Thanks to Aaron Kagan for this guest post. Aaron is a freelance writer in the Boston area and maintains the blog Tea and Food.
The apple might seem too obvious a choice for a Rosh Hashanah post, but how much do you really know about this omnipresent fruit? For starters, why do we eat it on Rosh Hashanah?
True, apples are eaten with honey to ensure a sweet year, but more importantly they are eaten for the simple reason that they are in season this time of year in places that Jews have historically lived. Why we ate it growing up in Boca Raton is partly for tradition and partly because of the strange, industrialized relationship we have to seasonality. Thanks, California.
Another basic but commonly unknown fact about the apple is where it comes from. In other words, where did we Jews first encounter apples? Like people, all evidence points towards the apple making its first appearance in the Fertile Crescent, with the earliest evidence of cultivation occurring in what is now southern Russia. From there the fruit eventually spread in both directions, across Europe and Asia and ultimately to every continent besides Antarctica.
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Thanks to Rhea Kennedy for this guest post. Rhea maintains the blog You Are Delicious.
Breathe in. Then breathe out. It’s an easy way to become aware of your body, more focused on the mundane. And if you breathe in and breathe out after eating a habenero-laced dish, you’re probably aware of every cell in your mouth, and focused on every nook and cranny of your sinuses.
I first learned to appreciate spicy dishes while studying abroad in Ghana. At first, it was hard to take the intense heat that lurked in everything from Jollof rice to okra stew. But eventually I got to like it—especially the ubiquitous sauce known as pepe (”pep-ay”) that whirled what we call Jamaican peppers, onions, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes into an addictively tasty condiment. Later, while I was working at a farm in Mexico, one of my hosts explained how she swore by chilies and used to belong to a spicy food club back when she lived in the States. She says that chilies cured her ulcer, and she now uses ground dried habaneros in lieu of black pepper at the table. (She insists that this hottest of chilies actually has a pleasant flavor, describing it as a “hot apricot”).
Recipes below the jump…
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It’s Sunday morning at 9:30 and my family has already been up for hours which, yes, I find somewhat disturbing, and means, among other things, that this might be a good time to make a real breakfast, instead of just to-each-his-own bowls of cereal or a quick French toast. We sometimes get in the mood for fancier breakfast fare, but I’ve become a bit of a zealot about not letting leftover challah go to waste, and I definitely want something sweet. Behold, Crème Brulee French Toast! It’s an incredibly easy recipe (no blowtorch required) that’s delicious and delightful.
Recipe (plus another recipe for particularly awesome bran muffins), after the jump!
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Tonight I made myself a very simple, and surprisingly wonderful dinner: roasted potatoes with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, chives and parsley in a lemon olive-oil vinaigrette. It was so simple, so fast - and the contrast of the warm, creamy potatoes with the crisp cucumber and acidic tomatoes was perfect for a summer evening. I finished off my meal with a few slices of locally grown (and very tasty) watermelon.
The meal was a reminder to me about the beauty of eating fresh, local produce. And while I know it’s not the most well-balanced meal, I was eating alone while I cleaned out my apartment before moving from Chicago to the East Coast.
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In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s tomato season. Our CSA specializes in Heirloom tomatoes, so this means at this time of year, we usually get three different varieties in our weekly box: usually grape tomatoes, heirlooms and one other variety like Romas. While the temptation is always there just to eat them fresh with just a sprinkling of salt, I’ve discovered two new dishes this summer that are worth sharing.
The first requires slow-roasting cherry or grape tomatoes. I actually discovered this technique last summer, and there are plenty of food blogs to offer tips. I just cut the tomatoes open, put them on a baking sheet, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and sea salt, and put in a low oven (about 225 degrees) for a minimum of two hours. If you have the time, three or four hours is even better. Slow-roasting brings out all their tomato-ey essence. They also store longer that way; you can cover them in a bit of olive oil and keep them in the fridge. Read more »
Thanks to Aaron Kagan for this guest post. Aaron maintains the blog Tea and Food.
Last January I interviewed my first cousin once-removed about his experience surviving the Holocaust as a child in a Siberian labor camp. At one point he mentioned a “sour leaf” that his family used to make a soup called schav. Soon after, while visiting the Culinary Institute of America in Sonoma, I surreptitiously pinched a leaf of French sorrel from the herb garden, feeling strangely drawn to that particular plant above the others.
The moment it hit my tongue, the sharp tang of the oxalic acid triggered some vast, dormant cultural memory which I could not yet place. Still, I felt transformed by it. It wasn’t until months later, while researching an article for the Forward, that I discovered the connection in schav, the cold, Russian soup with many variations but one common theme: sorrel. It was then that the words of my cousin came floating back into my mind. I now knew what that sour leaf was, and I knew that I had to use it to make some schav.
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Yesterday, I made two loaves of challah. It felt like a funny activity for a Sunday, I’ll admit. (I usually make challah in a flurried rush on Friday afternoon.) But I’d had a culinary brain flash the other day, that I felt compelled to try out: apple cider challah.
The idea was originally inspired by a beautiful loaf of apple honey challah my friend Ariela over at Baking and Books made last year. Lying in bed a few Sunday mornings ago, still heavy with dreams and sleep, I’d suddenly remembered that beautiful loaf of bread Ariela had made, which twisted the flavors of Rosh Hashanah into braided loaves. My thoughts then drifted to another favorite fall treat, apple cider - the one drink that manages to capture all of the sweet, spicy secrets of autumn.
Despite not being fully awake yet, my brain somehow managed to fuse these two thoughts together Sesame Street style: Cider………Challah Cider….Challah. Cider.Challah. Eureka! All of a sudden, I could hardly imagine a world without apple cider challah. (According to Google, only one other person has thought of it before.) So yesterday, I set about making my dream bread into a reality. It was such a treat to knead the loaves and let them rise on the counter without the pressure of the setting sun at my back. And as I bit into a warm slice, spread with a dollop of amber-colored apricot jam, I felt (almost) okay with the fact that fall is just around the corner.
Question to the Jewish text-perts out there: If you make challah that is not meant for Shabbat, do you still need to remove some of the dough as the Challah offering?
Find the recipe below the jump.
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As the price of food continues to increase, the value (in real dollars) of food stamps is decreasing– Democrats in Congress are working to pass additional increases to the minimum food stamp benefit in the next few months. But how are these benefits calculated?
Originally, they were based on what is known as the Thrifty Food Plan, what is considered the minimum cost of a reasonably healthy diet. But the food stamp benefit is not recalculated each year. Rather, it is updated based on inflation, and the Thrifty Food Plan is then periodically updated so that it fits the current (maximum) food stamp benefit and resembles the current food preferences of Americans as closely as possible. How do they do this, one might ask?
Well, my advisor and primary author of the US Food Policy blog, Parke Wilde, and two awesome student colleagues at Tufts have put together a Thrifty Food Plan Calculator so anyone can figure out how much a healthy meal costs in their own way– to figure out the ideal mix of foods for health and taste given a food stamp budget. The actual Thrifty Food Plan was last updated in 2006 and the calculator uses the same information economists and nutritionists at USDA had to create the 2006 TFP. You can see if you would have chosen the same combination of foods as they did.
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I made mozzarella cheese last night. This is not a shechechiyanu moment - I’ve done it before, using this, highly recommended, cheese making kit. But every time I accomplish the feat of turning a gallon of milk into two fistfuls of salty, stretchy, kosher cheese, it feels rather profound.
It also feels a little wasteful, as in, “I go to the trouble of pouring a whole gallon of milk into a pot, heating it 88 degrees, and stirring in vegetable rennet, and this is the thanks I get? A bunch of wasted whey?” I know I could probably save the whey that separates from the cheese curds, and use it for a million different things (suggestions welcome). But aside from pouring about 1 cup worth into my grateful plants, I dumped the rest of it down the drain. I thought my roommates might not appreciate two large Tupperwares full of yellow cheese-water crowding up the fridge.
So why did I go to all this trouble to make my own cheese? Well, to impress my Shabbat guests, of course - and also to make an “Israeli caprese salad,” which is a simple tweak on the Italian classic of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, but might just be an entirely new creation.
Perhaps I should say a shechechiyanu afterall? Recipe below the jump.
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I had one of the worst days of my life today (definitely top ten, possibly top five) but things didn’t get really bad until I was midway through throwing together a ratatouille. I think it’s a testament to my recipe that basically forgetting the dish on a stove on high heat for a good twenty minutes while I panicked to the point of tears and probably aged a decade did not ruin the dish. In fact, though I was still a complete emotional wreck later in the afternoon, I was an emotional wreck with really good ratatouille for lunch. And if you’re going to be a bawling bundle of stress, you might as well be full of yummy CSA veggies.
I started making the ratatouille because I didn’t want any of our veggies to go to waste, but as far as I’m concerned the best thing about the dish is that it’s really filling, and makes an amazing alternative main course for vegetarians when everyone else is eating meat. I used to do the catering at the University of Iowa Hillel, and many a Shabbat there was chicken for meat eaters, ratatouille for the vegetarians, and nary a complaint. For anyone who worries about what to make for a vegetarian Shabbat meal, this recipe is for you.
Recipe after the break!
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Little known fact: I was actually on the Food Network once. The show was an Al Roker on the Road special about food clubs, and I was featured in a segment about a group called Girl Friday in Iowa City. Unfortunately, the episode aired on the first night of Pesach in 2004, so I’ve never seen it.
We made a bunch of great recipes the night they filmed us, and one of them has become a standard in my kitchen. It’s really easy, gorgeous, and very tasty. The recipe comes from Thisbe Nissen, who co-wrote The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook, and is generally awesome. While we were boiling the beets she kept encouraging someone to use the water to dye her hair purple. Also, I’m pretty sure she got me to say on camera that beets are really sexy.
Anyway, this salad is perfect for brunch or Shabbat lunch. Adding the cheese at the end saves it from turning pink, but if you’re not bothered by fuschia cheese you can add it whenever you want.
Recipe after the jump! Read more »
I am a little embarrassed to admit that The Jew & The Carrot went the entire summer last year without sharing a recipe for gazpacho. Of course gazpacho - a cold soup which has its roots in Southern Spain - does not obviously belong in the “Jewish food” category. Still, as Tamar rightly pointed out, when summer rolls around, the last thing you want is a pot of cholent steaming up the kitchen. Or at least, as someone who lives sans air conditioning, I don’t want no stinking pot of cholent.
In these moments of mid-summer heat, Gazpacho boldly comes to the rescue, offering a flavor-packed soup without the shvitzing. It also begs you to head to the farmers’ market (or your backyard) and buy the ripest heirloom tomatoes (like the ones I found above) and crispest bell peppers and cucumbers possible.
Shame on us for neglecting to share the wonders of summer gazpacho with you last year - we hope you accept the recipe below along with our deepest and most sincere apologies.
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When I have people over for Shabbat dinner during the winter I always make some kind of kugel as a side dish. But in the summer, nobody wants a warm kugel, so I have to come up with a nice rotation of cold salads that don’t bore me to death.
This one I got from my ex’s mom. She didn’t like that I was dating her son, but she really didn’t like that I had never cooked with black eyed peas, so she taught me this recipe, and it pleases guests long after I split with her little boy.
Recipe after the jump. Read more »
Imagine you are out on your bike (or running, rock climbing, extreme gardening - whatever you like to do) on a hot day. You’re sweaty and tired, and feeling like you need a boost of energy. The question is, do you reach for a bottle of Gatorade and a squeeze of Power Gu, or are there less expensive, less heavily packaged alternatives? Ok, leading question.
In planning long distance bike rides, Hazon has found it particularly challenging to find kosher-certified sports drinks (who knew this would be such a problem?) that fall in line with our larger food values. But during a typical NY Ride we probably go through about 100 gallons of the stuff! For the last several years, we have used powered Powerade (OU certified) , which we’ve purchased in bulk and mixed with water in big, sturdy coolers. It keeps cyclists happy and at least avoids the plastic bottle pile up. This year, we will probably switch to CLIF’s version (KSA-certified), because powdered Powerade is for some reason harder to come by since the company was purchased by Coca Cola.
For now, and honestly for the sake of convenience, Hazon will stick with the powdered stuff for our bigger rides - but let’s get back to you. There are lots of alternatives for quick homemade power drinks that deliver all the salt and sugar that your body needs after a good sweat without the “tougher-than-thou” image, fake food dyes, or landfill potential.
Here are two recipes to try:
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