creative jewish mom

Mini Kugel Platter Is Perfect For Receiving Guests!

Last week a neighbor's son got engaged, so I had to send a little congratulatory something over to her house on Friday.....but what? At first I was going to send a challah, but then I realized that with all the excitement going on, it is better to send food that can actually be eaten by hungry family members on the spot. And so this mini kugel platter was born. The salads and egg were actually an after thought, but really pulled the whole thing together and I felt like quite the balabusta! And to make the story even better, it turns out that my friend has some guests in her home and she was wondering around the kitchen trying to figure out what she could serve them when my platter arrived!

The other great thing about this platter is that you can put it together ahead of time and have it ready to serve when guests arrive!

 

You'll Need:

• mini kugels made in a muffin tin using my vegetable kugel recipe
• hard boiled eggs
• chopped olive salad, or the salad of your choice, recipe coming soon
• jullianed kohlrabi/carrot/red pepper salad, dressed with vinegar salt and pepper
  
  

Will fill in more details on Sunday, gotta run the last shabbat of the year is coming!

Easy To Braid Round Challahs For Rosh HaShana!

With Rosh HaShana just a week away, now is a great time to bake traditional round braided challahs for the holiday, with raisins of course! Thanks to some readers who left comments on my post showing how to braid these beauties, I realized that I ought to share some photos I took last year just before the holiday!

This technique is so simple and while the braid can split a bit in the middle during baking, as you can see in the challah above, it is still lovely and retains its round and full shape quite nicely.

Check out my post how to braid a round challah for rosh hashana, and you're all set. And this might sound funny, but you can certainly practice with knee socks or knee highs to get the braiding down before you start with the real thing!

And no, my house does not exactly look like this at the moment, as I'm very busy preparing not only my own container garden, but a garden with actual dirt that I'm in the middle of designing for the New Year. This year we are entering a year called "shmittah" which has specific laws regarding gardening in the land of Israel, more on that later! Happy baking!

Homemade Bagels!

What kind of a creative jewish mom would I be if I didn't try my hand at homemade bagels? Truthfully, before this blog was born I did actually bake bagels a few times as we had just moved from Jerusalem (where American style bagels are aplenty) to Northern Israel (where at the time American style bagels were scarce) and one of my sons just had to have bagels! Fast forward to a good five or six years later, and with the husband out of town for the first shabbat after Passover, I decided to try bagels instead of the traditonal key shaped challah I would normally bake. (Of course I did not forget about the key theme and made key shaped napkin rings!) Lest I digress, I enjoyed making the bagels, but it certainly is quite time consuming, and best done when one is not under pressure!

After the dough rises once, bagel shapes are formed. I did remember from my previous bagel baking that the recipes call for bagels that are half the size of the store bought ones, so I took this into consideration and made half the amount of bagels that the recipe indicated....which turned out to be about 23 bagels for 2 kilos of flour.

Here we are, boiling those bagels, so far so good. And after boiling they were looking really big and fluffy. Something happened though as they began to bake and they deflated a bit, could be because my oven somehow wasn't up to the required temperature however. Hmmmm.

Nonetheless, the results looked pretty good. As far as taste, not all the kids loved them, I gave myself a B+ though my daughter loved them toasted during the week.

So hopefully this wasn't a tease, but sorry, I'm not going to share a recipe with you, until I find a recipe that is excellent! This is just some inspiration to try making bagels yourself, and it's certainly a fun thing to do with the kids! I'd like to try making something healthy, like spelt, so I'll let you know if it happens!

Homemade Hummous Is Delicious!

Last week I at long last made homemade hummous, instead of buying it, and while of course it does take more effort to make it yourself than grab it off the shelf, the effort is well worth it— it's downright delicious and so very healthy! Serve it with some roasted pine nuts and arranged on a plate with some cooked chick peas that you've set aside, and it is also a work of art!

Hummous is a staple of the middle eastern diet, and eaten not just as a spread but also as a main dish, with a sliced hard boiled egg, and maybe even some cooked fava beans. Lttle hole in the wall hummous restuarants that serve only hummous, namely hot and as single portions are sort of the American version of the traditional hot dog stand. A few weeks ago, we happened to visit such an establishment in a little town called Yokneam, and the hummous was so delicious, I was inspired to get my act together and put something on the our table that I know is additive free and truly fresh!

Homemade Hummous With Tehina (Double The Recipe, At Least!)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried chickpeas (equals 2 cups canned or cooked)
• 1 cup prepared techine
• 1/4 cup lemon juice, or to taste
• 2 cloves garlic, or to taste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin, or to taste

For serving: olive oil, toasted pine nuts, dash of paprika or zaatar (sumac), fresh chopped parsley or cilantro

Preparation:

1. Soak chickpeas overnight in cold water mixed with about 2 tsp baking soda.
2. Drain and rinse chickpeas and place in pot covered with water. Bring to a boil and simmer partially covered until chickpeas are soft, roughly 1 hour. Set aside 1/4 cup of the cooked chickpeas for garnish.
3. In a food processor, process the rest of the ingredients, adding water if necessary to arrive at a thick yet creamy consistency.

Note: I use the food processor to prepare a large amount of techina, I pour out the techina, and then, without having to wash anything, I make the hummous in the same container, adding back in whatever quantity of techina is necessary for the recipe. Does save some time and water!

Note #2: Prepared techina is made by stirring together equal amounts of water and techina, adding lemon juice (or vinegar) and crushed garlic to taste. It should not be too runny. A food processor is a great way to prepare techina, as mixing it by hand can be a little difficult if techina has caked within the container.

To Serve: Transfer hummous to flat plate, and with the back of a spoon make an indentation in the center. Pour olive oil into this indentation, add cooked hummoun beans around the perimeter and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts, and/or the spices mentioned above.

Serve with crackers, pita bread and fresh vegetables. Will keep in the fridge, and would be a great thing to give kids for lunch! 

Delicious Oat Flour Apple Cinnamon Rolls With No Sugar

In my pursuit of very healthy bread alternatives, I have come upon a fantastic discovery: rolls made with oat flour are delicious, and it's like eating healthy cake! I came upon a simple recipe which I then played around with, and for a first run, the results were more than good enough to share with you here! And even my 11 year old daughter, who is not looking for low gluten bread substitutes, loved these piping hot out of the oven. The thing about oat flour is that while quite delicious on its own its difficult to use for making bread loaves, as it doesn't hold together on account of no gluten. So making batter and using a muffin tin is perfect!

This shabbat, while my guests and family are enjoying white challah, and a new edition, Moroccan frena, I'll be enjoying these oat flour rolls. The only problem is that they're a little bit too delicious, oh and that they're not vegan, since there is one egg in the recipe, but I'm going to try making them without the egg, next batch, coming up soon!

Oat Flour Apple Cinnamon Rolls With No Sugar Recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups oat flour (mine was not certified gluten free, and I haven't tried that oat flour yet)
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1 egg
• 1 tblspoon olive oil
• 1 apple peeled and cored and made into apple sauce, (or roughly 1/2 cup sugar free applesauce)
• 4 teaspoons aluminum free baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or a bit more if you like cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup slightly diluted coconut milk (or almond milk, or soy milk)
• 1 cup water

Mix together ingredients and spoon batter into a muffin tin, this amount filled the cups in my silicone 12 muffin pan. Bake at 200C for roughly 30-45 minutes, until nicely browned.

Enjoy! Now I'm off to try this recipe with no egg and with the edition of psyllium husks, so excited to try something totally new!

ps: If you'd rather make these rolls such that they do not qualify as "bread" but rather "cake", one simply replaces the majority of the liquid with all natural fruit juice. Check with your local rabbi to determine what exactly "majority" means, as at the moment I'm not quite sure myself.

Healthier Potato Kugel With Vegetables

Ready to use your creativity in the kitchen to help your family eat more healthfully? Lets start with potato kugel, something I've started making on Fridays, instead of my Moroccan chickpeas, as part of a lunch that generally includes a sampling of shabbat salads, or a plate of fresh vegetables.

Potato kugel is a staple in many ashkenazic Jewish homes, often prepared in large quantities to serve as a snack Friday afternoon, and then later served on Shabbat either with the meal on Friday night, or with the cholent on Saturday, or both! Potato kugel is one of those comfort foods that many people grow up with and can't get enough of, and while filling and great piping hot, it isn't exactly the healthiest thing on earth on account of lots of white potatoes, oil and white bread crumbs or matzo meal. But guess what, potato kugel can still be quite delicious, and in my opinion even more delicious when a medley of vegetables are used, the quantity of oil is cut down, and one uses quick cooking oatmeal instead of bread crumbs!

And in fact, dear readers, I do believe that kugel is a great place to hide introduce a number of vegetables that kids might not ordinarily eat, but are certainly part of a healthy diet. My plan is to slowly increase the percentage of other vegetables over time, such that I arrive at a potato kugel that is really mostly other vegetables with just a 1/3 or 1/4 of actual potatoes. And that certainly can be done if one uses vegetables that look like potato once peeled and grated, such as zucchini, turnip, and kohlrabi. In the mean time, my kids do expect to see specks of orange in kugel, and think nothing of it, so as of this week, the plan is still working as the kugel was delicious, and devoured!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 large potatoes, peeled
• 2 large zucchini, peeled if there may be an aversion to it, shhhh!
• 2 large carrots
• 1 large onion
• 7 eggs
• 1/2 cup (or less) olive oil
• 2/3 cup quick cooking oatmeal
• 1 tblsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Serves: 4-6 as a main dish and 8-10 as a side dish.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 180C (350F), grate all the vegetables, add eggs, oatmeal, oil, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Pour into a 11"x13" baking dish, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake for roughly one hour or until very brown on top. Some prefer their kugel a little on the runny side inside, which is really the more traditionalt texture, though if you prefer a firmer inside, you may need to cover the kugel with foil and bake longer.

That's it, have fun experimenting, and enjoy this kugel piping hot right out of the oven for a fabulous winter snack!

Spelt Challah – A Welcome Addition To Our Shabbat Table!

Introducing mini spelt challahs, made from my spelt oatmeal roll recipe, with the quantities doubled. And because the spelt dough doesn't rise nearly as much as dough made with white flour, the braided loaves really retain a distinct braid. These loaves were made with a braid using six strands, my current favorite. I even recently showed my neighbor how to do it with six knee highs and a clothespin, that was funny!

I took a look on YouTube for videos showing how to braid a six strand challah, to help you out, though funny enough both the videos I looked at used two different techniques that are different from mine! Guess it's time to get into the video making, because my technique is much less complicated once you get it! (Some of you may have the cookbook I was looking at, over and over until I got it, it's called Spice and Spirit, and it's a big purple Jewish cookbook.)

Oh and in addition to making those mini spelt challahs I decided to make a bunch of rolls to freeze for some guests who are due to arrive any day, and maybe for my kids for school sandwiches.

Would you turn down a sandwich made in a roll like this? Two out of three have enjoyed great sandwiches made in these rolls for the past three days.....hopefully the third will catch on soon!

 

Baking With Kids: Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Last Friday afternoon my daughter baked her first batch of cookies— chocolate crackle cookies! The recipe was quite simple to make and the results were delicious. We did leave them in the oven a bit too long, (on account of my inexperience with baking cookies) so they were a bit harder crispier than they should have been, but that didn't keep them from getting eaten up! 

These would be a perfect little treat for kids to bake and give to friends on Purim! Wrap a few together in cellophane and tie with a ribbon, and place in your homemade gift boxes from recycled materials, like the oatmeal can packages we've made this year. 

Ingredients: (we made a double batch, resulting in a nice amount of cookies......)

• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon rum flavoring
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder (3/4 envelope, for Israelis)
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 200c, or 375F
2. Combine eggs, sugar, oil and rum and whip for at least 5 minutes.
3. Add flour, baking powder and mix for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the cocoa and mix until dough forms. (can refrigerate at this point if desired)
5. With damp hands, form small walnut sized balls of dough. 
6. Dip ball in powdered sugar, (or skip this step and sprinkle with powdered sugar after baking which is what we did, as you can see. Though effect of cracks in cookies is much better if you dip balls in powdered sugar, will try that next time!)
7. Place on cookie sheet lined with baking paper.
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Don't worry if not all the cookies crack, more important to watch the baking time!

Note: If using a mixer isn't kid friendly enough, try whipping the eggs and sugar together with a soup wand (a great kitchen tool for so many things!) or alternatively in a blender, which is what we did!

Enjoy! I can see that this is just the first of many more home baked goods on our horizon, now that my daughter is on the scene, and her little brothers are urging her on! 

Challah Rolls For A Crowd!

Yesterday afternoon I baked 64 nice sized challah rolls for a sheva brachot celebration that we the neighbors were holding for another neighbor's daughter who got married last week.

After the traditional Jewish wedding the couple does not go on a honeymoon, they stick around for at least a week to continue the celebrations with friends and family, and get accustomed to their new status with loved ones close by. Once a day, for seven days, a festive meal is made, usually for a nice sized crowd, and specific blessings are said for the couple, which are called sheva brachot (seven blessings). As it turns out this particular meal was prepared for 150 people, and so everyone pitched in. I happen to know that the mother of the bride loves my rolls, so I just had to volunteer to make them, or at least 64 of them!

To make nice sized challah rolls, I recommend making no more than 32 rolls per 2 kilo batch. Of course you can adjust this number, this is just the exact number of rolls that fits perfectly on my oven tray. I should add that my oven is a 90cm freestanding oven, so the rack is almost (?) twice the size of that found in a regular built in oven. (The 90cm built-ins are substantially smaller, so consider that if you get to design yourself a kitchen!  The six burners and the huge oven in my freestanding oven was one of the best purchases I ever made!)

You'll Need:

• my no egg white challah recipe
• 2 kilos of flour per 32 rolls

How To:

Follow the instructions for making standard challah loves, just when making the balls, make 32, instead of the number you'd make for braiding loaves. After balls have rested, roll each ball in your hand to make a rope, about 8-9" long. (My kids gladly helped with this part!) Loosely cross the right side over the left, and bring the top of the right side up through the hole just a bit, sort of like a belly button. Tuck the end of the left side under the roll and voila! Check out the photo above to see if yours look like mine. Set aside to rise until their nice and fluffy, and bake. Yummm! 

For lots more posts about baking challah, simply type challah into the search bar on the top right of my blog, and you'll get a list of all my previous posts. You'll be a pro in no time, and believe me, there's nothing like the smell of freshly baked challah on a Friday afternoon!

Chocolate Almond Cranberry Bark For Tu B'Shevat

Tonight is Tu B'Shevat, and the almond trees are on the verge of blooming here in Northern Israel, so to celebrate I just prepared this chocolate almond cranberry bark to surprise the family. Plus I've used 60% cocoa dark chocolate, and raw almonds, so it's really verging on what one might call "healthy!" 

I'll be serving the bark together with a nice spread of dried fruits, nuts and a few fruits that we haven't eaten this year, like coconut or maybe star fruit. I've purchased a nice assortment of olives to eat during the salad course, and even some preserved cherries to eat with ice cream or the apple cake we'll make shortly. Hopefully that's more than enough to help us celebrate this special holiday!

Ingredients:

• three regular sized (100g) dark chocolate bars, 60% cocoa (you can use more chocolate if you want a great ratio of nuts to chocolate, I just trying to keep the sugar content as low as possible!)
• 2 cups chopped almonds, I used raw, you can also roast them yourself, but roasted nuts are not as healthful
• 1 cup dried cranberries

Preparation:

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, and add 1 1/2 cups of almonds and about 3/4 cup of cranberries. Stir and pour onto parchment paper (placed in a 9x12 pan) Spread to about 1/4" thick, and sprinkle remainder of almonds and cranberries on top.. Set aside to cool and break up into smallish chunks. Note: It was devoured, and I must say, an amazing treat!

Enjoy, and wishing you all a very happy Tu B'Shevat! I'll be back next week with my yearly photos of the almond trees when they're just a tiny bit in bloom, my favorite!