Apple cake for Rosh Hashana – been there, done that. Here’s a new combo that includes the seasonal and traditionally significant tastiness of the ever-so-overdone Rosh dessert. Thank you smitten kitchen, al di la restaurant, and my CIA spy (aka my brother) for your inspirations…
Filed under Dessert, Jewish, Parve, Rosh Hashana
If grad school has taught me anything, it’s that the less ingredients and the simpler the recipe, the better: for the sake of time efficiency and really tasting those yummy fresh veggies! Since Rosh Hashana is on a Monday this year, try out this carrot salad recipe this year to save some time and enjoy some seasonal produce. You can make it an hour before you serve it or a couple days in advance! The longer the carrots marinate in the dressing, the better.
Filed under Fruit and Vegtables, Holidays, Jewish, Rosh Hashana
Hola from Argentina! Despite the large Jewish population here, I’m a bit isolated in the north on a rural farm, without the pleasures of Jewish bakeries so the following recipe was inspired by the ingredients I could get my hands on. As a substitute for the traditional honey, I used dulce de leche, an Argentine sweet gooey delight. Try using it as well as a filling for the cookie!
Think lemon bar, but not. What’s a pomelo? Wikipedia holds lots of fun facts about this Southeast Asian native fruit, but for the sake of simplicity: biggest citrus, grapefuit-esque but sweeter, DELICIOUS. I was inspired to create a Passover recipe using this pith-ful fruit because I think more people should know about the pomelo and it offers an opportunity to share a Passover tradition I implemented last year (included below). That said, this is a recipe developed by an amateur baker, so please feel free to tweak it as you see fit.
I also invite you to include the pomelo on your Passover table this year, accompanied by the following reading (that I adapted for my seder last year): Continue reading
Let’s get some chametz in before pesach!
Turns out, the kumquat is in season so I thought it would be fun to mix it into Amiee’s challah dough recipe. Why did I choose a seasonal fruit? Eating seasonally is something I’ve been trying to do a bit more of lately. Although our supermarkets allow us to buy foods grown virtually anywhere in the world all year round, these options are not the most sustainable. By purchasing local foods in-season, you eliminate the environmental damage caused by shipping foods thousands of miles. Buying seasonal produce also provides an exciting opportunity to try new foods and to experiment with seasonal recipes.
The most common variety of kumquat is the Nagami, or oval kumquat, which grows to be about two inches long and an inch in diameter–so cute a tiny! Kumquats have a pale orange rind that’s edible; unlike other citrus, the rind is actually the sweetest part of the fruit! The inner flesh and juice are sour and contain seeds, which you shouldn’t eat, so when you make the puree make sure to take them out!
Filed under Bread, Breakfast, Dessert, Fruit and Vegtables
Today it snowed in NYC. A lot. And though it doesn’t even compare to the snow falling in neighboring cities, NYC high-ups decided to freak out and shut everything down. I’m not complaining. Instead, I’m cooking. A newly opened Montreal/Jewish style deli in Brooklyn inspired me to get in touch with my Canadian roots and experiment with a Montreal bagel. I went to ‘mile end‘ deli on Monday in hopes of tasting such a bagel, but their weekly shipment from Canadia had already been sold. I left disappointed, hungry, and even more determined to understand this whole Montreal bagel thing. Turns out they are pretty similar to a New York style bagel except for a few key differences: more dense, bigger hole, and sweeter. I can get behind that. There is debate around which is better, but I recommend trying both before aligning with one or the other.
Here’s how I did it, with the help of Montreal baker Marcy Goldman:
What could possible make the fried potato goodness that is a latke any better? Our friends the sweet potato and zucchini can answer that question (with flying colors!). Even better* are the locally grown, PURPLE organic taters I threw in from my CSA. You can even pretend that these are healthy and we’ll just ignore all that oil :) For more fun alternative and sustainable latke recipes, check out one of my favorite blogs The Jew and the Carrot.
*what would actually be better is losing the zucchini and adding in some carrots or parsnips for the sake of using seasonal produce…but i have a soft spot for the zuc.
Get ready for some delicious latkes, mid-eighties cartoon style ;) after the break
Pumpkin Kugel for Thanksgiving
How does one combine traditional Thanksgiving flavors with a Jewish food flare? Pumpkin Kugel.
I was lucky enough to cook this week with my brother and mom, and even more lucky to use all of my parent’s fancy cooking accessories and appliances: a souffle dish, egg white folder spatula, super high-tech egg beater and All-Clad pans. Cooking has instantly become SO much more fun… and pretty. While kugel is generally a dish served during the High Holidays and Passover, it has endless potential in flavor combinations that can make it appropriate for any time of year. Example: Thanksgiving
As we brainstormed the ingredients to include in a pumpkin kugel, my mom resurrected my bubbe’s trusty cookbook: The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook by the Homemakers Research Institute. It’s clearly really old. The recipe following is a riff on their egg souffle.
Filed under Fruit and Vegtables, Holidays, Jewish
as amiee put it, i am also quite *delighted* to join the heathen-jewish-foodie-blogging team!
ah, cooking. as dafna can attest, cooking and i have not always been the best of friends–i.e. trips to the supermarket spent wandering for far too long and failed recipes gathering dew in our fridge were the norm after moving out of the dorms. but after a remedial cook book crafted by momma schneider and lots of practice, it has become my go-to stress relief and secret tool for bringing together all of my favorite people. in the last year my jewish cooking has evolved quite a bit. when i moved to nyc a year and half ago my living situation lent itself to lots of recipe sharing. picture this: twelve jews picked to live in a house, work together and have their lives taped! okay, not that last part…but i did find myself in one of the most religious neighborhoods in brooklyn (aka: midwood) sharing food with 11 other young jewish activists with a huge array of cooking expertise. though i’ve moved a bit north to prospect heights and my overt jewish inspiration has decreased, (not to mention the quantity in which i have to cook) i nonetheless retained a diverse database of jewish food. good times.
okay, enough with introductions. shall we get cookin’?!
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to honor the shabbat tradition in my crazy, over-crowded house, i want to share with you our favorite: challah french toast. yes, i am claiming this as a jewish food despite its availability at almost any nyc brunch spot. who else would have leftover challah lying around on a sunday morning? challah is asking to be french toast: it’s sweet, it’s fluffy, and it toasts wonderfully. i had the pleasure of cooking with a friend today, and she shared her favorite proportions of the ingredients you will see below…
i started with amiee’s wonderful challah recipe and changed it a bit by using whole wheat flower.
six strand style
This is the one word I could come up with to sum up the latest (and most likely last) Heathen to join our little clan. Ariel S. will be delighting us with her wonderful baked goods and recipes, some of which I am quite certain will have been passed down from mother to daughter. Ariel was a frequent kitchen companion to all of us, before she headed off to adventures in New York. I can recall the day she attempted to teach me the complicated six strand braid when making challah together. Let me just say there is a reason mine continue to be three stranded, but her’s consistently rise to masterpiece level. She is an exceptionally creative person and one of the few who I have ever met that is just as comfortable with a sewing machine as she is with a hammer. She even beautifully decorated my hard-hat on a service trip to New Orleans. Ariel has also recently, like the rest of us, become very interested in local and sustainable food production. Between that and her presence in the birthplace of Jewish-American cuisine, I know she will have a lot to contribute our little corner of the web.
Filed under Uncategorized
Jewish Food in the Hands of Heathens 