Rosh Hashanah Dessert Recipes

Rosh Hashanah is coming up in a week and a half! Are you prepared? Have you cooked everything in advance? Or are you just now starting to scramble? (Here are some tips on cooking ahead!)

Homemade rice milk (to use in parve recipes), apple raisin muffins, apple cookies, and apple cakes for Rosh Hashanah! All of this took me only one morning to cook and can easily serve many people for dessert.

A friend recently asked for some easy Rosh Hashanah dessert ideas. Of course there is the classic and inevitable honey cake.  Now, I personally don’t like honey cake.  Every one I taste seems dry and flavorless.  Usually I only like cakes overflowing with decadent chocolate or full of fruit.  But since this year I have to make my own honey cake, I turned to one of my favorite cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen.  I made her recipe, which she got from Marcy Goldman, and it turned out to be delicious!  Next time I would cut the white sugar in half, but otherwise keep the recipe the same (we don’t like things TOO sweet).  However, taste tests reveal that even with all the other flavors inside, the cake STILL tastes like honey, with just enough spice to make it exciting. Yum! Check it out and try baking it yourself:  http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/09/majestic-and-moist-honey-cake/

Of course what goes with honey on Rosh Hashanah? Apples! Apples and honey! So you could always serve baked apples, but if that seems like the “easy” way out or you want something fancier, here are some good but easy ideas:

Apple cake is easy – here’s a recipe with good ratings.http://www.food.com/recipe/grated-apple-cinnamon-cake-183836 I like the ones with grated apple because I can just toss them through the food processor and not deal with chopping or slicing. I always double a recipe like this and use my grater blade for half the apples and my chipper blade for half (gives bigger chunks to bite into) but it’s not necessary if you don’t have a chipper blade. I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but I expect I will. I followed a different apple cake recipe last time and I can’t find it again.

You could also try making apple compote. I just peel & core all the apples & toss them with a splash of water into a pot on the stove and slow cook them, stirring occasionally. I use whatever apples I have lying around, but Granny Smiths are the best for baking (although because they are a bit more sour, you may need to add some sugar). (If you don’t feel up to messing with apples on the stove, you can just chuck a bowl in the microwave for 7 minutes or so – same effect, less time!)

Homemade apple strudel is easy to do with leftover or extra apple compote as filling and store-bought filo dough or puffed pastry dough.

Apple compote is really versatile, so you might want to make a LOT. Remember, apples cook down quite a lot! You can serve compote on its own or with some whipped cream. You can also use it as filling for apple strudel (use filo or puffed pastry dough – lay out one sheet, use a pastry brush to “paint” it with melted butter or margarine, fold in half lengthwise twice to form a long thin rectangle, put a spoonful of apple compote mixed with cinnamon & vanilla on the end, and fold it in triangles like a flag, paint the outside with butter, then bake on a tray in the oven).

Or use apple compote as a filling for apple pie! This is my grandmother’s recipe… YUM and easy!  http://caloriecount.about.com/memas-apple-pie-recipe-r1423869

I hope you enjoy these recipes.  There should be enough variety there to keep you enjoying a different dessert at every meal, but without having to overdo the cooking.

Shana tova and be’te avon!

Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot Are Soon: Try Cooking Ahead!

The chagim are coming up and by my calculations, there will be 18 meals this year, during which we will entertain guests.  That means I need approximately 36 loaves of challah, plus all the other trappings of meals.  I know that if I wait until the last minute I’ll be in big trouble, so I want to make everything I can ahead of time, leaving only last-minute or fresh salads to make during the holidays.

The best thing to do is just to cook ahead.  The general rule of thumb is that if it has some form of fat in it, it should freeze up pretty well.  Here are some ideas of what I’ve got on the menu:

I’ve got a few soups frozen already. We eat hot soup year round, although you could do a cold soup (like gazpacho or vichyssoise) if you will be in a hot climate. Most soups freeze well, although chunks of potatoes don’t do so well & Mark Bittman advises to leave out any dairy ingredients (or faux dairy ingredients) until you thaw it. Right now I have a minestrone, broccoli/cauliflower, potato spinach, and some tomato basil soup in the freezer… parsnip soup on the stove to be frozen tonight. And by the way, French onion soup freezes beautifully.

I also freeze things like casseroles and kugels. I have creamy tuna pasta bake in the freezer right now, as well as potato kugel. Planning to freeze carrot kugel as well. But other kugels, like broccoli kugel or spinach kugel, will freeze up nicely.  So will quiches, frittatas, or Spanish style omelets. We usually have some of those in the freezer at all times just as backup for a hungry visitor (or husband!).

You can also freeze desserts. I have cheesecake, chocolate cake, and banana cake in the freezer. I’m planning on doing some apple cake as well… I’ll probably leave the honeycake my hubby requested until the very end. You can also do cold fruit compote for desserts and freeze them ahead – I have pear compote & apple compote frozen & ready to go, and I might make more apple compote soon, too. I’ve got too many apples!

I hope this little guide will give you a good idea of some things to start cooking.  Work on it now and hopefully the holidays will be no problem at all!

PS – There are other things that freeze well that you wouldn’t necessarily think of. Roasted capsicum (red bell pepper), for instance. Rice also freezes well.

Scientific Proof That Keeping Kosher Can Increase Your Happiness

There are a lot of reasons for keeping kosher.  Of course the best reason to keep kosher is because G-d said to, because it’s written in the Torah.  We could do it because it’s a mitzvah (and who doesn’t need to get some extra merit in the world to come?!).  Some people who aren’t even Jewish keep kosher because it’s healthier – yes, even today, with all the FDA regulations (FDA regulations really don’t mean much, to tell you the truth).  But here’s another reason to keep kosher: IT CAN ACTUALLY MAKE YOU HAPPIER.

HAPPIER.

Yes, as in more joyful, more smiley, less depressed.  Happier. Why? How?

Well, in my last post I spoke about the power of choice.  Choice is undeniably a good thing – up to a point.  As with all good things, it is fantastic in moderation, but dangerous in too-high doses.  In fact, too much choice can be paralyzing.  It can cause you not to choose anything at all.

Another side effect of choice is making the wrong choice.  If you only have 3 choices and you’re not thrilled with the one you pick, you can always shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it was the best of the bunch!”  But if you have 3 dozen or 300 choices, suddenly if the one you choose isn’t the best, you end up blaming yourself. Surely ONE of those choices must have been the perfect choice!

The result is that although we have more choices and we may choose something that is objectively better than what we would have chosen previously, we are LESS HAPPY with our choice.

Here’s where keeping kosher comes in.  When you keep kosher, you inherently have fewer choices.  Even if you live in Israel, where entire supermarkets are kosher, there will always be some things off-limits to you.  You can’t buy pork chops, you can’t have calamari, and even if you can put cheese on a soy burger, it never tastes quite like the real thing.  If you live, as we do, in a community where there are far fewer kosher options than, say, Jerusalem or Monsey, your choice is restricted even further.  I can still buy pickles, but I don’t have to choose among 20 different versions: Instead, I have 3 to choose from. This applies across the board.

And you know what? The same thing can apply to other areas of Judaism as well.  Dressing modestly means mini-skirts and skimpy tank tops are out of the running, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other options you can use to express yourself.  But if there are 200 tops in the department store and only 20 are tznius and of these only 2 suit you, then after choosing between them you will be happier than you would if you did not keep tzniut and had to choose one out of 20 tops that suit you.

And there is scientific proof to back this up.  If you don’t believe me, just check out this TED video! Enjoy and happy kosher keeping!

Raw Food Lunch and Snacks to Take to Work

At last I am doing it. I have become a ‘raw foodist,’ this means eating only uncooked foods. In the past the longest I’ve ever done was a 10 day fruit and vegetable fast, which meant eating only fresh fruits and vegetables. I remember feeling awesome, experiencing loads of energy and a clear mind.
I’ve always thought about doing a raw food diet for longer, though it is seriously challenging. There is the personal aspect of overcoming

temptations from corrupt taste buds and the desire to consume other foods. Next is communal pressure of going to other people’s homes and events and not being able to eat. And further we have the Jewish religious observance challenges. There seems to always be a chag, some sort of festival that necessitates consuming various foods. And of course there is Shabbat where we need to eat bread Friday night and Saturday, day. There is also the obligation of having some hot food on Saturday. Thus I will never be able to do a pure 100% raw fast for more than six days. However on Shabbat I can minimise my consumption to only a small piece of bread and just a drop of hot food.

Eating only raw food has its challenges and one of them is the time it takes to shop for and prepare food. It is a lot easier to put a pot of rice on the stove to boil than throwing together a fresh salad. It is easier to make a coffee in the morning than a fresh cup of orange juice, never minds the time it takes to make an apple, carrot, celery, kale juice, with added coconut oil, cacao powder and other stuff.

On the upside, there is not much dishes to wash. There is no grease and burn stains to scrub off the bottom of a pot. Usually just a cutting board, a knife and either a blender, food processor, or juicer.

Books on Raw Food Diet, and Juicing

For me having to work full time along with a million other time commitments I need to multi task in order to prepare my food. I do an hour of vocal exercises in the morning while I prep the food I’ll need for the day. I used to just do the vocal exercise by themselves but found I could move around and prepare food at the same time. Then in the evening I can listen to an hour lecture while I continue with food prep.

If you choose to go on a raw food diet or any diet for the matter and want to succeeded at it, you must take responsibility for your own eating. Many people fail at their diet and blame someone else. For me it starts with the food shopping. This past Sunday I went the market. It took three hours to buy everything I needed for the week: 20kg carrots, 8kg tomatoes, 13kg bananas, 5kg cucumber etc…It takes a good bit of time walking around to find everything and then loading it into the car.
You may also say, “Wow, that’s a lot of fruit and veg and must be expensive!” Not true. At the local market it’s far cheaper than what it would cost in the supermarket. I also buy very ripe or damaged stuff because it makes no difference if it’s going through the juicer or in the blender.

Here is some of what I paid: $10/20kg carrots, $4/8kg cooking tomatoes (These are delicious, the best I’ve tasted in months!) $5/for a 13kg box of ripe bananas! So is this really expensive?
Anyway I am now one week into it and hope to go at least a month. I will please G-d post more on how it is going.

Lots of healthy bannanas for fruit fast

A New Healthy and Kosher Food Option When You Travel

When Rabbi Ben and I travel, we’re usually in it for the long haul.  When you are traveling long term, it is unwise to bring too much food with you because A) you probably will not be able to carry enough kosher food for the entire trip and B) your bags will be really big and heavy if you try to.

However, sometimes we do take shorter trips, and on those trips, we do take food with us.  When I did my trip to the Amazon rainforest, I spent a week there and a week traveling in Peru.  For two weeks, I could carry a reasonable amount of food just in my backpack.  I carried things like vacuum packets of tuna, basic condiments, instant oatmeal, and granola bars.  But that was over 5 years ago and today the number of kosher products has expanded. There is more available than ever before.

Recently, I reconnected with an old friend of mine from Miami.  She and I always had in common our interest in healthy, home-cooked food and exercise (especially on the Wii Fit!).  We shared many recipes, Shabbat dinners, and we would compete with each other on her Wii Fit.  I guess some things never change because we are both still interested in the same things! In fact, my friend recently started a website called Kosher Healthy Living.

One thing she pointed out to me that is really interesting is a kosher product available for travel that I had never heard of before.  It is a product called Shaklee 180 and it’s designed to help people lose weight in a healthy way.  Well, Rabbi Ben and I don’t need to lose weight, so maybe we’d eat two or three of these servings… but! Some of the products really are perfect for travel.

I haven’t tried it yet, but something like the “Meal-in-a-Bar” that’s available sounds similar to what I was trying to do with my granola bars on my short trips. Often I would eat just one granola bar to replace a meal. But I would almost always still feel hungry because granola bars are not really designed to be a balanced meal; they are more of a snack.  So if you are looking for a light and easy travel food, this might be a good thing to try.

There are other options, too, like Smoothee packets.  They are another easy meal substitute that won’t take up much room or weight in your luggage. All you have to do is mix them up with some milk or soymilk. (Be sure to check that the milk where you are traveling is reliable.)

So enjoy your travels, pack light, and maybe even lose some weight while you’re on the road.  Sounds like a good deal to me!

Finding Kosher Food in Adelaide, South Australia

The kosher section in Coles at Burnside Village is full of junk food and nothing really useful, but it's the only store in town with a kosher section!

When traveling, finding kosher food is the number one concern most people express to us. No matter where in the world we are traveling, people ask us how we can manage to keep kosher.  Even in Australia this is true, but especially in a place like Adelaide, where the Jewish population is only 1,000 and the kosher population has lots of room to grow.

There is only one supermarket that boasts a whole kosher section, the Coles at Burnside Village, which is just a short distance away from the only Orthodox synagogue in town, the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation.  Unfortunately, I found that most of the products on the shelf were junk food.  (Akiva was excited to see that Bamba is indeed available in Adelaide!)

Imported kosher cakes and snacks from the US and Canada for sale in The Reject Shop

When I spoke to the store manager about it, he said that the store stocks every kosher item available through their Sydney supplier.  It seems that there just isn’t even much available for the supermarket to purchase!

So you would expect it to be difficult to find kosher food in Adelaide, especially processed or packaged foods, or foods imported from America.  But that’s not necessarily so! And this is true of any town or city in Australia.  There are kosher products available if only you can find them.

Imported kosher chocolate sauce OU(D) from the USA for sale in The Reject Shop

Last week, Rabbi Ben and I went to The Reject Shop in Adelaide.  I’m sure there are many, and we went to one in a small suburb just about 20 minutes outside of Adelaide city center.  So it is not the kind of place that would stock kosher products for its kosher customers.  Yet, we found many, many kosher products imported from the US and Canada for sale! They were mostly under OU or Montreal Kosher (MK) supervision, with the heckshers clearly marked.  We found everything from cake mix to pizza flavored Pringles and everything in between.  In the past, we have found this to be the case in the most unlikely sounding places across Australia, and even across the world.

Imported Tabasco Sauce from the USA

So stop into your local supermarket (or even your local Reject Shop) and you just don’t know what kosher treasures you might find!