A while back, Lion of Zion posted this about how one might lessen stress on a Friday afternoon. My response to his suggestion of eliminating some of the side dishes was “But those are the healthy dishes!”
Here’s a post of quick, healthy side dishes and not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort side dishes. And some kid-friendly ideas, too. If there’s no link to a recipe, maybe some day I’ll write up a recipe.
Quick Side Dishes
- Sweet potato: Put in a baking dish and bake along with other foods. Takes about 1.5 hours to bake, but if you are baking other things at the same time, it’s only 5 minutes of your time.
- Avocado: Buy an avocado or two on Tuesday or Wednesday. By Shabbat, it should be ripe. Mash and mix in salt, garlic (optional, and we have cubes in the freezer so as not use garlic press on Shabbat), lemon juice (again, we have lemon juice in bottle so as not to squeeze lemon on Shabbat), possibly some hot sauce.
- Beets: If you are in the kitchen anyway, boil some fresh beets. They take 1.5 hours to cook (quicker with a pressure cooker), but most of your work time is spent cutting the ends of the beets off before cooking and peeling after cooking (10 minutes). You can mix them with cucumbers, olive oil and dill right before serving.
- Steamed cauliflower or brussel sprouts: both taste good cold or room-temperature the next day.
- Garlic Spread
- Spinach : use frozen spinach–don’t cook it but take it out and put in a baking dish. Then put it on warming tray before Shabbat for Friday night dinner.
Quick Sides for Kids
My kids don’t like salads. So here are some ideas of what you can put on the table in front of the kids while you are enjoying your salads:
- Carrot sticks
- Strawberries
- Cut up melon pieces
Healthy Sides (not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort)
Years ago, I took a course on Environmental Economics, in which I learned that the poorer a country, the less it can afford to spend on the environment. It seems that is also true with health; if one is busy making money to pay for tuition and groceries and whatever else is in the budget, it is harder to take the time to cook lengthier dishes. At the same time, some people just don’t like cooking. And then there are those who would rather be cooking than working. Personally, I’d rather write a blog post about cooking than work or cook. Because I get an excuse to draw those little veggies at top right with my kids’ markers.
My garlic spread just came out of the oven, so here’s how it looks:
It didn’t make a lot, but that’s enough for my husband, my father and me for Friday night dinner. I used about 1/2 a clove of garlic. You can, alternatively as Baila mentioned, bake the cloves whole and then squeeze them.
Baila wrote (on this blog, not on her blog):
I do the roasted garlic. I cut the top off the head of garlic, put a bit of olive oil and spices–whatever I have lying around (oregano, pepper, paprika etc)–wrap it in silver foil and leave in the oven until I remember to take it out. My kids then squeeze the cloves out and use it to spread on challah. I also do this without about three other heads and put it in a pan with chicken and maybe some parsley for some really garlicy chicken (inspired by the Enlightened Kosher Cookbook).
First, because this is a post for the wonderful Kosher Cooking Carnival, two watercolors:
Recently I posted about the health values of garlic. One quality of garlic is if you cook it, it loses much of its pungency and instead becomes sweet. I learned this recipe while standing online at our local Glatt 27(it is called 27 because it is on Rte. 27). The woman in front of me told me she makes this every Friday afternoon. Her kids like it so much they peel all the cloves. No such luck with my children; Eldest Son just looked over my shoulder at this post and called it evil.
Ingredients:
- One bulb of garlic, peeled
- Dried oregano (you could also use parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme or basil)
- Touch of salt to taste
- Broth or water
You need a little baking dish for this recipe. Here’s mine:
First, peel the whole bulb of garlic and put all the cloves in your baking dish. Cover with water (the woman on line uses chicken broth from her soup). Sprinkle with oregano and salt. Bake covered in the oven for about thirty minutes at 350° and mash with a fork. You can serve it in its baking dish.
I don’t like reheating it; it loses too much flavor. Serve as a spread for challah, matzah or crackers. Enjoy!
See photo of baked garlic spread
See larger version of garlic watercolors
Bonus question: which watercolor did I do first?
Feeling like a cold is coming on? Throat a little scratchy? Got a bit of post-nasal drip? Two staples to stock in your kitchen are garlic and ginger. I’ve cooked up the following concoction for mild ear-nose-throat ailments:
– Peel one garlic clove.
– Cut off one piece of ginger from fresh ginger root.
Slice off the skin of the root.
– Optional: a leaf of dark greens, such as collards or kale
– Optional: a dash of hot pepper sauce or a bit of a hot pepper
– Optional: fresh lemon (thanks for the reminder, Robin)
Place all ingredients in a mug. Boil some water, and pour it into the mug. Let it steep for about two minutes. Sip, and enjoy.
For my kids, who refuse the garlic, I put in a slice of ginger and a large spoonful of honey.
I am going to restate the obvious: make sure to get enough sleep. And may I add that if the cough or sore throat persists, please see your doctor.
In another post, I’ll write up my garlic spread recipe. Coming soon.
Another tip: try giving up sugar and dairy products for the duration of your cold; that may help the healing process along.
This post is dedicated to a friend that I hope is feeling better than when she asked me for a home remedy.
My husband told me there is a custom of fasting after Pesach (and after Sukkot as well) that is called BaHaB. The “B” is for Beis (Monday), the “H” for Hei(Thursday) and the final “B” again is for Monday. Those were the days on which people fasted after Pesach. As it is not considered acceptable to fast in Nissan, which is a happy month, one starts the BaHaB after Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Here is one article on BaHaB.
As I ate too much over the holiday, I really liked the idea that some pious people used to restrain themselves for a few days after the holiday. I actually thought of the idea for this post on Monday, but in order to write the post, I would have to think about food. Again.
Let’s start post-Sedarim. On Wednesday, I baked a delicious banana cake that required seven separated eggs (recipe is in Jeff Nathan’s Adventures in Jewish Cooking) that my family devoured by Thursday. On Thursday night I made blintzes with potato starch, which by the way, is easier than making them with flour. On Thursday morning I baked my sponge cake. Friday was a major cooking day: chicken with lemons and parsley, tongue, potato kugel, meatballs, chicken soup, steamed cauliflower, ratatouille, red cabbage with apples (again, see Jeff Nathan’s Adventures in Jewish Cooking). I also again made my Slavery and Freedom salad, only this time with parsley, because I didn’t have any mint. At least that food had a spiritual value because of its name! My Eldest Son made Pesach brownies, which I didn’t really eat, but I did nibble. On Friday night I was invited to the home of my neighbor the fabulous cook, where I had the great pleasure of meeting blogger Larry Lennhoff and his wife Malka Esther, who promised me at some point she would read and comment on my blog. My neighbor the fabulous cook served: curried carrots, eggplant salad with tomatoes and garlic that my Middle Son actually liked, cucumber salad, a garden salad, soup with matza balls, chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes, jello and fruit salad with nuts. There were also these chocolate candies on the table, which of course I had to sample. By Sunday lunch I had no need for dessert, but somehow the last of the sponge cake got placed in front of me at dessert time, and somehow I ate one, then two, then three, then four slices. They were little slices. On Sunday afternoon I was offered some brownies at a friend’s house and was pleased with myself that I had the courage to say “no, thank you.” And the conversation about ice cream on Sunday afternoon made me feel like enough is enough.
So maybe I won’t fast next week, but a severely-reduced diet sounds like a welcoming notion.
I love the contrasts in Judaism. On Purim, we have v’nahafoch–as we turn around Haman’s decree against us. On Yom Kippur, we try to be sealed in the Good Book, as opposed to the other one. After Tisha B’Av, a sad fast day when the Temple was destroyed, we soon have Tu B’Av, a day where unmarried girls wearing white danced in the fields outside Jerusalem. Passover is a time when we remember both the sufferings of bondage and sweet taste of freedom.
I had fun re-creating the above salad presented by Ellie Krieger at The Jew and the Carrot. In general, the Jew and the Carrot is a great blog for anyone with culinary interests. I stole that gorgeous photo from their blog post. Here’s the description prior to the ingredients for the salad:
The tension between bitter and sweet is most clearly tasted when we eat charoset, which represents the mortar used during our bitter servitude, yet is most likely the sweetest thing at your seder table. Here’s a wonderful salad that Ellie created which plays off this tension in new and unexpected ways:
So, with this recipe’s combination of sweets and bitters, I decided to nickname it my Avdut L’Herut Salad, or From Slavery to Freedom. My kids won’t eat it (my Eldest Son already complained my kitchen smells disgusting, he doesn’t share my love of onions, garlic and herbs), but hopefully, my nieces, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will enjoy! My husband eats all my food. My best customer.
See you next week in the blogosphere!
Has anyone heard of Esther Robfogel of Rochester, New York? This is really her sponge cake recipe. It is from the Rochester Hadassah Cookbook, which was given to me as an engagement present by mother’s friend from Rochester. Her friend used to make ten sponge cakes a day before Pesach (Erev Erev Pesach), and she gave away about seven. One year our family was one of the lucky recipients of one of these sponge cakes. A few years later, after remembering the delicious taste of that cake, I taught myself to make sponge cake using Esther Robfogel’s recipe, which she titled: Never-Fail Sponge Cake.
Ingredients:
- 9 eggs, separated
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup cake meal
- 1/4 cup potato starch
- Juice and rind of 1 lemon or orange
Beat egg whites until they hold their shape; add sugar slowly. Beat yolks and add lemon juice and rind. Fold in cake meal and potato starch. Fold in beaten yolks. Pour into large size ungreased tube pan. Bake in 325° or 350° oven for 50-60 minutes. Invert on cake rack and let cool in pan.
And don’t do what I did my first year of trying this and use a square aluminum pan. You need to use a tube or bundt pan, or your never-fail cake will fail to bake properly.
Learn about the Sponge Cake painting here
What do you do when you only have one potato in the house? Or two? And the potato is a beautiful red potato (called new potato), no little growths popping up at all, smooth-skinned and welcoming?
First, if you have a five-year-old who is learning how to count or add, you play one potato, two potato. (We actually didn’t add potatoes, but we did add Hershey’s kisses. You show the child four kisses. Then you put one next to it. How many do you have? There is too much candy leftover in this house from Purim! Argh! I already threw out the laffy taffy. But I have an attachment to chocolate that makes it hard to throw away. It is the fifth food group, as you may know). OK, no more digressions.
Here was my one potato salad:
Ingredients:
- One or two red potatoes
- One fresh cooked beet
- One hard boiled egg
- Handful of frozen peas (optional, peas are kitniot on Pesach)
- Some chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped onion (or to taste)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil, enough to coat the salad
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Boil the egg with the potatoes. Take the egg out earlier, as it needs less time than potatoes. You can leave the skin on the potatoes or not; up to you. I like them with the skin. Also, peeling is a pain. Chop the potatoes and the egg. I often have fresh cooked beets available, as I make them once a week, but you can 1) skip this ingredient, but it won’t be pink 2) make some fresh beets or 3) open a can. Put in chopped beets. Add parsley and onions. And any other optional ingredients. Coat with olive oil; it is important to do this while the potatoes are still warm, so they absorb the flavor. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss with apple cider vinegar.
Optional ingredients: dill, granny smith apple, pickles, oregano, scallions, peppers, garlic
I was having fun with my camera and decided to try the Color Accent feature. I’m going to call this my kitniot picture, because it highlights the peas, which Ashkenazi Jews are not allowed to eat on Passover:
Which one would you prefer to eat? Please leave any remarks (no disparaging ones, however) in the comments.
Yesterday, Babka Nosher related her hamantaschen making tales. Stapling and velcro are discussed as options for making these little triangular critters. But I steered myself for my own baking exploits.
I’m a lazy baker. I don’t like following recipes. So I took my apple pie crust recipe and added a bit of baking powder. Then I made a little circle for each pastry, threw in some cinnamon and sugar covered chopped apples and folded the sides so it looked like a hamantaschen. Baked at 350° a little longer than my other hamantaschen, for about 20 minutes.
Then last night we had a family affair in the kitchen as my husband, middle son and daughter prepared the more classic hamantaschen, with the rolling and the circle cutting and the careful folding of each flap. I supervised. Thanks, family! (my eldest played computer games–he’s a teenager, whadya want).
Have a Happy Purim! If you don’t celebrate this holiday, find one of your neighbors that do and mooch some hamantaschen. Good stuff.
Addendum:
Classic Hamantashen Dough (NO TRANS FATS!)
8 oz. Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
3-4 cups flour
Combine first three ingredients, then add remaining ingredients. Mix until doughy consistency (add fourth cup flour if necessary). Roll dough out flat to 1/4 inch thickness. Use a floured drinking glass to cut out 3-inch circles. Put one teaspoon of filling in center of each dough circle and fold up corners to make a triangle. Bake at 350° until lightly browned (about 8-10 minutes).
Last week Little Frumhouse on the Prairie (isn’t that a great name?) posted that she is hosting the next Kosher Cooking Carnival. So my mind starts churning…maybe a post on food photography?
I photographed one of the dishes I made for dinner one night. Because it was pretty. And it looks nice against the blue background. Food often looks good against blue, because there really isn’t any true blue in food. Even blueberries are really purple.
Later, I go visit my neighbor, arguably one of the best cooks in Highland Park. Last erev Yom Kippur she gave some of her Gondi, a Persian specialty of ground chicken, chickpea flour and spices rolled into balls and cooked in a sauce. Wish I had a photo of that! Are you making anything special for Purim, I ask. She said always makes something different for the Purim seudah (feast). I could tell her mind wasn’t yet on Purim.
On Friday night my husband came home from shul and said our rabbi spoke about the times one can have the Purim seudah (feast) this year. Purim falls on a Friday, not my favorite timing. Batya doesn’t have this problem. We can have the seudah at a choice of three times: in the morning, after noon, or at the end of the day, right before Shabbat starts. One then says Friday night kiddush in the middle and continues one’s meal. The latter sounds like an interesting idea, but then my husband would need to find a minyan for ma’ariv of men doing similar. We ended up agreeing on a brunch for the seudah this year. Eggs, bagels, fruit, veggies and salmon sound like a plan…
Years ago I made a Persian Purim feast… I can’t for the life of me remember what I served, but rice was certainly on the menu.
So, in the spirit of Nutrition Nerd, I’ll teach you how to make brown rice in a crockpot. It’s SUPER easy. Put in a cup of brown rice and 2 cups water. Cook for 2 – 2.5 hours. If, for some reason (you have nothing else going on in your life, right?) you forget the rice, don’t worry, you’ve just got brown rice with crispy edges. The middle is still edible.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my strung together food photo, exotic Persian dish, halachic (Jewish law) note, and recipe all in one post.
