It's herbal, Herb

The sights, the sounds, the smells of Jerusalem are so overwhelming to the first time tourist that often he or she has a hard time putting into words just what it all meant at the time. That was certainly the problem in my case. I was hot, exhausted and dealing with a crisis of faith so profound that it's taken a year or two to put it all in perspective.

I did love the food.

So when I opened "Jerusalem, A Cookbook" (2012, Ten Speed Press, $35, 320 pages) by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, all the memories came rushing back, this time with pleasure. There are so many good recipes that it was hard to pick out just one. But I fixed this for a party and it was great.

A few notes:

• Be sure to cover the filo with a damp towel for at least 5 minutes before using, and keep covered after using each sheet. 
• This makes a very good vegetarian meal served with a soup before it and dessert after.
• If you want to make extra to have it for another meal, skip the mint. It becomes too strong as it ages.

Herb Pie

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion
1 pound chard, stems removed and chopped, and leaves cut in ribbons
1.75 ounces arugula
1 ounce flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 ounce mint, chopped
2/3 ounce dill, chopped
4 ounces ricotta
3.5 ounces aged Cheddar, grated
2 ounces feta, crumbled
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 large, free-range eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8 ounces filo pastry

Instructions
Pour the olive oil into a large, deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for 8 minutes without browning. Add the chard stems and continue cooking for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chard leaves, increase the heat to medium-high and stir as you cook for 4 minutes, until the leaves wilt. Add the arugula, parsley, mint and dill, and cook for 2 minutes more.
Remove from heat and transfer to a colander to cool.

Once the mixture is cool, squeeze out as much water as you can and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add the three cheeses, lemon zest, eggs, salt, pepper and sugar and mix well.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Lay out a sheet of filo pastry and brush with olive oil. Cover with another sheet and repeat until you have 4-5 layers, all covering an area large enough to line the sides and bottom of a 9 inch pie plate or casserole dish. Line the dish with the pastry, fill with the herb mix, and fold the excess pastry over the filling, trimming as necessary to create a 3/4-inch border.

Make another set of 4-5 filo layers brushed with oil and place them over the pie. Scrunch up the pastry a little to create a wavy, uneven top and trim the edges to that it just covers the pie. Brush generously with olive oil and bake for 40 minutes until the filo turns a nice golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve warm or at room temperature.

The cycle of soup

The soups section in the supermarket seems to take up more and more of the aisle each year. Chefs have often, and often loudly, decried the American habit of thinking soup comes out of a can to the tune of "Umm, umm, good!" Some such as Wolfgang Puck have decided to add their soups to the mix. The varieties now are more numerous, but something about canning still doesn't do much for soups.

More cooks could become better soup makers if they just set aside their cookbooks once in a while and think about the cycle of soup.

First, you make a broth or stock. Take those trimmings that you would have thrown out, skin and tendons of meat, or the carrots, celery, tomatoes and onions slightly past their prime, and cover them with water and a little salt, add a bay leaf and a few peppercorns, and simmer for several hours. Strain and then you can toss the cooked remains into the garbage or compost. For meat liquids, put in the fridge or freezer until the fat congeals at the top, then throw that out, too.

If you're not ready to use it, put it in a container marked with the date and contents.

When you're ready, you can get creative. Use leftovers in your fridge if you can. If your broth is strong enough, a little vinegar on a cup or less of leftover pasta salad will be absorbed and add to the flavor of your soup. Or maybe you have a cup of leftover rice; add it to 2 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil with the rice, then stir a little of it into a cup containing a beaten egg and the juice of a lemon. Turn the soup down to a simmer. Gentle stir the contents of the cup into the hot soup.

Experiment. If you like a combination of spices in a dish, chances are you will like it in a soup with similar ingredients. Just be aware that as a soup cooks, water evaporates, so the spices will intensify, and not all at the same rate. Chilies can be a lot hotter in soups, as can pepper. Basil may disappear (that's why it's good to add fresh basil just before serving). Lemon can brighten a bean soup; sherry can make it richer.

If you're lucky and you like soup, you may never have to throw out any leftovers again.

Food on the cheap

Although there are some indicators that say we may have hit bottom on the recession, for many of us who are no longer in our careers of a year or two ago, there's no time like the present to explore ways to save on our food costs, especially if we enjoy good food and don't want to sink into the malaise of manufactured mishmash. I once had a relative who used to justify every bad food purchase she made with "Well, it was only $2," without stopping to think what the total cost of all those $2 purchases were.

To eat well on a budget, here are a few basics to keep in mind:

• Meat and processed foods are the most expensive things in most peoples' carts, excluding alcohol, tobacco and nonfood items. Cut out the latter and learn to make those items you like. Make them in bulk and freeze them if you need to save time. On the meat front, figure out what you like the most and what's best for you, and don't eat more than 4 ounces of it (about the size of a pack of cards). Even filet mignon, at about $20 a pound, comes out to about $5 per person with those guidelines. A whole chicken, at 89 cents a pound, isn't a real bargain if you only like the breast and don't like soup; better to look for frozen tenderloins on sale. Learn all you can about cuts of meat. A book that has helped me a lot on this is Emilie Taylor's "Inflation-Fighter Meat Book," which got me into beef shanks (lots of good beef flavor, low in fat, and tender as can be when slow-cooked all day with a base of root vegetables) and showed how to get a rib steak and stew or chili meat from certain chuck steaks. 
  
• Protein isn't just meat, as your vegetarian friends can tell you. Rice and beans, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter on toast or bagel are all fine substitutes, as is tofu. If you don't like the texture of the stuff out of a box, wrap it in a towel and put a weight on it in the fridge overnight. The towel will be sopping wet by the morning, and the tofu will be drier and will readily soak up any sauce you want to use to flavor it.
  
• Have a pasta night. Experiment with different kinds and different sauces. Try to make your own; it's not hard and you'll have a satisfaction that is worth more that what you would have paid for fresh pasta at the grocery store.
  
• Grow a herb garden. Even if herbs are more than $2 per pot, they will grow and yield many times the amount you'd have to pay for in a store, and you can snip only as much as you need. Some even come back year after year.
  
• Other good substitutes to try: polenta, chilled overnight then grilled or fried, with pesto or spaghetti sauce; jalapeno cheese grits; whole wheat pizza (unlike bread, pizza crust is almost foolproof to make yourself). 

Do you need recipes for any of these? Drop me a line and I'll try to publish as many as I can in the next few days.