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Charoset: A Passover Delight

9 Apr

Happy Passover everyone. Have you made Matzo Lasagna yet this year? There are still 5 more days left of the holiday, so get your cheese on! And if you have a hankering for dessert, try my Kiss n’ Swirl meringues (just use Kosher for Passover vanilla, or omit it altogether).

I love Passover because the food is so unique and holds so much meaning and tradition. Charoset comes from the Hebrew word for clay, and is meant to symbolize the mud which the Israelite’s used to hold the bricks together when they were enslaved in ancient Egypt. You can read more about the story of Passover here.

Charoset is made from grated apples, nuts, dried fruit, and sweet wine…all whizzed up in the food processor or blender (or by hand if you are feeling rustic). I find Charoset utterly delicious, so sweet and full of my favorite ingredients. I like to use dried figs and raisins, but in the past I have also used dried apricots/dates/prunes. Fuji apples are my go-to because they are so crisp and sweet. And the wine has to be Manischewitz Concord Grape. People either love Manischewitz wine or they hate it. I can’t seem to get enough of the sweet stuff.

Charoset

Makes about 5 cups

*Note: you do not have to follow these measurements exactly. I just add ingredients to my liking, using these ratios as a guide. You can use whatever nuts/dried fruit/apples/wine/spices you like. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup walnuts

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup dried figs, I like to use Turkish figs

1/2 cup raisins

3 fuji apples

1 cup Manischewitz wine (you can use grape juice or another sweet red wine)

2-3 tablespoons cinnamon

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Method:

In a blender or food processor (I used a blender because that is all I have), pulse the nuts until roughly chopped. Empty the nuts into a large bowl. Now place the dried fruit in the blender. Pulse until chopped and add to the bowl with the nuts.

Chop the apples by hand, halve them, quarter them, and chop each quarter into about 4 or 5 small chunks. Add the apples (you may have to add one at a time if using a blender) and wine to the blender and pulse just until roughly chopped into small pieces. Add the apples to the bowl with the nuts and dried fruit. Add the spices and stir everything together by hand. Taste and add more wine or spices as needed.

Let the charoset sit for a few hours in the fridge to let the flavors develop. Enjoy with matzo and horseradish, or mix it into yogurt.

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G-nut Stew, Re-Done for the New Year

4 Jan

Happy New Year, everyone.

I thought I would bring you my updated version of this g-nut aka peanut stew. I have been making this stew for over 2 years now and it never fails to satisfy me and leave me with leftovers for the week.

I usually make this stew with garbanzo beans, but this time around I decided to use black-eyed peas. It is thought that on New Years Day if you eat black-eyed peas and greens then you will have prosperity and luck in the coming year. And who doesn’t want a little good fortune?

I am applying for an internship to eventually become a registered dietitian, and I need and want all the luck and prosperity I can get this year! Black eyed peas are just like most other beans and legumes, packed with protein, fiber, and iron and are great for reducing cholesterol.

With orange sweet potatoes and carrots, green peppers and chard, anti-inflammatory alliums onion/garlic, and our spicy friend ginger, this stew is packed with good-for-you veggies. The sauce for the stew is peanut butter and broth. Easy and simple.

I ran out of brown rice, so I made the stew and put it over white rice. Fine. Delish. Thank goodness for rice cookers. I have also made this stew with quinoa, or you could even pair it with cornbread.

I like to chop all of my ingredients up first before cooking, so that I can just dump the bowl into the pan quickly and have the stew ready in minutes. Because when I’m hungry, I want dinner FAST.

Let’s bring in this new year with lots of prosperity, luck, health, and delicious food!

African G-nut (aka Peanut) Stew

see my original post here

serves 4-6

2 Tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon of fresh ginger, grated (NOTE: I like to keep extra ginger in the freezer so I have it on-hand at a moments notice)

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 medium sweet potatoes, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 cups veggie broth

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 15-oz can of black-eyed peas

1/2 bunch of swiss chard, stems removed and roughly chopped or torn

1/2 cup peanut butter

optional: cilantro or parsley, for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and ginger and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the ground cumin and ground coriander and cook for 1 minute. Add the sweet potatoes and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes.
2. Add the salt, vegetable broth, green pepper and garbanzo beans. Bring the stew to a boil, add the swiss chard, then cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the sweet potato and carrot are soft and the chard has wilted slightly. Mix in the peanut butter and cook for a final 5 minutes. If you want a thinner or thicker stew, you can add more peanut butter or, alternatively, more broth.
3. Serve the stew hot, over rice/quinoa/couscous, with toasted peanuts and cilantro or parsley as a garnish.

Bourbon Vanilla Ice Cream

27 Dec

I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks, please.

Wait, I mean a bourbon ice cream on the rocks.

I’m on a bourbon kick. Remember a few weeks ago when I made Tracy’s Maple Bourbon Cider? And just last week I was raving about Steve’s Ice Cream in Bourbon Vanilla flavor? I decided to re-create the bourbon vanilla ice cream at home.

Take 1 cup of bourbon and reduce it with some sugar by about one fourth. Then just make vanilla ice cream base as usual. Most of the alcohol gets cooked out, leaving a nice bourbon flavor and a smooth creamy texture when frozen. Talk about a winter-wake-me-up.

Dreamy.

Bourbon Vanilla Ice Cream

adapted from EzraPoundCake

makes slightly more than 1 quart of ice cream

1 cup bourbon

1/2 cup (100g) sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups (1 pint) heavy cream, divided

1 cup milk (I used 1%)

4 yolks

Before starting, have your 4 yolks ready in a bowl. Also have a large bowl sitting in an ice water bath with a fine mesh strainer over the top. Pour 1 cup of your cream into that large bowl. It is important to have everything ready to go and measured out.

Heat the bourbon in a smallish pot or saucepan over medium high heat until it boils. Add the sugar and salt and stir until the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the bourbon reduces by about a quarter, about 6 minutes.

Add the vanilla bean and extract (or if you do not have a bean, use 1 tablespoon of extract), 1 cup of the heavy cream, and the milk and heat over medium heat until steaming aka scalded.

Once steaming, whisk your egg yolks while pouring about 1/3 to 2/3 of your cream mix into the yolks. Keep stirring. Keep the remaining 1/3 of the cream in the pot over the heat. Then pour your yolk mix into the hot cream and heat everything together until slightly thickened. Stir constantly and switch to a rubber spatula. Once thickened and the foam disappears slightly, turn the heat off and pour the mix through the strainer into your bowl of cold cream.

Keep on an ice bath until chilled, then refrigerate for a few hours or overnight and churn in you ice cream maker.

An At-Home Beauty Product Experiment + Chocolate Dipped Apricots With Sea Salt

20 Dec

Last night I put a combo of oats, wheat germ, and cornmeal on my face. Today after showering I rubbed a mix of pumpkin puree, vanilla yogurt, and honey on my face. Yes, I put food on my face. The experience was…weird.

The oats/cornmeal/wheatgerm were mixed with water into a paste which I then rubbed on my face. It felt gritty. It looked totally wacko, it kinda smelled, it looked like I took my morning oatmeal and put it all over my face.  My roommates were making fun of me. But hey, I figure that I have a dry winter ahead of me and I should exfoliate my face once in a while? Luckily I am blessed with naturally good skin and don’t do much else than soap and water with some moisturizer. Not sure that I will keep up this new beauty routine, but it was still fun to try it out.

Cereal Grain Face Exfoliant

from EcoBeauty

2 T. rolled oats

2 T. cornmeal

2 t. wheat germ

Mix everything together and store in a jar or airtight container. To use, combine 1-2 teaspoons of the mixture with 1-2 teaspoons of water to create a paste. Gently rub onto your face and wash off with warm water.

The pumpkin pie facial was another wacky experience. I stirred together 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree (from the can), 2 T. vanilla yogurt, and 1 T. honey and put about 1 teaspoon of the mix on my face after I finished showering. I waited about 10 minutes then washed my face with warm water.

So I think I am done experimenting with my face, but next up I am looking into this brown sugar coconut oil hand and foot scrub. Working in a restaurant 5 nights + cooking at home does quite the job on my poor hands and feet (I am in want of cute rubber gloves for dish washing at home!).

I would now like to discuss these chocolate dipped apricots with sea salt. This is a holiday treat that you can feel good about. Dried apricots have fiber and vitamin A and iron and are a nice alternative to the mounds of cookies and cakes that you will see during the holiday season. Dipped in whatever chocolate you fancy (dark, semi-sweet, milk, white…) and sprinkled with a dash of sea salt, these orange beauties are made to please.

I tried to open my apricots up with my fingers before dipping to make things easier. I purchased my apricots from Trader Joe’s.

A little sweet, a little tart, a tad salty. These are great as gifts or as a snack to place on the table after dinner when company is over. When I was in school, my friend Alison’s mom would send her a care package during finals and she almost always threw in chocolate dipped apricots. These were not just any old apricot, but the juiciest freshly dried apricots from B&R farms in Hollister, CA. SO GOOD! Alison was always kind enough to share with me and it was these apricots (+a little studying) that got us through finals.

Chocolate Dipped Apricots with Sea Salt

1 lb of dried apricots

1 lb of chocolate

flaky salt, such as Maldon

Have a sheet tray lined with parchment paper ready. In the microwave or in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, melt the chocolate. If using the microwave, vigorously stir your chocolate every 30 seconds.

Quickly dip you apricots in chocolate, either just the tips or the entire thing and then lay on the parchment. Note that you may need to reheat the chocolate if starts to harden midway through dipping. Sprinkle with sea salt while the chocolate is still wet.

Once finished, place the baking sheet in the fridge or freezer so the chocolate hardens.


Molasses Spice Cookies

20 Dec

Hey there you cute crackly chewy little cookie. I like you. I like you a lot. You are made of molasses and cinnamon and nutmeg. You are sparkling and wintry.

Oh and you are absolutely perfect with a little vanilla bourbon ice cream. Bourbon vanilla + spiced molasses.

A new and now favorite ice cream flavor. Purchased at the corner store. Tastes like real homemade ice cream with lots of love and big hints of bourbon in it. Ooooo yes.

Psst…I also absolutely ADORE lemon ice cream with gingersnaps swirled in (even though these are not gingersnaps nor do they contain any ginger, they would be fantastic with lemon ice cream as well).


I rolled my dough into little balls the size of a quarter and then rolled the balls in sugar.  About midway through baking I took a spatula and lightly flattened the cookies so that they would achieve a nice chewiness.

I knew these would be a winner because we make them at my work. My co-workers and I are all about Martha Stewart’s recipes. Her recipes are pretty spectacular. A big tip for making good cookies is to chill the dough for a long time (I chilled it overnight), and then pinch off the dough and roll into little balls. Or, do the same and then freeze the balls and bake off as needed.

Molasses Spice Cookies

from Martha, makes about 36 cookies

2 cups (310 g) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (200 g) sugar + more for rolling

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, soft

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

Combine all of the dry ingredients and set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the egg and mix until incorporated. Add the molasses and mix. Dump the dry ingredients into the bowl and stir until everything is combined (You can do all of this either by hand or in a stand mixer).

Wrap up the dough and refrigerate. Or, pinch off the dough and roll into balls and then refrigerate or freeze the dough balls.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Have a shallow bowl or plate ready with about 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and roll each ball in the sugar until coated evenly. Drop onto a parchment lined baking sheet (will take 2 sheet trays worth, but only bake 1 sheet tray at a time**) and bake for about 10-15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through and flattening each cookie lightly with a spatula.Cool for about 1 minute then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

**cookies can be baked two sheets at a time, but they will not crackle uniformly

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