As a child I often lingered around the outskirts of my family home’s tiny kitchen, careful not to exceed the imaginary boundaries my mother had defined. I watched quietly as she bustled in the kitchen, chopping and stirring ingredients for several dishes at once, in what seemed like a random and complicated series of motions.

As I grew older, my mother lifted her boundaries and invited me into her space. She tried to teach me, but it didn’t take long for me to come to the realization that I simply wasn’t good at cooking.

My mother never strictly adhered to recipes but our dinner table was graced with delicious dishes, whereas I relentlessly relied on calculated measurements and somehow managed to make pasta barely edible.

I never explored with ingredients or improvised, partly due to my inability to reach the spice shelf for most of my life, but mostly because I was stubborn. I had to learn to try new things, make mistakes, follow some rules and mix others up to finally make a dish I was proud of.

Along the way I also learned to embrace my heritage and native land. I often find myself adding olive oil to everything, a nod towards the olive trees that make up Palestine’s landscapes and my grandmother’s homemade extractions.

Every recipe I am sharing is inspired by my mother’s traditional cooking, with my own twists to make them easier to prepare and incorporate the kinds of flavours I love. I encourage you to try one out, improvise and make it your own.

Manakish

I like to call this a Middle Eastern pizza that can be enjoyed at any point in the day.

Thyme Manakish

1. Preheat oven to 270 °C.
2. Place naan on a baking tray (go for a plain and thick tandoor or clay oven baked bread).
3. Put two tablespoons of thyme in a bowl and mix in just enough olive oil so that the mixture is a paste-like consistency.
4. Spread it over the naan.
5. Dice tomatoes and add to the naan.
6. If you have akkawi cheese (white brine cheese), you can dice that up and add it too for some traditional flair but this cheese is hard to come by.
7. Broil for two minutes or until naan turns golden

Jalapeño Monterey Jack Manakish

1. Preheat oven to 270 °C.
2. Place naan on tray.
3. Thinly slice or grate enough jalapeño monterey jack cheese to cover the naan entirely.
4. Broil for two minutes or until naan turns golden.

Ground Beef Manakish

1. Preheat oven to 270 °C.
2. Place naan on tray.
3. Finely chop ¼ of a large red onion, ¼ of a tomato, ¼ of green pepper and 1/5 cup of fresh parsley leaves.
4. In a bowl, break apart ¼ lb of ground beef (no fat).
5.  Add ½ teaspoon of salt, a dash of black pepper, cumin, paprika, coriander, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and cayenne pepper to the meat. Feel free to substitute or skip spices to taste.
6. Add finely chopped vegetables to the beef and mix thoroughly.
7. Spread a thin layer of the beef mix on the naan.
8. Bake for 10 minutes or until naan turns golden.

This Isn’t Your Typical Meatballs Recipe

This dish is inspired by my mother’s ‘Kebab Hindi’ recipe. It’s a meatball and tomato sauce dish that can be served over rice or bread.

1. Place ½ pound of lean ground beef in a bowl and add ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon allspice.
2. Get in there and mix the meat and spices with your hands.
3. Make little meatballs, but try to elongate them into a more “torpedo-shape”.
4. Add ½ cup vegetable or corn oil to a skillet and let it warm up on medium heat.
5. Thinly slice ½ cup of onions, ¼ green peppers, and peel and dice 1/3 cup of tomatoes.
6. Sauté onions for five minutes in the skillet.
7. Add the meatballs and continue sautéing them until the red meat turns light brown.
8. Add diced tomatoes and slices peppers.
9. Add ¼ tomato paste to about 30 mL of water and mix well.
10. Pour tomato sauce evenly over everything in the skillet.
11. Add salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper to taste.
12. When the sauce comes to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover skillet and cook for an additional half hour.

Spinach & Chickpea Salad

A salad that’s high in protein, flavourful and easy to improvise with.

1. Wash a cup of spinach leaves well and dry them with paper towel.
2. Rinse out 1/3 of a 540 mL jar of canned chickpeas and place in a bowl.
3. Jalapeño kick: Super finely chop a fresh jalapeño pepper and two small cloves of garlic
4. and place in them in a small bowl.
5. Add fresh lemon juice and mix into jalapeño-garlic until it’s a liquid consistency.
6. Add the jalapeño-garlic sauce to the bowl of chickpeas, mix until dressing is evenly distributed.
7. Add spinach leaves, salt and olive oil to the bowl and mix.

or 

1. Wash a cup of spinach leaves well and dry them with paper towel.
2. Rinse out 1/3 of a 540 mL jar of canned chickpeas and place in a bowl.
3. Zesty cumin: Add one teaspoon of cumin, a sprinkle of lemon-pepper spice and two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice to the chickpeas and mix.
4. Add in spinach leaves, salt and olive oil to the bowl and mix.