Purim Sameach!

Purim is coming. What does that mean to you? To me it is the megillah reading, dressing up in full costume, shalach manot, and of course the 3-cornered delicacy, the hamentash, or the plural - hamentashen. Hamentashen, in Hebrew - Oznei Haman, is a reference to the evil villain of the Jewish holiday of Purim. Haman, the bad man that we drown out with groggers during the Megillah reading, was said to wear 3 cornered hat. So from that, we make the triangular cookies that we call Hamentashen.

I don't think I have made hamentashen in over 20 years. I am embarassed that I am old enough to be able to reference the events in my life "20 years ago." I do remember early spring days at kitchen tables cutting out dough circles and forming them into the yummy hamentashen.

Ever since I have had my own kitchen, I have passed hamentashen by as being a job that is too time consuming - too much of a patchka (a bother in Yiddish speak). I don't like the cakey hamentashen at my local bakery...and my daughter has been begging me to make them, with her as my dutiful assistant. She was wonderful as a chef's assistant and I am very picky over who I let share some control over the kitchen when I am in it.

I looked over cookbooks to see what looked reasonable. I chose an easy to please recipe from Alphabet Soup, a Jewish cookbook put out by a Solomon Shechter school in Chicago. I pulled out the ingredients and got to work. The ingredient demo pictured below has a typo. I pulled out the baking soda and clicked away, before I realized that I needed baking powder. Oops!

Our hamentash fillings of choice this year were Israeli chocolate spread, and Strawberry Preserves. You can really experiment with a multitude of fillings. Poppy seed (mohn) and prunes (lekvar) are historical favorites. The hipper kosher bakeries are now filling hamentash with chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, and other good sweet stuff.

You will need: 2 sticks of earth balance or butter or transfantastical margarine; 2 eggs, 2 cups of sugar, 2 tsp. vanilla, 4 Tbsp. orange juice, 4 cups of flour, 4 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, and your choice of fillings.

Mix together the butter/eggs/sugar/vanilla/OJ

Add in the dry ingredients. Mix well. I used a hand beater.

Get your prep area ready.

Roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness. You will need extra flour on hand...on the board, on your hands, and on the rolling pan. Cut out circles of dough with a small glass.

Fill the dough circles and pinch dough into triangles around the filling. Place on cookie sheet.

Bake in 375 degree oven until done, around 10-15 minutes.

B'teavon! Chag Sameach!

Categories: baked, cookies, hamentashen, Purim

Rosemary Bread

I would like to remind you that I am not a baker. I baked. I experimented. It wasn't all that bad. I am not ready to venture into cakes and cookies this week. I am tiptoeing into breadmaking. I decided to try my hand at a flavorful bread. I love rosemary and I love garlic...so I knew what was coming. I looked at all sorts of recipes that I wasn't thrilled with. In the end, I used 3 or 4 different recipes to come up with my own creation.

I wanted at least one or two loaves. In the end, I got one large loaf and eight rolls.

Rosemary Bread

• 2 cups warm water water
• 3 tsp. yeast
• 3/8 cup of olive oil
• 4 tsp. sugar
• 4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. cracked pepper
• 1 whole garlic - roasted lightly then sliced (you could lightly saute it as well)
• A handful of fresh rosemary - chopped
• 5 cups bread flour

Pour warm water into the bowl of your mixer. Add yeast. Add sugar. Let sit until bubbly. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Knead the dough. Put dough into an oiled bowl. Let rise until doubled, about an hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Shape into loaves or rolls. Let rise 30 minutes. Bake until done. Cut a thick slice. Dab with butter or olive oil. Eat. Best when eaten warm.

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So, I was quite pleased with the results above. I could have stopped there, except we were out of sandwich bread. So during the rosemary rising, I mixed up some sandwich bread. The two buddies got baked together and all was good with the world - until slicing.

I really should learn some knife skills and/or buy a bread slicer.

We only have Hello Kitty bandaids in the house. At least my finger is pretty, says the 6-year-old, who was jealous that I had a cut worthy of a bandaid. We are stingy about bandaids here.

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And you thought my evening was over. A look in my cabinet and freezer told me that we were running low on baby food. The shelf stable jarred stuff gives me the heebie jeebies. I worry about preservatives. I am not even talking about the baby food meat products. I won't even go there. The jarred pureed fruits and veggies leave me queasy and I don't even have to eat them.

Baby food is super easy to make. Anything can be pureed. Only combine flavors that you would eat yourself. Don't just throw your leftovers in a bowl and have a go. On the evening's schedule was butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Throw the goods into your oven at 350 and baked until soft. Peel the skin off the root veggies. Dump into a bowl and puree with a hand blender, cuisinart, and/or blender. You can add a bit of water if needed to reach the right consistency. I was happy with the outcome. The food freezes well and is quite portable.

Thank you for sharing the evening adventures with me!

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Poonie and Wine, no Whine

Happy Monday. I realized when I got home this evening that my fridge was pretty empty. A few veggies. Not much to work with. I usually do fruit and veggie shopping on Sundays, but it just didn't happen yesterday.

I had taken out some chicken drumsticks to defrost last night - but had nothing planned for them. Drumsticks are always a hit with my daughter. When she was around 2, she decided to rename drumsticks with the name "poonie." Not sure where it came from. She is creative like that. Mittens were called "pockins."

Based on the contents of my fridge, or lack thereof, I came up with a menu of tarragon chicken, rice with peas, and steamed broccoli.

Hint: When cooking with wine, only use wine that you are willing to drink.




Most tarragon chicken recipes I have seen have some sort of cream base in it. Since we keep kosher, here is the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients

• cut up chicken - I used a package of drumsticks


• salt


• fresh ground black pepper


• olive oil


• 5 Shallots


• 1 onion


• 5 cloves of garlic


• 2 tbsp dried tarragon or a good handful of fresh tarragon - chopped


• 1-2 Tbsp dijon mustard


• 3/4 cup of good white wine


• 1 cup of broth (chicken or veggie)


• Chopped Plum Tomatoes (1-2)

Sprinkle salt and pepper on your chicken. Brown the chicken in olive oil about 5-10 minutes.





Chop up your garlic, onions, and shallots. Add it to the browned chicken. Let it saute 5 minutes.





Add in the liquids and the mustard. Stir a bit and bring up the browned bits. Bring to a boil, then turn the stove to low. Cover until chicken is done, around 20-30 minutes, depending on cut. Check on your chicken to make sure there is still some liquid in the pan. Throw in the tomatoes a few minutes before you are ready to eat. Yum! It is wonderful served with rice. Enjoy!

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Pasta with Pesto

The kid must have read my mind when I asked her what she wanted for dinner on the ride home from school. I was overjoyed when her response was "green noodles." This is 6-year-old speak for pasta with pesto. Next to pasta aglio e olio, pesto is my favorite pasta pair-up. As luck would have it, I had just bought a nice bunch of basil during my lunchtime trek through Chelsea Market.

It was extra special to have two miniature assistants to help with the dinner cook-up. Pesto is super easy to make with your food processor. A plate of pasta and a nice salad on the side and you are good for the night.

Pesto
Ingredients:

• 1 cup basil
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts
• 1/2 cup of parmesean (I leave mine out usually to make a pareve pesto, then add parmesean as necessary on a per meal basis) Do not use the powdered processed stuff in a can
• 1/2 cup of good quality olive oil
• a sprinkle of salt to taste

Directions:

Wash and sort your basil. Basil is often dirty and sandy.

Combine the dry ingredients in the food processor, then slowly add the olive oil. Dip finger in and taste. Add salt if necessary.

Pesto freezes well. I like to freeze in 1/2 cup increments.

Spoon pesto over and mix into pasta. I add a sprinkle of pine nuts and shredded parmesean. Enjoy with a side salad. Bon Appetit!

Categories: main course, pasta, vegetarian

Eat your heart out Rachael Ray!

When I come home from work around 5:30pm, my older daughter needed dinner 30 minutes prior. She is at the point that if she doesn’t get some dinner, I feel like she may self combust. So I need to get creative. She is also very picky. I find myself preparing two different dinners many nights, but strangely enough, I am ok with that. I don’t have time for tantrums. I want my daughter to eat healthfully, with minimal outbursts at that crazy hour. So I have under a half hour to prepare a couple meals…

This Monday evening, I gave the Princess her choice of a homemade pizza princess sized or the pan fried tilapia, rice, and zucchini that J and I would enjoy. No surprise – she opted for pizza. I like to always have some pizza dough ready to go. Trader Joes has good prepared dough in the refrigerated section, but pizza dough is very easy to make.

I like the following quick recipe, which freezes well in whatever portions you may need:

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

1 tablespoon of yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

A couple tablespoons of olive oil

2/3 of a cup of warm water

Directions:

Mix your ingredients together, slowly adding flour until you get the right consistency. Let the dough ball rest 5-10 minutes, before forming it into pizza crust.

I spread the dough into a 5-8” round for a personal size. If you have a pizza stone, that is great, use that. I don’t. I put the dough onto a pan that is sprayed with some olive oil spray. I wipe olive oil on the dough. Add a small amount of sauce. Add a generous amount of mozzarella cheese. Don’t be too generous with the cheese or the pizza can fall apart. We are more adventurous with adult pizzas.

The pizza was served with a healthy portion of grape tomatoes.

In a magic world, my menus would be planned for the week every Sunday…and the meals would all come together easily each evening. Reality is such that each morning around 11am, I call J at work and ask him what he suggests I make for dinner. Usually his response is, “Whatever is easy for you.” I hate that response – I need ideas. This time, he requested fried tilapia and “crunchy rice.” Crunchy rice is Persian style Basmati rice made with a nice tahdig crust.

I dipped the tilapia in an egg wash, and dipped them in bread crumbs and lightly pan fried.
I sliced up some zucchini, baby bella mushrooms, garlic, some lemon zest, salt, and grated pepper – sautéed up that mixture.

Dinner is served.

Pizza, fish, rice, veggies, and baby food were ready to go in a half hour. Eat your heart out Rachael Ray!

Categories: pizza dough, tilapia

The kid needs her lunchbox filled

My 6-year-old daughter will only consider sandwiches as her main dish in her school lunches. The options she allows are a choice of peanut butter, cream cheese, egg salad, or chummus sandwiches. The sandwich must be on a softer variety of a whitish bread. We ran out of sandwich bread on Thursday. When I went to the store to do my pre-shabbat shopping, they were all out of any acceptable sandwich bread. I was a bit stuck in the nice-mom lunch category. So I decided I would give a shot at sandwich bread making.

I just landed a new Bosch Mixer - twice the capacity of my trusty kitchenaid. So, despite my lack of baking history, I was gifted with some baking confidence that came in the form of a 700 watt mixer. Did I mention my love for kitchen appliances? So I went about my search for a sandwich bread with ingredients on hand.

I came up with this Country White Bread. It looked easy enough. It was pareve. I had all the ingredients..and it promised two nice size loaves.

I have to admit. I was impressed with the Bosch. It took 5 minutes to do all the mixing and kneading for this recipe.

The loaves came out beautifully. I sliced up the loaves and put them in the freezer. The princess was pleased.

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Welcome

Welcome to my new blog! I have always wanted to have a cooking blog. I have just procrastinated a bit. I always had a hard time with a title for the blog. The title came to me as I was posting an introduction on www.thefreshloaf.com. This title seems very fitting for me. My cooking is across the board, and I am pretty adventurous with exception to baking, which, aside from challah, is usually a brownie mix ala Betty Crocker (shame, shame).

I would like this blog to be some sort of accountability blog in my daily cooking. I may not post daily..but I would like to be held accountable for cooking daily. I keep a kosher home and I try to stay on a budget. I don't like to feed my kids too many fishsticks or mac n' cheese boxes - even if they prefer it. So grab a seat and stay for a bit while I get on with the blog.

P.S. I promise to post pretty pictures of my creations

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