Rice, Beans and Kuftes, Thursday Night Dinner

If you speak with anyone from the Sephardic community in Seattle, Washington, you will find that virtually everyone, me included, ate avicas con arroz or beans and rice on Thursday nights for dinner.  Usually this dinner also included some kuftes (beef meatballs with parsley, on a bed of sautéed onions, all simmering in a tomato sauce).  Thursday night dinner was accompanied by a chopped salad with lemon and olive oil dressing and crusty French bread.

Homemade Apple Sauce

Applesauce is the essence of apple with a little cinnamon and lemon to enhance the natural sweet-tart flavor.  I make mine super healthy with no added sugar.  I prefer to use a mix of Pink Lady and Fuji apples. This is the simplest recipe but it does take a little time to peel all those apples.

My Best Brisket

Brisket was a dish I became familiar with after I was married.  My Sephardic mother never served this ultimate pot roast when I was growing up.  I loved brisket the first time I tasted it.  The juicy, melt in your mouth, savory-sweet meat is an easy dish to make for everything from Shabbat and holiday dinners to tailgate parties for the team.   I reworked all the old recipes I had,  and with the addition of dried porcini mushrooms, slowly caramelized onions, and red wine it is delicious.  The leftovers make great beef au jus sandwiches.

Chanukah Bumuelos or Turkish Beignets

If you want to make a killer fried treat for Chanukah or any holiday see my new article at the San Diego Jewish World on line.

Garlic Roasted Turkey

Roast Turkey, what could be easier?  We all have eaten many a overdone, dried out, and reheated bird.  This recipe is  extremely simple and it leads to moist flavorful results.
To start with, I buy a kosher, no hormone and no antibiotic, free range bird.  Kosher turkeys have the advantage of being salted (kind of brined) as part of the koshering process.  A fresh turkey is great if you can find one, but a frozen bird is very tasty if you defrost it correctly in the refrigerator.  Don’t rush the defrosting.  I take my turkey out of the freezer two days before I need it.  If I am roasting it on Thursday, then I take it out of the freezer and place it in the refrigerator Tuesday morning.
Before removing the turkey from the oven, check the temperature of the turkey for doneness.  An instant read meat thermometer is a good tool to check the temperature.  Insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh.  165º indicates it is ready.  After roasting, the turkey will continue to cook while it is resting in the roasting pan on the counter.  Garlic and olive oil do a magical thing to the turkey flavor.  They infuse and compliment that slightly gamey bird taste with richness more like beef.  The most important thing is to let the turkey rest for at least 60 minutes before carving and never reheat turkey.

Stuffing with Cajun Sausage and Fennel

I love stuffing, but I can't make it with butter and I don't want to use margarine. The solution, I use a lot of olive oil to saute'  the vegetables and I add the spicy oil left from browning the sausage.  The rich pan juices or dark salty gelatin that is left after roasting a turkey is the most delicious flavoring of all.  Every time I roast a bird (sometimes I do it  just to have fresh roasted turkey for sandwiches on hand), I save the precious pan juices in little containers in my freezer so I don't have to wait for this Thanksgiving turkey to  provide me with gelatin for the stuffing. Another thing I believe in, is not placing the stuffing in the bird but baking it in a separate baking or casserole dish.  It is just safer that way.
If you don't like spicy, you can use a mild sausage or omit it. If you are allergic to nuts omit them or you could use chestnuts instead.  Try any dried fruit you have such as dried cranberries. Have fun, be creative, but be sure to use good quality bread with some texture to it.

Easy Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Fresh cranberries are a delight with their tart  flavor that blends well with citrus and sweet.  The flavor enhances poultry, especially turkey on Thanksgiving.  It is wonderful the next day on bread as part of a turkey sandwich or just on morning toast.

Stuffed Miniature Pumpkins

I was wondering what to do with all those cute little pumpkins I had left over from Halloween, when I remembered that years ago, my friend Frieda had this idea to stuff miniature pumpkins for one of our PTA fundraiser cooking classes.  This dish makes such a beautiful presentation and I thought this updated combination of rice with mushrooms tasted great.  There are endless variations, using different kinds of rice, vegetables, nuts, herbs, or dried fruit.  I prefer to use those little round pumpkins rather then the flatter ones, since they have a larger cavity to stuff.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes for Thanksgiving

As I have mentioned before, in our family, my sister-in-law Francine makes the Thanksgiving Day feast every year.  She always serves a version of a sweet potato bake.  Many years ago, she shared the recipe with me and it had quite a long list of ingredients.  I changed it and came up with this recipe.  It has very few ingredients, a much more intense sweet potato taste and it’s much less fat.  My boys love this and it is so easy!

Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving

Maple, brown sugar, caramel, ginger, molasses, pumpkin, and cinnamon are some of everyone’s favorite Thanksgiving flavors.  Sweet and savory with a tiny amount of heat, they make for wonderful desserts and side dishes.  I look forward to the fourth Thursday in November every year.  I recall the traditional dishes and try to introduce something new as well.  My sister in law actually makes the Thanksgiving feast and I bring dessert, always trying to top what I made last year.  Even so, I always include pumpkin pie in the assortment.  Just to get my fill, I cook another Thanksgiving feast on the Friday after the big day so we can have another taste and our own leftovers at our house. 
Pumpkin pie is always a challenge since the traditional one  made with evaporated milk, therefore dairy, cannot be served in a kosher home after Turkey.  In addition, I am lactose intolerant or dairy allergic so I have come up with an alternative recipe.  Over the years, I have tried it with Mocha Mix, Soy Milk, Rice Dream, and other substitutes.  I think the unsweetened, organic soy milk produces the best textured non dairy filling.  For testing this recipe, I used Whole Foods brand.
Pie crust scares a lot of people, so they settle for salty store bought crust or just buy the whole pie.  My sister Carole’s pie crust is very easy and yields enough for two generous pie crusts or one double crust pie (like an apple pie).  You can assemble pie crust dough ahead of time and freeze the discs in plastic until the day you need it.
Pie Crust
3 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco no Trans fat comes in premeasured cubes)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar (like Heinz)
6 tablespoons ice water
Filling
2 extra large eggs
15 ounces canned pure pumpkin (like Libby)
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
12 ounces organic unsweetened soy milk
To assemble the pie crust, place the flour, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl.  Stir together.  Add the shortening and with your hands or a pastry cutter, cut in the shortening until the dough looks clumpy, about the size of peas with some whole bits of shortening still visible.  Whisk the liquids together and then add to the flour mix.  Stir for a moment with a fork.  Press the dough together using your hands.  Form a large ball with out kneading and minimal mixing.  Divide the dough into two pieces and form 2 discs.
Take a handful of extra flour and dust the work surface.  The work surface should be stone or wood.  Flour the rolling pin as well.  Place the dough in front of you, with the side of your hands; make parallel indentations going one direction and then the opposite direction.  You will have a cross hatch.  Using a rolling pin, start rolling out the dough up and down taking care not roll off the edge.  Next, lift the dough, scatter some more flour under it, and give it a 90 degree turn.  Now roll the other direction.  Lift the dough again to make sure it is not stuck to the surface. Continue rolling from the center to the outer edges of the dough to form a circle around 13 inches in diameter.
Fold the circle in half and then again in quarters.  Take the center point and place it at the center of you pie plate (I like a 9 inch glass deep dish).  Unfold the pie crust until it fills the plate and overhangs the edge a bit.  Gently press the dough into the corners.  There should be an ample overhang of dough to roll under into a neat ridge.  Trim any excess.  Using your thumb and index finger of one hand to hold the rolled edge you can use the index finger on your other hand to press through where you are holding the edge and make a crimp.  Repeat the motion around the pie and you will have a scalloped edge.  With left over scraps of dough, you can roll out and cut leaves to decorate the edge with as well.
Set the crust aside and prepare the filling.  Preheat the oven to 400º.  I recently noticed that the small can of pumpkin says 16 ounces, while the large can that is for 2 pies is only 29 ounces.  That sounds like screwy math to me, but who knows.
Put the pumpkin, eggs, spices, and sugars in a medium bowl.  Whisk until well blended, then add the soy milk and carefully whisk until combined.  Pour the filling into the prepared crust and place it in the heated oven.  Leave it at 400º degrees for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to 350º for around another 40- 45 minutes.  The pie is done when the crust is deep golden brown and the custard is no longer loose.  Let it cool off and serve with parve (nondairy) ice cream or whipped topping.
Enjoy your holiday.

California Dreaming and grilled steak

Pool at the Alhambra, Spain

Nothing is as tranquil as an empty luminescent blue pool in the early morning light.  The ambient temperature water envelops my body as I swim, methodically slicing through the placid liquid with the sides of my hands like a hot clean knife through chocolate cake.  Classical music is entering my ears from beneath the water's surface. As I turn my head up to breath, I notice  the Andalusian, Moorish details of the buildings surrounding the courtyard.  Some of the dusky pink walls are bright with light and some cast in shadow as the fog lifts to brilliant blue skies.
This weekend we had occasion to visit the Grand Del Mar Resort near the California coast.  It sits nestled in some softly rounded undulating hills about 2 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.  The hillsides are part rough scrub and part manicured golf course.  The food served at the hotel was lovely. Abundant fresh fruit and vegetables accompanied every meal.  On Friday afternoon, at a culinary demonstration given by one of the young chefs several intriguing recipes were presented.  Chef Scott demonstrated an heirloom tomato salad with fresh Burratta cheese, drizzled with olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, sweet and thick with age.  Next, the chef made a nouveau ratatouille to fill curved black crackers made with ground black forbidden rice.  The baked crackers shaped like almond tuilles, were perfect to hold a scoop.  The last dish he demonstrated was a philo triangle filled with ricotta and red grape halves.  Baked and topped with roasted green tomatillo salsa they were very tasty. The resort sommelier paired the three appetizer selections with 3 different white wines.  He chose a California chardonnay  and two dryer European selections.
Well it is time to check out of this little piece of heaven.  I feel relaxed and ready to return to my hectic life with that high decibel level that makes you appreciate the serenity of this place.
My boys are waiting at home for my barbecued steak.
Linda’s BBQ Steak
4 prime rib steaks cut 1 and ½ inches thick
6 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
¾ inch of fresh ginger root
½  jalapeño, seeded and cored
3/4 cup fresh cilantro
½ cup fresh mint
½ cup fresh parsley
3 tablespoons Sumac
¼ cup olive oil
1 or more teaspoons fresh cracked pepper
Sea salt to taste
Set the steaks in a dish.  Place all the other ingredients in a food processor and pulse together to make a paste.  Generously smear the marinade on both sides of the meat.  Refrigerate the meat for around 4 hours to absorb the flavors of the marinade.  Pre heat a barbeque or grill to medium high heat.  Place the steaks on the grill all in the same direction.  Leave space around each steak for the heat to come up and around the meat.  If using a outdooor barbeque, close the lid.  Grill for about 2 minutes, then, using tongs,  give each steak a quarter turn or 90 degrees to make cross hatched grill marks.  After another 1-2 minutes flip the meat with tongs.  Never pierce meat with a fork as this will make it dry.
Repeat the 90 degree turn on the second side and then test for doneness by pressing them.  For medium rare, a steak should be springy soft.  Soft soft is rare or bleu.  Firm is well done, oops.  Remove the steaks from the grill to a platter.  Hide them from your hungry diners for 10 minutes.  This is the key to juicy and tender!
You can serve whole individual steaks or slice them against the grain on a cutting board and just serve a few slices per person. To round out the meal any kind of rice and vegetable are great.

Homemade Challah with Honey

Challah is the quintessential Jewish Sabbath and holiday bread.  Bread baked from the staff of life has a spiritual essence that affirms our connection to the earth's harvest and sustains us.  This Challah is sweet and moist.  It has the long stranded texture of bread due to the use of high gluten content flour and kneading in the food processor.  From one recipe, you can make one huge Challah or it makes two medium size Challahs for the Shabbat.  You could make ‘panezicos’ or individual rolls.

Dinner in New York City

New York City is invigorating, even on a cold rainy day in the end of October.  I am on the East Coast this week for a family wedding and all the other parties that go with that life affirming occasion.
After arriving at JFK, late Wednesday afternoon, we immediately headed for Manhattan’s Lower East Side near SoHo (South of Houston St) to check out the hip fashion scene and purchase vegan (non Leather) shoes for my nephew. At 5:30 we headed up to the famed Kalustyans, one of my all time favorite stores, to lay in a supply of rice, including, aromatic Egyptian, Pink Madagascar, Red Wehani and Turkish Baldo.  Kalustyans is an inspiration to me, its shelves chock full of rice, spice and everything nice since 1944.
After Kalustyans we went up to 79^th and Amsterdam, dropped off a package at a friend’s co-op and then headed back down to 46^th street between 5^th and 6^th to Le Marais,  a venerable (for those of you outside of New York, yes there is such a thing) kosher steak house.  Lucky for us there is a valet parking lot next door to Le Marais for only $50.00 for the evening.  I picked up the parking.
Le Marais serves fine prime steaks, chops, the best French fries I have tasted in a while, along with a great selection of appetizers, deserts and other accompaniments. To view the extensive menu click here.  The restaurant boasts a full bar and fine wine cellar as well.  The dark wood paneling pub type lighting, fantastic looking meat display counter and boisterous packed crowd creates an inviting ambience.
We were a party of 10 and they graciously seated us at a large round table upstairs in an alcove. I ordered, mushroom empanadas, mixed beet salad, Moroccan lamb chili, and a 16 ounce medium rare rib eye with French fries.  A bottle of Herzog Winery’s Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon was great with steak. The wine list of Le Marais is quite extensive including wines from France, Israel, California and more up and coming places like Australia, New Zealand and Chile. The restaurant also carries draught beer and bottled.  For desert we shared a sampler of deserts, including chocolate mousse, lemon tart, and a pistachio cake topped with meringue and filled with peanut butter mousse. A cup of coffee was great.
The warm crusty French bread slices served with a fruity olive oil, took the edge off of my hunger, and warmed me up from the damp outside.  The starters were quite flavorful, especially the Moroccan spicy lamb chili garnished with guacamole.
Tasting of the live flame from the grill, my steak was succulent, very prime, and came done the way I requested.  The accompanying French fries were super crispy; I suspect twice fried and had that taste like the original Mickey D’s fries.  I wonder if there is beef tallow in the grease they are fried in. Wow.
The conversation was that fun repartee between people who know each other, and have lots to catch up on.  My cousin Susan who had flown in from Seattle was amazed that there even exists a quality kosher steak house.
The deserts were great, but after eating a 16 ounce rib eye, who cared?  Be sure and visit Le Marais if you are looking for Kosher next time you are in New York City.  Reservations recommended.

Gjelina Restaurant

It is autumn in Los Angeles.  The intense blue sky was crystal clear and particulate free courtesy of the hot Santa Anna Winds.  Although summer has clearly passed and the days are becoming very short, this day was quite hot, in the high 90’s.
I made dinner reservations at Gjelina some 3-4 weeks ago, highly recommended unless you want to take your chances at one of two large communal tables that are always full, based on the buzz from some of my foodie friends.
Located on the artsy, restaurant studded Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, Gjelina is so happening, there is no name or address numbers posted on the outside of the building.  I let my instincts or ‘the force’ if you will guide me to the right doorway.  The accommodating hostess led us through the packed interior including an open appetizer prep bar, out back to a private walled patio with banquets, small tables and a fire pit.
It was an eclectic crowd, peppered with art gallery types, young couples, and celebratory groups.  The menu of appealing choices is for sharing.  Gjelina ascribes to a philosophy of using as much sustainable, local, and organic food as possible, so the produce is seasonally appropriate.
We ordered:
Rocket (wild arugula) with sweet corn, cherry tomato, endive, lemon, and pecorino
Haricots Verts with charred tomato, feta, mint, and sesame
Wood roasted cauliflower with garlic, chili, parsley, and vinegar
Mushroom, goat cheese, and truffle oil Pizza
Artichoke and goat cheese ravioli with leeks, brown butter, balsamic, and parmesan
Brewed mint iced tea
Strawberry, rhubarb crisp with cornmeal topping, served with house made vegan coconut sorbet
Coffee
I thought every dish was seasoned well, not overly salty like so many trendy places.  The vegetable dishes all had a balance of acid with the green fresh flavors, and some oil to smooth the palate.  Wood roasted cauliflower was a fantastic choice for an autumn dinner by a fire pit.  The pizza was irresistible with just enough mild flavored goat cheese and earthy truffle oil.  I like to order ravioli  when we eat out, when someone other then I has made them.
We decided not to order wine, since we were getting up early the next morning, although this menu could have taken on a red or white.  Buttery, with the right balance of acid and sweet, corn meal topped strawberry rhubarb crisp was so good I came home and made some myself.  Try this recipe it is yummy and easy.  I think several of the other menu items could also made easily at home

Individual Strawberry Rhubarb Crisps
Filling
¾ cup sugar
2 pints of fresh strawberries
2 large stalks of rhubarb (about two cups sliced)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons corn starch
Zest from the lemon
Topping
¾ cup corn meal
½ cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose unbleached flour
Zest grated from one orange
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
Wash and hull the strawberries, lay them on a towel to dry and then slice them in half.  Wash the rhubarb stalks and slice them in half lengthwise and then in half inch dice.  Combine the fruit with the sugar in a frying pan.  Place the pan on low heat and as the sugar melts, add the lemon juice, lemon zest, and cornstarch.  Gently stir the fruit occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture begins to bubble and thicken.  This only takes a few moments.  Remove from the heat.
Divide this filling evenly amongst 5 large ramekins. 
In a medium bowl, combine all the topping ingredients except the butter.  Cube the butter into ½ inch squares and add it to the bowl.  Cut in the butter until the mixture is sticking together a bit, but still course.   Distribute the topping evenly over the tops of the ramekins.
Place the ramekins on a large baking sheet to catch any drips, and bake for about 20 minutes in a preheated 400º oven.  Remove the strawberry rhubarb crisp from the oven when the filling is beginning to bubble up around the nicely browned topping.  Serve the crisps plain, with ice cream, or sorbet.