From an excellent Boulud’s book Braise comes this dish. He calls for white beans but i used gigantic lima beans from Rancho Gordo instead.

Pretty much followed the recipe, just cut it in half. Enormous amount of spinach (2lbs). And it’s a great idea to braise (cook) beans along with vegetables: i always prefer oven treatment for beans: a generous amount of olive oil, not much water and aromatics create wonders.
The dish came out very good. I guess i’m not a big fan of spinach but it can be done with other greens like chard or romaine or even dandelions.

I was dying to reorganize my cookbook library. Almost a year passed since the last revamp – about 120 (according to The LibraryThing) more books got acquired, and my interests changed.
The plan was to keep the same layout – main storage in bedroom and spill over in my office, but to move the books around to suit my needs both for better access and comfortable reading.
Now the main section in the bedroom carries chefs, italian, spanish, mexican, japanese, french and vegetarian cookbooks as well as the reference books and assorted food and drink magazines. There is also a small shelf with beer and cocktails books (not shown).

All baking, asian, wine and the rest cookbooks i don’t use got relegated to the auxiliary shelves in my office.
The new organization makes me happy.

Consider me an eternal Wolfert’s junkie. Her Mediterranean Grains and Greens was the main reason i got into cooking, about ten years ago.
And it felt nice when inspired by a recent tasting menu in Zahav restaurant i googled “green tahini” and the link to Paula’s Med Grains was one of the top hits.
Here is a dinner based on couple of recipes from this book:
Boiled umbrian chickpeas tossed with green tahini – parsley, garlic, lemon juice, jalapeno and sesame paste whizzed in a food processor.
A salad of smoked whitefish, ribbons of radicchio, and shaved fennel lightly coated with a dressing of creme fraiche, lemon juice, olive oil and a hint of mayo. Lot of coarse black pepper. Very nice.