Easy, Tasty Pasta Salad

 

I'm one of those who doesn't like complicated, multi-pot/bowl recipes. In addition I can eat the same basic meals routinely...

...but I'm not the only one at the table... This past Shabbat a neighbor, who probably has eaten by us more than anyone else, was invited and I felt that the time had come to tweak my usual menu. It seemed that the easiest part of the meal to change would be the carbohydrate. 

After wracking my brain for easy ideas, suddenly... Pasta Salad came to mind. There was a problem. As far I know, it's made with mayonnaise, and I don't buy/use/eat mayonnaise.

It didn't take long to come to a solution... olive oil, though I had no idea how it would taste. Thank Gd it was a great success!

Ingredients

cooked pasta
diced onion
diced tomato or any other salad vegetable-- the more the merrier
dehydrated or fresh parsley, dill, or basil
a bit of olive oil

Directions

mix, cover and refrigerate

Give it a try, and I'd love to hear how yours turned out.

PS of course this is kosher and parve...

Sauerkraut Beef Stew

 

We somehow found ourselves with a can of sauerkraut, and I'd been trying to figure out what to do with it. For some strange reason, I began to imagine it with beef. Just to make sure I wasn't totally crazy, I did some google searches to see if such recipes exist, not that I actually follow recipes...

The recipes I found, and there are many, weren't at all kosher. They also required "slow-cookers" which I don't have. But at last I got some reassurance that people do cook beef with canned sauerkraut. Then I asked in a facebook group that prides itself on "real world" recipes, not those awfully complicated ones. Some nice people answered. They gave recipes/cooking ideas that also use "slow-cookers" or "cover well and bake in the oven," which I didn't feel like doing. I generally simmer beef on the stove for a few hours.

Now, to be honest, we haven't eaten it yet, but it looks and smells delicious. 

Ingredients:

kilo plus of the least expensive frozen beef in the store, onion, celeriac, a few carrots, a couple of tomatoes, a can of sauerkraut, a bit of oil, coarse ground black pepper and a couple cups of water. 

Directions:

1. thaw beef
2. soak beef or awhile in water, and then throw out the water
3. put beef in pot with some oil, high heat
4. add the onions, and then turn the beef over so it browns a bit all around
5. add vegetables, sauerkraut, water and pepper, then cover
6. as soon as it starts to boil, turn down heat to slow simmer
7. simmer for at least two hours

That's it!

I plan on serving it with potatoes, cooked vegetables and salad.

Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2

This is the second in the series of recipes I've been making with the goodies we've received in "care cartons" for senior citizens here in Shiloh during the Corona Lock-down. See, sample and share:

Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1



Corona Lock-down Recipe #2:

The box of goodies/staples sic, we received as senior citizens included a few cans of lightly sweetened pineapple. I decided that with the addition of a few apples and a teaspoon of cinnamon, we'd have Apple-Pineapple Compote.

Yes, that's the recipe plus a bit more water than was in the can. I cooked it all up until the apples were soft, and we ate it for dessert on Shabbat.  There's still some leftover. My husband, who's not much of a fruit eater even liked the compote.

The Apple-Pineapple Compote was very easy to make. The most difficult part of the preparation was opening the can. Thank Gd I have an old simple can-opener.

Corona Lock-down Recipe
Apple-Pineapple Compote

Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1

Life in Corona Lock-down. This week I "gave in" and accepted the offer to get some ready-made meals. There are perks to being 70+. We're registered as one person, not two, because I do cook. It's just that the idea of receiving ready-made "restaurant meals" seemed irresistible. The meals are like TV Dinners or kosher airline meals with a bag of pre-washed salad.

The day after we received our first meals, we got two cartons of food staples, disposable eating utensils and a few dozen rolls of toilet paper.

As you can see there are lots of canned goods, and I almost never use canned food.

"Never say never."

Presuming that the cartons will arrive about monthly, I decided that our lunches will be based on the food we've received. Since I had baked sandwich rolls the day before, my husband got a tuna sandwich and I ate the other half of the can with cooked vegetables.

The following day I challenged myself to come up with a meal using the Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce. So I cut up an onion and two nice squashes and put the pieces in a pot, added the contents of the can plus some water.

After the vegetables were fully cooked, I served the "stew" with fresh salad, as you can see in the photo below. My husband also got a serving of pasta.


It was delicious,frugal and we ate much too much. This bean vegetable stew was easy to make, healthy and inexpensive. Call that a success, thank Gd.

Perfectly Simple Stuffed Squash

I'm not the "strictly plan a menu and shop" type of person. I decide what to cook according to what I have, or spontaneously when seeing something special in the shop.

So, when I saw these squashes, almost mini-pumpkins, which were just perfect for stuffing, I grabbed a couple. Then I got some ground turkey, even though ground beef or chicken could also be used. Years ago when I was the cook for the local day care center, we learned that turkey had more minerals than chicken and less fat than beef. It was highly recommended, so I started cooking with it more than before.

I mixed the ground turkey with diced onion, granulated garlic, dehydrated dill and a small container of tomato paste. That was it. Of course you can add whatever seasonings you like or have in your pantry.

With a strong knife I split the squash and emptied the halves of seeds. Then I stuffed them and baked on a Pyrex type of baking dish 180c (360f,) though any baking pan would do. I have a fan oven and turned it off when I could see that the meat was done and the squash "bubbly."

If you're serving the stuffed squash as a simple meal, just add a salad and carbohydrate, if you eat carbs. They also reheat very well.

Enjoy, and let me know if you've tried the recipe and how you changed it, thanks.

"One Pot Meal," Dairy Vegetable Kugel

Notice that I used a different, for me, shaped pan, so the frozen kugel will be easy to recognize in the freezer, without having to uncover them.

Since my husband and I found ourselves eating alone on the Shavuot holiday, when it's traditional to eat dairy meals, I tried to come up with practical foods.

I used this Dairy Vegetable Kugel as a side dish, but with the addition of a fresh salad, it (certainly the leftovers) makes a perfect and tasty "One Pot Meal." An additional advantage is that you can make more than one at a time and freeze them.

Ingredients:
1 package broad noodles, (you may use any pasta)
1 package cottage cheese
6 eggs
3 fresh mushrooms
1 large onion
1 squash
2 tomatoes
seasonings to taste
You can vary/change the vegetables to your liking and what you have in stock.

Instructions:

1. boil the broad noodles
2. while they're cooking cut of the vegetables
3. Put the vegetables, cottage cheese, eggs and cooking/rinsed noodles and a large bowl and mix. Add whatever seasonings you wish.
4. Pour the mixture in baking pans. Optional to line with baking paper.
5. Bake in moderate oven 160c or 320f until firm and "bubbly" on sides. 
6. that's it
7. serve with salad if you wish

I used to make a sweet version of it, adding fruit, apples, raisins rather than vegetables, seasoned with cinnamon and sugar.

Using Up Leftover Bread, Stuffed Chicken

To keep my weight down, not that I'm all that slim, I have to stay away from bread. We end up with the thick ends of bread, which my husband doesn't like for his sandwiches. So last week, I took four thick pieces of "standard" Israeli sliced/packaged bread and stuffed a chicken with it.

 As you can see, all I added to the bread was some water to soften, plus diced carrots and onion. You can spice it up or add other vegetables that will hold up to long cooking and have a lot of flavor, like celery.

Mix the bread, broken into small pieces, plus water and vegetables into a "mush." Stuff it into the whole chicken. If there's too much, then surround the chicken.

I baked the stuffed chicken in a large, deep dish. As you can see, I sprinkled lots of pepper, paprika and garlic on it.

For the first 40 minutes or so, I had the chicken covered with foil. For the final half hour or more I baked it uncovered, heat from top on turbo 210 degrees Centigrade, which is 410 Fahrenheit.

This is a very simple and tasty way to use up bread.

Delicious and Simple Passover Chicken Soup and Meal

This chicken soup with kneidlach, matzah balls, was the most delicious and super easy to make soup.

Before the Passover Seder, my main cooking contribution was to bring two types of kneidlach, regular and vegan kneidlach. This time when I boiled the kneidlach I used Chicken Broth.

First I prepared the kneidlach mixture, since it's supposed to sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Click Kneidlach.

Chicken broth is also, so simple to prepare. All I had to do was to boil the cleaned chicken until just cooked, not until crumbling and disintegrating in the liquid. Then I removed the chicken and refrigerated it.

When you're ready to make the kneidlach, boil the chicken stock and either roll the kneidel mush into balls, or just get two spoons ready to "drop" ball like pieces into the broth/stock.

While the broth/stock is boiling carefully drop/add the kneidlach. When all the "mush" is in the broth/stock, cover and lower the flame, so that it just simmers for about 40 minutes.

After they cool a bit, remove the kneidlach and refrigerate or freeze if you won't be using them for more than a few days. Or you can make a large quantity and just freeze some.

I brought them all to my daughter's for our family seder, but afterwards she gave me leftovers to take home. When serving at the seder, those who wanted kneidlach got them added to the soup she had made.

Yesterday I made a wonderful meal with the chicken and the stock and the kneidlach, plus my all time favorite oven-roasted vegetables.

To turn the stock/broth into a delicious chicken soup, I cut an onion, a couple of carrots,a parsley root and parsley leaves. I put them plus the kneidlach in the pot, added the stock and covered it. After the soup began to boil, I lowered the flame to simmer for about 40 minutes.

I carved the chicken and took two pieces, added some diced onion, seasoning and olive oil to another pot, covered and cooked on a low flame.

We had an amazingly delicious lunch. It was very easy to make. The soup was rich and didn't have a drop of salt.

Mango, Apple, Prune Compote - No Sugar

This amazingly sweet compote doesn't have a drop of added sugar. Actually, almost all of the ingredients had been found hiding in the freezer when I began checking what needed to be thrown out or eaten before Passover.

FYI mangos freeze amazingly well. I have the super simplest way of making Mango Sorbet with just frozen mangos. But the mango I found tucked into the bowels of my fridge freezer had possibly been hiding there too long for me to just eat it raw. It looked and smelled perfect.

When in doubt about the freshness and safety of a food, frequently, all you need to do is to boil it for awhile. So, I checked about using mangos in cooked comptes, and discovered that it is done.

The usual partner for the cooked mangos is apple, and I just happened to have some apple slices frozen solid in the freezer compartment, too. Since there weren't too many apple slices I cut up a nice green one to add to my compote. I also discovered a bag of a few prunes, which joined the mango and apples in the pot. All I needed to add was water.

Ingredients:

• mango
• apple
• prunes

Yes, that plus water. The compote was amazingly sweet just from those three ingredients. Of course you can vary by using raisins, pears or other fruit. But I had needed to finish off the mango, apple and prunes. 

Your can't get simpler, tastier or sweeter, and not a drop of added sugar.

Beer and Coffee Beef, Perfectly Delicious and Easy to Make

You may remember that I wasn't happy with the Malka "Stout" beer I had bought and even wrote that I saw it as the perfect addition to beef. Davka, that morning I had perked my coffee, and had some leftover, since the percolator is larger than even I need for my morning fix. So, I decided to google "beer, beef, coffee" to see if there were recipes or suggestions. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't going to actually follow a recipe; I just wanted to know if people cook their beef in those two delicious liquids. Apparently there is a whole genre of beef cooked in beer and coffee, so I got cooking!

Ingredients:
beef, one of the least expensive cuts from the freezer section
onion
fresh garlic
carrots
vegetable oil
stout beer* (any strong black beer would do)
strong coffee*

Directions:

1. soak beef in water for at least half hour, and then spill it in the sink
2. add vegetable oil to beef in pan
3. place on high flame to sear
4. turn over to sear all over
5. add cut onion and garlic
6. turn to expose garlic to hot oil
7. cut carrots, large-not small, and add to pot
8. pour in coffee and beer
9. add water** if liquid doesn't reach at least half way up
10. cover, cook on high flame until it reaches a boil, then lower flame to simmer.
11. Check periodically to see that there still is liquid. Add if necessary. 
12. Cook for at least an hour and a half, usually better if more. 

That's it. Beer and Coffee Beef is very easy to make. Don't be afraid to be creative. Potatoes or other long-cooking vegetables can be added to the carrots. Enjoy!

Tell me in the comments about how yours comes out or if you've ever made any beef dish that is similar.

*At least a half a cup of each, though even less would be ok; you can add water if there doesn't seem to be enough liquid.
**Most of the recipes I saw on google included tomato paste, so if you're afraid there won't be enough flavor/liquid from the beer and coffee you can add that or even tomato juice.

Simple Cooking: Using Up Bread/Challah - Stuffed Chicken

There are people who don't like to throw food out, and all sorts of kitchen and frugal experts suggest freezing or drying out leftover bread and challah to be used later. Two common usages for such bread are bread crumbs and croutons, neither of which I ever need.

Actually, I don't end up with much leftover bread or challah, since I don't buy bread much and only serve small home-baked challot or rolls on Shabbat and Jewish Holidays. Whatever is leftover is used for my husband's sandwiches when he goes to Jerusalem for the day. I supplement the leftovers with uneaten restaurant rolls, when out with friends.

But, davka, this year, close to Passover, when I must rid the house of bread I ended up with almost an entire store-bought white challah in the freezer. It had even been sliced for easy sandwich making, but I really didn't need it. I had decided to use what whole wheat flour was stored to make sandwich rolls, yes, to be blogged about in a couple of days, Gd willing.

Nu? What could I do with all that leftover challah? I decided to stuff a chicken for this Shabbat. I buy whole chickens, which is the most frugal there is here in Israel. Now that I think about it, cutting the chicken into the usual six pieces takes about as long as it took to make the stuffing. Yes, making bread-stuffing for chicken is really easy.

Since I hadn't stuffed a chicken in decades, I googled to make sure I remembered how. Then I just did what seemed right to me. Remember that pretty much everyone has different methods and recipes for various dishes, whether Chocolate Cake, Vegetable Soup or Stuffed Chicken, so you don't have to follow everything exactly. Cooking isn't Mathematics.

 1- Just before preparing your chicken for cooking, put the bread or challah in a bowl and add some water. Usually when I get the chicken ready to be cooked I pull out and throw away all the fatty pieces, but this time I kept them for the stuffing.

2- Squeeze out the water, either by putting the mush in a sieve and pressing down, or just by hand and tipping the bowl.
3- Add seasonings. Egg optional- I remember adding an egg, but since the recipes I saw didn't include it, I decided not to. You can use all fresh seasonings, all powdered or a combination. I used chopped onion then dehydrated dill (because I have a lot in the pantry,) pepper, paprika and garlic.

4- Place the chicken in the baking pan and then stuff it.

 5- Since I ended up with more stuffing than could fit in the chicken, I added it around the chicken. This solved a problem. The recipes had warned that wings and drumsticks could be burnt and should be protected with foil. By covering them with stuffing, they're safe. Also, contrary to all the recipes I saw, I don't tie, pin whatever the chicken together/closed. My chickens don't flap their wings and fly away when being baked/roasted.

6- Optional to top with sliced onions, carrots, peppers or whatever. I recommend using a bit of vegetable oil on top.

7- Start the baking with the chicken covered. Hot oven, just over 200C, about 400F. My oven is turbo, meaning has a fan, and I had the heat from the top. If you don't have a fan, then, I suggest cooking it longer. Depending on the size of your chicken*, it must bake at least an hour like that. When it seemed almost ready, I took off the foil and for the final 20-30 minutes, I baked it uncovered.

*Stage 1 of being fully cooked is when liquid quickly comes out if you pierce the chicken with a fork. When it reached that point, I uncovered it. Then once liquid was coming out on its own, I turned off the oven. There are online sites that give you charts for recommended cooking times according to weight of chicken and whether stuffed or not.

Simply Marvelous Apple Compote

Friday afternoon, I decided to make apple compote. I had hoped that it would distract me from eating cake on Shabbat for dessert.

First I cut up a bunch of apples, keeping the peels on, and put them in a pot. Then I added cinnamon bark, though the ground cinnamon would have been fine, too. For a bit more flavor and sweetness I added very little dark brown sugar.

While it was cooking, I got inspired and decided to add some pitted prunes.

Our guest and I absolutely loved it. My husband was happy with the cake and isn't a fruit lover.

The prunes added so much to the richness of the flavor, and to be honest, if you're adding prunes, leave out the sugar. BTW prunes have more flavor than raisins.

Now that I have four burners, bli eyin haraa, I ought to remember to make compote more often.

Ingredients
apples
prunes
cinnamon
dark brown sugar (optional)
water

Directions
slice apples, cutting out core
add cinnamon, prunes and optional sugar
other fruit, fresh and dried, can be included
water, almost to cover
cover pot
bring to boil then simmer until colors change
turn off flame
leave covered until it cools down

Eat warm or cold from fridge.

Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken

Usually I buy whole fresh chickens in Rami Levi (discount supermarket) every few weeks and put them in the freezer. I really find that they taste better than frozen ones sold locally. But when I went there to stock up on Monday morning, the whole chicken had a "last day to sell" for the same day I was there. I don't buy on "last day," since there's too much a chance that they just aren't fresh enough. The worker behind the counter refused to give me fresher ones from the back, so I checked out the chicken parts and discovered that the "bottoms," which are most popular in my family, were discounted, so that's what I bought. An additional advantage was that I didn't have to cut up the whole chicken into parts. I just separated/cut the leg/drumstick of the really large ones.

Now for my Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken recipe:
 Seasonings:

lemon slices, ground pepper, sweet paprika, garlic and cuzbara (Coriander, also known as cilantro or Chinese parsley)

Chicken, best cut into serving-size pieces, though you can use the same seasonings on a whole chicken or one cut "butterfly" or spatchcocking aka in half.

Bake uncovered in the oven about 220 degrees Centigrade (220°C × 9/5) + 32 = 428°F) with turbo fan going until it begins to look cooked, then lower to about 190 for another 10-15 minutes. It takes longer if you don't have a turbo oven. Remember that every oven is different, and different sorts of baking pans also affect temperature and cooking time.

Yes, it's that simple, and I don't add salt or any oils. Since I prepare my chicken in advance, I store the cooked chicken in containers in the refrigerator and include all of the natural juices/fats in the pan along with the chicken. I heat the chicken with the natural juices/fats, which have a lot of the flavor and richness.

Enjoy!

PS you can certainly vary the seasonings and add fresh ones, like onion, too.

Impressive, Easy Stuffed Vegetables

 One of the best and easiest dishes to prepare, if you want something "impressive," healthy and even limited in serving size is Stuffed Vegetables.

There was some chopped meat (about half a kilo, or over a pound) in the freezer I wanted to use, and I saw that some of the peppers in the fridge were getting soft, so I made a "shidduch."

I mixed the thawed meat with chopped onion, an egg, the "inside" of a couple of round squashes, about a half a cup of canned diced tomatoes and some garlic.

Then I filled/stuffed the waiting vegetables. I dabbed more diced tomatoes on top, added a bit of water and oil, covered it with foil and baked it in a hot oven. I considered it "ready" when the top looked cooked and there was liquid boiling on the bottom.

It was a great success and popular with everyone at the table.

Baked Vegetable Omelet

On Friday I had a Baked Vegetable Omelet. Since I had the oven going it seemed like a good idea to bake lunch, instead of using the stove top.

It's one of those things I couldn't even imagine doing before having my kitchen redone/renovated. I had spent the previous year without a functioning oven. Now, thank Gd, I have two turbo ovens, one for meat and the other parve, in which I can bake more than one thing at a time. Having two ovens makes a kosher kitchen very easy to cook in. We hardly eat anything dairy, so the second oven has remained parve, meaning neither meat nor dairy. I make lots of side dishes, fish, cakes and challot in it.

While vegetables for Shabbat were baking in the oven I took a smaller oven pan, covered it with baking paper, and then cut onion, squash, pumpkin, cabbage, tomato and two eggs. I topped it with a bit of vegetable oil, and then into the oven it went. Once I could see that the eggs looked cooked, I checked the vegetables with a fork, to see if they were soft. I don't pretime my cooking, since there are too many variables.

My lunch, Baked Vegetable Omelet, was delicious, and the pan didn't even get dirty.

Super Easy Way to Add Flavor to Meat/Fish/Poultry

There are two condiments that almost everyone has in their kitchens, catsup and mustard. Adding them to your cooking is the simplest, easiest way to add flavor to meat, fish, poultry and other foods.

I know that they all have additives, salt and sugar, but most recipes ask you to add those evils separately. There are times when even the most "natural health" cooks, like yours truly, need to cheat.

The other day when I was in a big rush to cook a couple of meals before leaving home, I put a couple of spoons of mustard and squirts of catsup on this chicken breast vegetable dish before putting it in the oven (covered) for baking. The result was stupendous, delicious, just perfect.

Sometimes we all need shortcuts. I draw the line at powdered soup mixes, jam and straight sugar. Even salt is rarely used for cooking in my kitchen. And when I use salt in soup and kugels, it's coarse, not table salt. What are your little cooking "cheats?" Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Black Beer Beef, So Simple

From the same person who brought the orange juice I used for cooking the easy to cook Turkey Wings, I got some non-alcoholic black beer, which also needs to be used up. So, I decided to cook  it with the chunk of beef, which has been waiting in the freezer.

After thawing the beef and soaking it in water a bit, I did my usual stage one, adding it with some cooking oil* in a pot along with onion and fresh garlic. Then I added the beer, till it reached about a third way up the beef, a few peppercorns and covered. When it reached a boil, I lowered the flame so it would simmer a couple of hours.

That's it. It's that easy.

My plan is to serve it on the Eve of Simchat Torah, since it has a "gravy" and can stay safely on the platta, Shabbat/Holiday electric heater, until we're ready to eat. Other dishes are riskier.

*cooking oil, I cook with soy oil, even though many people nowadays prefer canola or olive oil or one of the many others available. Cook with whichever you prefer and can easily buy.

Easy Recipes and Enjoying The New Kitchen

Yesterday we had guests for a Succot lunch. They had been great fans of my new kitchen during the years I just talked and complained. I got a lot of support from them, so it was very exciting to host them. I served a fish meal, mujadarra, eggplant, baked vegetables, salad and salmon.

Mujadarrah:
1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils
small/medium onion cut
a bit of cooking oil of your choice
4 1/2 cups boiling water

Put all but water in pot, saute a bit, then add boiling water, cover, bring to boil, lower to a simmer until you can't see any water. Leave covered at least another 10 minutes. Serve.

"Impressive" Eggplant:
eggplant
tomatoes
onion
fresh garlic
vegetable oil

Slice eggplant partially, so it opens like a book.
Fill with sliced tomato. Sprinkle diced onion and garlic, then oil. Bake in medium-high (or whatever is recommended by your oven manufacturer) oven until cooked.

"Fancy" Salmon:
Filet of salmon
lemon slices
fresh garlic
mustard
Decorate your salmon. Wrap in foil, if you're baking it at the same time as the other dishes, so it won't overcook. Otherwise just bake in a medium-high (or whatever is recommended by your oven manufacturer) oven until it seems ready. You can check that the salmon has changed color and is flaky where thickest. Yes, it's that simple.

I enjoyed the meal and hope everyone else did, too.

PS It was so much fun being able to cook so quickly. I could fit all three baked dishes in the oven at the same time. I love my new kitchen!!