I love the contrasts in Judaism. On Purim, we have v’nahafoch–as we turn around Haman’s decree against us. On Yom Kippur, we try to be sealed in the Good Book, as opposed to the other one. After Tisha B’Av, a sad fast day when the Temple was destroyed, we soon have Tu B’Av, a day where unmarried girls wearing white danced in the fields outside Jerusalem. Passover is a time when we remember both the sufferings of bondage and sweet taste of freedom.
I had fun re-creating the above salad presented by Ellie Krieger at The Jew and the Carrot. In general, the Jew and the Carrot is a great blog for anyone with culinary interests. I stole that gorgeous photo from their blog post. Here’s the description prior to the ingredients for the salad:
The tension between bitter and sweet is most clearly tasted when we eat charoset, which represents the mortar used during our bitter servitude, yet is most likely the sweetest thing at your seder table. Here’s a wonderful salad that Ellie created which plays off this tension in new and unexpected ways:
So, with this recipe’s combination of sweets and bitters, I decided to nickname it my Avdut L’Herut Salad, or From Slavery to Freedom. My kids won’t eat it (my Eldest Son already complained my kitchen smells disgusting, he doesn’t share my love of onions, garlic and herbs), but hopefully, my nieces, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will enjoy! My husband eats all my food. My best customer.
Sponge Cake 2008, watercolor by Leora Wenger
Has anyone heard of Esther Robfogel of Rochester, New York? This is really her sponge cake recipe. It is from the Rochester Hadassah Cookbook, which was given to me as an engagement present by mother’s friend from Rochester. Her friend used to make ten sponge cakes a day before Pesach (Erev Erev Pesach), and she gave away about seven. One year our family was one of the lucky recipients of one of these sponge cakes. A few years later, after remembering the delicious taste of that cake, I taught myself to make sponge cake using Esther Robfogel’s recipe, which she titled: Never-Fail Sponge Cake.
Ingredients:
9 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cake meal
1/4 cup potato starch
Juice and rind of 1 lemon or orange
Beat egg whites until they hold their shape; add sugar slowly. Beat yolks and add lemon juice and rind. Fold in cake meal and potato starch. Fold in beaten yolks. Pour into large size ungreased tube pan. Bake in 325° or 350° oven for 50-60 minutes. Invert on cake rack and let cool in pan.
And don’t do what I did my first year of trying this and use a square aluminum pan. You need to use a tube or bundt pan, or your never-fail cake will fail to bake properly.
This pie crust is very easy to make. You can use it for fruit pies or for quiche (you might want to add less sugar for quiche). It has no trans fats, and it’s pareve (no dairy)!
Nutrition Nerd warns: however, this recipe does have white flour, white sugar, and it is baked. If you really want something healthy, make a soup, OK?
You need:
– a pie baking dish
– a fork
– a mixing bowl
– various measuring utensils and a wooden spoon
Preheat the oven to 350. Then gather your ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp cinnamon (leave out for quiche crust; you can add something savory instead, like mustard or garlic
Mix all ingredients in mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Grease the pie dish. Use your hands (you may want to rewash them at this point) to make the dough into a ball. Using your hands again (no rolling for this dough…too many wet ingredients) flatten the dough into the pie dish until it looks like a pie crust. Use the fork to make flutes on the sides.
Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes.
If you want to make this into an apple pie, cut up about 3 or 4 peeled granny smith or other baking apples. Combine with sugar and cinnamon. In another bowl, make some more dough using the above recipe, but this time add an additional 1/2 cup of oatmeal (preferably the old fashioned oats). Put the apples in the pie crust, then cover with the dough. Punch holes in the top with your fork.
Mom tip: as apple peels are a nutritious part of the apple, put them on the kitchen table for your kids to eat. My kids ate them up!
What to do with stale bread? Or bread that is about to go stale and getting hard? I recycle my homemade bread into croutons. If you have no homemade bread lying around, use the best quality bakery bread you can get.
Ingredients:
Almost stale bread
Olive oil
One garlic clove, peeled and cut in half
Sea Salt, to taste
Oregano, to taste
Cut your almost stale bread into cubes. Put it on a plate on the counter to dry out for a day or two. Take a ceramic baking dish or a cookie sheet. Rub each bread cube with the garlic. Coat the bread cubes with a layer of olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and oregano (or your favorite dried herb). Throw in the remainder of the garlic, and bake for about 20-30 minutes.
Even my kids like these. Maybe you could eat them while watching the Super Bowl?
I took a cue from blogger me-ander and decided to photograph part of last night’s dinner. Well, only the final product, not the process and ingredients.
Here are the ingredients for this vegan, pareve soup:
1 tsp. olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 sweet potato or yam, chopped into pieces
1 big fat carrot, peeled and chopped into pieces
1 zucchini, chopped into pieces
1 tsp. sea salt (or to taste)
pepper to taste
dried thyme to taste
2 Tbsp. tomato sauce
half a can of northern white beans
pieces of napa cabbage
handful of snow peas
water
Put enough olive oil in a pot to cover the bottom. Chop your vegetables. Heat the pot, and then put in the onions. Saute until they are translucent. Add chopped yam, chopped carrot, then chopped zucchini. Add salt, pepper, thyme to taste. Add tomato sauce. Stir, so the yummy olive oil permeates the vegetables. Add enough water to cover the vegetables. Cook for about twenty minutes or the vegetables are tender. Add cabbage, beans and snow peas. When the snow peas are soft, it’s time to eat!
Note on napa cabbage: it has thinner, less fibrous leaves than your standard cabbage. I like it for my coleslaw recipe. I put it in the soup because I had leftovers from making the coleslaw for Shabbat. Will post the coleslaw recipe at some point…
My daughter tasted it, thinking it was chicken soup. I told her it was chicken soup without the chicken. She made a face, and asked if she could put some chicken in it. I told her we had none, and tomorrow night I will make chicken soup. Life with children!
This pie crust is very easy to make. You can use it for fruit pies or for quiche (you might want to add less sugar for quiche). It has no trans fats, and it’s pareve (no dairy)!
