Archive for the 'Shabbos Meals' Category
Back to Baking - Honey Challah
One of the strategies I use to make it through the eight long, flat, matzah-days of Passover is to fantasize about the challah I’m going to start baking as soon as the holiday is over.
I’ve made challah often enough in the past that even when I don’t bake for a while, I still have a strong sense-memory of what to do. But the week after Pesach—my first time back to baking challah in six months!—there was definitely an extra tingle in my fingertips when I plunged my hands into the warm, thick dough. I had to take a few extra breaths of the nutty-malty smell right at that moment when I add the sponge to the rest of the ingredients…It’s the smell of the anti-Pesach, the aroma of pure chametz, the yeast busy doing its magic, raising the roofs of a hundred (a thousand?) tiny bubbles in a bit of flour and water, sitting under the hot lights on my kitchen counter.
10 Comments »Happy Early Mother’s Day (Chocolate Cake)
Several months ago, The Jew & The Carrot featured the recipe for my mom’s amazing chocolate cake - the one that my brother and I begged for every birthday - mostly for the thrill of eating sweet, homemade frosting directly off the beaters.
Then yesterday, a reader sent me the following email:
“Long ago you posted a recipe for your mom’s chocolate cake. Finally I got around to making it for Shabbat dinner this past week. Since I’m really into my new camera and having lots of fun taking food pics, I thought I’d share the image. I used real roses and borage [to decorate it] too. Everyone loved the cake-the recipe is a keeper.” - Emily
With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, I figured now is the perfect time to share this delicious cake once again. Happy Mother’s Day Mom! Recipes and another photo below the jump.
Hip Kosher: Interview with Ronnie Fein (Win a Copy)
Is it just me, or is kosher cooking having itself a little bit of a renaissance? Over the last year, a slew of cookbooks have been published (like this one
Fein, who is the founder of the Ronnie Fein School of Creative Cooking in Stamford, CT spoke to The Jew & The Carrot about what hip kosher really means, Jewish food’s chameleon tendencies, and the many virtues of an ear of corn.
Read her interview below and, while you’re at it, WIN a copy of Hip Kosher! Answer the following question and be entered in a drawing to win: If you were a vegetable, what you’d be and why? (I promise this will make more sense when you read the interview.)
And congrats to Judi for being the randomly-selected winner in our last raffle for Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking.
Jewish Home Cooking (Win a Copy)
Books, Contest, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food Writing, Holidays, Jewish Culture, Kosher, New York, Shabbos Meals
Arthur Schwartz likes to say: “If a kosher Martian landed in New York City today and observed what Jews were actually eating, he would think pizza and sushi were the most Jewish foods on earth.” I like to think that a copy of Schwartz’s new cookbook, Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited
Also called The Food Maven, Schwartz is known for being the man the New York Times Magazine dubbed “a walking Google of food knowledge.” His expertise extends far beyond
Far beyond a collection of Yiddish recipes - Jewish Home Cooking offers a vivid snapshot of a particular era of Jewish life - the slender seltzer bottles delivered to your doorstep, butchers who knew your name and order, frothy egg creams with Fox’s U-Bet syrup, and slow-simmered tzimmes - that has all but vanished from today’s New York. With recipes that honor tradition (but aren’t stifled by it), and historical photographs and anecdotes of New York’s long-gone Jewish culinary hot spots, Schwartz breathes new life into Jewish cuisine with humor and love - but without the sloppy side dish of kitsch that usually (and annoyingly) comes along with Yiddish retrospectives.
Win a FREE copy of Jewish Home Cooking! Tell us your favorite Passover dish or food tradition and be entered into a drawing to win. Only one comment per person will be entered into the drawing - comment before Thursday, April 17.
Below the jump, Schwartz’s Passover Apple Cake.
Read it & Eat: Review of Cooking Jewish
Books, Cookbooks, Cooking, Family & Kids, Food Writing, Jewish Culture, Kosher, Meat, Photography, Recipes, Shabbos Meals, Women
I’ve only had my copy of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
As the title might suggest, this book is a family affair. Author Judy Bart Kancigor beautifully describes how the book came into existence, stemming from a desire to pass on her family’s food traditions. As a result, almost every recipe has a story, which can be a bit overwhelming at times, but ultimately brings the recipes to life. It’s not just a cookbook; you feel invited in, as though you’re taking part in the Rabinowitz family tradition by making this food. And the pictures are great – a time-capsule of American Jewish life opened to reveal many embarrassing hairstyles and equally embarrassing bar mitzvah pictures.
More and recipes for banana bread and sesame crusted chicken below the jump.
Corned Beef & Cabbage Shabbat
Long before “green Shabbat” referred to stacking biodegradable dishes on the synagogue kiddush table, “Corned beef and Cabbage” became my family’s green Shabbat.
When 6th grade ended and my best friend, Shauna Ritchie, returned to Ireland with her family, I was devastated. The summer passed and middle school started. Life continued, but not without the distinct sense that something important was missing.
Mid-March arrived, and with Purim over and Pesach still in the future, my mother decided she needed an occasion in the interim to bring our family together. In honor of Shauna, my mom declared the arrival of “Corned Beef and Cabbage” Shabbat - a celebration which, not-coincidentally, coincided with the week of St. Patrick’s Day.
Yid.Dish: Mushroom Soup with Chives
As much as I love hosting Shabbat dinners, by Friday night, I am completely exhausted. I often pull together a quick meal, hoping that I have chicken soup and a homemade challah leftover in the freezer from a previous week. This upsets me, because I’d love to have the time to cook all day on Friday in preparation for Shabbat, but with my demanding job, it doesn’t happen all that often right now.
However, by Sunday, I am rearing to go, ready to make a great meal from scratch. I recently decided to have a dinner party, and to make everything, from bread to homemade ice cream. It was not difficult to invite friends to this meal. Luckily, living in Chicago, I have a large kitchen (probably the size of many NY studios), so it’s not a problem for me to cook all day and make a huge mess.
Mushroom Soup recipe below the jump.
Yid.Dish: Vegan Challah
(cross-posted at Jewcy)
This challah recipe is spiced bread more than anything else. There’s no egg in it, which is what makes challah challah in my opinion, but we do braid it, so I call it faux-challah. The dough is pretty sweet so we added lots of salt to make it a savory loaf, but it’s just as easy to make sweet by adding cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and raisins.
There are two sets of directions below - one from a Chabad rebbetzin, and one for those of you who might like something slightly more step-by-step.
Just Host It
It’s been about a year and a half since I hosted my first Shabbat dinner. While I can’t remember exactly who came or what I served, I distinctly remember how freaked out I was about it! Would there be enough food? How could I possibly find time to cook - and bake challah! - for all those people, while getting my work done? Would it be possible to accomodate my non-Jewish friends and help them feel comfortable around all the ritual-stuff? How should I respond when people ask me if they can invite last-minute guests (which they invariably do)?
Looking back, I now realize that Shabbat dinners kind of host themselves. They take a bit of planning and forethought, but once you get the ball rolling, they somehow just kind of flow. And miraculously, there always seems to be enough to eat and enough places to sit, despite the last minute add-ons. Still, I wish I’d had Tamar Fox’s great Shabbat hosting guidelines back on that crazy Friday afternoon a year and a half ago - before I knew it was all going to be okay.
Shabbat Made Easy Totally Manageable Read more »
Yid.Dish: Noodles with Spicy Tofu and Peanut Sesame Sauce
I am not a professionally trained chef, but I love food. I love reading about it, cooking it, feeding myself, feeding others, talking about it, buying it, and growing it (presuming it’s not 6 degrees below zero in Chicago).
One of my favorite cookbooks is Mark Bittman’s amazingly practical: How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, which features straightforward techniques and an encyclopedic listing of all different types of food. I’ve found that Bittman’s philosophy holds true to the way I like to cook; quick and satisfying - like his Noodles with Peanut Sauce.
This recipe works as well for a quick meal as it does for entertaining large groups. I’ve found that the vegetarians at my Shabbat lunch table appreciate a hearty pile of saucy noodles just for them, especially when I add spicy baked tofu for an extra boost of protein. And as long as I have all of the ingredients at home (most of which I like keeping around in my kitchen anyway), it takes only a few minutes to whip up. The best part is, many of the items can be substituted or modified. Don’t have tofu? What about seitan or tempeh? Or chicken? Don’t have noodles? Try rice? Served hot or cold, this dish is virtually impossible to mess up - even for novice cooks. B’tai Avon!
Read it and Eat: A (Jewish) Review of In Defense of Food
Books, Community Agri., D'var Torah, Farmer's Markets, Farming, Featured, Food Safety, Food Writing, Health, Jewish Culture, Meat, Obesity, Organic, Participate!, Prayer, Seasonality, Shabbos Meals, Spirituality, Supermarkets, Synagogues, Vegetarian
Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.
Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?
Quick Bite: Enlitened Kosher Cooking
Enlitened Kosher Cooking
Nechama Cohen
Feldheim Publishers (October, 2006)
Nechama Cohen’s Enlitened Kosher Cooking attempts to strike the elusive balance between healthy eating and traditional Jewish cuisine.
As a nutritionist and mother of five who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, Cohen originally intended her cookbook to be focused towards other Jews struggling with the disease. Ultimately, however, Enlitend Kosher Cooking makes the broader connection between diabetes and obesity. While enjoying meals is an important part of Shabbat and the holidays, Cohen suggests that these simchas can lead to overindulgence that contributes to weight gain and an unhealthy lifestyle.
Cohen’s book toggles between Torah (You shall be very careful of yourselves” Devarim 4:15) and the detailed nutritional charts around which her recipes are based. She draws from the traditional canon of Jewish cooking, but her recipes are not limited to Ashkenazi fare. In addition to Fat-Free Knaidlach and Classic Golden Chicken Soup, the book includes recipes that lighten up the familiar (Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers, Tofu Chopped Liver, Zucchini Kugel, Halva Frosting) and ones that draw from other Jewish cultures around the world (Sephardic Spicy Fish in Red Sauce, Spicy Yeminite Soup, Orange and Fennel Salad).
Cohen relies on heavily on the “ingredient swap” method of healthy cooking. Instead of creating innovative new dishes, some of her recipes simply replace eggs with Egg Beaters, or use low fat milk or cream cheese instead of the full-fat versions. While this approach seems slightly unsophisticated, her book is ultimately still useful for cooks who prefer traditional-feeling dishes (or are cooking for friends and relatives who do) without the extra fat and calories.
Find out more or purchase Enlightened Kosher Cooking HERE
Quick Bite is a new segment on The Jew & The Carrot which offers pithy reviews of today’s Jewish cookbooks. If you have a cookbook you would like to see reviewed, email tips@jcarrot.org
Flexitarian Shabbat
Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog
For many of you, having guests at a shabbat meal means often juggling various dietary restrictions preferences that guests may bring to the table. Michael Pollan makes the interesting point that the French consider it improper to impose your diet onto your host, and yet how many of you can recall meals in which you were left with virtually nothing to eat as a result of your kashrut/vege- pesce- ovo- lacto- tarianism/ or any possible allergies. Peter Berley’s The Flexitarian Table may hopefully solve at least some of the issues. Read more »
Shabbat at the end of the summer
How local is your Shabbat? Many people set themselves the challenge to “eat local” for a meal, to focus on what’s available in a given place and season. My experience of eating local this summer so far transcends the cliche that I have to pause to remember how unusual this experience is, how much I have learned from it.
I’ve been growing food on 5 acres of land with a dozen or so other young Jews this summer at Adamah. Tonight is our last Shabbat together as a community, and we’re in the process of cooking a feast. The food is abundant, fresh, & for the most part, grown right here. The question is not, “What shall we make for dinner” but, “What shall we do with the tomatoes?”. It’s a relationship with the earth and the weather, and we’re learning that all things are possible — but not all the time. And noticing the results of a particular blend of sunny and rainy days, or the earth tilting away from the sun, or the summer winding down into fall, reinforces our awareness of the awesome diversity of edible plants.
Finally, if it’s true that “you are what you eat,” this meal is made with the sweat of some of the most talented, beautiful, caring, inspiring people I have ever met. The conversations while weeding, the grunting from behind the tiller, and everytime two people share the load of a heavy harvest bin full of zucchini — these are all in the food we eat. I don’t have to tell you it tastes damn good! Don’t let the concept of “eating local” get you too caught up in the number of miles or the gallons of gasoline. Eating local means eating the world you want to live in, the world you do live in. It means your food is a reflection of your experience of time passing, and a way to celebrate it. It means that instead of being nourished by proteins and vitamins, you’re being nourished by the people and the energy and the world around you.
So here’s what’s on the menu for tonight — shabbat shalom!
