "instant" couscous probably would.

tabouleh++

Required Ingredients:

• 2 cups fine bulgur (#1)
• 2 cups cold water
• 1 to 1.5 lbs tomatoes, diced small
• OR: 1 to 1.5 lbs cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
• 1 medium bunch parsley, chopped, around 1.5 cups
• juice of 1-2 lemons, about 1/4 cup
• 3-5 Tbs good olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste

One or two proteins, such as:

• 1 drained can of chickpeas
• 1 drained can of green or black lentils
• 5-9 oz feta cheese, crumbled
• 5-9 oz other Middle Eastern cheese, such as kasseri or Village Cheese, diced small
• 4-6 boiled eggs, diced small

Two to three vegetables and aromatics, such as:

• one medium red onion, diced small, around 1 cup
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped, around 1 cup
• 1-2 ripe bell peppers (or other peppers), diced small, around 1.5 cups
• 1 cup sliced smaller peppers, like banana peppers
• 1 large avocado, diced
• 1 cup pitted olives, roughly chopped
• 1 to 1.5 cups diced cucumber
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup pomegranate seeds

Zero to two additional seasonings, such as:

• 1 bunch of mint, chopped (could even replace the parsley)
• 1 small bunch of dill and/or oregano, chopped
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Aleppo pepper
• 1-2 Tbs pomegranate molasses

First, soak the bulgur. Put it in a very large bowl (you'll need room for all of your ingredients) and pour the water over it. Cover loosely (lid, plastic wrap, whatever) and leave for 1 hour to hydrate. Toss with a large fork (see faster method below if you're short on time).

While the bulgur is soaking, dice all your other ingredients. You can put them in one big pile, they're all going in together. Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt into a dressing. If you're using both feta and olives you might want to omit the salt.

Once the bulgur is fully hydrated, put all the diced ingredients on top. Drizzle the dressing over the pile, add any optional seasonings, and toss everything together until uniformly mixed. Let sit for 10-15 minutes to blend.

Serves 4-6 as a main dish or light lunch. Keeps up to 1 week in the fridge, unless you used avocado (in which case it's about a day). Do not freeze.

Note: you can hydrate bulgur faster with hot water, at the cost of a somewhat mushy texture. Just heat the 2 cups of water to boiling, pour it over the bulgur, cover tightly, and let sit for 15 minutes.

One of our recent FoodTube discoveries is Refika's Kitchen. Refika is a successful Turkish television chef (and celebrity chef in general), and shortly after lockdown started, she launched a channel to broadcast cooking shows in English as well. This has been truly great, because she is really into Turkish and Cypriot food, and shows a lot on-screen about exact techniques and textures. Like after watching her segment on kisir, I made the first kisir I've actually liked ... despite having three recipes for it in different cookbooks.

Another recipe she made that I would never have attempted without watching her do it on video was Sini Köftesi, otherwise known as "tray kibbeh" because of how you cook it. I have recipes for this in books, too, but they honestly sounded pretty daunting and I never imagined that I could make it come out well. Thanks to watching Refika, though, I made a beautiful (and delicious) tray kibbeh on my first try! You should make one too.

Now, I'm not gonna show a step-by-step for this because you should just watch the video. However, Refika does mention a vegetarian variant on her lamb-based Sini Köftesi, but doesn't really lay out a recipe for it. My sweetie and I worked out the veggie version based on her comments in the video, and it's that version I'll give you a recipe for below.

There's two important pieces of special equipment you need for this recipe. The first is a tray to bake it in; the ideal tray is around 12"-13" in diameter with 1/2" to 1" sides. If you don't have anything of the sort, then your best bet is a quarter-sheet baking pan (9"x13"), again with 1/2" high sides (do not use a rimless one). It'll be harder to press out the dough into a rectangle, but most folks I know outside the Near East just don't have large round baking pans. The second piece of equipment is a roll of large, wide, extra-strong plastic wrap (watch the video).

Your special ingredients include fine bulgur, otherwise known as #1 bulgur, instant bulgur, or "tabouleh" bulgur. This is bulgur wheat with grains about the same size as polenta. Do not use larger-grained bulgur, it will not work. The recipe also calls for Turkish pepper paste; if you can't get this, then use an equal quantity of tomato paste plus a teaspoon of olive oil. Or you can make your own. The cheese should be any mild, middle eastern, melty cheese, such as Syrian cheese, village cheese, sulguni, kefalotyri, or kasseri. Use dry mozzarella if you can't get any of those.

This recipe sounds like a lot of steps, and it is, but each of the steps is fairly easy. And the result is spectacular.

vegetarian tray kibbeh

dough:

• 1lbs to 1.25lbs yellow potatoes
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 cup fine bulgur
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 - 1 tsp Urfa, Aleppo, or Italian pepper flakes (to taste)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbs Turkish pepper paste (mild)
• 1 whole egg, beaten
• Scattering of black pepper

filling:

• two medium-large onions, diced small, 3-4 cups
• 3/4 cup raw unsalted pistachios, walnuts, or almonds, roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 3-4 Tbs butter
• 2 tsp pomegranate syrup (subs 1 tsp lemon juice)
• 8-10oz grated mild middle eastern cheese

Peel the potatoes and slice them 1/4" thick. Pack them into the bottom of a medium pot, and cover with the water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for around 20 minutes, or until they are very tender and soft. Turn off, pour the water on top of the wet potatoes in the pan, and mash them around a bit with a big fork or potato masher. Cover again, and set aside for 15-20 minutes.

Turn the oven on to heat to 375F.

In the meantime, make the filling. Melt 2 Tbs butter in a large pan. Fry the onions over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until they turn golden, around 7 minutes. Drop in the nuts, salt, and pepper, and fry for another minute or so. Turn off heat, and add the remaining 1 or 2 tablespoons butter (to taste) and the pomegranate syrup. Set aside to cool down to room temperature.

The bulgur should be soft now. Turn the bulgur/potato mixture out into a large bowl and finish mashing it until any large pieces of potato are gone. Add the spices to the dough, the pepper paste, and the egg. Now knead the mixture until it makes a sticky paste. The best way to do this is to squish it with wet hands like Refika does. Also, see the video on how to determine whether the mixture is too wet or too dry.

Divide the dough into two balls, one slightly larger than the other ... a 60%/40% split. Lightly coat your tray with olive oil, and the press the larger of the two dough balls out with your fingers until the bottom of the tray is completely and evenly covered. Patch any holes.

Cover the bottom dough evenly with the onion/nut mixture, leaving 1/2" around the outside edge bare. Add the grated cheese, covering the same area.

Now, spread out 1-2 sheets of plastic wrap on the counter, making a surface larger than your tray. Using fingers, press out the smaller ball of dough on this wrap until it forms a thin, even layer the size of your tray. Place the tray next to the wrap, and carefully pull up the wrap and flip the bulgur layer on top of the fillings. If it's a bit off-center, tug the plastic wrap to get it into place. Then peel back the wrap, leaving the top crust in place. It sounds tricky, but this really works.

Seal the edges of the kibbeh by pressing or crimping the dough layers together. Then, using a wet paring knife, cut the kibbeh into decorative serving portions. These can be any design you like, but watch the video for how to make a beautiful diamond design.

Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. When the kibbeh is done, the crust will be firm and not at all sticky, and some of the cheese will be bubbling up through the cuts.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Serve, offering each diner some Greek-style yogurt as a topping.

(Continued from part 1)

Since our first course was fairly substantial, we took a break followed by a palate-cleansing "pomegranate soup". This soup was truly amazing for something with so few ingredients and steps involved. I really recommend that you keep the recipe (at the bottom of this post) available during pomegrante season because it is so easy and yet so tasty. Really. Until you try making it, you won't believe that anything this simple can taste this good, but it does.

And then it was time for the manti. Manti are tiny dumpings popular throughout Central and near-Eastern Asia, including Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan. While exact fillings and shapes differ a little, they're always tiny and labor-intensive, and served with yogurt and tomato or pepper sauce. In Armenia, lamb manti are a traditional dish for Christmas eve, so I thought they would be perfect for this meal. I'm gonna show you how labor-intensive these are, which is why I'm giving you a recipe for the soup and not for the manti. Face it, you're not making these; I'm not making them again either.

Now, one of the reasons I wanted to try making these is that, while you can sometimes find lamb or beef filled manti frozen or in fancy Turkish or Armenian restaurants, you never ever see vegetarian manti in the US, despite chickpeas being a standard filling in Turkey. So I made a paste from cooked chickpeas, onions, and spices, and set out filling a bunch of tiny pastries. The dough is a white-flour pasta dough, you roll it thing and cut it into 1.5cm squares, and fold it into a little four-cornered hat. Then repeat 200 times, because you need 25-40 of these tiny dumplings for each diner.

Due to the Armenian influence, I didn't just boil the Manti. I first baked them until lightly browned. This both adds to texture and prevents them from splitting open when boiled or steamed, which was definitely a good thing because the seals on the little dumplings were none to great. I'm not sure I'd recommend that for the chickpea manti, though; it also made them pretty dry inside, which was not a good thing. The dish up to this point having taken three hours, I put them away for the night.

Right before the meal, I boiled them in vegetable broth, to make them extra-savory.

I then plated them and dotted them with garlic yogurt sauce, and a tomato sauce I also made the day before. This was the classic manti presentation, and they were good, and I'm happy to have finally had proper chickpea manti. But I don't think I'll make them again.

Dessert (of course we had dessert) was a terrific kataifi "bread pudding". My sweetie dried out the shredded phyllo, then soaked it in a cinnamon-seasoned custard, and baked it. It was delicious and a perfect end to the meal, if surprisingly reminiscent of noodle kugle.

pomegranate soup

based on a recipe by Ghillie Basan

• 1 liter boxed veggie stock or broth (I used Imagine brand)
• 1 cup pomegranate juice
• 1-2 Tbs juice from 1 lemon
• Seeds from 1 pomegranate (about 2/3 cup)
• Salt to taste
• Fresh mint leaves (as garnish)

Heat the veggie stock to a boil. Add the pomegranate and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Bring it back to a bare simmer. Turn off and stir in the pomegranate seeds.

Taste, and adjust with a little lemon juice and/or salt.

Dish out into 4-5 bowls, making sure to get some seeds into each bowl. Garnish each bowl with sprig of mint. Serve.

Since it was just a few of us this last Chistmas and not the usual crowd (thanks to you-know-what), we decided it was time to make our dinner a tribute to St. Nicholas. Specifically, Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Bishop of Turkey. Which means ... Turkish cuisine!

Now, a proper Turkish feast means lots of different dishes. But I didn't want to go crazy given that there were just the four of us, and there was only so much we could eat. So I settled on a menu of two meze (small dishes), two salads, a palate-cleaning soup, manti as the main course, and a pastry pudding as dessert.

The two meze were what I jokingly called "cheese sticks and meat sticks". The "cheese sticks" are a very common Turkish appetizer known as "sigara böreği", or "cigar pastries", for reasons that should be obvious if you look at the picture. If you can locate the correct dough, called yufka, these are very easy to make. Yufka is about twice the thickness of phyllo, but doesn't dry out or tear as easily. Better, in a well-stocked Middle Eastern grocery you can find yufka cut into triangles perfect for rolling sigara in the freezer case. Grate some village cheese or kasseri, add a little yogurt and chopped mint, and roll them up, then fry.

The meat sticks were even easier, because I bought them pre-made from the butcher at Basics Market on Sandy. They were a mixture of beef & lamb, a simple kebab I didn't need to prepare myself (especially since I wasn't going to eat it). Then, the salads.

For a touch of seasonality, both salads were red and green. Red with a little green is this salad, made from rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, pomegranate seeds, feta and mint. This was excellent, and worth making again as a winter salad. But it wasn't as good as then other salad.

This one was green with a little red. The red was just hothouse cherry tomatoes, but that wasn't what made the salad great: that was the herbs. Like other near Eastern recipes, this salad treats herbs as salad greens, having handfuls of parsley, mint, basil, watercress, and dill. Now, as you can imagine in the middle of winter that made it a bit spendy, probably $20 worth of herbs there. But boy was it worth it, so that's the salad I'm going to share with you.

Herb Salad with Pomegranate Dressing

based on a recipe from Istanbul & Beyond

Salad greens

volumes below are loose packed, and very approximate. More of one herb can substitute for less of another

• 1/2 head of Romaine lettuce (full leaves, not just hearts), torn into bite-sized pieces, about 3 cups
• 1 bunch watercress leaves, about 1 cup
• 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped large, about 1 to 1.5 cups
• 1 small bunch basil or Thai basil, leaves stripped and very roughly chopped, about 1 cup
• 1 small bunch dill, roughly chopped, about 1/2 cup
• 1 bunch mint, leaves stripped, around 1 cup
• Leaves from several twigs of oregano, about 1/2 cup
• 1 basket cherry tomatoes, halved

Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbs pomegranate molasses
• 1-2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt

Put the greens in a very large bowl and toss them until completely mixed. Add the tomatoes on top.

Whisk the dressing together, and taste it for tartness. It should be pleasantly tart; if not, add the extra tablespoon of lemon juice. Drizzle it onto the greens. Toss again, and serve within 1/2 hour of tossing.

Enough for six people as a first course.

Everyone should have a few recipes where you can always have the ingredients on hand, especially for dinners where your original plans didn't work out or you can't think of anything else. This recipe is one such, nutritious, tasty, and from pantry to table in 45 minutes or less.

I first got this very traditional recipe from a little cookbook my relatives brought back from Kapadokya in Turkey. The name of the soup has, in typical Turkish fashion, a tragic story attached to it which has two or three different versions. Tragic or not, the soup is really good and one of the easiest things you'll ever prepare, so I've marked it Good First Recipe.

I'm going to start with the version that's mostly ingredients that are simple to obtain in the US, and give you some notes on more Turkish ingredients.

daughter-in-law soup

4 tbs butter (or olive oil)
1 onion, chopped
3 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp paprika (but see below)
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
4 cups stock
2 tbs fine bulgur wheat (#1)
½ tsp salt, plus up to 1 tsp more to taste Mint, 2 tsp dried or 2 tbs chopped fresh
4qt or larger pot, with lid

Heat the butter (or oil) in the pot. Fry the onion until translucent, stirring, then add the paste and saute for 2-3 minutes, until it separates and turns oily. Add the paprika or other pepper and cook for 30 seconds more.

Add the lentils, ½ tsp salt, bulgur and stock. Bring to boil, cover and simmer over low heat for about ½ hour, or until the soup is creamy and the lentils are soft. It should be a porrigelike consistency, but add some hot water if you feel it's too thick. Taste and see if you need to add more salt. Add mint, simmer for 5 minutes more, then let cool enough to serve. (usually about 10 minutes).

Serve with bread and cheese. Makes 6 cups, enough for a first course for 4-6 people or a main course for 2-3. Keeps up to a week in the fridge, and freezes fairly well.

Notes:

For an even faster version which is almost as good, forget about frying the onions and just simmer everything together.

You must use red lentils for this. Other varieties of lentils take an hour to cook, and don't look nearly as pretty.

For stock, you can use canned or boxed stock, instant stock, bullion, or in a pinch salted water. If you have a choice, vegetable or beef stock is preferable to chicken.

Fine bulgur, also known as instant bulgur, is the same grind you'd use to make tabouleh, tiny grains the size of coarse salt. Either instant couscous or whole wheat bread crumbs would work as a substitute. Bob's Red Mill "bulgur", which is actually cracked wheat, will not work.

If you can get Turkish ingredients, use red pepper paste instead of tomato paste, and 1 tsp Aleppo or Urfa pepper instead of the paprika. Note that Aleppo and Urfa are hotter than paprika, so use some discretion in how much to add.

What if I told you I was going to share a recipe that was delicious and great-looking, healthful, vegetarian, gluten-free, and very low salt, and can be made year-round as either a main dish or side dish?

"What's the catch?" you'd ask.

The catch is one ingredient you need that isn't easily available to everyone: za'atar spice mix. And not just za'atar, but good za'atar, and lots of it ... 1/3 of a cup, or more. Yes, really, but it's what makes this recipe work. I'll have some advice on buying or even making a good za'atar below.

The recipe is from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour, an Iranian cookbook I borrowed from the library just before shutdown, so I have it until the libraries reopen. I would strongly recommend this cookbook for anyone who likes Middle Eastern food; as you're about to find out the flavors are very bold and the book is full of inventive food, including vegetarian dishes.

Now, as usual, I've taken some liberties with the recipe, including increasing the amount of za'atar and swapping the hot peppers for sweet peppers, but it all works. In the notes, I'll also explain the other changes you could make to the recipe depending on what ingredients you have around.

Now, about the za'atar: you'll want a "Jordanian" or "Palenstinian" style za'atar, which you can pick out because they are very green in color, not the muddy brown of a za'atar mix that has as much sumac as za'atar herb. Unfortunately, the "zaatar" sold by Western brands is generally terrible, including that sold by Penzey's. You need an actual imported brand, such as Mid East Jordanian Zaatar, Sadaf Green Zaatar, or Canaan Za'atar. If you can find a real middle eastern market, you'll find that the spice there costs a fraction of what it sells for in upscale supermarkets.

Alternately, you can make your own "fake za'atar" that will still work; look for the recipe at the bottom of my potato cake recipe

za'atar squash

• 1 large butternut squash, 2-3lbs
• 3 tbs to 1/4 cup olive oil (good Greek or Arabic oil)
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup za'atar
• 1 cup Greek-style yogurt
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup minced fresh mint, or 2 Tbs dried mint
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground sumac
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup finely diced bell pepper (about 1/2 pepper) (but also see below)
• 2-3 Tbs minced parsley (optional)
• 1 Tbs nigella seed (optional)
• Equipment: large rimmed baking sheet (half sheet pan), foil or parchment, large bowl, large flat spatula, platter for serving

Peel the squash, quarter it lengthwise, seed it, then slice it into pieces that are around 3/8" thick (1cm). Put the pieces in a large bowl, then toss them with the olive oil until completely coated. Follow that with the za'atar, tossing until the squash is all coated and the za'atar is saturated with oil and sticking to the squash. If the za'atar is too dry, add a little oil, and if the squash isn't coated, add a little more za'atar.

Heat the oven to 450F. Line the rimmed baking sheet with parchment or foil. Carefully spread the squash across it, so as much squash as possible is in a single layer, or at least not overlapping very much. If there's zaatar-oil mix on the bottom of the bowl, drizzle this onto the squash. Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for around 40 minutes, until many peices of the squash are brown on the edges. If you have an electric oven, switch to convection for the last 15 minutes of cooking.

While the squash is cooking, create the yogurt mixture. Mix the mint, salt, 2 Tbs olive oil, the sumac, the lemon zest and lemon juice, and the ground coriander into the yogurt until homogenized. If the yogurt is still very clumpy, add a little more oil and/or a little water.

Take the squash out of the oven. With a large, flat spatula, carefully lift the squash and arrange it in a single to double layer on the platter. Dot the squash with large spoonfulls of the yogurt mix, then sprinkle the diced pepper, parsley, and/or nigella seeds over the top.

Serves 2-3 as a main dish, and up to 6 as a side dish.

Notes:

In my version, I substituted diced bell pepper for the sliced hot red pickled peppers that Ghayour calls for. You could do those, or jarred roasted bell pepper, or even pomegranate seeds. Anything red and brightly acidic should work.

You could also make this with other winter squashes, as long as they are not stringy or too wet, such as delecata squash or sugar pumpkin. It would be interesting to try it with sweet potatoes.

Proper za'atar bread is a course of its own, herbacious, oily, crunchy and savory. I do adore it, and if you bake some yourself so will you. Now, there's a proper dough for this bread, but this is the "weeknight" version which starts with refrigerator pizza dough.

The hard thing about this recipe is obtaining the za'atar in the first place. If you don't happen to live near a good Middle Eastern grocery, that can be tough. What most American spice merchants sell as "zatar" is usually an unpalatable mix of sumac and salt (yes, this includes Penzey's). You really need something more like this Palestinian Za'atar to make this work.

If you can't reasonably buy decent za'atar near you, then use the mix I posted at the end of the potato cake recipe and double it.

Weeknight Za'atar Bread

1 cup za'atar spice
1/2 to 1 cup olive oil
1 lbs refrigerated pizza dough

In a bowl, mix the za'atar with 1/2 cup olive oil. Add more olive oil until the resulting paste is oily and semi-liquid; you'll need to be able to spread it, but you don't want it too thin.

Put a pizza stone or steel in the oven and heat it to 475F.

Divide the pizza dough into six balls. Roll each one out as thin as you can, like 1/8" thick. Dock it, either with a docker, or by poking it with a fork a bunch of times.

Transfer a dough round to a floured pizza paddle. Smear the top with 1/6 of the za'atar and oil mix; it should form a solid green coating. Slide the bread onto the pizza stone.

Bake for 4 to 7 minutes, until light brown on the bottom/edges. Cool on a rack. Repeat with the other 5 rounds.

Eat still warm, as a first course or side dish.

Optionally, za'atar breads can be enhanced with any of the following:

• halved cherry tomatoes (pictured)
• diced feta or village cheese (pictured)
• halved pitted olives
• small, sliced peppers

But they're pretty darned good without anything extra.