Pesach Recipes with minimal ingredients

When it comes to Pesach, I use almost no ingredients at all. This is what I am limited to:

Potato Starch
Salt
Sugar
Shmaltz
Coffee
Nuts
Eggs
Vegetables that can be peeled only. (not ones that you have to blanch to peel such as peppers and tomatoes).

No garlic, no mushrooms, no cocoa, no spices, no oil.

That leaves me with virtually NO INGREDIENTS.

Yet, every year I have a delicious Pesach menu. Here are 3 recipes I made this year. If you are among those who use virtually no ingredients (yes, I know some people dont even use potato starch or sugar...) maybe these can be helpful.

DOUGHLESS POTATO KNISH LATKES

1 large onion, diced and sauteed in 1/4 c. oil or chicken fat
5 potatoes, cooked, drained & mashed while still hot
Add:
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c potato starch
1 tsp salt

Form patties, freeze unfried on a cookie sheet
When frozen, remove from freezer and fry or bake. I will fry them as it's much better.

FINGER LICKIN DELICIOUS!

****

Coffee Nut Ice cream

Recipe 1:

12 egg whites, beaten 

1 cup sugar

12 yolks, beaten

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c oil (optional - I omit it)

1 c roasted ground almonds

2 tsp coffee, diluted in drop of hot water

Recipe 2: 

9 egg whites, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

9 egg yolks, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1 T coffee (recipe does not say diluted but I imagine it probably is)

1/2 c oil (optional)

Pour into 9X13 pan.

Combine 1/2 c chopped nuts with some sugar and sprinkle on top for topping.

VARIATION:

Omit coffee & flavor with any of the following:

1 T cocoa

2 T lemon juice

3 T orange juice pulp

NOTE:

To avoid ice cream from settling, freeze container for 15 minutes prior to freezing ice cream.

***

 I cooked a chicken roast and I cooked thinly sliced veal for my 2 Yom Tov day meals, and this is what I cooked it in:

Shmaltz

Sliced onions

Very small amount of finely minced horseradish

Very small amount of thinly sliced ginger

Sliced Carrots

Thinly Sliced Celery Root

Thinly Sliced Parsley

I took some of the vegetables from the chicken soup I cooked that day - the sweet potato, squash, some kohlrabi and parsley - and immersion-blended it. Then I poured some of that along with some chicken broth into the above vegetables and mixed it all up. I cooked the meats in this for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. It looks and smells delicious!

***

For side dishes, I often make mashed potatoes, and fried onion rings dipped in potato starch. thinly sliced zucchini, fried like potato chips, make for a healthier alternative and are a hit in this house.

GOOD LUCK WITH ALL YOUR PESACH PREP!!!!

Colorful Filbert Cookie for Shlach Monos

Soooo here's my shalach monos for this year. I'm very excited.

First I bought these boxes and organza bags at Toys 4 U.




Then I baked these cookies. Here they are raw, then baked.

I have to sprinkle them with chocolate. Then I'll put a few cookies in a bag, pink M&Ms or candies in the other bag, a bottle of liquer and a chocolate of some kind, tie the bag, and voila, we have easy peasy shlach monos! I baked a batch of cookies in 2 hours and i'm DONZO!!!!! bh.



These cookies are super easy to make. You can make them in four different colors and have a colorful shlach monos. Super easy peasy.

Here's the recipe:

4 sticks margarine
4 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups ground filberts
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 vanilla sugar

Roast the filberts in the oven for 15 minutes at 350.

Whip margarine with beaters well. Will become very pale yellow.

Add flour slowly, 1 cup at a time.

Add rest of ingredients and mix well.

Now, decide which and how many colors you would like.

You can make them

1) the original color - leave as is.
2) one particular color - put in 3/4 capful coloring of your choice.

To make them three colors, divide the batter in three. Pour in a little less than 1/4 capful of the coloring of your choice. Use red food coloring for pink cookies, green for green, etc. For brown cookies, add 2 tbsp melted baking chocolate. Mix very well with desired color. Wash bowl between colors if you dont want the colors to cross over.

Form nickel sized balls on a cookie sheet. bake for 17-20 minutes at 350 (17 was enough for me). The yield is approx 200 cookies - I made it in 4 cookie sheets. Drizzle with melted chocolate if desired.

שמחת פורים!!!!

Purim a-cometh, peeps!

Sorry about the lapse of time in blogging... Google Adsense terminated my account for some unknown reason, so if I'm not making any money it's hard to spend time blogging. but anyway... what are you all doing for Purim? Got any Shlach monos ideas? Post links to your blog or tell me what you're making. IYH tomorrow I will post my cookie recipe, pictures of said cookies, and the box they will be in. Can't wait :).

Mock Chopped Liver

When I got married and my mother started serving sheva-brachos style suppers every time we came, this foorshpyze became a staple. It's delicious and can be plated simply and attractively. This doesnt have to be an appetizer necessarily; you can serve this for lunch, melaveh malkah, whatever. Trouble is, it's  big patchke, and making half the recipe makes little sense because then you're left with half open cans of vegetables. Recently my mother has started making this almost weekly and then dropping off the extras to my sister, who then sends some to me. It's a wonderful, filling appetizer - to some, even perhaps a main dish. It's not HARD to make, but pretty involved. I serve it with bread or crackers, on a bed of lettuce with little cherry tomatoes.

The yield for this recipe is huge. It freezes okay, although the texture is a little off when defrosted. Use the full recipe when making this for a party or melaveh malka; you can make half the recipe, but you gotta figure out what to do with the half used cans afterwards.

Let me know how yours turns out.

8 hardboiled eggs

1 can green beans

1 can sweet pea

2 onions sauteed

1 cup breadcrumbs

2/3 cup ground almonds

salt and pepper to taste

Cook the eggs, sautee the onions, open the cans, measure the crumbs and almonds, and mash everything up together in a food processor or culinaire hand processor (which is a household staple in this house.)

!!!א הארציגן אפעטיט

 (I dont own either of these two, for the record)

Non-Hungarian but still Scrumptious Meatloaf

Growing up, the day my mother bought chopped meat was an all-day cooking spree. She bought a package of dark ground chicken, a package of dark ground turkey, and a package of light ground - either chicken or turkey, I think chicken. (Chopped beef is not a big Hungarian 'item' for some reason, though I do love to buy ground veal when it's available.) Altogether she had about 5 pounds of meat which she mixed with chopped onions, chopped garlic, spices, and bread which had been soaked and squeezed. These 5 pounds of meat were turned into a pot of delicious meatballs, a few trays of burgers and even a meatloaf or two.

I followed her tradition for a long time. One chopped meat shopping spree guaranteed me one or two suppers a week for about two months. It was great to stock up before Pesach so that I had a defrosted supper even during those hectic days. In my cooking peak, when I had one child and was a stay at home mom, my freezer was always full of containers of meatballs, trays of burgers, and a meatloaf or two.

THe problem was.... this method is extremely time consuming. And unfortunately, for some reason, my family is not big on chopped meat. Frozen meatballs defrosted forever in the microwave is my husband's idea of an "I-didnt-have-time-to-cook-today" supper. So for a while I didn't do any the 'big chopped meat palooza" days.

Which meant that we ate endless rounds of baked, broiled, and cooked chicken, and fried chicken cutlets. It gets tiring after a while.

About 2 years ago i came across a delicious-looking meatloaf recipe in one of the magazines - I cannot recall if it was in the Binah or the Family First, forgive me. (I'd be delightfully shocked if any of my readers knows.) I normally am very wary of trying magazine recipes because they call for truly exotic ingredients, and are very un-Hungarian. I never owned cumin, coriander, tarragon, lime juice, pine nuts, shallots, sesame oil and who knows what else. If it's on my spice rack or easily accessible in  my grocery store, you're talkin'. So this recipe had some really accessible and not-too-outlandish ingredients and I decided to give it a try. To my surprise, it went over very well. Even Dovi likes it! So I made it from time to time, and I did again tonight. The beauty of this recipe is that despite its long list, prep time is really not long. I whipped this up in 20 minutes and I didn't even take out my food processor.

The one little downside of this recipe is that I think it's a wee bit too spicey for delicate Hungarian palates. I did have to adjust the recipe a bit but I don't remember how. I think I put in a LOT less parsley; I used dry parsley flakes and 1/3 of a cup of that is really a lot. Tonight I did use frozen parsley but even there 1/3 cup seemed excessive and I just used 3 cubes. I think what gives this recipe its delicious kick is the whole wheat bread soaked in soy milk. In non kosher recipes, milk is added to chicken a lot, and I found that the soymilk in the recipe gave it its delicious moistness while the whole wheat kept the batter very much together. I didn't take out the processor and just grated the bread by hand, chopped the onion by hand and crushed the garlic with a crusher. I did it all in one bowl, then put it on a broiler pan/foil in the oven and voila! In an hour we'll hopefully have something the kids will like. I did put more meat than called for into the recipe,since I remembered it was too spicy with just 2 pounds of meat; I think I put in 3 pounds. I used dark and light chicken only, no turkey. But I can't tell you yet how it came out as I haven't tasted it yet!

I'm posting the recipe here EXACTLY as it was written in the magazine. Adjust it according to your taste. Let me know it comes out and if your family liked this.

10 points to you if you remember which magazine it's from. I think Family First.

2 slices whole wheat bread

2 1/2 tbsp soymilk pref unsweetened

1/2 c ketchup divided

1 lb chopped meat

1 lb chopped turkey

1 sm onion chopped, sauteed if desired

1/3 c chopped parsley

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1/2 tsp salt or to taste

1/4 tsp black pepper or to taste

1 tsp paprika

1 lg clove garlic crushed

1 egg

preheat oven to 350

place bread in food processor, pulse into coarse breadcrumbs

place breadcrumbs & soymilk in small bowl let stand for five minutes

combine with 2 tbsp ketchup  & remaining ingredients

shape mixture into a loaf

& place in pan

broiler pan is best because fat drips off

spray with cooking spray

spread remaining 6 tbsp ketchup on top of meatloaf

bake for 1 hr, let stand for 10 minutes

Crunchy Breaded Chicken

There's no denying that chicken is an absolute supper staple in most heimishe homes, especially Hungarian balabatish ones. There's nothing easier than throwing a few bottoms into a pot or foil or broiler. There is such a plethora of chicken recipes out there: Honey Mustard Chicken. Pineapple chicken. Orange Chicken. Breaded Chicken. Chicken Marsala. Duck Sauce Chicken. Sesame Chicken. KetchupMayo Chicken. Chicken A La King. Chicken A La Kiddush. Just kidding with that last one. I'm not the biggest chicken enthusiast, but I'll eat a good, juicy, well done piece of chicken, especially with sour pickles. My 7 yr old only liked grilled cutlets, and my 4 yr old loves a well done piece of chicken on the bone. My husband will eat anything. Now here are two things you should know about me: 1) I do NOT like trying out new recipes, especially supper recipes. I can try out a new kugel or side dish for Yom Tov, or a dessert, but not a main dish. Because if it flops, there is nothing to eat. I like to try out a recipe that someone else has already tried out and vouched for it's viability. 2) I am about to introduce you to my favorite cookbook:  The Heimishe Kitchen Nitra Cookbook / Volume 3 Simcha Edition. Produced by the Nitra Ladies Auxilary, this cookbook is my "bible" if you will. It has everything - from fancy food to shabbos food to yomtov food to desserts to something your family will love. I have tried many a recipe from here, as I consider this book "tried and true and tested" - you can't get more Heimish and Hungarian than the Nitra cookbook. (Although I'm not sure the original village of Nitra was actually in Hungary). If you have not yet bought this cookbook - BUY IT NOW. (And I will make a few dollars commission too.)

So anywayzes, page 245 is the most dog-eared, stickest page in this book. The title of the page? "SIMPLE DELICIOUS BAKED CHICKEN VARIETIES." The four kinds of chicken here are Barbeque Sauce chicken, Tangy Chicken, Crunchy Breaded Chicken, and Apricot Flavored Chicken. Now, I'm anything but "crunchy" - I don't babywear, homebirth, homeschool, clothe diaper, or extended breastfeed. I do cosleep out of convenience. But I have very interventionist births, have formula fed, and send my kids to school shortly before they turn 3. But not being a "crunchy" mom doesnt mean my family isnt IN LOVE with Crunchy Baked Chicken. It's easy to make and it's really, really good. The recipe is below - and IYH, I will post quite a few recipes from the Nitra Simcha Cookbook in the future -this is a cookbook totally worth having.





4 chicken bottoms
1/4 c mayonnaise
1/4 tsp salt 
dash of pepper
1/2 tsp garlic power
1 tsp paprika
1/2 c cornflake crumbs
1/2 c bread crumbs

Combine spices with mayonnaise. Spread mayonnaise mixture over SKINNED chicken. (Very important; unless youre going to eat the skin then you can put it on the skin. but it's really good on skinned chicken.) Coat with combined crumbs. Bake at 400F overed for 2 - 2 1/2 hours (Depending on the size of the chicken). Uncover for last 15 minutes for the coating to turn crispy.

This dish pairs very well with the Spiced Potato Cubes recipe I have yet to post. Maybe tomorrow.

ENJOYYYYYY! Bon Apetit, Hartzigen Appetit, and please let me know if you've tried this recipe or have bought the cookbook. If you own the cookbook please tell me how much you love it!

Sauteed Liver in sauce

I can't believe I haven't posted a single recipe since Sunday. what happened to my plan to type up all my recipes? I even have an awesome new wireless printer which I bought on ebay. But somehow life keeps getting in the way. With New Years Day and Dovi home, and lots of running around to appointments and things, I haven't been cooking and haven't looked at my recipe box.

In addition my cleaning help didn't show up this week. When my house is in disarray, my mind does not function either. I got away this week with murder, supper wise. Sunday was the paprikash I posted that day. Monday we had sheva brachos. Tuesday I ordered from Grill on Lee. Yesterday was pizza wraps. And tonight was simple ibbergetzoigen fleish. Or schnitzel. Or Southern Fried Chicken if you want to be fancy. But I made something else, on the spur of the moment - I made sauteed liver lkovod Shabbos. And because I know my husband loves it.

It's hard to get that delicious, saucey liver with onions right. I had several trial-and-error recipes until I got this one from my mother. It takes a little care, but the end result is delicious.

1 onion, cut in half moon slices. Sautee in oil. Add paprika. Stir. When slightly golden add flour. Let brown a bit. Cut the livers into smaller pieces. Add to pot, stir, let cook for a short while. Add boiling water and salt and let water cook down a little until becomes nice and saucey. Liver doesnt have to cook very long since it's already broiled, which means it's already half cooked.

Hearty Appetite Lkovod Shabbos!

Chicken Paprikash

I'm really sorry for neglecting this blog. It's been crazy around here, BH. My husband's baby sister got married on Wednesday. We had sheva brachos on Thursday, Friday and Shabbos day. I haven't been cooking, so I haven't been blogging.

Tonight's supper is as simple as pie. Totally nothing to write home about. No fancy lo meins, chow meins, a la kings, apricot chicken or duck sauce chicken or YomTov chicken. Just a back-to-basics, super-Hungarian dish: Paprikash Chicken. It's not even a recipe worth posting. It's everyone's everyday chicken. But what makes this recipe noteworthy to me is the memories it brings. This was an absolute staple in my mother's house, and surprisingly is one of the few foods my special needs son will eat. The trick is to cook this long and cook this slow. However, it's edible after only 1 1/2 hours. The softer it is the tastier is it, but if you're pressed for time - like I'm now, I put this up at 4 pm! - don't worry about the softness.

Basically you put oil, sliced onions (rings), sliced garlic, sliced celery, sliced carrots, and a LOT of paprika into a frying pan or pot. Put the chickens face down and let it cook for a minimum of 1 1/2 hours. The more, the softer and the better. That's all there is too it. Oh, and add salt too, at some point, if you'd like. Kosher chicken is salty to begin with so you dont need a lot of salt.

My 'side dish' tonight is simple mashed potatoes, which I will garnish with Oneg's crunchy Fred Onion garnish. The FOORSHPIZE will be baked apples with strawberry sauce. Oh wait - I forgot to buy ground nuts for the baked apples. Maybe I'll just crush up some almonds and use that instead.

HEART APPETITE, PEEPLES.

Get a Keurig Personal coffeemaker for $71!!!

(Hat Tip to my good friend Dina Frankel.)

For Chanukah this year we got my mother a Keurig Personal Coffeemaker. This is something I really had my eye on too. Since we threw out our percolator after an unfortunate burn incident, I'm really stuck without coffee. I NEED my cuppa joe in the morning to get going. And I need my cup of decaf in the afternoon, too. It's been tough. I have to either put up a tea kettle on the stove or go to the corner store and get a cup of brewed coffee. So I had my eye on the Single-serve coffeemaker. But it's not cheap. $99.00 plus tax plus shipping, plus Kcups. Ack.

I scoured the web for good deals. Bed Bath and Beyond had a 20% off coupon.... in store only. Thanks, but not thanks. So I resigned myself to buying the machine locally for $99, at least I would skip the shipping.

First I went to Keurig's web site and ordered some K-Cups. A $45 order is free. So I became a member (for free) and ordered a 24-pack of Breakfast Blend, a 24-pack of Half Caff, and a 24-pack of Breakfast Blend Decaf. I threw in a 5-sampler of Colombian coffee so it would hit $45. (Next time I'll buy Celestial Seasonings Lemon zinger tea. I hadnt realized they sell tea too.) And then I waited to buy the coffeemaker. I decided I would wait until the Kcups actually got here before buying the coffeemaker.

I'm so glad I did. Dina told me today that Kohl's has a 20% off sale if you use the codeword JINGLEBELLS. I just went over to Kohls.com and got the Keurig Single Cup Coffeemaker for $71!!!! Plus $6.something tax and FREE SHIPPING!!! True, I'll get it next week, but I'll survive another week.

Wow. That's a $30 savings right there. Almost my entire K-Cups order. Such a mechaya.

Treat yourself to the coffeemaker today. You'll be a different person in the mornings (and afternoons) with a cuppa coffee at hand! I'm so excited. I can't wait.

NOTE: this link will not take you to the coffeemaker i bought. I bought the B31 Mini. For some reason Google Affiliate Ads will not lead me to the actual coffeemaker I bought; but you'll find the B31 mini on the right side of the page when you click on this link. Don't forget to put in JINGLEBELLS at checkout and you can have the B31 for $71!!!

Carrots Rice and Peas Side Dish

I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes wondering what this love affair with rice and peas is. I think 3 of the last 4 recipes have involved rice in some form or other. But let me tell you the background story behind this super-easy, crowd-pleasing side dish.

When I graduated high school, I started working as a secretary in my father's office. I loved my job. What I didn't love was the long, lonely summer evenings while my family was up in the Catskills and I was stuck in Brooklyn.

The first summer, I was determined to give my father home-cooked supper meals. All the years prior he had eaten at the communal suppers the local Avreichim provides for a small fee. For a change, he would have home-cooked fare.

Unfortunately I was a very poor novice cook. I didn't really know how to cook much of anything. My mother taught me a few basic dishes and I froze a huge quantity of them. One of those few dishes was the casserole I'm writing about. It was easy and froze well. I served it twice a week with fried chicken cutlets or chicken patties or whatever else my mother had left in the freezer.

It didnt' take very long for my father to get pretty bored of the same fare. And it didn't take very long for  us to get bored of the 'home dinner together' arrangement. My father and I barely had what to talk about, as we had seen each other all day at work, and I felt lonelier than ever.

After about three weeks of this, I admitted defeat, and we went back to eating the communal suppers. At that time - I'm talking 1994 - they didn't really serve dinners for women on site. There was a takeout line, sure, and there was one table set up for women on the ladies' side (this was done in a wedding hall). But I never met anyone to exchange two words with and continued being bored and lonely. So I would take out the dinner and eat it at home in loneliness.

After two summers of this I got married, and this arrangement stopped, Boruch HaShem. In short order I learned to cook much more than the carrots-rice-and-peas side dish. As a matter of fact, I probably didn't cook it for a long, long time.  But recently it has become a staple in my house. There are really only 3 starchy side dishes in my repertoire: potatoes, pasta and rice. Somehow, potatoes are not a favorite in this house, except in deep fried form. Pasta is a favorite, but Chaim only likes it breaded, Hubby likes it with cabbage, Dovi likes it plain, and I like it in any form. So when I get tired of french fries, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, cabbage and noodles, and breaded macaroni, out comes the carrots-rice-and-peas dish. It takes very little prep time,  it's a one-pot dish, and everyone from Hubby to Dovi love it. It pairs well with any kind of chicken or meat main dish, and it's soft and flavorful. I don't even have a written recipe for this, as I know it by heart - since I'm 18.

Here goes.

1 onion, diced. Sautee in oil. While onion is sauteeing, grate 1 or 2 carrots and add to the onions. When onions and carrots start getting soft and golden/orange in color, add 1 cup (checked) rice and 2 cups boiling/boiled water. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil, then lower flame and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add 1/2 - 1 package frozen peas and let it cook for a bit longer til it all defrosts and combines. You may need to add a bit of salt if it tastes undersalted. At some point the entire thing may start sticking to the bottom of the pot so you can turn it off and just turn it back on when you want to warm it up for supper.

HEARTY APPETITE!

(Photo to follow later IYH)

Vegetable Cutlets

This recipe is a slight patchke, but it's so delicious and pretty nutritious too. You will have a LOT of batter, so you can form additional cutlets and put them away in the freezer double wrapped. This recipe goes VERY WELL with 'chipkelech', or mashed beans, which is a patchkeh in itself, but I will post that recipe upon request.

Here goes the recipe for VEGETABLE CUTLETS:

1 potato cut up
1 zucchini squash cut up
1 sweet potato cut up

Bring to a boil and cook for about 25 minutes or until youre sure it's soft.

Add 1 bag of Bodek California mix (16 oz I believe) and continue cooking for another whiile until the cauliflower, broccoli and carrots are well cooked through.

Drain, and mash well. Some people use a processor but I find that it becomes extremely liquidy. I just mash it with a potato masher.

Take 1 envelope of matzah ball mix (whole wheat is fine too) and prepare according to instructions, which usually involves an egg and oil. Let stand for a few minutes so it begins to harden. Mix well with the vegetable batter. Add salt and garlic powder to taste - I'm sorry that there are no measurements here, but I usually just sprinkle in a little and taste it. Mix the whole batter well.

After the batter has stood for a while - refrigerated is even better - form cutlets. You can either fry it or bake it - I dont have the temperature or duration for baking as I always fry them, which gives it its delicious flavor. I can ask my mother, who gave me this recipe, how long she bakes them for. If you choose to fry, make sure oil is really hot so you drop in the cutlets and it begins to sizzle and form color right away. Again, I don't have exact written instructions on how long to fry it on each side for; when I start noticing it looks nice and brown around the edges I flip it over. If you've fried latkes before you should know how the frying business works :). If you want temperature and duration for baking this, please request.

ENJOY - B'TAYAVON!

Vegetable Turnovers (hidden in the middle of my entire recipe box's index....)

It's Thursday night, I'm thoroughly exhausted, and I haven't even started cooking for Shabbos yet. (Okay, I'm only cooking fish; cholent and soup are in the freezer and my husband buys the rest at the butcher takeout.) But this blog has gained some momentum lately - thank you ladies - and there have been requests. Yes, actual requests!! Ladies have asked for the recipes for Vegetable Cutlets, Vegetable Turnovers, and someone asked me to post the Two Tone Spiced Baked Potatoes already. I must admit that the recipe title was an exaggeration; it's simply cut up potatoes and sweet potatoes tossed in spices and baked. But I'll post it some other time.

Tonight, I'll post the recipe for either vegetable cutlets or vegetable turnovers, whichever my not-so-nimble fingers locate in my 16-year-old recipe box. Along the way I'll list the titles of recipes I found on the way, and if there's anything in particular you want me to post, let me know!

So lesseeee...

Salmon veggie patties (oops, that was supposed to be posted yesterday... oh well)
Tri-colored pasta with mixed veggies (oops... was also supposed to be posted yesterday)
Fancy 2-tone vegetable kigel (which I made once for yomtov and was such a patchkeh I never made it again)
No-mixer Chocolate Chip Squares
Fruit Ambrosia
"Chipkelech" - Mashed beans (goes very well with vegetable cutlet)
Brownies
Tomato Dip (already posted)
Easy Honey Cake (so easy I dont think I made it more than once... lol)
Goulash (quintessential Hungarian fare!)
Sauce for breaded chicken cutlets (also made just once, no one likes it)
Mock Chopped Liver (Delicious! but lots of work)
Blueberry Pie (for yomtov)
Cheese Blintzes (it never comes out good - I stopped making it, too much work)
Challah Recipe (I havent baked since before Rosh HaShana...)
Baked Apple with Strawberry Sauce (now that's a yummy appetizer I haven't made in too long!)
Mushroom Sauce (I have no idea when I made that...)
Chicken, Franks & potato stew (boy is that delicious, I should make it sometime! See, it pays to dig through the messy recipe box once in a while...)
Chicken Cutlets in Dough (probably also known as Wellington Fleish...)
Marinated salad (those were the balabuste days... sigh, I used to make such good stuff...)
A blank index card
An index card titled "Mashed vegetable turnovers" with no recipe
Another blank index card
And another blank one
And another
Kneidlach
Yummy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sunshine on Imamother
Meatballs, Fushirt, and Meatloaf
Krote Lukshen (Cabbage and Noodles)
Tomato Pasta (Yuck)
Unstuffed Cabbage (Already Posted)
Squash in Tomato Sauce Appetizer
Chulent
Parve Ice Cream
Blintz Recipe #2 (another abandoned Recipe)
Cheese Turnovers (Delicious appetizer for milchigs)
Iced Cappucino (YUMMMM)
Sesame Chicken Nuggets (delish)
Bean Soup (I probably havent made this since 2005)
Shlishkes (I probably havent tried this since 2004)
Marinated Cucumber Salad
EUREKA!!!! yoogateee mootzoosee!! VEGETABLE TURNOVERS!!!!!!

2-3 onions, diced
4 red peppers, diced
4 green peppers, diced
8 mushrooms, diced
sautee until soft
optional: 2 stalks celery
1 kohlrabi, grated

When it's all soft and delicious fill flaky dough triangles with a spoonful of vegetables. Use a slotted spoon to first drain off the copious liquid dripping off the vegetables. Close triangles and flatten edges with a fork or twist to make sure it stays closed during baking. Brush with egg and put sesame seeds on egg. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes until dough looks baked through and no longer raw (nice brown color but not burnt).

It is a LOT of vegetable filling and you will likely stay over with a lot. So either make half the recipe, like I do, or save them in plastic cups in the freezer so that you have a really easy half-ready supper for next time; All you need to do is defrost a cup or two of filling and fill dough squares and bake them.

Stam for fun's sake, I'm going to continue going through my recipe box so that if there are any particular requests for any particular recipes.

Spiced Baked potato wedges
Simcha Fruit Entree (boy is that a lot of work!)
Easy Appetizer Fruit Salad
Another Easy Fruit Entree
Tomato White Fish with Vegetables
Broccoli Kigel
Letchow
Yerushalmi Kigel
Honey Cake Supreme
Marinated Peaches (this was my shlach monos of choice for a few years)
Baked Salmon
Fricasee (a favorite appetizer of my husband)
Potato Knishes
Euro Salad
Shabbos Fish
Apple Compote
Fruit Punch
Stir Fry Vegetables
Marble Cake
Paprikash Chicken
Potato Kigel
Marinated carrot celery salad
Cheese Lakes (already done)
Tropical Fuit salad
Grated Chocolate Cake
Yet another abandoned Cheese blintzes recipe
Iced Coffee #gazillion
ColeSlaw
Mushroom letcho
Italian Vegetables on a Roll
Kimpeturin Farina (check)
Tomato Squash Soup
Shabbos Liver
VEGETABLE CUTLET!!! - MY NEXT RECIPE, let me put it where I'll find it....
Breaded fried white fish tails
No Cook Fruit Soup
No Mixer Bakery Style Soft Mini Cookies
Yes Cook Fruit Soup
Vegetable Muffins
Chicken Chow Mein (check)
Potato Soup
Pastrami Knishes (check)

Hubby just asked me how you cook fish for shabbos - he isn't trusting me anymore to still cook it tonight. So I have to get up off my posterior in this comfy couch potato position. Groan, my joints! catch ya later.

Easy Parve Menu #1

Tonight's supper menu was very labor intensive and involved 3 pots, a bowl, a grater, a colander, can opener, and multiple ingredients. But I started the prep at 5 pm!!! and it's almost ready. Recipes and pictures to follow IYH. Here is the menu:

Salmon Veggie Patties
Colorful pasta and mixed veggies

Yesterday there were almost no vegetables, and tonight is heavy on the veggies. Go figure.

It's milchigs night, so for a change there's fish and not cheese. I know fish is parve, but it's saved for Wednesdays...

Mushrooms with Rice and Peas

When I was a teen growing up, coming home from school meant being greeted by the aromas of delicious, Hungarian, home-cooked supper bubbling on the stove or in the oven. Supper was usually a bowl of yummy soup followed by a nice one-plate meal - protein, starch and vegetable. There usually wasn't an appetizer before the soup, although sometimes my mother whipped up something small for my father - letcho, carrot-and-tomato-salad, things I didn't care for and didn't need.

Suddenly, when I got married, she entered a whole new culinary stage. Now there was a scrumptious, simcha-worthy appetizer every night. I suddenly got used to eating vegetable cutlets with mashed beans, vegetable turnovers, baked apples with strawberry sauce, squash in tomato sauce, mushrooms with rice and peas, mushroom letcho, mock chopped liver, mini meatballs, mini franks with potatoes - it was crazy. I gained ten pounds in six months.

Having such elaborate suppers rendered my husband and myself spoiled. When I began cooking on Sundays shortly afterwards, I naturally also made some fancy appetizer as the first course. As time rolled on, an appetizer was a must-have and I never skipped it. Since I was working full time, I froze  a LOT of food; my freezer was always full of vegetable turnovers, vegetable cutlets, cooked mushrooms with peas, mini meatballs, and tons of soups. I had learned by then that you don't need an appetizer AND a soup in one meal; it was either or. Having soups frozen and ready to be microwaved or defrosted on the stove is extremely economical and easy. Unfortunately I don't enjoy cooking soups and find them time consuming, tedious, and boring fare taste-wise. Then again, whipping up an appetizer from scratch every night is far more time consuming and pressuring. So the past few years I've cut out the appetizer for the most part. Sometimes I'll buy a soup or a knish or blintz or cut up a fruit. But preparing an appetizer from scratch is a rare treat in this house, especially now when life is extremely hectic.

Today however, for some reason I was very rested. I had taken a midday nap, my cleaning lady had done a stunning job cleaning up the house, and I was in a good mood. I happened to have fresh mushrooms and celery in the fridge left over from the Chicken Chow Mein of two days ago, so I went for it, knowing that this is a dish my husband truly appreciates and it fills me up nicely if I'm not in the mood of the chicken dish that follows.

Even the kids like eating the rice with the peas; you can move the mushrooms over to the side if theyre not mushroom people. Personally I'm a major mushroom fiend - cook anything with mushrooms and I'll have it!

So here's the recipe!

1 small onion, diced
1-2 stalks celery
6-8 fresh mushrooms - or more, depending on your family size. You can also use canned mushrooms to save time but the taste is not comparable
Frozen peas
1 Tsbp flour
Pinch of salt
1 cup rice


Sautee the onion in oil. When soft, add the celery and let sautee for a while until it's transparent. Cut up the mushrooms into small pieces and add to the saute. If youre using canned mushrooms it will cook much faster, although the fresh tastes way better. When the veggies look truly soft and ready, add a tablespoon or so of flour, stir it, and add a little water - it doesn't have to be boiling. Stir it until the veggies and flour have thickened slightly. Add half a bag of frozen peas - or however much you like.  Add a drop of salt, cover, and let simmer until the peas are defrosted and cooked. Stir from time to time so it doesnt stick to the pot; add a drop of boiling water if/when necessary.

Cook a cup of rice in a separate pot according to package instructions. Serve it together. If the mushroom dish still has a sauce left, you can pour it in on top of the rice to make it extra delicious. Some people like to wash to bread and dip the bread in the sauce as well. Usually with flour there isnt much of a sauce left though; some people like to omit the flour and have the mushrooms more 'saucey'.

B'TEAVON!!!

Simple Easy Supper Menu #1

Tonight for a change I'm doing a full supper menu - not slapdash chicken cutlets thrown on the grill and served with macaroni. I'm doing 3 dishes, all 3 of which sound extremely plain and simple, but trust me, are filling and delicious.

IYH later I will post all 3 recipes and accompanying photos, and will change these plain placeholder lines into links to the actual recipes. But for now, I at least wanted to commit myself to typing these 3 up tonight and getting you excited for some simple, delicious, homecooked ideas for your next supper menu.

For the appetizer, Mushrooms with Rice and Peas
For the main dish, Crunchy Spiced Breaded Baked Chicken, with Spiced Two Tone Baked Potatoes

Try to keep the salivating to a minimum - recipes coming up later, IYH.

Now excuse me while I stave off the hunger pangs with a zaftige grapefruit.