Flaming Kabob - Southfield

I never crave vegetables. But there is one salad that I crave, that I would order over pizza or chocolate, the best salad in the entire world. That amazing salad is the Kaplan's Deluxe Salad from Flaming Kabob in Southfield, Michigan.

Flaming Kabob is a small clean diner style restaurant on Southfield Road north of 12 Mile that specializes in middle eastern food. It is a favorite place to go for our teachers to go for lunch (on the rare times during the school year that we can) or for take out on my way home. I don't think they have a website.

This restaurant features their own fresh salad dressings and sauces. The Moe's pink house dressing is made from, well, I have no idea what is in it, but it is tangy and perfect on a salad. If you eat in the restaurant they bring this zippy orange sauce for dipping with pita bread. But the masterpiece of Flaming Kabob is their garlic yogurt sauce. I have tried and tried to duplicate it, but never have quite gotten it right. I will eat this sauce slathered on bread, sandwiches, and salads - I always order an extra cup for my meal.

What to order? If you want a sandwich, I recommend the chicken shawarma or gallaba sandwiches. Both have tasty chunks of flavored charroasted chicken and the above mentioned garlic sauce. If you want a full meal, try the half order of the Moe's Special. It comes with a large side salad, pita bread, and a meal of rice topped with chicken shawarma, raisins, and almonds. There are 2 columns of salad selections on the menu - the fattoush salad, Greek salad, and spinach salads are all wonderful and come with interesting variations.


But the Kaplan's Deluxe is the queen of all salads. Romaine lettuce, crispy fried pita bread, tomatoes, almonds, chicken shawarma, and rice. Yes, rice! It sounds usual, but tastes wonderful. It is served with the Moe's dressing and the garlic sauce on the side. Mix it all together and it tastes amazing. And this salad is enough for two people to share - I usually can get 2 to 3 meals from it. (The picture above makes it look small, but this is a huge plate.) It is the best salad I've ever had anywhere in the world.

Boiled Brown Rice

I have bad luck making brown rice. It takes forever, it boils over and is messy, and it gets gummy. A while back when I saw this blog post from Angry Chicken about boiling rice like pasta to cook it, I tucked it away in my bookmarks of recipes to try.

So last weekend I tested this process. I filled a big pot with water with a little salt and heated it until it started boiling. Then I added about 2 cups of brown rice. I boiled it for about 30 minutes until it was cooked but still slightly firm. Then I strained it in a colander. I didn't even do the final recommended step about heating it slightly after it was strained. So easy!

The rice turned out perfect! This will be my only way to make brown rice from now on!

Light - recycled!

Remember the old ugly lamp that I replaced in the kitchen this summer?


Well, I thought there still might be a clever and cute use for it. So I cleaned it, removed the old wires and part of the metal shade, and then sprayed it with brown primer.


Then glued a glass votive where the light bulb used to sit.


And hung it in the garden under the ivy trellis. I twirled a few ivy vines around it.


The rusty brown color matches some of the other other rusty/terracotta colors of accessories in the garden, but it kind of blends in a bit too much. Maybe another color, what do you think?

Galia Melon

Have you ever had a Galia melon? It looks like a cantaloupe on the outside and a honeydew on the inside. The taste is a blend of the two flavors - if you get a good one it is soooo sweet! Has anyone else ever had one?


I first discovered Galia melons many years ago during a trip to Israel. But I have only seen them in the US maybe half a dozen times, usually by the other specialty melons, and usually in a gourmet fruit store, and usually pricey. But the other day I actually found one at Kroger! So I had melon for dessert for several days. Mmmmmm - if you ever find one, I highly recommend giving it a try!

No Longer Stuffed to the Top

Sorry, I haven't posted for several days. I've heard one complaint from a friend that she was tired of looking at that picture of the focaccia!  I've been so busy with the start of school that I've spending time on weekends to set up some items to autopost during the week.  But this weekend my laptop went away to get a new 320 GB hard drive installed. (For over a year I have been running my laptop hard drive dangerously filled to the top.)  So now I have more more room to download more pictures and install more applications.  Yippee!

I need to spend time tonight catching up on all the work that I couldn't get done without my laptop. But I do have some pictures of some new cleverness on my camera that hopefully I will get up within the next few days.  See you soon!

Caramelized Onion Focaccia

I really wanted to make this recipe for Focaccia de Patate from the Wednesday Chef. But alas, no tomatoes, no potatoes, no fresh yeast, and I just was too lazy to go to the store! But the idea of using potato to make focaccia sounded like a good idea, and I had some delicious potato flakes in the pantry! Actually, I have used the instant potato flakes in other bread recipes, so I thought maybe I could substitute. Hmmmm.

Now, I make frequently make focaccia with another favorite recipe, but this bread had a totally different taste and texture, and it was amazing! I confess, I ate almost half the pan while it was warm, it was that good! It was quite soft and crusty and quite thick - next time I would make it a 9 x 13 pan to get it a bit thinner. The topping of caramelized onions with a touch of fig and a dotting of Boursin herb cheese was the perfect combination. I definitely will be experimenting with this recipe, so stay tuned for some more variations.

Caramelized Onion Focaccia

for the dough:

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup instant potato flakes
2 cups all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2/3 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Heat the 1/2 cup water until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the 1/2 cup potato flakes until combined. In your bread machine bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, olive oil, and 2/3 cup water along with the potato mixture. Put the yeast in the yeast dispenser and mix using the dough setting on your bread machine. (If you don't have a bread machine, you could knead by hand or in a food processor.) Let rise for a couple of hours.

For the topping:

1 yellow onion
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons fig jam
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
4 ounces Boursin garlic and herb cheese
fresh rosemary
fresh cracked pepper

Cut the onions into slices and cut the slices into quarters. Heat a large shallow pan with the olive oil and add the onions. Cook over medium heat, stirring every 5 minutes or so, until the onions are brown and caramelized, about 3o - 40 minutes. Add the brown sugar, fig jam, and balsamic vinegar and combine. (Note: I seldom measure these ingredients, just dump a bit in!) Remove from heat.



To make the focaccia:

Take a 9 x 13 pan and pour in about 2 tablespoons more of olive oil. Brush the pan with the oil until well coated. Dump the dough from the bread machine into the pan - it will be very soft and a bit sticky. Push it out with your fingers to fit the pan, then turn it over, and continue to stretch it until it almost fits the pan.

Top the focaccia with the onion mixture and dot with crumbled Boursin cheese. Sprinkle with fresh rosemary and cracked pepper. Let it rise for about another hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drizzle the focaccia with a bit more olive oil before putting in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before slicing and removing from the pan with a spatula. You will want to eat it warm!

Listening for Lions

The best book that I read during the summer was Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan. (This was one of the wonderful children's books given to me by our school librarian for my summer enjoyment.)

This book reminded me of The Secret Garden (0ne of my favorites) with a bit of an Out of Africa setting in the beginning. The plot involves a young girl with missionary parents who is orphaned in the early 1900s during the influenza epidemic. In her attempt to get back to England she gets trapped in a lie by some greedy neighbors (I won't spoil it for you). The descriptions of both Africa and England are vivid and there are endearing characters (as well as ones you will love to hate). I couldn't put it down. A sweet story with a story with great twists!

I also read Angel on the Square by the same author, and I hope to check out more books by her!