It’s that time of year when we light candles, play dreidel and eat… greasy food! Because of a greasy story two thousand years ago where a little jar of greasy oil lasted in the Temple for 8 days when it was only supposed to last for one. Since not much of the food in this post is greasy, I decided to call this the Greasy Story Edition, and not concentrate too much on greasy food (can one be yotzeh–fulfill one’s obligation–to eat food with oil by eating a salad with olive oil?). B’tayavon (bon appetit in Hebrew).
Another traditional food for Chanukah is sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts. No one posted a recipePhyllis posted a baked version, and I can tell you quickly my version: you make a sugary yeast dough, fry little balls of it in massive amounts of hot oil, dip the fried balls in yet more sugar, and inject with jelly. A delicious and fattening food.
Speaking of halacha, there are only supposed to be eight lights on a chanukiah, and then one extra for the shamash, the “helper” candle. Does anyone know why more show up in my photo? (Hint: the answer has nothing to do with halacha).
Sarah aka Proud Mommy's dreidel cookies
If you would like to participate in a future Kosher Cooking Carnival, please submit your post.
Here’s the stuffed squash I made last week. Using Klara‘s idea of using shitake mushrooms, I sauteed some onions and mushrooms to stuff my squash. I also mixed in some chopped celery and sage from my garden, as well as bits of cooked buttercup squash. I didn’t use any animal products, but I must say I might have found it just a tad tastier if it had either a bit of cheese or some chopped meat. We humans do crave fat. On the other hand, my body felt much better eating it this way, a lighter food.
An acorn squash among my parsley
I decided to call this post a workshop instead of a recipe, because you can choose a variety of stuffing ingredients to create your version of this dish.
First, bake the acorn squash until tender. I bake the squash whole for about an hour in a 350° oven. You can do the baking the day before you use it, if you like.
Now prepare your stuffing. You have so many choices! Klara sent me a few of her ideas, so if the ingredient was Klara’s idea, I’ll say so. (Thank you, Klara). And thanks for some mango tips from Helen and from Alyssa.
Meat
- For carnivores, sauté some onions in a bit of olive oil. Add chopped meat (hamburger meat). When chopped meat is cooked, you have a meat ingredient.
Dairy
- If you want just a bit of cheesy flavor, add some of your favorite hard cheese to the stuffing.
Vegan or Pareve Ingredients
You could make your squash with just pareve ingredients, if you like. Or you can mix it some of these pareve ingredients with your chopped meat. Or you can mix the pareve ingredients with a bit of cheese. (As I keep kosher, I wouldn't dare think of mixing the dairy and meat in one dish).
Grain Possibilities
I like mixing in cooked whole grains in my stuffing: brown rice, wild rice, millet, couscous, bulghur wheat, barley, kasha, quinoa or oatmeal. You could also mix in some leftover bread, such as challah or a multigrain bread. Soak and drain the dried bread before using.
Herbs one could use
So many! Try parsley, cilantro, dill, basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, depending on what you like and what is available locally. Chop and add to your mixed grains.
Vegetable Ideas
Klara told me she loves stuffed squash with shitake mushrooms. Sounds delightful to me!
One could also use: tomatoes, onions, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic or celery. You will probably want to cook one of these ingredients a bit before using, either steam or sauté.
Fruit
You can even add fruit: chopped apple, cranberries, raisins or clementines. Lemon juice or fresh orange juice can add nice flavor, too.
Helen's suggestion: mango
Alyssa's suggestion: Costco's mango salsa (brand is Santa Barbara and it has an O-U kosher certification - thanks, Helen)
Beans, Nuts
You would definitely need to use cooked beans. If you don't feel up to cooking some beans, there are many varieties that come in a can (cannellini, great northern beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, black beans, to name a few). For nuts, I would mash in the food processor first.
Soy Products
Klara suggested tofu (cubed or mashed), seitan or tempeh (best marinated and then cooked).
Spices
Salt, pepper, turmeric, oregano, cumin, coriander are all possibilities, but I wouldn't put in too many different spices in one dish.
Combo Ideas
Quinoa, pecans, dried cherries, and sauteed veggies like onion, celery, shitake mushrooms, and carrot seasoned with holiday spices like sage,
rosemary, thyme, and parsley in my squash. MMMMmmmmmm.. ... (A Klara acquaintance)
Like you stuff chicken, with croutons, onions, mushrooms, celery and sage! and salt (How Klara used to do it)
For even more ideas, see Mimi in her Israeli Kitchen on Stuffed Stuff.
Mix your stuffing ingredients, cut your squash in half, stuff each half, and bake in a casserole dish for about twenty minutes before serving.
I added a beet to my turmeric soup, and it turned orange. OK, maybe it turned a brighter redder orange from the pale yellowy turmericky orange it had been before?
I’ve been playing in my crock pot again, and this time it’s called Turmeric Soup. It doesn’t look terribly different than my Farmer’s Market Soup.
Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
Turmeric, about 1 tsp.
Pepper, about 1/2 tsp. and salt to taste
1 sweet potato or yam
1 can of beans (I used cannellini, but chickpeas or northern beans will work, too)
3 leaves of kale
Saute the onions in olive oil until translucent. Sprinkle generously with turmeric, pepper and salt. Put chopped sweet potato in crockpot. Put in the can of beans. Put in the sauteed onions and garlic. If you feel up to waiting just before it’s almost ready, you can add the kale right before everything is tender. But if you are lazy like me, just add it at the same time as the other ingredients.
I let it cook for about 4 hours, and it tasted delicious.
This spice is discussed in Anticancer: A New Way of Life, the book I reviewed yesterday. It has been shown in cell cultures to be effective against cancer cells. However, it must be mixed with pepper in order to be effective. Ideally, it should be dissolved in oil (olive, canola or linseed oil, preferably).
Anyone have some good ideas of what to do with turmeric? I mixed with some kasha (also had mushrooms and onions) that I made on Sunday night, and it tasted delicious.
For Mrs. S., mazel tov on the upcoming bar-mitzvah!
Mandel Bread, Mandelbroit, Biscotti
When I need a dessert for company or for my family, I often make these little cookies called mandelbread. In Yiddish, mandel means almonds, so traditionally these cookies had almonds in them. I’ll give you two recipes, one with almonds and one without, so you can choose.
Mandelbread with Crushed Almonds
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder
dab of salt
1/4 – 1/2 cup of crushed raw almonds
2 cups of flour
Canola oil, enough to wet the dough
Crush the almonds in the food processor. Mix ingredients in order shown, except for the oil. Drizzle in oil until the dough is wet enough to shape into loaves. Shape into 2 long loaves, 2 inches long. Place on parchment paper on baking sheet. Bake at 350° for about 20-30 minutes. Cut into 1/2 inches slices and place on their sides. Continue baking for about 4 minutes.
Mandelbread, plain
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder
dab of salt
2 cups of flour
Mix ingredients in order shown. Shape into 2 long loaves, 2 inches long. Place on parchment paper on baking sheet. Bake at 350° for about 20-30 minutes. Cut into 1/2 inches slices and place on their sides. Continue baking for about 4 minutes.
With either recipe, you can dot the top of your pre-baked mandelbread with chocolate chips, points facing down, for the choc-oholics in your family.
I have been making lentils in various forms this fall. The lentils in the bowl above were made overnight in my crockpot.
Lentil Soup with Curry
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. lentils
3 cups of water
1 garlic clove
1 slice of ginger root
Salt, turmeric, cumin to taste
Put all the ingredients except the spices in the crockpot. Cook on low overnight. In the morning, add the salt, turmeric and cumin.
Lentil Salad with Lemon Juice
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. lentils
1 1/2 cups of water
lemon juice, preferably from fresh lemons
salt to taste
optional: parsley
The key to making lentil salad as opposed to lentil soup is use less water. Cook the lentils with the water for about two hours (this is how long it takes in my crockpot). When the lentils are tender, add the lemon juice and salt. Garnish with parsley. Can be served hot or room temperature.
Lentil Soup with Tomatoes
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. lentils
3 cups of water
1 garlic clove
1 slice of ginger root
Handful of baby carrots
2 sliced zucchini
1 can whole tomatoes
Salt to taste
Optional: jalapeno pepper, chopped
Cook the lentils, ginger, garlic and carrots in water until the lentils are tender (two hours in my crockpot). Add zucchini and salt (add jalapeno pepper, if using one). When zucchini are almost tender, add the canned tomatoes.
The cake I baked on Friday that was gobbled up by Sunday morning
First, an explanation for those that do not speak Hebrew. Mabul in Hebrew means flood. This post ideally should have gone up last week, but the cake was not baked until Friday, and the post was not ruminated over until Shabbat, and on Sunday I did JPIX, and after that…well, here it is. I try to make marble cake for Parshat Noach, the section of the Torah about the flood. This year I took Batya’s simple cake recipe (the one I had previously used for orange cake, but no orange in this one, just vanilla for flavor) and divided it in two, one with some cocoa (about 1/4 cup) and one without. I used three cups of flour, and I mixed some chocolate chips into the batter.
The cake itself came out delicious. And no one seemed to care that my lights and darks were not very pronounced. No one except me, however. So in preparing this post I put the picture in Photoshop and made it look a little more marbly (mabully?): Darkened with brightness tool and color balance tool
Does it look more like a marble cake now? Maybe next year I’ll melt some dark chocolate and drizzle it throughout the cake batter as I put in the pan. Any suggestions?
Another fun idea for this parsha by Juggling Frogs: Rainbow Menu
My speedy blogger friends already have posts up about this week’s parsha, Lech Lecha: Go to Yourself (Ilana-Davita) Avraham Ha-Ivra/the Hebrew (Daniel Saunders)
I am fortunate that I can work at home. Sometimes, especially now that the weather is getting chillier, I set up some food cooking in my crockpot first thing in the morning, and the house smells yummy at lunchtime (and I have something new to eat). Last week I was hoping to make lentil soup one day, but I reached into my cabinet and found no lentils. I had just bought some cut up butternut squash the day before. If you have ever cut a butternut squash, you will know what a time and energy saver pre-cut squash can be. The squash even had an O-U on it, meaning it was cut with a kosher knife. I created this recipe:
Ingredients:
1 butternut squash, cut and peeled (or substitute another squash)
1 or 2 slivers of fresh ginger, peeled and cut from the root
Collard greens (or substitute a bay leaf, parsley, scallions, kale, spinach, basil, whatever greens you like)
2 or 3 fresh tomatoes (or substitute canned tomatoes or some salsa)
Cook the butternut squash and ginger in the crockpot with some water to cover (or even a little less water) for about two hours or until squash starts to get soft. Add chopped tomatoes and greens. It’s ready when the greens are slightly cooked (not long!). If there’s excess water (I had enough to fill one mug), drink that in a cup: it’s a delicious broth!
I did buy the lentils later in the day, and so I made a lentil soup in my crockpot the next day. I’ll post a lentil soup recipe another time.
