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Key-shaped Shlissel Challah

Apr 20th, 2012
by Leah.
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Baking shlissel challah,a key-shaped challah loaf traditionally made for first Shabbos after Passover is one of those practices about which people form an opinion first and find supporting evidence later.

shlissel challah 300x224 Key shaped Shlissel Challah

Shlissel Challah

Tooted as a segula for material livelihood or condemned as a superstition with pagan roots, the custom has been gaining popularity in recent years.  Some people shape a challah loaf into a key; others bake a key inside their bread dough. As with any other custom, thinking that the rite of shaping a loaf into a key will in and of itself make you rich is a fallacy. But for many people, customs such as this one, keep everyday mitzvah observance fresh and more meaningful. (more…)

4 Ideas to Simplify Next Year’s Passover NOW

Apr 16th, 2012
by Leah.
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After cleaning, scrubbing, and cooking for a months plus a week, chances are Pesach preparations, is the last thing you want to think about it. But if you spend just one more hour on post-Passover organizing, you’ll easily save yourself a full day of work next year.  Think back a couple of weeks and imagine what you would have given to have just one more day or just a few less chores. Remember? Good! Now just do it.

1. Organize your recipes –  for years, I’ve been collecting Passover recipes by printing them from the Internet, cutting out of magazines, and jotting down friends’ ideas on scraps of paper. The recipes have been stuffed into various places in the couple of official Passover cookbooks I own, but searching through them was a real pain.

Here is a simple way to get a handle on all those  Passover recipes you have lying around:

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Yemeni Lahuh – THE Easy Bread Recipe

Feb 6th, 2011
by Leah.
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I love baking bread, but it took me a while to learn the skill. You’ve got to get the dough just right, not too hard and not too watery. Kneading requires quite a bit of elbow grease, unless you have a good food processor that can handle bread dough. Rising time also takes a while.

That’s why I love lahuh – a Yemeni flatbread recipe with very little room for error. There is no kneading involved and it rises very quickly.

The key to making lahuh is frying it in a cool skillet. Otherwise it will get stuck. I usually work with 2 skillets, dipping the bottom of the skillet into a sink full of cold water to cool it between each lahuh. To grease the skillet, use a paper towel or a brush with just a bit of oil.

Here is the authentic recipe from my mother-in-law.

Lahuh – Easy Yemeni Bread

1 kg (2.2 lb) flour – whole wheat works great

8 + 1 cups warm water

2 tbsp dry active yeast

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt

Mix flour, yeast, salt, sugar and 8 cups of water. Let rise until doubles in volume. The batter should be buttermilk consistency. If too think,  stir in one more cup of water (don’t worry if it a bit too watery). Let rise again.

Lightly grease a COOL skillet and pour in a ladle of batter. Fry until the top is dry and remove to a tray. Cool the skillet and repeat.

Enjoy!


 

Creative Leftovers – Using Leftover Soup

Jan 20th, 2011
by Leah.
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Soups are a winter lunchtime staple at our house. Unfortunately, my kids lose their enthusiasm for just about any soup on day 2, so I have to figure out what to do with leftover soup. A fast Google search produced many results on how to make soup out of leftovers (that’s a no-brainer), but pitifully few ideas of ways to use leftover soup.

Here are some things that I do to give leftover soup new appearances:

1. Mash some of the vegetables with a stick blender and add new seasoning. It will look like a different soup.

2. Remove the vegetables, mash, mix with flour and eggs and fry as croquettes.  Stuff into a pita with humus and tahini for a falafel alternative.

3. Remove the vegetables and use in a stir-fry. Freeze the broth to use in a sauce.

4. Use the solids for a casserole. (HT to @mominisrael)

Here’s an ad-hoc recipe for a 15-minute meal out of leftover vegetable soup:

Tuna Couscous Sauce

leftover vegetable soup

1-2 cans tomato sauce

water

2 cans tuna

1/2 tbsp paprika

1 tsp salt

Simmer together for 15 minutes and serve over couscous.


 

Fabulous Fast Fruity Dessert

Jan 2nd, 2011
by Leah.
1 comment

Recently, I came across a recipe for an Apple Crisp in one of Jerusalem’s advertising publications. The idea for a sweet fruity dessert was great, but the recipe was too sweet and oily for our taste. The apple filling, while nice, was just a tad too boring, so here is my take on this warm winter dessert.

The recipe below comes with over a dozen filling suggestions, so you can serve this every weekend for the entire winter and never repeat yourself twice. It takes less than 10 minutes to put together and the results are delicious.

Warm Winter Fruit Crisp

My favorite combinations are date-nut, apple-passion fruit, and orange-coconut. We’ve had an unexpectedly bountiful passion fruit harvest this winter from just a single plant, and I’ve been looking for creative ways to serve this fruit to my family. The crisp recipe was just the thing.

So what’s your favorite fruit combination in a baked dessert?

Quick and easy homemade pickles

Nov 6th, 2010
by Leah.
1 comment
pickles Quick and easy homemade pickles

Homemade pickles

The homemade pickles served at my grandfather’s house are part and parcel of warm childhood memories for me. I’ve never tasted anything like that ever since, so when my mom called the other day telling me she had pickled cucumbers and tomatoes based on her recollection of  grandmother’s recipe, my first instinct was to grab a pencil and jot down the recipe.

Turns out making pickles is a snap. It took me all of twenty minutes to pickle two jars of mixed tomatoes and cucumbers (my jars were too narrow for tomatoes alone). The kids got involved by washing the vegetables and picking leaves from the cherry tree in our yard.

Now, the first thing they do upon entering the kitchen in the morning is to check out the color of the cucumbers in the canning jars. Are they still fresh-green or pickle-green? They will have to wait a week to taste the flavor. Making pickles turned out to be a great exercise in delaying gratification.

And now for the recipes:

Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled Tomatoes


 

Pomegranate Art

Nov 4th, 2010
by Leah.
1 comment

Hannah over at the Cooking Manager posted  a great video on how to cut a pomegranate. It came right in time. Although we had a bunch of pomegranates sitting around in our fruit bowl, I was too intimidated by the looming mess to actually cut them. As always, Hannah saved the day with her video.

Lest you think pomegranates are there for eating only, think again. When presented with a bowl of pomegranate seeds after arriving from school, my 8-year-old had this bright idea:

pomegranate Pomegranate Art

Pomegranate art - a fun afternooon project

With the long winter afternoons just around the corner, pomegranate art could be a fun afternoon activity for your kids.


 

Fast and Nutritious Lunch Bag Idea

Oct 9th, 2010
by Leah.
13 comments

At the PTA meeting the other day, school lunches was a hot issue. As the kids grow older and the school days become longer, a sandwich and a piece of fruit just didn’t seem to cut it anymore, leaving the mothers in search of healthy recipes to pack into the kids’ school lunch boxes.

Between my kids, who are in school way past the lunch hour, and my husband’s long hours at work, I had to find an idea for a packed lunch for adults and kids. Then, several months ago, I came up with a recipe for fast, versatile, and nutritious lunches that would please everyone. It is based on one single ingredient – couscous.

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Easy Holiday Meal Ideas or What Else Haven’t You Cooked This Holiday Season

Oct 1st, 2010
by Leah.
1 comment

As I walked into our local grocery store on the eve of Simchat Torah, my neighbor greeted me with “So, what are you cooking for dinner this time.” A full month of constant holidays is enough to deplete the culinary reserves of even the most creative cooks. Here are some ideas and a recipe to the rescue.

Use your leftovers

After a week of cooking, you probably have some leftover fish or meat lying around.  Chop it up and use in a casserole, soup, or salad. leftover cooked rice can be fried with peas, corn, and eggs or added to a stir-fry.

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School Lunches – What in the World do You Pack in that Box?

Aug 26th, 2010
by Leah.
2 comments

Hadassah over at In the Pink has raised a poignant question that haunts many a parent – what can I pack in the lunch box that will keep the kids happy, satiated, and healthy, without getting bored.

Here are a few ideas I have used to feed my kids at school:

  1. Make several dozen shnitzels and/or Salisbury stakes and freeze them. You can then defrost one or two the night before and send them either in a sandwich (with catchup, mayo, hummus, mustard and vegetables) or in a container with some salad, left-over pasta, and so on. Be sure to pack the food into an insulated lunch box with an ice pack, so that it doesn’t spoil.

  2. This idea works especially well if your kids have a microwave in their school. Two years ago, all parents in our daughter’s class chipped in 10 shekels and the girls got a microwave for their classroom. Obviously, this is something you have to run by the school’s officials.

  3. Invest in a small thermos that will keep the food hot until lunchtime. You can then heat any leftovers from yesterday’s dinner and send them right along for lunch.

  4. Try alternative sandwich spreads: date spread, humus, tahini, halva, or date “chocolate”. You can find these and other recipes here.

  5. Make a deal with the kids – a couple of years ago when we decided to switch to whole-wheat bread only, we made a deal. The kids eat their whole wheat sandwiches and get white rolls and chocolate milk on Rosh Chodesh. It works most of the time. You’d have to find a formula that works for your kids, but the idea is the same.

  6. If your kids are old enough, put them in charge of lunches. I have found kids as young as 3rd grade to be quite capable of packing food for themselves and their siblings. You would need to set some ground rules, such a what can go in and what stays out, and provide some on-the-job training the first couple of weeks. Afterward, you can stay out of it and prevent any power struggles that frequently surround food issues in the family.

So, how do you keep your kids fed in school?


 

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