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.
This pie crust is very easy to make. You can use it for fruit pies or for quiche (you might want to add less sugar for quiche). It has no trans fats, and it’s pareve (no dairy)!
Nutrition Nerd warns: however, this recipe does have white flour, white sugar, and it is baked. If you really want something healthy, make a soup, OK?
You need:
– a pie baking dish
– a fork
– a mixing bowl
– various measuring utensils and a wooden spoon
Preheat the oven to 350. Then gather your ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
- 1 tsp cinnamon (leave out for quiche crust; you can add something savory instead, like mustard or garlic
Mix all ingredients in mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Grease the pie dish. Use your hands (you may want to rewash them at this point) to make the dough into a ball. Using your hands again (no rolling for this dough…too many wet ingredients) flatten the dough into the pie dish until it looks like a pie crust. Use the fork to make flutes on the sides.
Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes.
If you want to make this into an apple pie, cut up about 3 or 4 peeled granny smith or other baking apples. Combine with sugar and cinnamon. In another bowl, make some more dough using the above recipe, but this time add an additional 1/2 cup of oatmeal (preferably the old fashioned oats). Put the apples in the pie crust, then cover with the dough. Punch holes in the top with your fork.
Mom tip: as apple peels are a nutritious part of the apple, put them on the kitchen table for your kids to eat. My kids ate them up!
What to do with stale bread? Or bread that is about to go stale and getting hard? I recycle my homemade bread into croutons. If you have no homemade bread lying around, use the best quality bakery bread you can get.
Ingredients:
- Almost stale bread
- Olive oil
- One garlic clove, peeled and cut in half
- Sea Salt, to taste
- Oregano, to taste
Cut your almost stale bread into cubes. Put it on a plate on the counter to dry out for a day or two. Take a ceramic baking dish or a cookie sheet. Rub each bread cube with the garlic. Coat the bread cubes with a layer of olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and oregano (or your favorite dried herb). Throw in the remainder of the garlic, and bake for about 20-30 minutes.
Even my kids like these. Maybe you could eat them while watching the Super Bowl?
Much thanks to Batya for organizing this carnival. And including links to two of my posts! My first posts on a carnival! (I didn’t know what a carnival was before this, but it’s a very fun way to find out about other bloggers).
I took a cue from blogger me-ander and decided to photograph part of last night’s dinner. Well, only the final product, not the process and ingredients.
Here are the ingredients for this vegan, pareve soup:
- 1 tsp. olive oil
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 sweet potato or yam, chopped into pieces
- 1 big fat carrot, peeled and chopped into pieces
- 1 zucchini, chopped into pieces
- 1 tsp. sea salt (or to taste)
- pepper to taste
- dried thyme to taste
- 2 Tbsp. tomato sauce
- half a can of northern white beans
- pieces of napa cabbage
- handful of snow peas
- water
Put enough olive oil in a pot to cover the bottom. Chop your vegetables. Heat the pot, and then put in the onions. Saute until they are translucent. Add chopped yam, chopped carrot, then chopped zucchini. Add salt, pepper, thyme to taste. Add tomato sauce. Stir, so the yummy olive oil permeates the vegetables. Add enough water to cover the vegetables. Cook for about twenty minutes or the vegetables are tender. Add cabbage, beans and snow peas. When the snow peas are soft, it’s time to eat!
Note on napa cabbage: it has thinner, less fibrous leaves than your standard cabbage. I like it for my coleslaw recipe. I put it in the soup because I had leftovers from making the coleslaw for Shabbat. Will post the coleslaw recipe at some point…
My daughter tasted it, thinking it was chicken soup. I told her it was chicken soup without the chicken. She made a face, and asked if she could put some chicken in it. I told her we had none, and tomorrow night I will make chicken soup. Life with children!
My husband and I thought it was delicious.
