Big Yummies

I recently signed up with Love Delivery in place of the CSAs we had tried before. The price is almost half what we paid for Tierra Miguel (we do get a bit less, but mostly it is the large assortment of greens that is missing) and similar pricing and quantity as the California CSA. And they deliver. 

Love is having a couple giveaways in conjunction with their new blog. One is for recipes made with Love produce and I have a few in mind. I cannot, though, submit this delicious concoction. It is just too simple. 

Strawberries and Cream

Ingredients

Strawberries

Raw Cream, shaken to thicken up.

Cut the strawberries into pieces the size you prefer. I like to halve or quarter them. 

Pour cream over. (I thicken by placing a small amount into a jar and shaking vigorously.)

Enjoy.

Recipe: Charoset

One of my favorite dishes to make (and eat!) at Pesah time. This recipe was passed down from Aba's grandfather and I have yet to taste on exactly like it. Unlike many people, we consume copius amounts of charoset throughout the week and then save just a bit to eat with our homemade matzot on Pesah Sheni.

As with most of my recipes quite a bit of this recipe is "to taste" so always put in less as you can add more. Also, the longer it sits and ripens in your refrigerator the better. This year we are cutting it close by only giving it six days. Usually we try to give it 7-10 days.

The amounts given here are what we used this year. Every year is slightly different.

Ingredients:
6 pounds of dates, pitted or pressed
1 pound raisins (we like golden)
1 pound walnuts
4 apples, peeled
4 bananas
Juice of 6 oranges
1/2 bottle of sweet wine (we used Rashi Light Concord)
cinnamon
pepper

In a food grinder, process the dates, raisins, walnuts, apples and bananas using the smallest plate. (I've found that interspersing the other items with the dates helps because the dates often bog up the machine.)

Add half of the juice and wine and sprinkle in the cinnamon and pepper. Mix with your hands until everything is mixed in and taste. There should be just a hint of spice from the pepper and wine. No one flavor should be overpowering. Keep adding small amounts of everything until the mix is right. Remember that the flavors will get a bit stronger after sitting in the fridge and the charoset will thicken up.

Recipe: Bone Broth

Last night I filled my freezer with what I lovingly call "liquid gold." You know it as chicken broth. Ahhh, I can hear the jokes about Jewish Penicillin.

I used to not bother much with it. When we were in the mood for soup, I would make some and if a recipe called for broth I would use canned soup or water. No big deal.

At some point earlier last year I was introduced to traditional food and after reading a couple books and websites I started making bone broth and using it in my cooking. I use it in couscous, to cook vegetables, all of my tajines and as a base for just about all of my soups. Not only does it taste good, but the health benefits of bone broth explain my nickname for it.

As Sally Fallon states in her essay Broth is Beautiful:

Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily-not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

Once again, more of a method than a recipe. We eat a lot of chicken and I've gotten good at breaking them down to save some pennies. I buy them whole and save the neck, back and wings along with whatever left-overs we have and any bones if I'm making something that needs boneless. They go into the freezer in a box and when it is full I buy a package of chicken feet from the market. (This is the only item I buy specifically for the broth. A package runs me about $6.00.) I've also been trying to save the bits and pieces from carrots, onions and celery but I haven't gotten good at remebering that.

I use my largest stock pot and place the chicken bits, half the package of feet, a couple onions and carrots and a celery stalk or two if I have it. I then add a good glug of Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar and fill with water to cover. I let this sit for a couple hours and then bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, skim the scum and let the pot cook. And cook. And cook. I usually let it go 24-36 hours.

The broth then goes into various-sized glass jars and into the freezer. I can then pull out the required amount for any recipe and when the need arises. Right now I have 35 cups in there.

Want to know more?

• Kelly the Kitchen Kop
• Nourished Kitchen
• Real Food for Health

Recipe: Moroccan Carrots

As part of my goal to master my favorite Shabbat and Yom Tov recipes, I'm happy to announce that Moroccan carrots are done! This one took a bit longer because it needs a bit of watching during cooking. There is such a fine line between undercooked, perfect and overcooked. You'll be happy to note that I've added quantities to this recipe, but as with most salads, you need to adjust the seasonings to your taste.

Ingredients

6 Carrots, peeled and sliced on the diagonal

3 Cloves of garlic, chopped

3/4 teaspoon Paprika

3/4 teaspoons Cumin

1 tablespoon honey or sugar

3/4 cup water

3 Tablespoons Chopped parsley

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Lemon juice

Salt

1. Put carrots, garlic, paprika, cumin, honey and water into a small pot and bring to a boil

2. Lower heat to low and cook with lid askew until carrots are tender and glazed. (I start checking at 10 minutes and it usually takes 12-15 minutes.)

3. Add parsley and add salt and lemon juice to taste. (Use a light hand on both because you don't want to end up thinning the glaze out with too much lemon juice.)

4. Drizzle with olive oil before serving.

The other recipe in this series (so far!) is Matbucha. I'm putting the finishing touches on a wonderful tomato confit, my twist on beet salad, Moroccan fish and a shredded carrot salad that gets raves whenever I make it.

Recipe: Fruit and Yogurt Popsicles

This is the perfect thing to do with those berries and fruit sitting in your fridge getting a little too ripe to eat out of hand and you don't have enough to justify heating up the whole house making jam. As always, no measurements for this recipie!

Ingredients

Overripe Berries or fruit, washed and trimmed

Yogurt (I used plain but you could use any flavor)

Optional: sweetner of your choice, vanilla extract, lemon juice

1. Mash fruit to the chunkiness you prefer. You can also add soome sweetner if your fruit isn't sweet enough.I added some lemon juice to brighten the flavor.

2. Spoon alternating layers of fruit and yogurt into the popsicle molds.

3. Freeze overnight.

4. Be the really cool mom who lets her kids have popsicles for breakfast.

Recipe: Matbucha

I've always liked matbucha, but when I was pregnant with the girls we went to catered sedarim and they had the best matbucha. Spicy, fresh, not too oily or salty. I packed away a lot of it and dreamed of replicating it. I tried a few times but it never worked. Last Pesah we went to the second seder which was catered by the same caterer. I was so disappointed in the matbucha, though. It wasn't the same. So I decided to master matbucha. It only took me two weeks to get it right and it is delicious!

Ingredients

tomatoes

bell peppers (I use mostly red, but you can put some green or yellows in there, too.)

jalapenos

garlic

olive oil

salt

1. Coarsely chop up equal amounts of tomatoes and peppers. You don't have to be too picky about seeds or skin, but i try to get as much of the white membranes out of the peppers. You can be careful about seeding the jalapenos if you don't want it too spicy or just add it all in. Remove skins from garlic.

2. Place tomatoes, peppers and garlic into a wide pan. The wider the better because it will make the cooking a lot faster. Sprinkle with some salt, but not too much. I use a hefty pinch of coarsely ground sea salt.

3. Cover and turn the heat on high until you hear the pan start to sizzle. Then turn to low and cook. And cook. And cook. You want to cook it until everything is really soft. See how the pepper bends easily and the skin punctured? That's what you want. It took me about 90 minutes to get to this point.

4. Uncover and turn the heat up to medium-low or medium so that the juice bubble very lightly. Cook some more until the juice is just about gone. It took me another two hours. I usually make this in the evening so I refrigerate it at this point. You can do that or keep going.

5. Put the cooked peppers and tomatoes into a food processor and pulse until fairly smooth.

6. Taste and add salt as needed. Drizzle with olive oil and enjoy with challah, matza, crackers or just a spoon and bowl.

Some Dishes from Rosh haShannah

Before candle lighting I was able to snap a couple pictures of simanim and some salads. I was hurrying so some pictures are a bit blurry. Sorry.

Chard with a few halved pear tomatoes for color. This is one of those dishes I'm attmepting to replicate but never get it just right. Aba's safta a"h used to make a chard dish. I made it once and it was "just like safta's" but since then I havent' been able to replicate it. I'm pretty sure this is the recipe I originally used, but there is just *something* missing.

Blackeyed peas tossed with the standard olive oil/lemon juice/salt/pepper/garlic/parsley dressing. I also added some red onion.

Selek. The girls were so confused because I usually get yellow beets, but I wasn't able to make it to the farmer's market on Wednesday. We asked if they wanted selek and they said no, they wanted "that one" pointing at the red beets.


Cedarline makes a yummy chickpea salad that I've been working at replicating. Again, soooooo close but just not there yet. I didn't put the edamame in it and the spices are off. I just might have to pick up another package of it and season mine when they are side-by-side.

Matbucha and pomegranate. If anyone has a chance to cacth the Good Eats episode on pomegranates, you have to watch it just for the part on getting the arils out without them exploding. I peeled nine of them and not a speck of red. (I'm pretty sure it is in this half of the show.)


Carrots. Notice where someone was slipping carrots off the dish? My girls attack salads. You would think I don't feed them.


I didn't plan it this way, but we ended up with five fish heads. Aba was kind of grossed out by it. The girls were just confused because the rest of the fish was gone.


I got some raw honey from Marshall's Honey (LOVE Local Harvest!) and put three different kinds into Moroccan tea cups to serve. We had Wild West, orange blossom and Napa Valley wildflower. All were yummy but I love the richness of the Wild West.


Another Local Harvest find, I got the kahlal dates from Pato's Dream and hung them in the kitchen to ripen. Some are still yellow, crunchy and tart and others are so sweet it isn't funny. I bought 5 pounds and still have a fair amount left. Needless to say around July I will start haunting their site to get updates on the new crop.

This dish was wonderful! It is butternut squash that is baked with just a bit of water. While that is going on, you saute some onion, garlic, olive oil, cinnamon and honey until it is almost a confit. Then you spread the onions on the gourd and top with plumped raisins and bake a bit longer.


I'm really bummed that I forgot to get a picture of the cake. The girls are into birthday cakes so I kept telling them that it was the world's birthday. i made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and then sat the girls down with some big star-shaped non-pareils and they decorated it. They had a blast and the cake was cute and delicious.

Fried Gefelte Fish

This is one of my signature dishes. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but everyone I've told about it or prepared it for has never heard of anything like it.

Purchase the frozen gefelte fish loaf of your choice. Let it defrost for about 20 minutes. You want it soft enough to slice but not totally defrosted. I like Ungar's.

I can usually get 15-18 slices out of a loaf.


Prepare the usual schnitzel set-up. Egg, breading of your choice and a bit of vegetable oil warming in a pan.


When the oil is hot, dip a slice of fish into the egg and then into the breading and then slip into the pan. Turn when browned.


When the second side is browned, evacuate to a draining rig. I like a cooling rack over a paper bag-lined jelly roll pan.


Serve with salads. Even though it wasn't Monday, my girls wanted their muffin tins.



A few reasons I really like this dish is that it tastes fine cold, you can easily make HUGE batches at a time and freeze them and if you don't over cook them then they are still moist after being in the oven or on the platta for Shabbat.

It is also a good dish for people who don't like fish. It was the only fish I could eat when pregnant and I've had children who don't eat fish ask for thirds. In fact, there have only been two guests who haven't eaten this dish. One doesn't like onions and the gefelte fish loaf has onions in it and the other one was allergic to sesame seeds and I had used a breading with sesame seeds.

While not a WAHM, I thought I'd talk about something in a similar vein today. CSAs. Community Supported Agriculture. AKA a box of goodies you pick up every week or (as in our case) every other week. Think the yumminess of going to the farmer's market plus the surprise of a gift without the hassle of going to the farmer's market or having a holiday.

I found ours through www.localharvest.org. We have a half share (every other week) and I knew it was a winner the first time I picked up the box. By the time we got home, half the tangerines were gone and a quarter of the strawberries were gone. By the weekend I only had a bunch of tatsoi and a few sprigs of oregano left. Future weeks have followed the same pattern. (Our farm is Tierra Miguel in Pauma Valley.)

I'm pretty sure when the next sign-up rolls around I'll be getting a full share. It is also highly likely that next summer we'll be getting a double share. The stuff in the box is wonderful and flies out of my kitchen more quickly than i ever imagined. And reading this week's newsletter (corn is coming!) I'm tempted to up my subscription right now.

Included in this week's box is a pint of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, a huge bag of tatsoi, grapefruits, lemons, parsley, cilatro, turnips, beets, radishes, chard and arugula.

And did I mention that it is all organic? My Sunday trip to the market had organic blueberries at over $8.00 a basket. Strawberries were around $5.00.

Looking at the box I can pretty much assure you that it will all be gone by Sunday. Berries out-of-hand. Potatoes will be thinly sliced and tossed with some olive oil and rosemary. Chard will be cooked up like Ron's grandmother (zt"l) used to make. Cilantro, parsley, radishes and lemons are normal accents in this household. Not sure how I want to use the arugula as Ron isn't a huge fan. Perhaps a nice citrus salad with that last avocado in my pantry?

And the tatsoi? Well, I had never used it before and have just been making salads with it, but this week's newsletter features three recipes including Spicy Sesame Chicken-Tatsoi Salad. That sounds like a Father's Day lunch to me!

Lemon Pickles

Went to the Santa Monica farmer's market and the lemons are out of control! Got some sweet Meyer lemons (B and S like to eat them) and some organic Eurekas. So I busted out the salt and made a jar of pickles.

I'm thinking of getting some more lemons next week and some disposable things and making some out on the patio for Passover. I need to double check with the Rav that they would be okay to eat at Pesah before I do it, though.

For those not in the know, here is the recipe. I add them to all sorts of salads and they are an essential component to Chicken with Lemon and Olives.