Pesach

We had a wonderful evening celebrating Passover this year. Full of cooking, eating, praying, laughing, story telling, music playing, drinking, remembering, pondering, hiding and seeking, blessing and haggadah reading. Here are some highlights in photos:

Our seder plate-

(sans the  lamb shank. I read that a roasted beet can be used as the z'roa for those of us who do not eat lamb.)

Matthew made the delicious charoset!

and of course, the star of the evening... the matzo!

We start the night with prayers, and telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

Matthew breaks the middle matzo and hides half for later. 

We drink wine and eat soup (which was quite delicious, if I say so myself. Seriously, I am getting better at making "Jewish penicillin)

We enact the 10 plagues and I ask the four questions.

Then we eat! The main dish was stuffed cabbage. Matt's late aunt, Ester, was known for this dish, and I have heard Matt talk about it for years. This was my first crack at it, and I knew I wouldn't even come close to remaking hers (for one, I don't use meat... kind of a big difference!) but it was pretty good! The recipe is at the end of this post. We talked of Ester while preparing and cooking this dish, and throughout the dinner- Matt shared some of his memories of her, some touching, some very funny ... so Matt dedicated this Passover to her. 

Matt reads the 4 sons:

And I find the Afikomen, and get an apple as my prize!

Then we finish the night with some songs... I am pretty sure "Let my people go" and "Dayenu" were in there. Along with some others... Matt rocked The Cars, "Just what I needed!" 

Hope your Passover was both meaningful and fun!

Recipe for Vegetarian Stuffed Cabbage:

Core a large head of green cabbage so that there is a cone shaped void where the core was. (This is the hardest part, make sure you have a good, sharp knife!)

Boil (and lightly salt) a large pot of water. I used my biggest pot. Put the whole head of cabbage in the water. Allow for each layer to boil for a minute or two before peeling each leaf off carefully using tongs and a gentle touch.

Let the leaves cool.

Make your filling. You can put anything you like in the filling. In a saute pan, I mixed a package of Morning Star meatless meat starters (It is like fake hamburger) with onion, mushroom, garlic, and other spices. I added this to a couple of cups of cooked rice and added an egg to the mix to help it stay together.

Form the mixture into a patty and place inside a cabbage leaf. Fold to make a little packet. You should be able to get by with one leaf per packet when using the largest leaves but will need to switch to two once the leaves get smaller.

Place the stuffed leaves in a baking dish.

Top with sauce. I used a mix of diced tomatoes and tomato puree. Instead of flavoring it with Italian flavors, like a marinara, I added some sugar, cinnamon, black pepper and apple cider vinegar.

Sprinkle with white onion slices.

Bake at 350 until it looks done. With meatless meat, everything is already cooked and the baking is to allow the flavors to combine. Mine was in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

A kind-of recipe for Vegetarian Haggis

Each year, I host a Burns Supper, and that means one thing... haggis. But authentic haggis is not something that will be prepared in any kitchen of mine. First off, it is made with all sorts of ingredients that are not to be found at my local supermarket. Second, it is a difficult process filled with terms like 'render', 'suture', 'pluck' (as a noun) and 'ox bung'... all way beyond my skill level and interest. Oh, and third, I am a vegetarian, so... yeah.

But, it's possible to make an animal-free version of Scotland's national dish. I imagine it doesn't resemble the real deal at all, and it's likely offending some to even call my concoction haggis, but to quote Ricky Gervais, "offense is taken, but not given". OK, now I've really gone and upset you all with a Ricky Gervais quote... I better get on with the recipe.

What I end up with is a hearty veggie loaf, heavily spiced and made mostly of beans, oats and grains. Here's how its done-

Oh, and I don't much have measurements. Or times. Or temperatures. This is really just a theory-based recipe. My apologies, but I realize its the only way I can actually cook anything. You've just got to do what seems right. Again, sorry.


**Before you start, cook a pot of pearl barley according to the packaging and set aside.

1. In a big sauce pot, melt butter (or oil if you are vegan). Add chopped onion, celery, carrot & garlic. I think the cool people would call this "sweating" the veggies, yes?

2. Add chopped mushrooms. I used a bunch of baby bellas. yum.

3. Add dry spices. I used allspice, nutmeg, ground cloves, white pepper, black pepper, salt & sage.

4. Add water to cover all the veggies by a couple of inches.

5. Add bay leaf

6. Add a dry lentils. I used red. Any will probably do.

7. While this is simmering, toast a cup or two of steel cut oats in the oven, and a cup or two of nuts as well. I used pecans. Hazelnuts work, as do walnuts.

8. Pulse toasted nuts in food processor until coarse.

9. Add can or two of kidney beans. Aduki beans will work too. If you want to use dry beans, cook them up separate before you get going and add them in at this point.

10. Add barley, oats & coarse nuts to the pot and stir.

11. Season more if you think you need to. After a few minutes, take off heat. The lentils should be soft.

12. Mix in fresh chopped herbs. I used rosemary and thyme.

13. Mix in an egg or two as a binding ingredient (you can skip this part if you are egg-free)

14. Put into a casserole dish (I greased mine with a little butter first, not sure if its necessary)- be sure to take out the bay leaves!

15. Bake until done. I think my oven was around 325-350 and it took about an hour or so. I just tested it with a knife. When the knife sounded like it was cutting through something solid and "loaf-like" I took it out to cool.

16. Enjoy! We had ours with Scotch. Oh, and mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and roasted turnips (which were tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and molasses and roasted in the oven at high heat for about 20 minutes)


**This might be my first post to not have a photo attached! While haggis is a tasty, stick-to-your-ribs kind of meal, it is not too photogenic. In fact, at times in this process, you may be thinking that your creation looks a bit like dog food... at least I thought that. When it's all baked and finished, it is a nice, humble loaf- textured by grains and oats and colored with bits of carrot and beans- but we ate it so quickly that I didn't have a chance to take a proper photo

I made English toffee without knowing a thing- and you can too!

I am on a candy-making kick, which is counter-productive to many of my New Year's resolutions... That aside, it is fun and a lot easier than I thought it would be. Yesterday, I made English toffee for the first time and it came out pretty much perfect, if I do say so myself. There are only 5 ingredients, things I usually have on hand in the fridge or pantry, so I might keep this in my recipe arsenal if I ever need to whip up something sweet.

So here is my recipe/tutorial. Let me know if you try it and how yours turns out!

You'll need:

Butter
Sugar
Salt
Chocolate chips
Nuts

In a mid-sized pot add equal parts butter and sugar (I never said this was going to be healthy). I used 2 cups each.

Add 1/4 tsp. salt- more if you are doubling the recipe.

Heat and stir regularly (the hotter it gets, the more you have to stir, by the end, you are stirring constantly).

As it heats, it gets thicker and darker (don't forget to stir or else it will burn!). It's going to bubble and boil a little. You'll know it is done when it becomes amber in color. (It should be about 280 degrees- if you've got a candy thermometer handy then it's worth checking, but I think you can go by color if you don't have that particular kitchen gadget).

Then pour it on to a baking sheet lined with foil-

And sprinkle it with your favorite type of chocolate chip. I used semi-sweet, since it was what I had on hand, and because with that much sugar in it already, I thought the candy was sweet enough. (I bet dark chocolate would be great- you could even use your favorite chocolate bar- chopped up)

Let the chocolate chips sit on top of the toffee and melt. Then, spread it evenly across the top-

And sprinkle on some chopped nuts. I used almonds. Classic. (and also, what I had in the house:) You can obviously skip this step if you don't like nuts, or have an allergy...

Let it cool for a few hours. While the chocolate is still soft, but not totally melted, press in the almonds to make sure they don't fall off too easily. Waiting for it to harden and cool was the hardest part. I think I lasted about two and a half hours before I cheated and threw the whole thing in the freezer for about 10 minutes. In my defense, it worked!

Break it into pieces, share and enjoy!

Candy bars made from left over holiday treats

Another food post! Two in a row!

Since it is well into January, there is no reason to keep displaying the straggling holiday candy that nobody wants to eat- some sad little foil-wrapped chocolates and about a half-dozen candy canes. I hate just throwing things away though, it is terribly wasteful and so... blech. So I decided to try my hand at candy making... I mean, just because we don't want to eat these goodies individually doesn't mean we won't gobble them up when they are combined... right?

Again, without a recipe (they all called for things I didn't have. The whole point was to use up what I had, not go get more stuff!) I set out to make peppermint chocolate bars. It was easy-peasy. The most laborious part was unwrapping all those chocolate balls!

I melted them (along with a half bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips I had left over from my cookie-making extravaganza). And I zizzed the candy canes in my food processor-

(which makes quite a dust cloud! I probably inhaled at least one candy cane... ) Then, I mixed the crushed candy cane into the melted chocolate. And poured it out onto some foil to cool-

-realizing a little too late that it would have looked prettier and probably more appetizing if I saved some of the peppermint to sprinkle on top, instead of mixing it all into the chocolate.

Now that's it's cooled and broken into snackable pieces, I must say, that it turned out pretty yummers. And I think that Matt and I will be consuming these last few holiday calories after all!

Simple spicy soup

I don't cook using recipes, so it is hard for me to write one- but this soup is so easy, and I've told a handful of people how to make it already, that it shouldn't be too much of a challenge to share it here. But I warn you now that my measurements are all approximate!

What you'll need:

olive oil
1 onion
couple of garlic cloves
3 medium potatoes (I used yukons)
1 big carrot
3-4 stalks of celery
1/3 head green cabbage
1 can diced tomatoes (I used one with chilis)
1 can black beans
1 can corn
2 veggie bullion cubes
water
ground coriander
mild chili powder
dash of cayenne

bay leaves

salt and pepper to taste

In a big pot, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil, add minced garlic and then add chopped veggies- I do them one at a time in the same order as above (onion, potato, carrot, celery...then cabbage). When the veggies are starting to get tender, add the cans of diced tomatoes, corn and black beans and then fill the pot with as much water as you want soup. add spices and seasonings. When the soup starts to simmer, add the bullion cubes. Give it a stir. Cover it. Let it simmer for a while, stirring occasionally and then eat it up when everything is cooked (test the potatoes, when they are done the rest is too!)

Serve with chips and guacamole! Or any other comida mexicana-