Ep 5: Tomato girl Shabbat is here! The simplest dish for your summer meal

In this brand new episode Micah cooks one of her favourite tomato based dishes with a two ingredient flatbread. Perfect for those that don't want to cut anything.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Shabbat Club where I teach you the ins and outs of hosting without the anxiety. Whether it's Shabbat or a Tuesday, you should have your friends over. Or just make dinner for yourself, honestly. Today we are making one of my go-to dishes that take almost no effort. The hardest part about this dish is that you have to bake it for some time, and that's about it. We are making blistered tomatoes and white beans over a garlicky spiced yogurt. I'm gonna make a super simple two-ingredient flatbread because those tomatoes are gonna turn into the most brothy, delicious goodness, and you're gonna want to sop that sauce up. Am I right? If you're new here, you can find me here every second week to share my favorite ways to shabbat. Whether you celebrate Shabbat regularly or maybe it's new to you, there's no wrong way to do it. The best way to do it is the way that you enjoy the most. So let's get started. This recipe is perfect for people who don't want to cut anything because there's very little you need to cut, which is awesome. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, get a baking dish, and fill it with little bitty cherry tomatoes. I like to use the ones on the vine because I think it looks really nice and it just peels away really easily once cooked. And also I feel like they taste better. Cherry tomatoes are perfect for when it's not tomato season because they're pretty sweet all year round, so you don't really have to worry about that two weeks of tomato season in the summer. Bonus points. Cherry tomatoes are an Israeli invention. Thank you. Thank you, fine folks. And we've got these in here. Next up, we're gonna use some white beans. I love using canned beans, they are seriously the best. Why? Because I don't remember to soak my beans. They're always in the pantry. A white bean or cannellini bean or white kidney bean, they're the same thing. You can also find a butter bean, which is much larger. It's like the size of two to three of these little white beans. I love them because they're so mild, they're so easy to use, they're cheap, they're cheerful. You can't get any better. So we're gonna open this bad boy up. I try to buy them, no salt added when I remember, so I can add my own salt. I can also rinse them under some cooled water with a colander to remove some of that excess sodium. I'm not too worried about it today, so I'm just going to drain some of that excess liquid. Drain, drain, drain. You can rinse them, you don't have to. Let's make life a little easier. Beautiful. So I've got my beans. I've got my beans and my tomatoes ready to go. And there is no dish that feels complete without garlic. We're gonna use a lot of it. Eight cloves in this to be exact. So when you get your garlic, first of all, buy it whole, like this. This is the tastiest garlic. If you don't like peeling it, it's okay. You can also buy it pre-peeled if that's the easiest way for you to get garlic on your table. If you have a whole clove like this and you're like, what happens next? Take the heel of your hand and really push down. And it'll help to separate all of the clothes. Once you have your clothes, let me move that. Your cloves here, take a knife, again, using the heel of your hand, aka this part, I think that's the heel. Put your knife, blade, the sharp edge of the blade away from you, obviously, and push down. You're gonna hear a crack, crack, crack, and that's just gonna make it so much easier to peel. Ta-da! So we're gonna do this to eight clothes. I host a monthly ish Shabbat Club for women in the Chicago area or beyond. Bring me to your city. And when we were looking at our summer date, we held a dinner in July, and I wanted to make the ultimate tomato girl Shabbat, and that meant tomatoes in every dish. And this was one dish that I just whipped up for fun right on the spot that day, but everyone loved it and begged me for the recipe. So, of course, I had to recreate it and perfect it so that I could send it out to our participants. And when I tell you that this is one dish that I make at least once a month, I mean it. And that's not always something I do. I don't always repeat recipes or dishes I make because my mind is always spinning and whirring. It's a scary place in there, with different recipe ideas. So this is just one of those that feels so special, but it could not be easier. Alright, so we're just how many do I have? One, two, three, four, five, three more. It's a lot of garlic, and these are some big cloves. But garlic is one thing one should always measure with our heart and not with a number because garlic is delicious. Of course, unless you can't eat garlic with that is also uh struggle for some people. Alright. So I'm going to pop this into my baking dish with my eight clothes. Beautiful and just wipe this away. Next up is some spices. I'm using this Ethiopian blend of spices called Burberry. I get my spices primarily from a company called Oak Town Spice Shop based in Oakland, California. They also have, or Berkeley, Oakland, the East Bay of San Francisco area. And they grind, mix, and toast all of their spices in-house, which is really rare. And it is a delicious spice blend. It's warming, it's a little spicy. This particular one has chili peppers, ginger, garlic, salt, shallots, fenigrate, coriander, nigella, cinnamon, rosemary, thyme, and cloves. It is so rich in flavor. So I'm going to do a big drizzle of that. You could also use Zatar, you could use a mix of paprika, you could use a swarma spice blend, a harissa blend, and I'm also gonna do a really healthy pinch of kosher salt. Finish off by about a third cup of extra virgin olive oil. Ish. We kind of almost want to make this into a light confie. So not quite as heavy as a confit, but I'm looking for those blistered tomatoes, a little bit of crispy edges on top, and it is just such a beautiful dish. I'm going to actually serve it right in here. Or you could, but I'm gonna put it on yogurt. I forgot. I'm actually not gonna serve it in here, but you could if you have wanted to have the yogurt on the side. So I'm gonna get this in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes until those tomatoes are beautifully glistered. That's in the oven. Let's make our yogurt dip. So the recipe calls for yogurt, or you can also use lavne, which is a strained yogurt. I'm gonna use lavne today because that's what I have on hand. And recipes are always meant to be a guide. When you see a recipe, if you say, hey, I don't like this or that spice, switch it up. There are so many spices that kind of sit in a similar family, whether they're cousins or furs or siblings, and they can work together. And there is also spices that don't always work together, like your cousins or siblings, you know? So if you don't have these spices, no problem, you can improvise. And honestly, this one that we just put in the oven, if you don't have that spice blend, it is also delicious with a bit of lemon peel and that's it. Or just some thyme or rosemary or oregano pizza seasoning, even go crazy. Alright, so let's make some spray. I love using Lavne. You can make it your own yourself at home, or you can buy it. And you know I'm gonna buy it because I have a two-year-old and I'm tired. Even though I cook for a living, I need to take a shortcut or two. So Lavne is really just a strained yogurt product. So if you wanted to make it at home, you would take a full-fat Greek or plain yogurt and put it in a cheesecloth or something called a nut milk bag. Yes, that's a word. You put it in there, you line a bowl with your cheesecloth, you put your yogurt, some salt in, and then you twist out all of the liquid. I let it hang on my kitchen faucet or my bathtub faucet for at least 24 hours, but preferably up to 72 hours. That's gonna start a little bit more of the fermentation process and really extract any of that excess liquid. So it's gonna be so thick and creamy. See how creamy that is? It doesn't go anywhere. I use lavinate in place of cream cheese on my bagel because I find that it is easier for me to digest as a wildly lactose-intolerant human being than cream cheese. I don't know the lactose content, but yeah, I don't know. But it doesn't really bother me that much. Or maybe I just eat it so often that it doesn't bother me so much. I've healed myself. Okay, so because it's one of my recipes, you know I will always put some lemon zest in here. Let me find my lemon zester. Hmm. This is the saddest excuse for a zester. This is the saddest excuse for a zester because the handle fell off, but this is a real life kitchen and it still works. So I'm gonna keep using it until that part stops working. If this triggers you, buy me a new zester. So I'm just going to zest this really quickly. The Labne is super tangy on its own, so we might not even need more acid, but I'll taste it as I go to see if it needs some lemon. I'm gonna do the same with the garlic clove, again, just skinning it really quickly with my the back heel of my knife. Here we go. So this week's lesson, I guess, is all about keeping it simple. Because this recipe is so easy to put together. The hardest part is that you have to let it cook. And of course, I'll be making some flatbreads, but you can also just serve it with pita, serve it with your hala, with a really simple salad, and it's a hearty dish that takes almost no effort. There's very little chopping. Really, I'll just be doing the herbs. But otherwise, it's one of the easiest recipes that is on one of my menus. So next up, I'll do a bit of herbs. Dill, love dill, and some parsley. Oftentimes, what gets in the way of us hosting or feeling confident in doing Shabbat is that we feel like we don't have enough time or skill, capacity, or something isn't quite right for people to come into our homes. But that couldn't be further from the truth. No one is coming to your house expecting perfection. You don't even have to make dinner if you don't want to. You could totally go to the store and buy something. Truly. You don't have to fuss around because people aren't coming for the food necessarily. Maybe at my house they are because they're used to it, but they are coming to your house for you. You are the reason people want to congregate at your house this Shabbat. Next up, I'm gonna add some Aleppo chili flakes. It's not as spicy as a red chili flake, just like adds a really nice brightness to our dish. A little bit of cinnamon and a little bit of ground ginger. This full recipe is on my substack if you're curious as well. Some salt and olive oil just to loosen it up a bit. So if this is one thing that you make and you serve it with your hala, that is a beautiful Shabbat dinner, and you'll have prepped it in probably 15 minutes. So Shabbat doesn't have to be a big ordeal. It can be exactly what you need it to be, and that can change every week. Your needs change every week, every day, every minute, every hour, and so will your Shabbat from week to week. And at least mine will. Let's taste it. Mmm. The cinnamon and the ginger in there. It's so warming. The lavemate is so nice and tangy. I'm gonna add a little bit more salt because I like salty things, but it adds a really nice bit of freshness with that. Um kind of, I mean, granted, it's a little oily, the the uh beans and tomatoes. So I am looking for a little bit of freshness. What I love about what's I'm gonna eat that. I'm gonna feel good. What I love about the tomato and bean dish that I made is that you can make that in advance. If you roast it for about 30 35 minutes, let it come to room 10, cover it and put it in the fridge. The next day, heat it at like 425, 450 until it's nice and hot all the way through. You've already made dinner, so you can make this on Thursday and prep it for Friday. Okay, we've got our Labne. Just add those to there. Waist not, whatnot, you know? And now let's make a really quick flatbread. But first, let me clean up. Because you're at my house, so you sit back and relax. You don't have to clean up. Unfortunately, I do. So, everything's in the oven. I'm an overachiever, so I'm gonna make some flatbreads. But before you say, whoa Micah, don't get too crazy on me, just know that these are so simple and only two ingredients. All you need is self-rising flour. Self-rising flour is really just flour, baking powder, and salt. Easy as that. If you don't have your own, you can also take one cup of all-purpose flour, add one teaspoon of baking powder, and about a quarter teaspoon of salt, and you get the same thing. But it's easy to buy it like this. Hello, beautiful. I'm a King Arthur Girly or Bob's Redmo. Please sponsor me. So a cup of this. I'm gonna make about four flatbreads with this. A cup of that, and next up is some yogurt. I am not using the lavme because that stuff's more expensive and girly's on a budget. So instead, I'm just gonna use some plain Greek yogurt. This is non-fat, either or. You see this burn? Last time I made these, I wasn't paying attention, and that's what happened. I'm gonna start with about two-thirds of a cup and add it to my flour. You can go up to one cup, but I like to start with a little bit less just in case. So I'm gonna give that a good mix. You're gonna be like, whoa, this is not gonna turn into anything, but just have some patience. We're gonna stir as much as we can. Oh, I'm getting flour everywhere, and really wait for that yogurt to start hydrating the flour. These really came about from seeing those two ingredient bagels all over the internet, if you know what I mean. And I was like, you can turn into that into so many other things, and I love that it's a little bit of a protein boost to my flatbread. I get a little bit of goodness from that Greek yogurt as well. So you see, I'm really just starting to incorporate those dry floury bits into my dough. Gonna give this a little knead. Perfect. I made these just a couple weeks ago for my mom's birthday for some family, and everyone was so impressed that we had a homemade little flatbread. They kind of remind me of a non-bread-ish thing. Not, I mean, definitely not authentic, but it was a great addition to our meal. So I think about two-thirds cup of my yogurt was just perfect. Um, I also find that some yogurts are thicker than others, looser than others, and so starting slow is a good way to make sure you don't need to keep adding flour. We're also gonna add flour as we roll this. So now that it's like a smooth little ball, I feel good that I can add a bit more flour that I'll also use for rolling. We are going to cook this in a pan. I like to do it in a cast iron pan or a carbon steel pan, something where I don't need to add a lot of oil because it's kind of already seasoned, but can still use a high heat. If I were to do this on just a nonstick pan, I really try to keep my nonstick pans at medium high heat at the max. And so you might not get the same color I'm going for in a nonstick pan. So just keep that in mind. So give this a good knead, and I'm gonna just do a really light drizzle of oil on it on the pan while cooking. Again, this is probably something if you're looking to impress your friends and you whip this up and you'll be like, oh, I just made this quick flatbread. Homemade, they'll be into it. I'd be into it. No one ever makes me flatbread, but whatever. And again, of course, the lesson of today is you don't have to go overboard, you can make it all the day before or within 10 minutes of prep. But if you do have a little extra time, this is a nice thing to do. Also, when it comes to Shabbat, I love having a hala on the table. Of course, hala is delicious, but you can also have other types of bread. You don't need to just have hala. You can say the hamotsi or the blessing over bread over any type of bread. So if this is the bread that's easiest for you to get on the table this week, instead of a hala, or maybe you haven't found a store-bought or bakery halabayou that you enjoy, maybe this is the way to go. So I've got my one piece, I'm gonna cut it into four sections. Just get a knife. Four-ish. Four-ish, perfect. And now our rolling pin. I like to roll it into little balls to kind of just get it started, and it also gives our dough a little bit of time to rest. When we rest our dough, we do two things. One is we hydrate the flour because it takes time for those starches to absorb some of the liquid from our yogurt, but we also help to relax the gluten. So whenever we're needing, especially gluten-containing flour, like this all-purpose for sulfurizing flour, gluten is being developed, and gluten is a type of protein that makes our bread strong. So doing this helps to relax the gluten so that it can stretch even further. So you could prep this dough a couple hours in advance and then roll it out whenever it's time to cook, and you'll get an even softer, more supple, tender bread than before. Gluten isn't necessarily a bad word. Some people can't have it for medical reasons, and that's totally fair. But if your body can digest it and it makes you feel good, that's great. So we've got a nice little flat bread. I'll just keep it over there. While I do that, I'm starting to preheat my pan. I want these to be nice and thin, so I'm really going for about an eighth of an inch max in terms of thickness. And I would say a circle adjacent shape that's about the size of your pan. I'm gonna cook these one at a time because when we cook things together, sometimes it can lead to steaming and we won't get some of that browning or crispy edges that I really want. Beautiful one, two, three, and a last one. Okay. When sugars and amino acids or proteins react in high heat to cause browning that reminds us of caramelization and gets a little sweeter. Think of like when you're making a steak and you sear that crest and it gets nice and nice and dark and golden and a little bit just savoriness. That's what we're getting with the tomatoes. Okay. Tomatoes also have a natural source of umami. Umami is the fifth taste that is kind of hard to describe, but it really complements all the other tastes. We have sweet, sour, salt, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. And umami is like if you think of something savory, something that makes your mouth water, and it's often associated with meats or broths or something like that. Umami is really something that is hard to describe, but we know that it's delicious. There are some things that are natural sources of umami like meats, many of them, but also things like tomatoes. Parmesan grind, seaweed, mushrooms, soy sauce, and getting that umami flavor is key to developing a rich flavor as well. So let's get these guys the show on the road. So this is a medium high, high heat, adding a bit of olive oil or vegetable or avocado oil to that. And I can see that it's hot because it's starting to smoke a little. And I'm going to just put this inside. And we're gonna let it cook for a few minutes because I really want to get that golden crest on each side. You're gonna see it's starting to bubble all over. So you can see those bubbles starting, and that's exactly what you want. We are developing air pockets. So this is starting to bubble a little. I can see the oil coming on the sides. In a couple minutes, it's gonna be perfectly browned, and I'm gonna give it a nice little flip. You can use tongs, you can use an offset spatula, you can use your fingers carefully. I'm gonna use two forks because that's what it's available to me right now, and just give it a couple more minutes, and I'm gonna repeat this with all of my dough. So let's get an overhead in here. See how this looks. Golden. Nice and golden. The first one's always the ugliest one. You can expect that. She's getting smoky. Beautiful. Don't use your hands, that's hot. Don't be like me. I just forget that I have hands to take care of. So I'm gonna keep going with all of these. My heat got a little bit too high. But you can see that it's a really pliable, nice little flatbread. Make them in advance, then I wrap them in some tin foil and keep them warm in the oven until I'm ready to serve. So you could also do this on Thursday. Honestly, you should do this every day. Sorry, I'm currently powered by I'm currently 50% coffee in my body. 25% matcha, 25% soup. There is no water going on here. I'm getting such nice bubbles on this one, which is exciting. This looks lovely. Once I oil my first one, I don't fully need to oil my next one because there's gonna be some residual oil in the pan. So your first one will always be the most oily, but that also means the most delicious, let's be honest, because oil is yummy. I see that I only have about 12 minutes on my tomatoes. I'm gonna let them cool for a few minutes before really diving in. But I think during that time, I'm gonna set the table, I'm gonna change, get the candles from the cupboard, and go. What I like to have in my house because Friday creeps up on us so quickly, is I have one portion of my cupboard that's just Shabbat specific. So I have a couple of hala boards, my hala covers, a box of Shabbat candles, and my candlestick options. So everything sits in one place. I know exactly where it's gonna be. I also make sure that I have enough seats at my table. I have a table that extends from like four from six to ten people, and I also have a little dining bench and some extra chairs in my basement in case I have a larger crowd. But Shabbat doesn't have to be seated. You can do Shabbat at the island, you can do a Shabbat buffet. If it's nice out, go sit outside, have a picnic. There's really no wrong way to do it. I feel like people really just get caught up in that. And once I started to let let it go and just say I can Shabbat in the way that feels most comfortable for me this week, I started to enjoy it a whole lot more. Shabbat wasn't something that I grew up doing every week. We always had family dinner. That was always something that we did. It was a it was always known that I had to be home for dinner, not because it was Shabbat, just because we that's what we did in our family. But having this one day a week where we sit down, we reflect over candles is so special for us at home. Whether that's just saying the hammozi over a slice of pizza or a glass of water instead of wine, maybe we're lighting tea lights or our Shabbat candles, there's always a way to reflect in a way that feels good for you. In our family, my husband and I do something called Shabbat's Gratefuls. So every week we go back and forth and share five things that we were grateful for over that week. They can be big, they can be small, they can be serious, they can be silly, they can be whatever we feel grateful for. Maybe we were grateful that we got to take our dog on a walk. Maybe we are grateful that we found the AirPod we lost months ago. Maybe we're grateful that we were all healthy, or that we had a visitor, or that we had a delicious meal out, or a coveted, not often enough date night. No matter what, there's always something to be grateful for, and that using Rishabat as a time of reflection is really what it's all about. Ah, beautiful. Don't do as I do, but the tips of my fingers don't have much feeling on them after years of cooking. So now that this is cooled down a little, you can see how pliable and delicious it looks. This with some homus or some baba ganoush, mmm, so good. Now I'm just gonna sit here and drink my coffee. Speaking more about my Shabbat Club, where this original recipe came from with my tomatoes. If you are in the Chicago area and you want to learn more about my Shabbat Club fleet piece, please feel free to message me because I want you to join us. The whole point of Shabbat Club was to broaden our horizons. I wanted it to feel, I want it to feel authentic and community driven and also a space where people can come together and just be themselves. Sometimes people will come dressed up. I've had someone come in their pajamas. I really don't care how you come to Shabbat, just come join us and grab a seat at the table. I do it with a good friend of mine, Dara, who you will see on one of these upcoming episodes. She is the funniest person I've ever met and has the cutest jewelry line ever called Mamali Jewelry. I see buckwheat looking round. Buckwheat. You know this is the worst boy. Yesterday he ate an entire pavlova off of the counter. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's my own fault, but he's so cute. And if you want to start a Shabbat club with your friends or in your city, all you have to do is invite people over. It can be a potluck. It can be anything. All you have to do is open your doors, and that's pretty darn beautiful. Okay, this is almost done. Let's get our tomatoes. This looks amazing! I'm so excited. I wish you could smell it, but you can't because you're there and I am here. Okay, so it was bubbly. I can see that my tomatoes have gotten a little bit wrinkly, some of my beans are a little crispy and golden, which means that it's perfect. The first thing I'm gonna do is move that, you can see, is spread some of this beautiful garlicky labne on the bottom of my serving dish as like a little nest for my beans. So I've got this perfect little nest here for my beans, and now I'm going to go in, I'm gonna just use whatever I use to serve this with. So I've got a big spoon. I'm gonna spoon some of this over top. Sometimes I like to add a little bit of fresh herbs on the top as well, and see these stems kind of just peel away. But the tomatoes have really released so much liquid, which is exactly why we want those flatbreads. Because that liquid is literally liquid gold. Stunning. I do like to serve some of the little stems in here because I think it looks really nice. You don't have to. Um, I like to put the garlic in here as well because it's like the best part, let's be honest. I could just eat the garlic by itself. Beautiful. I'm gonna get a little bit of dill because that's what was in our garlicky, in our garlicky lamené as well. And it just looks so beautiful, topped with a few more Aleppo chili flakes, just for good measure. If you didn't know how easy this was, you wouldn't believe it. I'll tell you that much for free.