Kebab is basically a kind of middle eastern meatball that is grilled or baked around a stick, or shaped kind of like a sausage without the skin.  It’s usually made of lamb or beef, but some prefer to use chicken, pork, goat, or other meat.  You can serve it with whatever kind of sauce you like, but it’s great with tahini (also called tehina) and hummus.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg. ground beef or lamb
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs or cooked millet or rice
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley or mint or a mixture
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• the juice of half a lemon
• 1 teaspoon gray salt
• a dash of black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1/8 teaspoon fenugreek
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• a slight pinch of clove
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or animal fat
• 1 bay leaf

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to about 400 F or 200 C.
2. Mash everything except the oil and bay leaf together with your fingers.
3. Grease the pan with the fat, and break the bay leaf into pieces, and spread them around in the pan.  Don’t forget to pick the pieces off after.
4. Form the meat mixture into balls or sausage shapes, and arrange them on the pan.  If you like, for fun’s sake, you can form them around popsicle sticks or skewers.
5. Bake for about half an hour or until nicely browned to your liking.

Serve with pita bread and/or vegetables.

…not the kind you do, the kind you drink.

Even though I’m all grown up now, I’ll never forget my gothic roots.  Goth is a phase a great many freethinkers pass through on their way to becoming mature meat eating heathens, and it often starts with cute little ways of acting out like mixing all available soft drinks together into something we called a “suicide”.  Indeed it did look like something no one in their right mind should swallow, but it was usually actually kind of tasty.

Many, many…many years have passed since the last time I went haywire at a soda fountain, but occasionally I still ask the lady at the juice bar for the nourishing version of this drink, or make it myself at home.  Now I will share the recipe for this magical elixer that belies its morbid name.  It’s based on the real flavors that the sodas imitate.

Ingredients:

• juice of 3 tangerines or clementines
• juice of one lime
• 3 soaked prunes
• a handfull of cherries (pits removed)
• a handfull of purple or concord grapes (seeds removed)
• 1/2 teaspoon kola nut powder
• 1/4 teaspoon dry ginger
• 1 tablespoon of honey

Instructions:

Just whizz it all together in a blender or with a hand blender.  You can freeze the grapes and add ice to it if you prefer it slushy.

Welcome to the nutritious underworld!  Muuhuhuhuhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (That’s evil laughter. XD)

Want to know how to tie up your bento box?  Check out this page with photos and instructions by Yuki Sakuma on the art of furoshiki.

http://www.nanoda.com/en/japan/furoshiki-1000-ways-to-carry-your-bento.html

For those who don’t know already, bento is a Japanese style of arranging a lunch box.  You can learn more about it at Modern Traditional’s Bento pages.  There are also links there to bento bloggers and artists.