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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


 

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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Cold Soup on a Hot Day

May 27th, 2010
by Leah.
6 comments

With the heat wave upon us, and many more expected in the coming months, the idea of hot kitchens and heavy meals doesn’t resonate with family chefs and their “clients.”

That’s where these nutritious, delicious, and super-easy recipes come in. There is nothing like a bowl of nourishing yet refreshing cold soup to please your family on a hot day.

Serve these with some whole wheat or rye bread and a plate of fresh fruit for dessert and you’ve got a complete meal in less than 20 minutes.

Okroshka

The word “okroshka” comes from the Russian word for a crumb. The soup is made of finely chopped vegetables combine with a liquid, either kvass (a fermented bread drink) or kefir (buttermilk).  Kvass is available at most Russian food stores, but you can also use more familiar ingredients, such as diluted plain yogurt.

Borscht

Borscht is a familiar comfort soup to any person with even the faintest of Eastern European roots. Borscht comes in both hot and cold varieties. Here is my mother’s signature recipe of the cold summer borscht. It is infinitely better than anything you can buy in a jar.

Gazpacho

Unlike the above recipes, gazpacho originated in Spain. Although I started making it only a few years ago, it is immensely popular with my kids. Talk about a melting pot.

The Most Unusual Cheesecake You’ll Ever Make

May 14th, 2010
by Leah.
4 comments

With Shavuot is just around the corner, many of us are frantically looking for our favorite cheesecake recipes from last year. However, if you are the adventurous type and would like to make something out of the mainstream, here is my unorthodox version of the iconic Shavuot cheesecake.

This cheesecake is perfect for the egg allergics as it  egg-free.

(Scroll down to see a picture).

Crust

1.5 cup breadcrumbs

2 tbsp honey

3 tbsp sesame seeds

6 tbsp oil

Filling

2 ripe avocados, peeled and seeded

3 tbsp sugar (or 2 tbsp honey)

1/3 cup lemon juice

8-9 oz (250 gr) cream cheese

1. Combine crust ingredients to form moist, crumbly dough. Press onto the bottom and sides of a 9″ pie plate and bake for 15 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

2. Combine sugar with half the lemon juice and cook until sugar dissolves. (Omit this step if using honey)

3. In a food processor, puree the avocado and process with cheese, dissolved sugar (or honey), and juice until smooth. Pour into the crust and refrigerate overnight.

Could be served with whipped cream.

And now for the picture (I have warned you…)

14052010099 300x225 The Most Unusual Cheesecake Youll Ever Make

Easy Passover Dessert

Mar 24th, 2010
by Leah.
2 comments

A couple of years ago, my mother gave me the gift of my dreams – an ice cream machine. We’ve been using it a lot for making coffee slurpees and frozen yogurt, but last week I had to do something with our passion fruit harvest, and so we had Passion Fruit Orange Sorbet for Shabbat.

Truth is, you don’t need an ice cream machine to make great ice cream. With Passover just around the corner, homemade ice cream or sorbet make an excellent chometz-free dessert. The best thing is that you can take care of your Passover dessert needs ahead of time by making several batches in different flavors all at once. This way you will not have to worry about dessert every time Shabbat or Yom Tov roll around.

This simple recipe is based on a sugar and water (or juice) syrup mixed with the fruit puree of your choice. I suggest that you multiply the quantities in the recipe by the number of batches you need, make all the syrup at once, while at the same time processing different fruit. Then mix each type of fruit with syrup and freeze according to these instructions. (If you happen to have a kosher for Passover ice cream machine, more power to you).

The whole process will take just a little bit more time than making one batch of ice cream, but you’ll be all set for the entire week.

Basic Sorbet Recipe

Passion Fruit Orange Sorbet

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