Ever since Thanksgiving I’ve been working at this stuffing recipe. On Thanksgiving I made it with white rice (because we had a lot of leftover white rice from ordering Chinese food), but I prefer other bases for the stuffing. I have been making stuffing in chickens ever since. I highly recommend fresh sage if you can get it (see above photo – I grow it in my backyard, but it’s currently covered with snow); dried sage and other dried herbs are OK substitutes.
Ingredients
1 whole chicken (you are going to have to make more if you are using a turkey)
filler: 1/2 cup cooked couscous or 1/2 cup cooked rice or 1/2 cup cubed homemade bread
1 egg
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 apple, cubed
salt and pepper to taste
dried or fresh sage and other herbs to taste
optional: 1 cubed zucchini (add after the onion is translucent and cook for a bit)
How to prepare the stuffing
Start baking your chicken. You can sprinkle with pepper and fresh squeezed orange juice if you like, but don’t put in the stuffing yet. Meanwhile, prepare the stuffing. Saute the chopped onion and celery. When the onion is translucent, add the chopped apple and optional zucchini. Cook until apple starts to soften. Mix in herbs, seasoning, egg and grain filler. Now that the chicken has baked for at least half an hour, you can add the stuffing with a big spoon. Continue baking the chicken until the chicken is done (probably over an hour total). If you have extra stuffing, you can bake it on the side of the chicken. You can also add other ingredients on the side, like mushrooms or carrots.
If you have vegan friends joining you for the meal, you can prepare twice as much and cook the vegan “stuffing” separately, without the egg and far away from the chicken.
I liked the home-baked bread version the best, but one doesn’t always have extra rye-whole-wheat-sourdough bread available. In general, you should try playing with amounts to get the right proportion of wet ingredients like egg and apple to the grains.
This was my kitchen way back in July. See the tomatoes on the window sill? Must have been a bountiful week. The tomatoes are gone, but the clutter is still there.
This was in my kitchen last Friday: doughnuts for Chanukah (we have a custom of eating foods fried in oil to remember the oil that miraculously lasted for 8 days) and challah for Shabbat (the commandment or mitzvah is to eat two loaves of bread with each Shabbat meal – a rich egg bread has developed as the tradition to uphold the mitzvah). Yes, both are homemade. Little red in this photo, but it does keep with the theme of my kitchen!
And here are some red strawberries that got gobbled up last night, along with the doughnuts (sufganiyot) and latkes (potato pancakes). I also made Mimi’s fish soup and a cubed pressed salad of cucumbers and carrots that I seasoned with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, orange juice, and chopped fresh ginger root.
Shiitake Mushroom Soup with Clear Broth in a Red-Trimmed Bowl
I was in mood for a mushroom soup with no grains, and so I came up with this recipe. To photograph it for a post, I put in a red china bowl. This prompted my daughter to eat it; she insisted on eating it in the red china bowl. You see, presentation does count!
Ingredients
8 oz. shiitake mushrooms
8 oz. baby bell mushrooms
1 leek
1 zucchini (or substitute other greens, such as bits of kale or collards)
Saute the chopped onion in a bit of olive oil. Slit the leek in half; wash out any particles inside the leek. Cut in half and put in with the onion. Chop the zucchini and put it in with the onion. Add chopped mushrooms. Cover with water and add at least 1 cup more water. Cook until all is tender. Add sea salt and wine. Add miso at the end. Sprinkle with scallions and serve.
I believe soup is one of the healthiest foods one can eat. And it is yummy, too!
As Lewis Carroll wrote:
Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau–ootiful Soo-oop! Beau–ootiful Soo-oop! Soo–oop of the e–e–evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau–ootiful Soo-oop! Beau–ootiful Soo-oop! Soo–oop of the e–e–evening,
Beautiful, beauti–FUL SOUP!
— Lewis Carroll
According to this article, that poem was a parody of a poem called “Star of the Evening.” More of Lewis Carroll’s funny poetry on this page.
Mushroom Barley Soup – featured on this month’s Kosher Cooking Carnival
Ah, autumn. A wonderful time to review one’s soup recipes.
I originally learned how to make mushroom barley soup from Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook. Here is my current one-pot recipe, which I prepare now by heart without consulting Mollie:
Ingredients
Mushrooms
1 onion
1/2 cup barley
Flavoring: I use a tsp. of miso. You can also use soy sauce and/or 1 tsp. of red wine.
Shiitake mushrooms: make the soup all the more healthful and flavorful by using shiitake mushrooms
Preparing the Soup
Saute the chopped onion in a bit of olive oil at the bottom of a large pot. When the onion turns translucent, add the barley. Add more than enough water to cover the barley – about one inch higher in the pot. Cook for about 1/2 hour until the barley is almost tender. Add pepper and salt to taste. Add optional ingredients of carrots, other root vegetables, garlic and celery; add the mushrooms. Pour in one cup more of water. Cook until the vegetables are tender. Add optional kale, dill, other herbs and/or other fast cooking greens. Add soy sauce or miso to give the soup taste. Serve warm.
Coming soon (next week?): a list of soup recipes from around the blogosphere. Also, some suggested soup ingredients. If you have a favorite soup recipe that is on a blog, feel free to leave the link in the comments (thanks to Mrs. S., who last week did just that).
Sukkah 2008; painting of grapes in the corner
Batya has done three blog carnivals this month, and her final one is the 46th edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Some of the highlights include Zwetschgenkuchen, the relationship between solet and semolina, and whether it is better to have insects and or insecticides (I’ll take the bugs, thank you very much – no insecticide for me – soap sometimes can drown aphids, that’s as far as I get). We mostly get bees in our sukkah; I think the nastier bugs have gone South by the time Sukkot comes.
As this coming week is Sukkot, I suspect many of you celebrating this upcoming holiday are (again) meal planning and cooking? What’s on the menu? I’m hoping to make an apple pie, and I also plan to make strawberry cashew pudding (another recipe from Klara). The pudding, if all goes well, will become a post, too.
Quinoa Salad with Carrots, Kale and AlmondsI got this recipe for crunchy quinoa salad from Klara. In my own style, I changed it a bit. You can do the same when you try it.
Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa
1.5 cups water (I used leftover broccoli broth)
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup shredded carrots
handful of shredded kale
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 chopped scallions or 1 small sweet onion (I used a chopped sweet onion)
1/4 cup mekabu
(tiny wakame – use whatever seaweed you have available – Klara’s recipe used arame; you probably need to soak it first)
Dressing, optional:
A few tsps. tamari
A few tsps. mirin (rice wine – Eden makes one with an O-K – a specialty product that is DE-licious)
1/4 tahini (I didn’t use – I don’t like tahini, but maybe you do)
Soak the nuts earlier in the day. Rinse the quinoa, cook it in water or broth, add a bit of salt. Shred the carrots and put them on top of the almost cooked quinoa. Ground up the nuts. Put shredded kale and all other ingredients on top and cook a bit more until the kale is soft.
May be served served warm or at room temperature. Enjoy your quinoa salad!
Three Squash, watercolor on paper
This coming week is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and it is traditional to put certain symbolic foods on the table (see my post from last year about the simanim). Yesterday I did this watercolor of three squashes (or simply ‘squash’ – looks like the plural can be with or without the ‘es’).
What to do with squash? One of my friends said she will make my squash into a delicious squash soup. Will she share the recipe? Hmm. I could chop up the zucchini and saute it with onions, fresh garden basil and a bit of tomato. The little pumpkin, I told my son, is too tiny for a jack o’ lantern, but I told him we could buy a bigger one for that purpose for Sukkot (holiday in three weeks). I will probably make a stuffed squash for Friday night.
My daughter asked, how come you haven’t made this since last year? Because I finally have enough basil to make a pesto! She had no idea that some dishes are seasonal.
Ingredients:
40 – 50 leaves of fresh basil
1/3 cup of olive oil, cold pressed extra virgin
1/3 cup of walnuts (or whatever nuts you choose)
1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
1 box of rotini noodles
(or substitute steamed cauliflower if you are on a low or no carb diet or gluten-free diet)
Boil water for the pasta. When the pasta is almost done, put the nuts, olive oil, basil leaves and salt in the food processor. Blend it all until you have a thick, green paste. You can taste it, if you want to be careful about the amount of salt (or just because it is absolutely yummy!). Drain the water from the pasta, put the pasta in serving bowl, and mix in the basil pesto paste. You can either eat this right away or refrigerate it and serve cold the next day.
Optional: the traditional way to make pesto is with parmesan cheese, so you can also had 1/3 cup grated parmesan to your pesto. In addition to experimenting with different nuts, pesto can also be made from sage or parsley. If you have any variations you want to share, please do so.
“What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?”
On that note from Alice, let’s begin our exploration of recipes, food topics, kashrut, anything kosher. Most links have been given a picture, because I like pictures. If you didn’t post it with a picture, I added one of my own. You are the recipe writer, I’m the illustrator. Unless you decided to self-illustrate. So without further ado, here’s Kosher Cooking Carnival #44:
Fit for a meal
Ilana-Davita teaches us how to make spicy fish – hraymi. She explains: “Hraymi is a red spicy fish dish that is popular among the Sephardic Jews of Libya.”
Annette tells us how to make Matzoh brei, which she says she makes year round! She teaches us: “Be sure to use plenty of salt and pepper, or you may find the Matzoh Brei too bland for your taste.”
Mimi makes my mouth water with her schnitzel photo and recipe. She suggests “serve with a rosé wine, cold beer, or lemonade.”
Batya shows us her delightful, sparkling minestrone vegetable soup. She says: “there are two fast days in the summer, and I love to break my fast on vegetable soup. ”
Breakfast Time
G6 shows us her breakfast food.
She says: “I figured that rather than have you all traipse over to my house in your pajamas on Sunday morning, I’ll give you the recipe here to share with your own families. It’s really easy. All you have to do is remember to set it up the night before, since it “cooks” in the refrigerator overnight. ”
Sugar cookies are brought to you by Soccer Dad’s daughter. And can you guess the missing ingredient in Soccer Dad’s challah?
Oatmeal Apple Crisp is brought to you by Mrs. S. – is it a dessert or a side dish or both? (and does it matter)
And another apple recipe (is it almost fall?) by Baleboosteh – Easy Apple Crumble.
Jacob Da Jew asks: Which Donuts Do You Desire? Responses include: “Am I the only one who doesn’t care about donuts, pizza, etc? Keep your donuts and bring me meat and beer!” and “Fresh French kruller from DD is just heavenly.”
An unexpected submission for the Kosher Cooking Carnival, Daled Amos tells us of a new job market for Orthodox Women. So will you be suggesting this to your daughter instead of occupational or speech therapy?
Since it is the Three Weeks (and now the Nine Days), a solemn time when we remember that the Beit HaMikdash (the temple that was in Jerusalem) was destroyed, I’ll leave you with some imperfection. It is customary in some families to not complete the building of a home; perhaps one brick is missing, or there is one piece of wall unpainted. So in the spirit (or lack of spirit) of the Three Weeks, here is an imperfect sentence, one that
