My Dinner with Jackson

I have a lot of food posts to catch up on (it was a good trip to the East coast), but first I wanted to post a meal I made myself a couple of weeks ago, before I left. It was going to be a very quick meal, then settle down to studying electrodynamics for the course I'm teaching in January. But I've gotten very good at procrastinating over that particular torture, and in this case I ended up deciding that the evening was going to be all about cooking, and just for myself for once. The glass of wine you see is the final indication of surrender; it means the textbooks are just there for decoration and context. They didn't get opened that night.


DAVID'S LEVANTINE MEATBALLS

1.5 lbs ground lamb
1 cup bulgar wheat or (in this case) kasha, cooked soft
Three eggs (beaten)
handfull pine nuts (toasted)
handfull currants (soaked in warm water)
Lots of powdered cumin, turmeric, and cinnamon
Dried oregano
Salt

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients together, form into little elongated, footballish shapes, and bake until they start to brown on the outside.

YELLOW PEPPERS AND ONIONS SAUTEED IN OLIVE OIL WITH PISTACHIOS AND DRIED MINT

Sautee yellow peppers and onions in olive oil with pistachios and dried mint. Add salt.