Honey, Bread, and Oil

The Chocolate Dinner -- Part the Second

2011-03-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun planning and preparing this dinner that I am seriously considering making it an annual event.

We started with chocolate chip challah, which was delicious. I used the recipe from the book Chocolate Chip Challah and Other Twists on the Jewish Holiday Table, pretty much as it appears in the book. Not being a newbie to baking bread, I streamlined and used my own processes where applicable. The challah dough called for the addition of a sweet potato, which made the resulting bread a little moister and more colorful. I'm going to try this recipe again without the chocolate chips and will report more after that. The butter whipped with fudge sauce (1/2 cup butter to 2 Tablespoons fudge sauce) was an excellent spread for this rich bread.

At my friend's request, we had Strawberry Soup. To give it a chocolate twist, I made chocolate garnishes to float on top. I tried to make some chocolate ducks (because zombies were too difficult), but most of the garnishes looked more like generic flowers or butterflies.

Or maybe bugs? Whatever, they tasted just fine.

For vegetables, there was a green salad, a Waldorf salad, and a carrot and onion dish.

The green salad included cacao nibs, the Waldorf salad had chocolate chips, and there was a cocoa glaze on the carrots and onions. I also put together a vinaigrette that included a little cocoa powder, just to continue the theme of the evening.

The green salad with cacao nibs and cocoa vinaigrette was the big winner in the vegetable department. I used Ghiardelli chocolate chips in the Waldorf salad and I think they were just a little too big to work well. Next time, I might try milk chocolate chips instead. The glazed carrots and onions were nice, but I think I will skip the onions next time. They were a lot of work to prepare and kind of overwhelmed the more subtle flavor of the carrots.

The chocolate chip kugel was a big success.

As was the salmon with mole rub. (For the uninitiated, "mole" is a Mexican word that mostly indicates a mixture of things, but has come to mean a sauce or spice mixture that includes unsweetened chocolate as a flavor intensifier.) Actually, the salmon was delicious even though I didn't cook it on a grill like the original recipe suggested. I don't own a grill, so I baked it at 400 degrees Farenheit for about 15 minutes and then warmed it up again before serving. The salmon was definitely one of the high points of the meal.

The other mole entree was less well received. I had made a tortilla and black bean casserole with a mole sauce, but the sauce was a little overwhelming, probably because I used the hottest chili powder I had. I'm going to try again before going into great detail over that casserole.

Last, but not least, we had five chocolate desserts to end up the evening. Between the main meal and the desserts, however, we decided to play Apples to Apples to give our food time to settle.

Starting with the bowl at the top left and moving clockwise, we had Chocolate Orange Mousse, Chocolate Nut Pie, Chocolate Mint Pound Cake, Chocolate Ice Cream Pie, and Death by Chocolate cookies. The "yum" factor was enormous.

The Chocolate Dinner -- Part the First

2011-03-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

Before I get back to my schedule, which was interrupted last summer and never resurrected, there will be a Chocolate Dinner.

The Chocolate Dinner deserves a little bit of explanation. About 5 years ago, while I was the Youth Director at my synagogue, I was looking for a new and exciting fundraising idea. Somewhere in the course of discussions with various people, we came up with the idea to have a Chocolate Shabbat Dinner where every dish would contain chocolate in some form.

The dinner was not wildly successful from a fund-raising point of view, possibly because people thought that everything on the menu would be sweet and candy-like. Considering we had a green salad whose concession to chocolate was cacao nibs and the main dish was chicken mole, I was baffled by this reaction. But whatever. Those of us who planned and prepared the meal had fun testing recipes and the vast quantities of leftover food went to a family in need.

Fast forward several years and one of my good friends here is leaving to return to the East Coast. Good for her. I hope to follow her East as soon as I can sell my house and all that stuff. She asked if I would be willing to make a chocolate dinner for her before she leaves. Not a fundraiser this time, obviously, and all the people at the dinner will be good friends. How could I turn this down?

The actual dinner will be on March 25, but I have finalized the menu and already made the soup (the ingredients were on sale this week and I have lots of room in the freezer). So tonight I'm going to post the menu, and over the next two weeks you will see more about the various dishes that will make up the meal.

Chocolate Chip Challah
Rich Chocolate Butter

Strawberry soup with chocolate garnishes

Green salad with cacao nibs
Cocoa vinaigrette
Waldorf Salad with chocolate chips

Cocoa-glazed carrots and onions

Chocolate-chip kugel
Black Bean & tortilla casserole* with mole sauce
Salmon fillets with Mole Rub

*This one deserves a bit of explanation. Paula Deen has published a recipe for chicken mole enchiladas. I made the casserole more-or-less as she described, using fake chicken strips instead of chicken. The mole sauce was delicious, but the layer with the "chicken" called for 2 packages of cream cheese and a pound of sour cream. The combination was a little much in my family's opinion, so we decided to keep the mole sauce but use a filling of seasoned black beans and cheese.

Chocolate Mint Cream Cheese Cake (from Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor book)
Chocolate Rum balls
Death by Chocolate cookies (aka Baker's One Bowl Chocolate Bliss Cookies)
Chocolate nut pie
Chocolate mousse
Chocolate ice cream

It is just possible that I will not make ALL of those desserts for this dinner. But there's a good chance that anything I don't make for the dinner, I will make at some other point in the future. Except for the ice cream. That I will purchase. The only flavor of ice cream that I make at home is vanilla.

Chocolate milk
Hot chocolate
Chocolate teas (both hot and iced)
Sabra chocolate-orange liqueur

Now that the menu is set, I'm kind of looking forward to preparing this meal.

Cantelope-Peach Soup -- Another Soup for Summer

2010-10-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

I know that summer is technically over, but I sort of lost the summer this year thanks to outside events. Then offspring went back to school and the Tishrei holidays attacked. So I never posted this in the hot weather. But peaches and cantelope are both still plentiful, so you can make this now. Or wait until next year.

The original recipe called for fresh peaches, so I'm going to show you how to deal with fresh peaches in making this soup. But to be honest, I have used both canned peaches (in juice or light syrup) and frozen peaches (both commercial and from my own peach tree) with equally good results.

When I use frozen or canned peaches, I aim for about a quart of peaches. When using fresh peaches, select six beautiful ripe peaches.

The peaches need to be peeled and pitted. The easiest way to get the peels off without losing lots of fruit is to parboil the peaches. Parboiling involves cooking the peaches briefly in boiling water and then immediately transferring them to ice water to stop the cooking.

Have the iced water prepared before dropping the peaches into the boiling water. I drop them in and let them boil for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Then I dip them out:

And drop them into the ice water.

Leave them in the ice water for 10 minutes or so for best results. Then pick them out, one at a time, and make a cut around the middle, cutting all the way down to the pit.

As you do this, the peel should start slipping off the peach. Just pull it off until the peach is naked:

Once the peel is off, cut wedges off the peach and put them into a saucepan. When you've finished all six peaches, you will have a pile of peach skins and peach pits to discard:

And a pan full of peach slices just waiting to be made into soup:

Add 1/4 cup white wine (dry or sweet, as you wish -- or leave it out altogether), 6 Tablespoons lemon juice (fresh or bottled), about 1 Tablespoon of honey, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a dash or two of nutmeg to the peaches in the saucepan. Each of these ingredients can be increased or decreased to fit your family's taste.

Heat the peach mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and let the peaches stew for about 10 minutes, then take off the heat and let the peaches cool to room temperature.

The cooling process can be speeded up by placing the pan of peaches in the refrigerator or freezer. Just make sure that it doesn't start to freeze.
When cool enough, pour the peach mixture into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth:

The blended peach mixture can now be poured into a serving dish. I have a soup tureen, so I pour the peaches directly into the tureen:

The soup can be refrigerated until the next step is completed, or you can keep it out since the next step doesn't take much time.

Having taken care of the peach part of the cantelope-peach soup, it's now time to tackle the cantelope part. Pick a nice ripe cantelope, cut it in half, and scoop out the seeds:

You will be cutting about 3/4 of the cantelope (minus the skin) into chunks and placing those chunks into your blender or food processor. There's no real need to clean the blender between the peaches and the cantelope, since it will all end up in the same soup bowl:

Save that last quarter of the cantelope for a bit. Add 1 cup of orange juice to the cantelope and blend until smooth.

Then add the cantelope mixture to the peach mixture that is already in your serving dish:

Stir the two mixtures together well and then return to the last quarter of the cantelope:

Cut up this last piece of cantelope into fairly small pieces -- small enough to pick up on a soup spoon.

Add the chunks to the soup:

Chill the soup for several hours. (I have been known to put the soup into the freezer for short periods of time, if it doesn't seem cold enough.)

And enjoy!

I know I'm Behind

2010-07-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

But I'll catch up soon. I have all the pictures and text. I just need to put it all together. In the meantime, I've been baking:

Guacamole -- Make it now while avocadoes are cheap

2010-06-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether this is a traditional guacamole recipe or not. It's the one that I have developed over the years and my family likes it. Summer is a great time of year for guacamole because avocadoes are cheap and plentiful. Not as cheap as they were in my childhood, when I remember avocadoes at a dime a dozen on more than one occasion, but still inexpensive enough that it's worth buying up a bunch.

Ripe avocadoes tend to be on the darker side. They should "give" slightly when gently squeezed at the stem end. Firmer avocadoes can also be used, but rock-hard avocadoes are not a good idea. Let them ripen in a paper bag in a warm place for a few days instead. It's worth taking the extra time.

Cut the avocadoes in half along the long axis:

And scoop out the innards into a bowl (discard the avocado seeds unless you want to try sprouting one):

After all your avocado innards are scooped out, mash them up:

I like to use a pastry blender, but a fork works just as well. You want to have a relatively homogenous mixture when you are done, with no big lumps.

I chop onions very, very fine (in little itty-bitty pieces) for my guacamole:

I also use a garlic press to add some fresh garlic:

The amount of onions and garlic I add varies depending on how many avocadoes I have used or how I'm feeling about onion and garlic on the particular day I make guacamole. So I guess that's an "add to taste". As is the salsa. Salsa is essential -- in fact, I used to make guacamole just from smashed up avocadoes and salsa. The onions and garlic were a later addition.

The salsa we use right now is a local organic product that we are very fond of and use for all kind of things, including just to dip corn chips into.

I can't give you quantities on the salsa, either. My advice is to add some salsa and then taste.

Repeat this process until you have the degree of spiciness that makes you happy. No matter how much salsa I add to the guacamole, by the way, my husband always says that it could use a little more.

And that's it. Very simple and very good. If you have to store the guacamole for a while before serving, cover it with plastic wrap that is pressed down onto the surface of the dip to prevent any air from getting in. Some people recommend keeping an avocado pit in the salsa, but I only do that for leftovers -- which I also cover with plastic wrap pressed right down onto the dip, even if it's stored in something like Tupperware. Air is the enemy of fresh food.

I would have included pictures of how to store the leftovers, but....

There really wasn't enough to store. Instead, we just grabbed some chips and finished it off.

Next week -- another cold fruit soup for summer.

Ice Cream the Old-Fashioned Way

2010-06-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

I am actually not a big fan of ice cream, but I really love home-made hand-cranked ice cream, if only because it brings back memories of long hot summer days when I was a child.

This is the ice cream recipe that I got from my mother. It contains raw eggs and I know that some people are leery of using raw eggs. I've done a fair amount of research on this issue over the years and the potential dangers using raw eggs simply don't worry me very much. If you are concerned about raw eggs, there are plenty of recipes for ice cream in which the eggs are cooked before freezing -- just use one of them.

Start with six whole eggs:

Beat them really well in a mixer and then add sugar:

And canned milk:

This is not sweetened condensed milk, but evaporated milk. This is a very important distinction. I add three cups of sugar and 3 cans of milk, alternating additions and mixing well after each. I also add 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract:

It's very important to make sure that the ice cream ingredients are thoroughly mixed, so check the beaters and the bottom of the mixing bowl to make sure there's no eggs or sugar that did not get blended in.

I then add whole milk -- not skim, not 1 per cent, not 2 per cent -- whole milk.

I usually add an entire quart of milk, but I only pour in about half a carton to start with, mixing it in thoroughly:

At this point, I pour the ice cream mix into the canister of the ice cream maker. This is usually a tall metal canister that has a removal mixing beater:

The ice cream mix will not fill the canister:

And here's where I have to insert a small confession. Our current ice cream maker is a 6-quart machine and the recipe my mother gave me is for only 4 quarts of ice cream. I just haven't gotten around to increasing the amounts yet to fit the new machine -- but I'll do it at the end so that you can make either 4-quarts or 6 quarts of ice cream, depending on the size of your ice cream maker.

Now I take the rest of that whole milk and rinse out the mixing bowl with it to make sure I've gotten all the good stuff out of the bowl.

The rest of the quart of milk is used to rinse out the bowl (and is then added to the ice cream canister) or goes directly into the canister.

Even in a 4-quart canister, this amount of ice cream mix will not fill the canister. The mixture will expand as it freezes, so there needs to be room for the finished product.

Put the top on the canister and place it inside the ice cream maker bucket. There is usually a depression on the bottom of the canister that fits into a space on the bottom of the bucket to make sure that the canister is seated properly.

Add ice around the canister:

And put salt on the ice. My mother used to use coarse salt or kosher salt until she realized that table salt works just as well. Use whatever salt you have.

The salt lowers the freezing point of the water, making the ice colder and the ice cream freeze faster. So use salt!

Continue adding layers of ice and salt until the bucket is full:

If you have an electric ice cream maker, add the motor unit and turn it on:

If you don't have a motor unit or if -- like us on the day we took these pictures -- your motor unit isn't working, add the hand-crank attachment and find some enthusiastic children to turn the crank:

At first the crank turns very easily. This is a good time to let children work. They are usually eager to get to the ice cream and don't mind the effort. Eventually, however, the crank will become harder and harder to turn. That's when you need to get teenage boys or adults involved.

When there's a lot of resistance to the cranking (about 30 minutes on a hot sunny day), you can check the ice cream to see whether it is done.

As I mentioned, the recipe I made isn't enough to feel this particular freezer. In a 4-quart freezer (or if I'd increased the recipe amount), sometimes the ice cream will expand enough to start coming out of the top. Stop cranking at that point.

Regardless of your method for determining doneness, the ice cream will resemble heavy cream at this point. It needs to be "packed" for further freezing.

Packing Homemade Ice Cream in the Ice Cream Freezer
Carefully remove the top of the freezer assembly, then the top of the canister. Gently remove the paddle/turner from the canister and give it to someone to lick (this is a messy treat). Put some foil around the top of the freezer canister, rinse off the top (it may have some salt and ice on it), and replace the top on the canister over the foil. Add additional ice up to the top of the freezer canister, cover the freezer with a towel folded up nicely so that you can sit on it, and leave the freezer in a shady area until you are ready to eat the ice cream.

Packing Homemade Ice Cream in Your Electric Freezer
Carefully remove the top of the freezer, then the entire freezer canister. You will need to take the top off, remove the paddle and give it to someone to lick, and then replace the top. I strongly recommend rinsing off the outside of the freezer canister as well as the top and using some foil to cover the ice cream as described above. Then stick the entire freezer canister into your freezer or refrigerator freezer compartment until you are ready to eat the ice cream.

We had to leave ours in the freezer, but one of these days I'll take pictures of packing the ice cream the other way. I check the ice cream every 30 minutes or so and stir it up really well to prevent it from separating:

The ice cream on the sides of the canister needs to be stirred in as well. I usually wait at least 2 hours before actually eating the ice cream (though some people can't wait that long). The ice cream will still be very soft, almost soupy at this stage:

But it tastes yummy and is great with fruit or chocolate sauce, if you are so inclined.

The leftovers from the first rush to ice cream are frozen until they are much more solid. Unless I continue to stir it up every hour or so, some separation will take place:

It's hard to see in this picture, but the bottom of the ice cream (I put it into a shallow container to freeze overnight) is slightly darker. When this happens, I just scrape it all out and put the frozen stuff into my mixer:

And then beat it until it is mostly smooth and homogenous:

The ice cream is still soft-serve at this point, but also still delicious:

After I've mixed up the frozen ice cream, it almost never separates again, so I put it into containers and freeze it yet again:

There's not often much left at this point, but after several hours more of freezing, the ice cream is still somewhat softer than commercial ice cream, but it also looks more frozen:

And yes, it still tastes delicious. Especially for breakfast with some Grape Nuts on top.

Ice Cream -- 4 quarts (6 quarts)

6 eggs (9 eggs)
3 cups sugar (4-1/2 cups sugar)
3 cans evaporated milk (4-1/2 cans evaporated milk)
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (1-1/2 Tablespoons vanilla extract)
1 quart whole milk (6 cups whole milk)

Beat eggs thoroughly, then add sugar and canned milk alternately, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla and about half of whole milk. Pour mix into the freezer canister of your ice cream freezer, then use whole milk to rinse out your mixing bowl, adding this to the freezer canister until it is about 2/3 full (or as full as your manufacturer suggests). Refrigerate for at least one hour before transferring to the ice cream maker and freezing.

Red Chile Enchiladas -- Stacked, (almost) the way my mama made them -- Part 2 of 2

2010-06-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I forgot to put in the recipe quantities and it isn't tomorrow. But here's the rest of the enchilada process.

Speaking of process, this really is a method more than a recipe. It is going to seem long and complicated because we took lots of pictures, but putting stacked enchiladas together really doesn't take all that long. The most important part is getting everything in place before you start. There are four essential ingredients -- enchilada sauce, grated cheese, chopped onions, and tortillas.

While gathering items and grating and chopping, etc., I preheat the oven, usually to 250 degrees Farenheit. I usually heat up enchilada sauce in a skillet unless I've just made a fresh batch, in which case I just use the big pot full of enchilada sauce. In any case, I warm up the sauce on low heat -- it really shouldn't be bubbling, just warm.

And a generous amount of grated cheese. We use Monterey Jack and Colby Longhorn Cheddar, and the amount varies depending on the number of enchilada plates being made. On the particular occasion on which these pictures were taken, four people were having enchiladas. Not that we worry too much about extra grated cheese -- somehow, it always gets used up within a few days.

Not everyone likes raw onions, but I chop them finely for those of us who do:

Most of us prefer corn tortillas in our enchiladas, but one of the offspring has decided that he prefers flour tortillas instead. I found small flour tortillas, a size generally called "gorditas", that are about the same size as corn tortillas and I have been using those for this particular child.

In this picture, the corn tortillas are on the right and the flour gordita tortillas are on the left.

Once all these components are assembled, and the sauce is warm, it's time to begin by cooking the tortillas lightly in the enchilada sauce. I drop in a tortilla (flour in this case):

Make sure it is entirely submerged in the sauce:

And then let it cook long enough to soften the tortilla. The first tortilla is the only one that really needs checking because the other steps are done while the next tortilla is cooking. When the tortilla kind of flops when you pick it up out of the sauce, it's ready.

Transfer the tortilla to an ovenproof plate. You can see the stack of plates waiting in the pictures above and below.

Before moving away from the stove to do anything else, place another tortilla in the enchilada sauce and make sure that it's covered. Each subsequent tortilla will cook while you assemble the rest of the dish.

Take the plate with the tortilla to the area where you have the grated cheese and chopped onions prepared. Ideally, this area should be no more than a step away from the stove.

And sprinkle grated cheese on the tortilla.

Chopped onions can also be added at this time. As you can see, the grated cheese and chopped onions are right next to each other for easy loading. Once you have enough cheese on the first tortilla, go back and take the next tortilla out of the sauce and put it on top of the first tortilla.

Put another tortilla in the sauce to cook, and then add more cheese and (optional) onions on top of the second tortilla.

This process can be repeated for more than two tortillas. There was a time when my husband ate a stack of 4 tortillas in his enchiladas. It's all in how much you want to eat -- cheese can be very filling.

When you have enough tortillas layered with cheese to fit your appetite (or the appetite of the person for whom you are preparing the enchilada), put the filled plate in the heated oven.

And then start on the next enchilada. Basically, this process is repeated for each enchilada plate you are preparing.

I can fit more plates into the oven, if necessary. It's a balancing process.

A couple of special cases should be mentioned here. Sometimes a person wants only one tortilla. It's possible, of course, to "stack" only one tortilla, but I prefer to put cheese and onions on half of the tortilla:

Then fold the tortilla over the filling:

And put more cheese and onions on top:

This method yield the "look and feel" of stacked tortillas without the extra food.

The other special case that occurs in my family is the family member who wants more sauce (and thus more spice). I just pick up some enchilada sauce on the spatula I use to remove the tortillas:

And then drip it onto the tortilla on the plate:

It is possible to transfer quite a lot of sauce this way and some people really prefer the additional sauce.

Once the oven is fully loaded with as many enchilada plates as we are making, I take the enchilada sauce off the heat, put away any leftover cheese, and take a short break so that the cheese can get all nice and bubbly in the oven.

There's no hard and fast rule for how long this break is. Sometimes I speed things up by turning up the heat on the oven to 300 or 350. I rarely leave the enchilada plates in the oven more than 15 minutes or so before starting the next step.

I said this was how my mama made enchiladas, and my mama cooked eggs to put on top of her stacked enchiladas. Not everyone likes an egg on top, not even in my own family. So do what works for your family.

You can fry the eggs in a traditional manner, but I poach eggs in enchilada sauce. I put a small amount of enchilada sauce in the skillet I use for making the enchiladas and add as many eggs as I need:

Then I cover the pan and cook the eggs over low heat until they are done:

This takes me about 10 minutes, but I check them frequently and move the pan around to make sure that all the eggs get cooked.

When the eggs are done, they are transferred to the top of a stack of enchiladas.

Typical accompaniments for stacked red enchiladas are refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, chopped lettuce, olives, or green onions.

Enjoy! Just remember -- just like they tell you in restaurants -- be careful, the plates are hot!

Red Chile Enchiladas -- Stacked, (almost) the way my mama made them -- Part 1 of 2

2010-06-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've been promising this entry to a lot of people for a long time -- like before I even started this particular blog. And it has taken a lot longer to write than I thought it would. In fact, this post took longer to write than it takes me to make enchilada sauce and enough enchilada plates to feed my entire family.

The most important part of red enchiladas is the sauce. It is possible to buy commercial enchilada sauce, which I was intrigued to find on Amazon. Old El Paso, Ortega, and other companies manufacture enchilada sauce and most of the commercial varieties are good enough for most people. If you want to control the amount of "heat" in your enchilada sauce, however, your best bet is to make it yourself.

My mother, it should be noted, always used commercial enchilada sauce. On the other hand, she usually lived in areas where really good sauces were available locally. While I was living in New England, however, I found it necessary to learn how to make my own enchilada sauce.

This recipe is basically a gravy or white sauce recipe. You start with fat, add thickeners and seasonings, and then liquid. If you are familiar with making gravies, this is going to be a snap. I generally make 3 or 4 quarts of sauce when I make it, but it is quite simple to make smaller batches. You'll see the big batch being made in these pictures, but I will include quantities for both small and big batches in the recipe at the end.

The first step is to mix the thickening agent (flour, in this case) and spices. I use a cup of unbleached all-purpose flour:

And a cup of chile powder. Almost any chile powder will do, but some are much hotter to the taste than others. If you have a variety of chile powders available to you, you may have to experiment and/or mix varieties in order to get the amount of "heat" you want.

Add one Tablespoon ground cumin powder and one Tablespoon granulated garlic.

Put it all in a bowl:

And mix:

Until the mixture is homogenous:

Next pour one cup of vegetable oil (just about any oil will do, though I generally use canola oil) into a large pot. (If you are making a small batch, a skillet will work just fine.)

Once the oil is heated, add the flour and spice mix:

Whisk the flour and spices into the oil and cook, whisking constantly, for 3 minutes. At first the roux (fat/flour mixture) will look fairly smooth:

But by the end of the 3 minutes, the mixture will be clumping a bit:

This step is the only tricky part of this entire recipe. If the heat is too high, the flour and spices will burn. I use a medium heat for this step but I watch constantly. If it looks like the heat is too high, I remove the pot from the heat and let it cool down a little before proceeding. I have, on occasion, burned the roux and had to start all over again.

When the 3 minutes are up, add 3 quarts of water. Hot water is best because it speeds the cooking process a bit.

There will be a lot of steam at first, but just continue whisking as you add the water. I generally stir the first quart of water in to make a smooth sauce and then add the additional 2 quarts.

Once all the water has been added, bring the sauce to a boil, turn down the heat slightly, and let the sauce boil at a fairly lively pace -- not simmer -- for 20 minutes. I don't whisk for the entire 20 minutes. Instead, I check the sauce every 4 or 5 minutes and whisk it thoroughly. Sometimes a little sauce will be sticking to the bottom of the pot -- just scrap it up with the whisk and mix it in.

Years ago, we had a word-a-day calendar that taught us the word inspissate. Forever after, we have talked about letting the enchilada sauce inspissate for 20 minutes.

At the end of 20 minutes, the sauce should be considerably thicker. Remove it from the heat and then either use it to make enchiladas right away, or bottle it for future use.

I keep a supply of glass quart jars on hand just for storing enchilada sauce. There are products still packaged in glass quart jars and I seek them out so that I will always have some on hand.

Enchilada Sauce -- Large Batch (Small Batch)

1 cup (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
1 cup (1/3 cup) unbleached white flour
1 cup (1/3 cup) chile powder
1 Tablespoon (1 teaspoon) granulated garlic
1 Tablespoon (1 teaspoon) ground cumin
3 quarts (1 quart) hot tap water

Mix together the flour and spices.
Heat the oil in a large pot (or a smaller sauce pan or skillet for the smaller batch).
Add the flour/spice mixture and whisk thoroughly. Heat for 3 minutes over medium heat.
Add 3 quarts (1 quart) hot water and whisk until smooth.
Bring to a boil, then lower heat so that the sauce is at a lively simmer or light boil.
Let the sauce boil for 20 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking.

Tomorrow -- the rest of the story.

Strawberry Soup -- A Cold Soup for Summer

2010-06-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

This is a great soup for summer because it requires little preparation and almost no heating. I first saw this mentioned as a dessert soup, but with a spicy meal, this is a nice beginning course.

Heat two cups of wine with 2/3 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

The original recipe called for a dry white wine, but I've never been a big fan of dry wines so I most often use a sweeter wine, such as a muscat. This particular time I used a nice strawberry flavored wine from a small farm not too far away from where we live.

This wine syrup needs to cool before proceeding. Since I'm usually in a relative hurry when I make this soup, I just put the pan in the freezer for about an hour.

When the wine syrup is cool enough, puree it in a blender with about 4 cups of fresh strawberries.

Puree until the mixture is nice and smooth.

That's the most exacting part of the entire preparation. Pour the strawberry mixture into the bowl you want to serve it from and add 2 cups of orange juice.

Chill for a few hours and that's it. Enjoy!

Strawberry Soup

2 cup white wine
2/3 cup sugar
4 cups sliced strawberries
2 cups orange juice

Mix wine and sugar in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool.

Puree strawberries and wine syrup in a blender or food processor until very smooth. Stir in orange juice.

Chill for 2-3 hours before serving.

Next week: Red enchiladas the way my mama made them. (For all those who have been promised this recipe....)

Dealer's Choice -- An Ode to My Pots and Pans

2010-05-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

About 30 years ago, when I was (fairly) newly married, my husband and I bought a set of Farberware stainless steel pots. The original set we bought had 12 pieces -- 1-quart, 2-quart, and 3-quart sauce pans with lids, 4-quart and 8-quart pots with lids, and 2 skillets that could be fitted with lids from the other pans.

That is a picture of those very same Farberware pots and pans 30 years later. Okay, there are a couple of changes. We had to replace one of the skillet handles about 15 years ago when it became really loose for some reason. (Perhaps my sons had been banging it a little too vigorously?) And the smallest (1-quart) saucepan was replaced because of a kashruth error (non-kosher food heated up in it by someone who was not clued in to the ins and outs of keeping kosher). There was nothing wrong with the pan otherwise; we put it in a Goodwill collection box and it's probably still in use today.

We have also made a few additions over the years. First of all was the double-boiler insert:

And, over time, we also added bigger and bigger pots. In addition to a much larger skillet, we have 12-quart and 16-quart stock pots.

All three of these pans use the same size lid, so one was put away where I couldn't readily reach it.

There are two things about our Farberware that I wanted to talk about. First of all, I really, really like these pots and pans. My family has used them on a daily basis for over 30 years. Not every pan every day, naturally, but at least some part of the set is used each day we are at home. They have been used for cooking and head-wear (somewhere I have pictures), for banging on by children who wanted to make noise, and on occasion for storage.

Some have even been mis-used. I remember one particular batch of tomato sauce that got burned to a crisp in one of the big stock pots because I forgot to turn down the heat. The tomato sauce was a total loss, but the pan cleaned up as good as new. I know that my daughter eyes the Farberware and hopes she will be able to take it off our hands some day. (Way down the road, I hope.)

The second thing I wanted to share about the Farberware is my mother's reaction when she first saw it. She thought the pots looked really nice and asked how much we had paid for them. I told her that they cost about $100. This was in the late 1970s and was, I suppose, a considerable sum but my husband and I were both working full time and had no children so we could easily afford them. My mother quite literally threw a fit. I'll never forget what she said: "I've never paid more than $15 for a set of pans in my life!"

Well, that's probably true, given the pans my mother used to buy. On the other hand, she replaced her pots and pans every couple of years because they would get beat up, or burned, or in some other manner became unusable. Over the 50+ years of her marriage, I'll be generous and say that she spent $15 every 3 years for new pans. That's about 17 times 15, or $255.

With the extra pieces we have bought, and the replacements we have had to make over the past 30 years, it's possible that we have also spent in the neighborhood of $255 for our Farberware pots and pans. On the other hand, our pots and pans are still in great condition and are still being used, as I said before, on a daily basis.

The lesson we learned from our Farberware pots and pans was that you really do get what you pay for.

Next week: For summer -- Strawberry Soup.

Caramelized Onions

2010-05-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be last weekend's post, but ... well, sometimes things happen. This weekend's post should happen on time.

My children and I once decided that everything in the world tasted even better with the addition of one or the other of two foods -- chocolate or onions. Though we have tried, we haven't yet come up with something that would be improved by the addition of both.

This method of preparing onions is a good one for people who really don't like the taste of onions, or who have problems with digesting uncooked onions. It's really simple, though time-consuming, and the taste of onions cooked this way is hard to beat. You might even be able to add chocolate to them.

Onions are caramelized by cooking them for a long time over low heat. The process releases the sugars inherent in the onions and gives them a sweet oniony flavor. (No, that's not an oxymoron.) The cooked onions can be used in many different ways. I like to make a big batch and freeze them in smaller quantities for later use.

I usually start with about 5 pounds of onions. Big onions are good because that means you have to peel and chop fewer onions. Vidalia onions work well because they tend to be sweet anyway, but almost any white or yellow onion can be used.

I slice the onions by cutting them in half, then slicing each half to form half-circles of onion. You can chop them up finer or even make rings. It doesn't much matter in the end.

For 5 pounds of onions, I use one stick of butter. I melt it in a big pot and add the onions.

That's a 8-quart pot and, as you can see, it is almost full of the raw onions. During the first 10 to 15 minutes, I stir the onions fairly frequently to make sure that the onions are coated with the butter. After that, I just check on them from time to time.

After about 45 minutes to an hour, the onions are starting to cook down:

The only real trick to this process is to use a fairly low heat under the onions. You can make them brown a little faster by adding a small amount of sugar (a teaspoon or two), but it's not really necessary. Eventually -- after a couple of hours -- the onions will start to brown and stick to the bottom of the pan.

Notice how much the onions have cooked down. Scrape up all the stuff at the bottom and stir it into the onions. I often add a little water to the onions if they are sticking too much. At this point, I check the onions more often to make sure that they don't go from browning to burning.

When the onions are browned to your satisfaction, they are done. At this point, they can be used to any number of things. We use them on pizza and in dishes where we want a sweet onion flavor. But one of the easiest and tastiest uses is to spread the onions on Italian bread that has been brushed with olive oil and toasted.

It's impossible to describe how incredibly delicious this onion spread is. Try it yourself!

A Quick and Easy No-Bake Cookie

2010-05-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

I had it in mind to post a somewhat complicated cookie recipe this week, but then I decided that I needed a break after the blintzes last week. So this week's something sweet is a no-bake cookie recipe -- Oatmeal Fudge Cookies. They are pretty much what they sound like -- a kind of fudge with oatmeal in it. Plus other good things.

The basic formula is simple -- make a fudge-type sauce, then add oatmeal and other ingredients. To finish the cookies, drop them on waxed paper.

Fudge is pretty basic -- sugar, canned milk, butter, and flavoring (in this case, cocoa).This isn't exactly classic fudge, though the beginning is similar. First, however, it's a good idea to combine the sugar and cocoa.

I usually just use the wooden spoon I'm going to stir the fudge with to mix these two ingredients thoroughly:

Combine butter, canned milk, and sugar in a pan and heat to a boil. In the interests of speeding things up, I set the fudge ingredients on the stove over low heat and then start getting everything else together.

The rest of the ingredients for this cookie are oatmeal, coconut, and peanut butter. And a little vanilla.

I also set up the work area for making the cookies before going back to the fudge mixture. In this case, it's just a couple of sheets of waxed paper placed directly on the counter.

I do all this first because, once the fudge is cooked, time is of the essence. After everything is set up, it's time to go check on the fudge mixture.

I turn up the heat at this point to medium-high. Breaking up the butter can help it melt a little faster, so I do that if necessary. And then I stir continuously until the fudge comes to a full boil.

The picture above shows what to look for. There are bubbles starting to form around the edges of the pan, but it's not quite ready to boil. Thing is, you don't want to wait too long to start the timer (or check your watch) once you reach a full boil because it only boils for one minute before taking off the heat.

This is the sort of thing you look for -- large bubbles in the center of the pot that don't go away when you stir. Let the fudge cook for one minute while stirring continuously.

At the end of the minute of cooking, everything will be bubbling furiously. Take it off the heat.

And add the oatmeal, coconut, peanut butter, and vanilla:

Stir everything in very thoroughly -- you especially want to make sure that there are no lumps of peanut butter.

All that is left is to drop the oatmeal fudge mixture onto the waxed paper. I do it the same way I make drop cookies -- take up a spoonful of stuff in a teaspoon, and use a second teaspoon to transfer the mixture from the first spoon to the waxed paper. Work fast, because the fudge mixture will start to harden if it sits too long.

Cookies are achieved! You can wait for the fudge to cool and harden a bit, or eat it right off the waxed paper. The "crumbs" are good, too.

Oatmeal Fudge Cookies

2 cups sugar
1 stick butter (or margarine)
1/2 cup evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)
4 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3 cups oatmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky -- doesn't matter)

Mix sugar, butter, milk, and cocoa in a deep saucepan.
Bring to a rapid boil. Cook for 1 minute, stirring continuously.

Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients.

Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let cool.

Variations:
Substitute wheat germ and/or bran flakes for some of the oatmeal.
Add sunflower seeds.

One time I either cooked the fudge too long or started the timer too late and the fudge got hard too quickly. I couldn't really drop spoonfuls onto the waxed paper, so I formed spoonfuls into balls by rolling them in my palms. Worked okay; tasted good.

Blintzes -- a traditional food for Shavuot

2010-05-15T22:58:00.000-07:00

What's really weird: I thought I had posted this last week, the week for entrees, only to discover tonight that I posted it to the wrong blog. So I'm posting this in here tonight and because it's almost tomorrow anyway, tomorrow I will post the dessert/sweet thing recipe I had in mind to post tonight.

Shavuot is coming up in less than two weeks and for us, Shavuot means blintzes. Like so many traditional Jewish foods, blintzes are one of the things that I never ate while I was growing up. They just weren't something that my mother made or bought or that we were likely to have anywhere we went. So when I first decided to make blintzes, I had no clue how to make them or even what they looked like.

I read a lot of recipes and I found one that seemed do-able and tried it out. Thirty years or so (and some trial and error) later, I am still making blintzes. And tonight, I'm going to show you how I do it.

Blintzes are but one of many things made using the same basic ingredients -- liquid (milk in this case), eggs, flour, fat (oil), and sugar. And maybe a little salt.

In different proportions (and maybe a different fat or liquid), you can make cakes and cookies and biscuits and any number of other things. But today, it's blintz pancakes. Combine 3 eggs and 1 and 1/4 cups milk, along with 2 Tablespoons of oil, a couple of Tablespoons of sugar, and a dash of salt:

And whisk. The whisk is pretty important in this process, because once you add a cup of flour:

you really need to mix it up well. And, even so, the batter will be a little lumpy:

The lumpiness really isn't a problem. It all works out in the end. I suppose this part could be done with a mixer, but since the lumps don't really matter, I don't see the advantage. I just let the batter sit for a bit before starting to cook the pancakes, and whisk the batter every so often and the lumps pretty much go away.

The pancakes cook pretty quickly, so I set up everything I need before I start to cook them. I usually make the batter in a bowl that has a spout for pouring. I keep it on a plate to minimize spills on the counter. Since I use about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, I get out that measuring cup and put it on its own plate.

I also need a place for the cooked pancakes. For me, that's a dinner plate with a paper towel on the plate and another paper towel to put on top of the cooked blintz pancakes so that they don't dry out while making the rest of the batch.

I use a nonstick T-fal-type pan with gently sloped sides for cooking blintzes. I spread just a little oil in the pan and get it really hot before starting to cook.

That (above) was actually more oil than I needed. If there's too much oil in the pan, the first pancake is kind of oily-greasy and you may want to discard it (which is, I must admit, what happened to the first pancake I made while taking these pictures). After the first pancake, there is no need to add more oil to the pan. It's possible that you don't even need oil for the first pancake -- that's the kind of thing you can experiment with.

You may also need to experiment a bit with the temperature of the burner you are cooking the blintzes over. There's no hard-and-fast answer for what a "medium-high" heat is on your particular stove, but that's more or less what you want. Too high a heat and the blintzes will cook too fast, or even burn. Too low, and you'll have blintzes that are kind of pasty.

Measure out 1/4 cup of blintz batter:

And pour it into the hot blintz pan, turning the pan to spread the batter out as much as possible all over the pan.

As you can see, I lift the pan off the burner during this step and kind of rotate it around so that the blintz batter covers as much of the pan as possible.

This isn't a process you can set a timer for and come back to. You have to stay with the blintzes until you are done. The first test for doneness is that the top becomes mostly dry.

Then, I usually lift up an edge using a plastic fork (metal forks can scratch your non-stick pan and mar the finish) to see what the bottom looks like:

That one looks about right. (By the way, notice that while the first blintz pancake is cooking, I pour the batter for the next pancake. That way, the pan doesn't get too hot between pancakes.)

Sometimes, if the bottom is done but the top is still a little wet looking, I will quickly flip the pancake over. I just grab the edge of the pancake and flip it, then immediately pick it up and move it to the plate for finished pancakes.

I don't let go of the pancake edge during this process -- it really is just a matter of letting the top side touch the hot pan and immediately removing it again.

Cooked pancakes go between layers of paper towels, cooked side down:

Each subsequent pancake is placed right on top of the previous one -- the cooked sides are always down and they really don't stick to each other. Always cover the pile up again so that they won't dry out while the rest of the batch is cooking.

Oh ... sometimes you get kind of funny-shaped blintz pancakes.

There's nothing wrong with these pancakes. The blintzes made from them taste just as good.

Eventually, you will have a plate full of blintz pancakes. (I took the paper towel off briefly to take this picture -- they really should stay covered.)

One more thing -- the pile above is the result of about 4 batches of batter. Each batch makes about 12 to 14 blintz pancakes. I usually have a helper mixing up the next batch of batter while I am cooking the pancakes because when I make blintzes for my family, 12 to 14 blintzes just isn't enough.

Leave the covered stack of blintz pancakes alone for a bit and make some fillings. We almost always make strawberry, blueberry, and cheese blintzes. The fruit fillings are simple -- just mix the fruit with appropriate amounts of sugar and corn starch. Both are sort of discretionary amounts; i.e., I don't measure. If the fruit is really sweet, I use less sugar. The corn starch is primarily for making a kind of sauce while the blintzes cook, and the amount varies according to how the cook feels on any particular day.

Fresh and frozen fruit both work very well in blintzes. The fillings above were made with frozen fruit. I buzzed the frozen strawberries in the food processor a bit so that the pieces would be smaller and easier to manage while filling blintzes.

The classic cheese filling for blintzes is farmer's cheese, but since I had never heard of farmer's cheese the first time I made blintzes, I have always just used cottage cheese. I add a little sugar, a little egg, maybe some lemon peel, always some cinnamon (I do have a recipe, but I kind of go with what's around).

Now that the pancakes are cooked and the fillings are prepared, it's time to set up to put the blintzes together.

In the picture above, the plate of blintz pancakes (still covered) is on the left and the fillings are on the right. A clean plate for assembling blintzes is centrally located, and a pan spread with melted butter is waiting for the blintzes.

First, take a blintz pancake from the pile (and re-cover the pile) and place it on the plate, cooked side up. The cooked side will be on the inside of the blintz because the outside will get cooked in the oven.

Next, put a spoonful of filling on the bottom part of the blintz pancake.

Fold the bottom edge of the pancake up to cover the filling:

Fold one side of the pancake over:

And then the other side:

Then work from the bottom and fold the blintz over until you can't fold it any more:

That's it! Place the assembled blintz into the buttered pan, with the folded side down:

And continue this process, with fillings of your choice,

Until the pan is full:

Before putting the blintzes in the oven, brush the tops with more melted butter.

I know that this seems like a long and complicated process, but it's really fairly simple. To demonstrate how easy assembling blintzes really is, I asked a couple of young friends to let me take pictures of them putting together their first blintzes. There are two children in the photos below -- I had to alternate depending on which pictures came out better -- but they did these all on their own with only a little coaching:

That's really all there is to it. Bake the blintzes for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees and they are done:

And finally, the most important thing. Enjoy!

Toppings are optional but tasty. Sour cream is traditional, but applesauce and fresh fruit, as shown here, are also really good.

Blintz Pancakes

3 eggs
2 Tablespoons oil
1-1/4 cups milk
1 cup flour
1-1/2 Tablespoons sugar
dash of salt

Mix the eggs, oil, and milk in a large bowl.
Whisk in the flour, sugar, and salt.
Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick frying pan.

When the pan is really hot, pour in about 1/4 cup batter and tilt the pan to cover the bottom with the batter.
Cook briefly, until the bottom of the pancake is lightly browned.
Lift the pancake out of the pan carefully and place on a paper towel.

Repeat process until all the batter has been used. It probably won't be necessary to re-oil the pan after each pancake. See the note below about low-fat blintzes.

Pancakes can be stacked, but keep pile covered with another paper towel.

LOW FAT BLINTZES: To cut down on the fat in this recipe, use skim milk and egg substitutes instead of whole eggs. With a non-stick frying pan, little to no oil should be necessary. I usually brush the pan once at the beginning (pastry brush dipped in canola oil) and often don't have to do it again. But it takes practice - beginners may need to oil the pan more frequently. Cooking sprays also work to help keep the pancakes from sticking to the pan.

Cheese Filling for Blintzes

2 cups cottage cheese (low-fat and nonfat work fine)
1/2 cup plain yogurt (optional)
1 egg (OR 2 egg whites OR 1/4 cup egg substitute)
3 to 4 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
lemon rind (optional)

Fills 12-16 pancakes, depending on how generous you are with the filling.

Blueberry Filling:

Blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Corn starch
Granulated Sugar

The sugar gives it a little sweetness, the cornstarch makes a nice blueberry syrup. Proportions aren't enormously important. Mix the corn starch and sugar and toss the blueberries in the dry mixture. If you like kind of soupy blueberry mush, use more of the dry mixture.

Strawberry Filling:

About the same as the blueberry mix, except use strawberries. Sliced strawberries are better than whole strawberries for this use. If you are using fresh strawberries, be sure to save some to spoon over the top after cooking.

These are so good, I thought this picture bore repeating one more time.

Not-Chicken Soup and Matzoh Balls

2010-05-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have been known to make chicken soup. But this is a vegetarian blog and chicken soup would be ... inappropriate at best. So what do vegetarians do if they want a nice matzoh ball soup? One solution is to make Not-Chicken Soup, which is basically a very hearty, very tasty vegetable broth.

Making vegetable broth involves, well, vegetables and lots of water:

This batch of soup has celery, carrots, parsnips, mushrooms, onions, and a sweet potato. We've used various other vegetables at times -- rutabaga instead of parsnips, for example. As you can see, it isn't important to peel any of the vegetables. Though you probably should scrub any root vegetables before putting them in the pot.

Oh, and the most important vegetable of all for this particular soup:

Lots and lots of garlic. It is hard to put too much garlic into this soup.

You add some salt and turmeric powder to the broth and cook for a couple of hours. The turmeric gives the broth a nice golden color as well as adding a nice flavor. You add salt because -- have you ever read King Lear?

Now that you've chopped all those vegetables and cooked them, it's time to get rid of them. This soup is a clear broth, so all the vegetables are strained out and discarded. That's why it really isn't important to peel them before cooking.

I usually strain over a second pot so that any broth clinging to the vegetables gets rescued for later eating.

Even after removing the vegetables, which are biggish, there is usually a fair amount of other stuff in the broth. To make it really, really clear, I strain the broth several times to get rid of the sludge. Cheesecloth works for this, and I used to have some. But the turmeric in the broth turns the cheesecloth a bright yellowy-orangey color. So I just use paper towels:

After I have removed as much of this sludge-y stuff as I feel up to and the broth is as clear as I want it, it's done!

It is possible, of course, to use this soup as is -- either as soup or as an addition to other recipes. However, we like to add matzoh balls to our soup. Rice or noodles would also work well. But we are traditionalists, and tend to stick to matzoh balls.

There are two main schools of thought on matzoh balls -- floaters or sinkers. Some people like light, fluffy matzoh balls; others prefer hard chewy matzoh balls. I have made both for my family over the years, but we all prefer the light, fluffy floaters.

The first thing you need to do is separate some eggs. This is somewhat flexible, but 6 to 8 eggs is a good quantity. Common wisdom is to separate the eggs while cold and then let them warm up to room temperature before beating them. For this recipe, the whites and yolks are beat separately.

Because I am basically lazy, I always beat the egg whites first. If you beat the egg yolks first, you have to wash the beater before beating the egg whites. Even a bit of yolk can keep the whites from beating up nicely, but a little egg white in the yolks doesn't make a difference.

Once the egg whites are nice and stiff, beat the egg yolks with a little club soda and some salt and pepper. Then the beaten yolks are folded into the beaten whites.

Now that the separated eggs have been beaten and recombined, gradually add matzoh meal (not matzoh cake meal) to the eggs. Fold in with a fork, about 1/2 cup at a time. I generally sprinkle a little on at a time rather than dumping the entire half-cup of matzoh meal in.

My original recipe (which I got from a friend who got it from her mother) said that at least 2 cups of matzoh meal would be needed to get to a "medium consistency". I have found that the amount of matzoh meal varies, though 2 cups is a good ball park measure. As for a medium consistency, who knows? Here's what my matzoh ball batter generally looks like when I decide there's enough matzoh meal added:

The batter needs to be refrigerated for 30 to 40 minutes before being cooked. My friend's mother's recipe said to cover the bowl with foil, so I always do. But I see no reason why any other type of cover on the bowl wouldn't work just as well.

After the sitting time, bring a large pot of water to a boil. I don't add salt to the water, though my friend's mother did. Form the batter into smallish balls -- gently! If you mash them up too much, the balls will be leaden rather than fluffy. I know this because one year I let someone else, someone who assured me that she was a champion matzoh ball maker, form the balls. Same recipe, matzoh balls that were hard as rocks.

Drop them into the boiling water as you go.

Cover the pot and boil for about 30 to 40 minutes. And that's about it.

See how they fluff up while cooking?

I usually leave the cooked matzoh balls in the water used for boiling until adding them to soup. And I store leftover matzoh balls separately from any soup they may be put into. Some people freeze cooked matzoh balls, but I have never tried that. My understanding is that you drain the matzoh balls, place them individually on a baking sheet and freeze. Once they are solidly frozen, you can move them into a storage container or bag.

One of my favorite combinations -- not-chicken soup and matzoh balls:

Not-Chicken Soup (Vegetable Broth)

Because I use this broth not only for soup, but also almost anytime that a recipe calls for vegetable broth, I tend to make it in enormous quantities and then freeze it in smaller portions. When I took the pictures above, I was quadrupling the recipe. Here, I'm just going to list the ingredients to make about 2 quarts of broth.

2 quarts water
1 parsnip or other mild root vegetable (e.g., rutabaga) in chunks
2 large carrots, cut in chunks (add the greens from the top if you wish)
2 medium to large onions, cut in quarters (no need to peel)
10 to 12 cloves of garlic, cut in half
2 stalks celery, chopped (leave on leafy parts)
6-8 ounces of mushrooms
other vegetables as desired, cut in chunks (root vegetables work best, in my experience)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
freshly grated paper to taste

Combine everything in a large pot. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and cover the top loosely.

Simmer for about 2 hours. A little longer or shorter won't matter much.

Remove and discard the vegetables, then strain the soup to the desired clarity. This step is usually easier if the soup has cooled to room temperature, but I've done it with hot broth. If you choose to strain hot broth, be very careful about splashes.

Serve hot as soup or store for use as broth.

Linda's Mom's Matzoh Balls

6-8 eggs, separated

Beat egg whites until stiff.

Add to yolks:
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
1/2 cup club soda

Beat yolks on high speed.

Fold yolks into whites with a fork.

Fold matzoh meal in with a fork, 1/2 cup at a time, until mixture is of medium consistency.
You will need at least 2 cups matzoh meal.

Cover the bowl with foil and refrigerate at least 30-40 minutes.

Boil water in a large pot. Form balls of mixture with hands; drop into the boiling water.

Cook matzoh balls in a covered pot over low heat for 30-40 minutes. Add to soup when serving.

The plan from here on out

2010-04-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to best organize this blog along with all the other things I am working on right now. And I have a plan, which works only as long as I do. Here it is:

I am going to update this blog once a week unless something exciting comes along. The updates will usually post late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. In general, I plan to post recipes in the following pattern:

1st weekend of the month -- Soup

2nd weekend of the month -- Entree

3rd weekend of the month -- Cookies and other sweet stuff

4th weekend of the month -- Other stuff, including Tools of the Trade

5th weekend of the month, when we are so blessed -- Dealer's Choice

Since today is Friday and tomorrow is not only Saturday but the first day of the merry month of May, look for a soup recipe tomorrow night. Or early Sunday morning.

Green Chile Enchilada Casserole

2010-03-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

This casserole is one of the easiest things in the universe to put together and make. It travels well and is delicious at a variety of temperatures from piping hot to lukewarm, which makes it an excellent dish to take to a potluck dinner. I have only rarely run across a person who didn't love this dish.

Here's what you need:

That's it -- a big pile of cheese, 12 to 16 corn tortillas, some cream of mushroom soup, an onion, and some green chiles. Dump it all in a pan and you're good to go!

Okay, maybe not that simple. You do need to open those cans of mushroom soup and add the chopped onion and green chiles to make a sauce:

I use Cream of Mushroom soup, but almost any "cream of" soup can be used instead. Or you can make a white sauce if you don't like to use processed soups.

Green chiles are easy to find in cans. Ortega and Old El Paso both sell 4-oz cans of chopped green chiles that are just about the right amount for this recipe. The canned green chiles come in both hot and mild versions, so that you can tailor the spiciness to the group that is going to eat the enchiladas. For this particular casserole, I used really hot frozen green chiles that are not universally available.

I generally heat up the sauce a little to make it smoother and more spreadable. Once the sauce is ready and the cheese is grated, putting the casserole together takes minutes:

The only other preparatory step I should mention is ripping up the tortillas. I generally rip them by hand into quarters:

I mention this step only because I once asked my then-fairly-new husband to make this dish and he didn't understand that he was supposed to rip up the tortillas before putting them into the casserole. What ensued still tasted wonderful, but looked a little odd.

Start assembling the casserole by putting a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan. I usually spray the baking pan with Pam cooking spray before adding the sauce. This particular casserole is in a foil pan because I was taking it to someone else's house for a communal meal, but I usually make it in a glass 9x13 pan.

Top the layer of sauce with a layer of ripped-up tortillas.

Then put another layer of sauce on top of the tortillas.

Next, go wild with the cheese! I use Monterey Jack cheese and some Colby Longhorn cheddar.

The rest is simple -- repeat the tortilla, sauce, and cheese layers two more times for a total of three layers of tortillas, sauce, and cheese. The final layer of sauce looks something like this:

And cheese on top before putting it in the oven:

That is really all there is to this casserole. Pop it in the oven at about 375 for about an hour.

And then take it out. The cheese should be nicely browned.

I should mention that this casserole is very versatile in its baking times. You can cook it at a lower temperature with other foods. As long as the cheese is all melted and browned, you're good.

My mother used to make this casserole all the time, not only for family meals but also for potlucks and other communal meals. Not being vegetarian (and not keeping kosher), she would often add shredded chicken to her sauce. I've never tried making it with any of the chicken analog products that are on the market, but it would probably still be tasty.

Green Chile Enchilada Casserole

2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 can evaporated skim milk*
1 large onion, chopped
1 small can chopped green chiles
12-16 ounces monterey jack cheese, grated
6-8 ounces mild cheddar cheese, grated
12-16 corn tortillas, torn into quarters

Combine the soup, milk*, chopped onions, and green chiles. Stir until fairly smooth - some small lumps are no problem.

*Note: I almost never add the milk to the sauce because I find that it makes the casserole too soupy. Sometimes if it looks like I won't have enough sauce for the final layer, I will stretch the sauce a bit by adding small amounts of canned milk. At least one of my sisters always adds the canned milk because she likes the soupier casserole. So experiment -- find what works for you.

In a 9x13 pan, spread a thin layer of the soup mixture over the bottom to coat. Use about 1/3 of the tortillas to cover the bottom, add a layer of the soup mixture, then a layer of cheese.

Add two more layers of tortillas, then soup, then cheese.

Bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until casserole is bubbly and cheese is nicely browned.

These cooking instructions are almost infinitely variable. You can bake it longer at a lower temperature, or for a shorter time at a higher temperature. You can cook it for 30 minutes or so, then continue cooking it later.

Hamantaschen, a week late

2010-03-02T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hamantaschen are a traditional food for the holiday of Purim, which was this past weekend. I spent a lovely afternoon last week making hamantaschen with some friends and their children and I took lots of pictures so that I could post them here, along with instructions.

And then I got busy with other Purim-related things and never got around to updating this blog. Well, better late than never. Today -- not only delicious hamantaschen cookies, but also a traditional mohn (poppyseed) filling for them.

The primary ingredients of the mohn filling I make are poppy seeds, raisins, and walnuts.

Take 2 cups of poppy seeds and soak them in boiling water until the water cools, then drain off the water. I always wondered about the purpose of this step until this year, when I measured my two cups of poppy seeds after they had soaked.

Lo and behold! There are now four cups of poppy seeds!

After that, put the poppy seeds in a pan (I have found that a shallow pan such as a frying pan is best) with one cup of boiling water and cook off the water.

After a while, the poppy seeds will be mostly dry and the water will have evaporated. If there's still a little water at the bottom of the pan when you are tired of this step, just pour it off.

Along with the two cups (now four cups) of poppy seeds, you will need 8 ounces of walnuts and 8 ounces of raisins.

The poppy seeds, walnuts, and raisins need to be ground up together in a food processor. I don't know about you, but my food processor isn't big enough to handle all of this at the same time, so I process the mixture in two or three batches.

It doesn't look totally homogenous, as you can see, but there shouldn't be any obvious pieces of walnuts or raisins when you're done. I put my various batches into a big bowl and stir it up really well, then add the rest of the ingredients:

Sugar, honey, egg, jam, nutmeg, spices, a lemon..... and mix it up really well again.

Now all that's left is making and filling the hamantaschen!

There are many, many recipes for hamantaschen dough out there. Over the years, I have made many of these recipes with my own two hands (and the hands of my children). I have made hundreds of dozens of hamantaschen, and this is the recipe that I always come back to. It is a slightly sweet cookie-type dough that is very forgiving (we originally found it in a holiday publication for preschoolers).

Start with a cup of oil and a cup of sugar.

Beat the sugar and oil together. Add two eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. And add a couple of teaspoons of honey. I take the honey measurement on faith as I never measure it any more. I just squeeze honey into the dough until the consistency looks right.

Now gradually add 3 and a half cups of flour. I generally use two cups of unbleached flour and 1-1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, but this is not a requirement. Also add 2 teaspoons baking soda and a dash of salt. Beat the dough until all the flour is incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. I usually roll it out in two batches, so only use half the dough.

I turn the dough ball over to get a bit of flour on the other side before rolling it out. I have discovered, mainly by watching other people, that rolling out cookie dough is an art form. Getting the dough an even thickness throughout means that you can't roll over the edges of the dough.

I happen to have a set of round biscuit cutters in sizes from 1/2 inch up to 3 inches, but if you don't have this kind of largess in your arsenal, use any round object (e.g., a glass) to cut out your cookies.

Transfer the cut-out circles onto a cookie sheet (greased or lined with parchment) and continue rolling out dough and cutting circles until you are out of dough. Do I need to mention that scraps from cutting out cookies can be reused?

I get about 40 cookie dough circles from one batch of dough, with small scraps left over for sampling.

Now comes the fun part -- filling the cookies and shaping the hamantaschen! There are lots of choices for hamantaschen fillings.

Along with the mohn, these are the fillings we used this year. Solo makes a variety of other fillings, but I had an order for 2 dozen prune hamantaschen from a friend so that's the only one I used this year.

Basically, you put a generous dollop of filling in the center of the dough circle and then you fold up the edges of the circle to make a triangular cookie. Step one, pinch together one corner:

Step two, make two more corners to enclose the filling.

Personally, I like to leave an opening in the middle so that the filling is visible, but some people like to totally enclose the filling so that it is a surprise. Others like to make alternative shapes.

When I am making lots and lots of hamantaschen, I generally do a production-line kind of thing where I start all of the hamantaschen on the tray (step 1):

And then turn the tray to do the other side.

Yes, those are two different trays of hamantaschen. The one shown first is all mohn, and the second one has some chocolate fillings as well. Doesn't matter -- they all work the same way.

One important note -- you really need to pinch the dough together and make sure that it stays together. Too much flour on the rolling out surface can be a problem because the dough won't stick to itself. Messy hamantaschen can result, especially if you use a jam filling:

Once your hamantaschen are filled and shaped, pop them in a 350 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Then take them out and enjoy!

Mohn Filling

2 cups poppy seeds (about 10 oz.)
1/2 lb. raisins
1/2 lb. walnuts
1 egg
2-3 tablespoons jam
1/2 cup sugar
juice and rind of one lemon
1/2 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg, ginger, cloves

Soak poppy seeds in boiling water; when water cools, pour off and then put into a pot and cook, stirring
pretty constantly until dry.

Grind seeds, nuts, and raisins together well. (You may have to do this in multiple batches.)

Mix ground mixture with rest of ingredients. Mix well. Taste and adjust seasonings and sweetness/tartness if
needed.

Hamantaschen Dough
Makes enough for about 40 cookies.

1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3-1/2 cups flour (We use 2 unbleached white, 1-1/2 whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons honey

Beat oil and sugar together.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.

Add honey, continuing beating.

Gradually add flour and baking powder (sift them together if you insist - we never do). Mix well, using hands at the end if absolutely necessary.

Roll dough out to 1/4-inch thickness (don't roll too thin). Batter may be slightly oily. If the batter is crumbly and won't hold together, adding an egg yolk or egg white usually does the trick.

We sometimes roll the dough between pieces of waxed paper if it seems necessary, but usually we don't.

Cut dough into 3-inch circles, or a near approximation. Put a generous amount of filling in the center of each circle and fold up the sides to form a triangle shape.

Bake on greased cookie sheets at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.

LEARN FROM OUR EXPERIENCES DEPARTMENT: Don't double the recipe, don't refrigerate the dough.

Yummy Vegetable Soup

2010-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I looked in the freezer and realized that we had lots and lots of tomatoes from our garden last year. So I made some yummy vegetable soup with some of the frozen tomatoes. This recipe originally came from Weight Watchers, but I have modified it slightly to make it yummier (in my opinion).

I have made this soup many times, but always in my milchig (dairy) dishes. This time, however, I wanted to make the soup pareve so that it could be eaten with either meat or dairy meals. (There are some people in this household who do occasionally eat meat.) Because the soup doesn't actually contain any meat or dairy products, all this means is that I made it in a pareve pot -- one that has never been used for either meat or dairy. And I used knives and cutting boards that are kept pareve instead of those that have probably been used for cheese and other dairy products.

The full recipe for the soup appears at the end of this post. The pictures are for your enjoyment!

First of all, I chopped a couple of onions and a bunch of garlic and set them to saute in a small amount of oil with some seasoning. I stirred frequently and added small amounts of water if the onions looked like they were about to stick to the bottom of the pot.

While the onions were cooking, I chopped lots of other vegetables. This was all done by hand because I don't have a pareve food processor. It goes much faster with a food processor. I was quadrupling the recipe today, so I chopped up about 4-5 pounds of zucchini and a pound of carrots:

Once the garlic and onions were nice and soft, I added the zucchini and carrots, along with a quart of frozen tomatoes to the pot.

After about 10-15 minutes of occasional stirring, the vegetables cooked down a bit and released some of their liquid:

At this point, I added 4 quarts of water, some basil and freshly-ground pepper, and brought the soup to a boil.

Once it boiled, I covered the soup and reduced the heat so that it could simmer for about half an hour.

After the vegetables were all cooked, I removed some of the cooked vegetables from the pot and set them aside.

And then I blended the soup that was still in the pot. Usually, I would use a blender or food processor for this step, but I don't happen to own either piece of equipment that is pareve. I do, however, have a pareve immersion blender, so I used that to puree the soup.

The reserved vegetables got added back in and the soup was done!

B'tayavon!

Yummy Vegetable Soup

1/2 cup diced onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 teaspoons onion soup mix*

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

3 cups thinly sliced zucchini

1 cup thinly sliced carrot

1 cup crushed tomatoes**

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Saute onions and garlic in oil with soup mix.

Add remaining ingredients; stir to combine.

Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally for about 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are starting to get soft.

Add 4 cups water; bring to a boil.

Reduce heat, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes. At the end, the vegetables should be soft and look cooked.

Remove 1 cup of the vegetables with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Puree remaining soup, then add reserved vegetables.

Serve hot. Add salt to taste.

*Onion soup mix. I used to use Carmel Onion Soup powder, but haven't been able to find it in years. I used Lipton's Onion Soup Mix today and it worked out fine.

** I have used canned tomatoes as well as fresh tomatoes in this soup.

What's It All About?

2010-01-21T21:30:00.000-08:00

Manna was the gift of God to the Israelites as they travelled in the wilderness. The texture and taste of manna are variously described, but honey, bread, and oil are the most frequent descriptors.

God continues to provide abundant food, particularly here in the United States. But humans have chosen to rearrange that food to make it bigger, tastier, faster to grow. Our family has chosen to try to eat less manufactured foods and more organic foods. To that end, this blog will explore the world of kosher vegetarian food as we experience it.

Some of the guiding principles of being kosher and vegetarian:

1 -- No combinations of meat products and milk products. (Well, duh, given that this is about vegetarian food.)

2 -- Whole ingredients, a minimum of processed foods. Because we are ovo-lacto vegetarians, eggs and dairy are allowed. However, our definition of vegetarian does not include fish.

3 -- All prepared foods (e.g., jarred spices, condiments) must include a kosher certification known as a hechsher.

4 -- All the food has to be really tasty.

This is a Jewish blog The blog will be organized primarily around the Jewish year and holidays, including Shabbat.