Paella for Dinner: 7 '22

 I think I like this dish as much for its appearance as I do for its taste.

Date Nite 10 '21

We had a lovely light dinner 

on the Litchfield Inn's Ocean Front patio this evening.

It's the first time in a long while that we've felt safe eating out.

Guinness Challah Bread, 10 '21

Guinness Challah

 I tried making  Guinness Challah today, and both Bruce and I loved the way the loaf turned out.

I  followed the recipe from below, except that I cut the ingredients' measurements in half so that I only made one loaf, and instead of egg white, I basted the loaf with melted butter and sprinkled dried parmesan cheese and coarse salt atop the loaf just before baking.

 The result was a  wonderful rustic-looking loaf with a sourdough-like textured bread with a  crusty top, and a wonderful taste, and aroma.  This one is likely to become a standard on our table.

For Recipe see:  https://www.shemakesandbakes.com/home/guinness-challah?fbclid=IwAR1Pn-1YfMm7cDWWVoQv-25xj21MUr73QF80RUJwoJfXrDfXB89Cvdx-4pM

Honey Cake for Sukkot 9 '21

 

While we had a  lot of great meals during Sukkot,  

my personal favorite new dish was Honeycake.

My past attempts to make this Jewish Classic have been hit and miss as far as flavor, but this year I found a foolproof recipe that uses a boxed cake mix as the base.  It came out so well that It might become a regular offering at all of our Jewish Holiday meals.

Here's the recipe for anyone who wants to try it

Honey Cake Recipe:
1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix
3 eggs
1 cup water or cooled brewed coffee
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup Gefen Honey

 

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

2. Mix the ingredients together in the bowl of a mixer or by hand, until everything is incorporated.

 

3. Spray a Bundt pan well with cooking spray and immediately transfer the batter to the pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

4. Cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then loosen the edges with a knife. Invert onto a large plate or cake dome.

5. Cool completely before icing (see below).

 

 

Apple Cider Icing Recipe:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon melted margarine
1 and 1/2 to 3 tablespoons apple cider or apple juice
1 teaspoon apple pie spice

 

Directions:
Combine all the icing ingredients in a bowl. Start by adding in one and a half tablespoons of cider or juice and add up to three tablespoons as needed. Pour over the cooled cake.

Korean BarBque Dinner 7 '21

 

Tonight's Dinner Menu:

Korean BarBQue Beef Short Ribs 

with

KimChi

Sesame Sugar Snap Beans, 

Jasmine Rice

and

Grilled Pineapple

Sephahrdic Challah Bread: 5 '21

 One of my personal goals this year has been to  learn to make well-kneaded bread,

  and on the top of that list is Challah bread. 

I think I may have found the perfect challah recipe. 

It is a: Shepardic Challah.

 This Challah Recipe is a little more work than most in that it calls for several

 risings,  but it is well worth the effort. My husband wants me to make it every day.

It is a honey-egg dough  but unlike Eastern European Challah recipes,

 It is seasoned with aromatic spices,

 and

 optionally allows the use of raisins  (I left the raisins out),

 but loaded the loaf

 with caraway, anise, poppy, and sesame seeds 

- think 'everything bagel mix-.  

The recipe will make for two coiled loaves.  

I made half the recipe dough into knotted rolls

 and the coiled second into a single loaf which I froze.

(I'll report on the success or failure of baking the 2nd loaf in a later post)

Here's the link to the original recipe

that Julia Moskin published in the NY Times: 

 https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017858-sephardic-challah-with-whole-spices

Practice Makes Perfect with Challah Bread: 4 '21

I have been trying for weeks to learn how to make a good-tasting loaf of Challah bread. While I'm getting pretty good at braiding the dough, I haven't been too happy with the taste of any of the recipes I have used. What I am looking for is a soft honey egg bread, but most of the recipes I've tried come out too hard and dry.

So this week I decided to make Challah bread/rolls from the kick ass baker recipe (https://kickassbaker.com/challah-rolls/).

It came out very close to what I was hoping for ( The only change I might recommend is to sprinkle a little salt on top of the bread when you bake it.. I used the recipe exactly as it is posted, but after the first rest when the dough was starting to rise I divided the first proof dough into two unequal parts ( one part had 1/3 of the dough and the seccond part had 2/3 of the dough). After the two balls of dough had proofed a second time, I braided a three strand loaf from of the larger ball of dough, and then further divided the smaller ball into six balls which I knotted into rolls.

Both the rolls and the loaf were baked in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. Both looked beautiful and they smell and taste really good.

Egg Honey Challah Bread: 4 ' 21

 

We love egg challah, but most of the recipes I see on the internet make two or more loaves. That's entirely too much bread for a two-person household to eat while it is still fresh. But then I found this recipe for challah rolls which makes 10 rolls. ( https://merryboosters.com/challah-rolls-recipe/). The printed recipe isn't as easy to follow as the video (e.g The video shows how to make the knots), but seeing both sets of directions makes this recipe almost fool-proof. I say almost because it doesn't tell you how much space you need between the rolls. I originally put all ten on one baking sheet, then realized that they were probably too close so I moved half of them to a second sheet before baking. When I did that, the jostling caused my perfect knots to collapse a bit so my rolls are not as knotted as they were before I moved them. They still look lovely and smell and taste amazing. And I think they would also work well as hamburger buns My husband says I screwed up .. he now wants me to make a batch every Friday before Shabbat starts. ( see photo above )

Note

I used King Arthur all-purpose flour for this recipe, next week I will try it using King Arthur bread flour or KA artisan flour and let y'all know how it works out

Easter Dinner Celebration: 4 '21

 

We dressed up and had a formal Easter Sunday dinner in our dining room this evening.

The most difficult part of the whole event was trying to time the event. We had to wait until after sundown (sundown 4/4) marks the official end of the 2021 Passover Holiday),

to remove the Red Sea,

and the Twelve tribes of Israel from our dining room table so we could use the table for our Easter dinner.

Unleavened Bread for Passover '4 '21

Passover is sometimes called the Festival of Unleaven Bread, because  After the killing of the firstborn, the Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go. But in their haste to leave Egypt, the Israelites could not let their bread rise and so they brought unleavened bread. ... To commemorate this, Jews do not eat leavened bread for eight days.

To be specific, in order for matzoh to be technically unleavened and appropriate for Passover, according to Jewish tradition, it must be started and completed within 18 minutes. This is because fermentation is believed to happen after 18 minutes of ground grain being in contact with water, and Jewish law requires only unleavened foods be eaten during the duration of Passover.

In order to keep the process within 18 minutes, it is important the recipe uses only a few simple ingredients and a large baking surface that is brought up to temperature before you begin mixing your ingredients.  

Bruce and I teamed up to make eight of these basic matzoh flatbreads in less than 15 minutes (start to finish)  using a stovetop flat griddle. We ate half of it right away, 

Homemade Matzoh

:

INGREDIENTS

•  4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
•  1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
•  2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
•  3/4 cup plus up to 1/2 cup warm water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Ideally you would place a pizza stone on the bottom oven rack, but realistically a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet will work just fine.

Or you can use a electric griddle  on the high setting  so you can make more than on  bread at a time.

I am getting too old to safely be bending over a superheated oven, and our electric griddle doesn't get quite hot enough to  properly cook the flat bread so I used a large flat griddle pan atop our stove.

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients, starting with just 3/4 cup water, until everything comes together to form a dough. If the dough seems dry, add a little more water, just a few drops at a time. Be sparing with the water and do not add so much that the dough becomes sticky. 

If you do not need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes. If you do need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, proceed immediately to the next step so that you can attempt to finish everything in 18 minutes. You may want to ask for help to ensure that you complete it in time.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten a piece slightly and pass it repeatedly through a pasta maker, reducing the thickness each time until you eventually reach the thinnest or minimum setting on your pasta machine. Alternately, you can simply roll the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

Trim the rolled-out dough pieces into rectangles. (How many pieces of matzoh you get depends on how thinly you rolled the dough.) Use a fork to prick holes in the surface of the dough. lf salted matzoh are desired, brush or spray the dough surface lightly with water and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Carefully place some of the rectangles onto the pizza stone or baking sheet. They should fit snugly but should not touch. Bake until the surface of the matzoh is golden brown and bubbly, 30 to 90 seconds. 

Using tongs, carefully flip the matzoh pieces and continue to bake until the other side is golden browned and lightly blistered, 15 to 30 seconds. Keep careful and constant watch to keep the matzoh from burning; the exact baking time will vary from oven to oven and will get longer with subsequent batches. You want to let the matzoh get a few dots of light brown but don’t let the matzoh turn completely brown or it will taste burnt. 

Let the matzoh cool before serving. 

I stored what we didn't eat right away in a ziplock bag and toasted  some of it the next day in our electric toaster oven.  Toasting it  gave in  lovely crispy cracker -like texture. 

Original Recipe from  https://leitesculinaria.com/84910/recipes-homemade-matzoh.html3 . 

Seventh Plague: Hail 4' 21

 

Hail proved to be one of the easier 10  Plagues to model for the diorama.  I  hung styrofoam balls attached to clear fishing from the ceiling lamps over the counter.  Then I made edible hail (from  rice crispy /marshmallow balls) to toss all over the Egyptian counter

After that every other food item we ate all day was round and hard and hot e.g. dinner was roasted chicken and lamb meatballs, baby baked potatoes and beets, and Brussels sprouts.

Thunderstorm of hail and fire: Ex. 9:13–35

This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die. […] The LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

— Exodus 9:13–24

2nd Plague of Passover : Frogs ( 3' 21)

Much of the early drama of the Exodus story takes Place in Egypt and revolves around the Ten Plagues which God let loose upon Egypt to force the Pharoah to allow the enslaved Jews to leave the country.   To make these plagues more meaningful, we chose to represent each of these plagues in the order they occurred on each successive day during the Passover holiday. Whenever possible we used a combination of food and artificial props to reinforce the concept.

The 2nd of these plagues*  involves frogs leaving the Nile and invading the residences,  public places, and temples all over the land. To represent this horror, for dinner  I hand-modeled and baked a pair of frogs (made from ground chicken) and set them on a lily pad of romaine lettuce leaves surrounded by (green salsa)  pond slime.

I also molded a green jello frog and sat it on a pistachio-pudding pond for desert, but Bruce had the frog half eaten before I remembered to take a photo.

* "But wait a minute; you are probably thinking.,"What happened to the first plague?"  To represent the first plague  Water turning to Blood, yesterday (3/27/21)I set an all  Red table cloth  (to represent the Nile) down on the  Egyptian Breakfast Bar, and served an all-red dinner consisting of sashimi Ahi Poki, with red cabbage slaw,  red rice,  cranberry juice drink, and red jello with small dying fish shaped from white pear slices floating in the jello.  It was a clever way to reinforce the idea of the water staining everything blood red, and it was very  tastey, but red-on-red color combinations do not photograph well at all. 

Making Charoset for Passover: 3 '21

 

Usually, I just make an Ashkenazi charoset with apple, honey, nuts, and cinnamon for Passover, but I felt inspired by this article to try something new.

So I spent a couple of hours this morning making batches of the Panamian, Turkish, and Israeli charoset ( See recipe link below). Bruce acted as my taste tester ( I really had to twist his arm on this assignment). In all, I wound up canning twelve jars of charoset. Normally I'd think that would be enough to last us a year, ( which is why I didn't try making any of the other charosets recipes), but as much as Bruce liked these delights, I have a feeling they may vanish as soon as I unseal the jar. I am going to set a few jars aside for use at our Passover Seder.

Israeli charoset, Sephardic charoset, Panamian charoset, Turkish charoset... even Texas-style charoset! Find your new favorite. https://bddy.me/3evynwH

New Year's Eve Dinner: 12 '20

 We're celebrating New Year's Eve at home this year

With a homemade dinner of 

 classic Beef Bourguignon and mashed potatoes

Bruce loved every bite.

(I followed Julia Child's original recipe with near religious fervor.  No creative deviations on this recipe.  Its a definte keeper:  https://cafedelites.com/beef-bourguignon/)

Home-made Fettucchini for Dinner 10 ' 26

Dinner tonight:

Home-made fettuccini with artichoke, mushroom and lemon sauce.

I forgot how much muscle it takes to make pasta by hand.

My Deltoid muscles are really sore this evening.

Chag Sameach: 10 ' 20

 "Chag Sameach", from Bruce and I on the last evening of Sukkot 2020. We wish you one last "Happy Holiday" .

Tonight we shook the lufah and etrog one last time for this year,

and had our last celebratory meal in our Sukkah.

Celebrating Day 6 of Sukkot: 10 '20

 Today was the 6th day of Sukkot

We are still celebrating this Jewish Holiday by eating all of our meals  inside our Sukkah, and reciting the traditional prayers in Hebrew*

Bruce has always told me I would love celebrating Sukkot.  I don't know what took me so long, but I wish I had listen to him sooner. Our Sukkah feel like such a sanctuary of  peace in these troubled  times.  Even our cats love hanging out within it's  tranquil walls.

* The book Bruce is holding is  notebook I made, called,

"The Book of Sukkot."  

It contains a lot of reference material I collected about the art, history, stories,  and  cultural traditions of Sukkot celebrations around our world, along with all of  the holiday's mandated prayers and  rituals.  

Bruce was using it to read the evening Blessings in Hebrew.

First Evening of Sukkot: 10 '20

It is the first evening of Sukkot, and dinner has been served

We are having lamb chop, a steamed artichoke, cous-cous with fresh herbs,  and a compote of spiced apples, raisins, and dates.

After the meal, Bruce did some  COVID safe socializing by emailing friends  his wishes for their having a  "Happy Sukkot" or "Chag Sameach!

It's Thai Tonight: 9 '20

Last night we decided to make Thai food for dinner, using ingredientswe had on hand. A quick inventory  of what we had in our fridge, and the menu was set.  We were Chicken Pad Thai with a side of Thai Basil eggplant.

Both dishes required a lot of ingredients, so I soon had the  counters covered with small bowls of chopped veggies and greens,  backed by jars of exotic smelling spices.  I cooked  the eggplant dish first, and then kept it warm in a lidded container set in a warm water bath, while I stir fried the ingredients for the Pad Thai.

Bruce loves Pad Thai

And was more than happy to 

eat a large helping, but his real favorite was my  eggplant dish.

So, today we made a grocery run for  more fresh veggies (for tonight's Ratatoulle), and what did I find by the checkout counter, but the latest edition of my favorite cooking  magazine: 

Forks over Knives

And what was inside this issue?

You guessed! 

Pad Thai (with Tofu)  and

Thai eggplant.

The FOK version  of the eggplant dish looks prettier than my recipe (probably due to the way they chopped the ingredients), but the two recipes were remarkably similar.

(For the eggplant recipe I followed see:

https://www.cookwithmanali.com/thai-basil-eggplant/)

White Chicken Chili Dinner: 9 '20

 

I made white chicken chili for dinner tonight following this recipe ( except I used ground chicken instead of chicken breasts). Using my instant pot, it only took 30 minutes to make and tasted every bit as good as the batches I've slow cooked for hours in my crock pot. But for those of you without a instant-pot, the directions do tell you how to adapt the recipe to a slow cooker:

https://www.thereciperebel.com/instant-pot-white-chicken-chili/