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Table of Contents
  • Comfort Food
    • Alt. Shepard's Pie (Meat/Parve)
    • Zucchini Mac & Cheese - Dairy
    • Peanut Butter Chicken or Tofu - Meat/Parve
  • Desserts
    • Iony (Carrot) Cake - Parve
    • Apple Crisp - Parve
  • Holidays & Shabbat
    • Vegetarian Holishkes (stuffed cabbage) - Parve
    • Carrot Parsnip Soup - Parve
    • Healthy Hamentaschen- Parve




    Comfort Foods (also nice for Shabbat)





    Alternative* Shepard's Pie - Meat/Parve
    Canola oil
    1 package ground turkey
    3 potatoes
    9 cloves garlic, minced
    onion, chopped
    3 pinches cumin, tarragon,


    nutmeg, rosemary
    A little soy milk
    3 teaspoons soy sour cream
    1 can corn
    Fresh pepper to taste
    Bake potatoes. Process garlic, heat oil in heavy skillet on a low flame. Saute onion in skillet until transluscent, add of the garlic. Saute until fragrant and add turkey. Saute with cumin and fresh pepper. Process potatoes with remaining garlic, tarragon, nutmeg, rosemary, milk, and sour ½ & ½. In an oven-proof vessel, layer turkey, then corn, then potato. Bake covered for 15 minutes, uncovered for another 15.


    * To make it truly alternative - and even healthier (richer in iron and fiber and lower in fat), replace turkey with cooked lentils, and then you can also replace all soy with milk products as a dairy meal (or keep it soy and healthier!)

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    Zucchini Mac & Cheese - Dairy


    This also works nicely with spinach - or a mixture of the two. Also, I'm currently working on an all-soy parve (and thus, lowfat & low/no-cholesterol) version of this...stay tuned. In the meantime, using real cheese - especially the goat cheese - is really a treat as a dairy meal, and fat and cholesterol are reduced by at least substituting butter with a natural oil-based spread such as canola spread or lecitan spread.


    1 lb Whatever chunky pasta feels most appealing (use whole grain if possible)


    6 medium zucchinis, halved and sliced
    3 - 6 cloves of garlic (I use 6), chopped
    1 medium onion, chopped
    1 pinch salt
    Pepper to taste
    Fresh basil to taste, chopped
    2 tablespoons butter (or canola spread, etc)
    2 tablespoons flour
    Milk (skim, whole, or lowfat)
    ½ lb of whatever hard cheese seems inviting cut into small pieces
    1/4 lb goat cheese, cut into small pieces
    Cook pasta, rinse, strain, and set aside. Saute garlic and onion with a pinch of salt. When translucent and aromatic, add and saute zucchini and basil. Once fully cooked, cool and process to puree. Set aside. Melt butter and add flour. When mixture browns slightly and begins to thicken, add milk to desired amount and thickness. Add hard cheese gradually, and more milk as necessary. Mix zucchini puree into cheese sauce. Replace pasta in cooking pot, mix in sauce and goat cheese. Serve warm.

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    Peanut Butter Chicken or Tofu - Meat/Parve


    Desired amount of chicken or tofu
    Lots of garlic (I usually do in threes, so 6 cloves or 9 or 12)


    Use a desired amount of any or all of the following:
    Broccoli, cut in to small pieces
    Cabbage, sliced and chopped
    Red pepper, sliced
    Green beans or snow peas
    Cauliflower, cut into small pieces
    Sauce
    Natural Peanut Butter
    Soy sauce/Tamari/Bragg (whichever you use/have)
    honey to taste
    Hot pepper to taste


    Saute chicken or tofu until browned (cook chicken thoroughly) and set aside. Combine sauce ingredients (works best with a fork). Back in the same saute pan, heat garlic in olive oil and saute veggies in order of coooking time needed. Add chicken or tofu to veggies then add sauce, heating to liquify (you can also throw some water in to stretch the sauce without losing flavor) Serve over coucous.


    This can be made even healthier by steming veggies instead of sauteing, with out losing too much taste.


    Dessert


    Iony (Carrot) Cake - Parve


    Iony Lawerence, a native of Jamaica, has been a part of our family for a long time and has baked many an "Iony Cake" which has been schlepped for years around the country to our various colleges, friends' homes, in-laws' homes, and between my parents' homes in New York and Florida when they've spent long amounts of time there. It has been baked by me in the various states in which I have lived...including now: Israel.


    3 lbs of carrots
    4½ cups flour
    1 tbls baking powder
    ½ cup raisins, chopped
    ¼ tsp all: allspice, cloves, ginger
    1 tblsp nutmeg, cinn
    1 tbls baking soda
    ½ tsp salt
    2 cups of sugar
    5 eggs
    1 ½ cups oil
    1 tblsp vanilla
    Add dry ingredients to carrots. Add eggs and oil. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined. Bake about 1½ hours at 350.


    Sometimes I make it in layers and ice it with a simple cream cheese icing of cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and a little milk (this of course, make it dairy, I've also done it with soy cream cheese and soy milk to make it parve).

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    Apple Crisp - Parve


    4 cups (tightly packed) of your favorite apples sliced (or pears, or peaches, or a mix....)
    ½ teaspoon cinnamon
    ½ cup water
    1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
    1 cup raw sugar or Sucanat
    3/4 cup unbleached organic flour or whole wheat pastry flour
    2 pinches salt
    ½ cup canola spread or other non-hydrogenated/natural oil spread/butter substitute


    In greased baking dish or pan, spread apples evenly. Cover with water and shake cinnamon and then lemon rind evenly over apples. With a fork, mix together remaining ingredients until crumbly and layer over apples. Bake at 350 until apples are tender and top is browned.

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    Healthy Hamentaschen (see Holidays & Shabbat)


    Holidays & Shabbat


    Vegetarian Holishkes (stuffed cabbage) - Parve


    1 head of Green Cabbage
    Stuffing:
    Canola oil
    1 medium onion - sliced
    2 ½ lbs mushrooms (any variety- w/at least 1 robust kind like Portobella)
    ½ cup cashews
    2 cups mushroom soup or broth
    1 cup of Kasha
    salt* & pepper to taste
    Sauce:
    28 oz pureed tomato
    Sweetner to taste (I used honey)
    salt* & pepper to taste


    * I generally replace salt with Bragg. Liquid Aminos - available in health food stores, it aids in digestion and reduces the amount of sodium in the recipe.
    Process cashews to chop - leave in processor bowl. Saute/carmelize onion in oil with a little salt. Slice mushrooms and saute with onion and some pepper and Bragg (or salt). Once cooked process mushroom mixture with cashews, reserving juices from pan to add to broth. In the same pan sautee kasha with a little oil until browned. In a large bowl, add kasha to
    mushroom mixture and cover with broth mixture - let sit about 15 - 20 minutes until kasha softens. Core cabbage and place in boiling salted water to carefuly peel 10 leaves in tact. Pull off more leaves to line bottom of baking dish to prevent rolls from sticking. Place two heaping tablespoons of mixture at the stem of each leaf and roll, folding in sides. Place in baking dish seam down. Mix together sauce ingredients and pour over cabbage rolls. Add some water to cover rolls. Cook on a low temperature for 3 hours - may need to add water throughout.

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    Carrot Parsnip Soup - Parve


    Medium Parsnips (1lb)peeled & sliced thin
    4 MediumCarrots (1lb), peeled sliced thin
    1 Medium Leek - the white and tender parts - julienned
    5 Cups veggie broth
    1 Bay leaf
    2 tbls veg oil
    Salt (or Bragg) & Pepper to tasteHeat oil in large sauce pan - add parsnips and carrots. Cook over moderately high heat until golden (about 10 minutes), stir in leek, then add stock and bay leaf. Season with S&P - cover and bring to boil. Cook over low heat until veggies soft (about 13 minutes). Serves 4 - 6. Great as a healthy and extremely flavorful base for Matzah Ball Soup. Another option is to process cooked soup to create a hearty thick soup.

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    Pasta with Vegan Spinach-Olive "Cream" Sauce - Parve


    About a Lb of spinach
    About ½ a Lb of nice green olives,
    chopped or sliced
    A block of silken tofu
    Lots of garlic, chopped
    Olive oil
    Whole grain spinach linguini or fettuciniCook pasta. Process tofu to yoghurt consistency and put aside. Saute spinach in olive oil and garlic - when wilted, add and saute olives. Process spinach-olive mixture to blend, pour tofu in. After well blended, pour mixture into sauce pan and heat. When hot enough to heat, toss in pasta and serve.

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    Healthy Hamentaschen- Parve


    Cookie:
    4 Cups whole wheat pastry flour
    2 tspns baking powder
    1 1/4 cups Sucanat
    16 tblspns Canola spread*
    4 eggs (or substitute equiv)
    a little vanilla
    Filling:
    Chopped apricots (or prunes)
    honey
    a little Sucanat (for apricots)


    * If using straight Canola oil instead of the spread - reduce amount.Mix together dry ingredients - add canola spread, mix really, really well. Add vanilla to beated eggs and add to rest of mixture and knead. Cook filling ingredients together with some water. Roll out dough and cut into circles (w/glass) stuff w/filling and bake on parchment-lined sheet for most even baking) at 325 on middle rack until browny.

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