Attractive, Easy to Make Healthy Shabbat or Anytime Food

Bake and serve dishes are favorites for my Shabbat Menu. Here are a couple of Attractive, Easy to Make Healthy Shabbat dishes you may like. I'm vague about quantities and ingredients, because I don't measure, and I also don't obsess about having specific ingredients. That's my approach to cooking:

• be flexible, spontaneous
• don't obsess

When I have an oven, not something I take them for granted*, baked vegetables are on the menu. I have a variety of bake and serve oven pans, so that even the simplest of baked vegetables can look very fancy.

The photo on the right shows "orange vegetables," baked with just a bit of cinnamon and oil. On a "bed" of onion slices, no need to cut exact anything, I placed carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkin in that order. I bake them in a medium oven, heat from the bottom, until they look baked and are soft.

Tonight's main course is pretty much a "one pot meal," besides being "bake and serve." It doesn't include any carbohydrates, so if you eat carbs, have them on the side with salad.

I layered onion and squash, maybe eggplant, too, on the bottom of the baking pan. I used chopped/minced turkey (500 gram, just over a pound) with onion and a small 100 gram container of tomato paste, plus garlic.

Spread the turnkey on top, with a large spoon and then, as you can see, top with fresh tomatoes. I then added just a spoon or so of vegetable oil and then baked it in a medium oven, heat on top, until it drew from the sides of the pan.

You can substitute ground meat, beef, chicken or a combination. Consider it a version of a meatloaf or musaka.

Cooking should be enjoyable and creative.

Shabbat Shalom UMevorach

Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

*During the year before our kitchen was renovated, we didn't have a functioning oven.

Absolutely Delicious: Meatloaf Plus!

For Shabbat lunch I made something that's more meatloaf than moussaka. It's so easy to make and great heated on the electric hotplate. And you can make it for any occasion, and of course you don't have to be Jewish...

Very simple:

• Layer the bottom of the baking dish (diameter of mine is about 26cm = 10inches*) with slices of eggplant.
• Mix 2 lbs or just under a kilo of chopped/ground beef/chicken/turkey or a combination with a diced onion, tomato paste/concentrate, a couple of eggs and garlic.
• Spread the meat mixture on the eggplant, and then decorate with more eggplant slices and some sliced tomato.
• Bake in hot oven loosely covered with foil until you can see that the meat has moved from the edge of the pan, and liquid is visible, like a moat. 

It also freezes well and has no carbohydrates at all.

*Adjust quantity to the size of your baking dish.

No Carb Lasagna

OK, I admit that it sounds a bit like an oxymoron, since we all know that lasagna is basically a pasta dish in which you layer the large pasta pieces with anything from vegetables to meat. But the main course I made for tomorrow's lunch, aka Shabbat morning, sticks to the layering, but instead of pasta, I used vegetables. You can also consider this a version of moussaka.

So, for the simple instructions, I simply layered the bottom of the baking pan with eggplant. Then I added the chopped meat mixed with tomato paste, chopped onion, garlic and an egg (for easier mixing.) Then I topped it off with squash.

Yes, it's that simple. I baked it until you can see the meat leaving the sides of the pan and smelling great. This heats very easily and can also be frozen.

This is really easy to make, and as you see, with a bake and serve pan, I'm saving on dishwashing, muss and fuss.

This can be called a fancy meatloaf, too. It's all in the labeling...

Meat for Meatloaf, Moussaka, Lasagna etc:
Can be doubled, tripled, halved etc, of course.

• about a pound and a third- I used 600 gram- chopped meat
• 1 medium onion, cut into small pieces
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup tomato concentrate  (of course you can use fresh, but I was in a rush)
• generous sprinkling of  granulated garlic (of course you can use fresh, but I was in a rush)

Yes, it's that simple, very healthy and always delicious. Beef is tastier than ground chicken IMHO, but some people prefer chicken. If you can get ground turkey, that's good too. 

I don't buy packaged ground meat, of any type. I watch the guy grinding it in the machine, since the packaged usually has additives and junk.

More than "Just a Meatloaf"

This is the meatloaf I served to guests Shabbat lunch.

It was very easy to make and meatier than musaka. The layer of squash and pepper on top make it fancier and more impressive. There's also a layer of squash underneath.

Here's what's in the meatloaf:

• 800 grams (2 pounds) of chopped meat
• diced onion
• diced garlic, a few pieces, but you can use whatever dried garlic you want if you don't have any fresh
• small container/half cup tomato concentrate, the 28% paste
• 2 eggs

Mix it all up, and put in your baking pan. I had a layer of cut squash underneath, but that's optional. Eggplant makes a good base, too. If you want to serve on a different dish, not the baking pan, then I recommend lining your pan with baking paper for easy removal and cleaning. Sliced tomatoes or onions also look nice on top. The important thing is color contrast, so it doesn't blend into the brown of the meat.

Bake in a hot oven until the meatloaf moves from the side of the pan. Then lower the heat a bit and keep baking. Make sure that the middle is cooked before removing it from the oven. You can cover with foil if the top is ready before the middle.

 

Of course, for me, the best thing about it is that it's a "bake and serve" dish, which I always love to make.

And if you try the recipe, please let me know how it came out and how you varied it. Thanks

New Pan, New Recipe

When my cousin visited on Pesach, she gave me a ceramic baking dish. I decided to use it for cooking meat. I like the idea of one nice-looking dish for both the cooking and serving, and this one looked just perfect, very classic, white and deep enough for just about anything.

As you can see, first I put cut vegetables around the edge, just some carrots and simple green squash.

Then I added chopped "meat," actually chicken, not beef, mixed as for a meatloaf. That means an onion, cut small, some tomato paste, an egg and whatever spices you like. I don't add salt.

I decorated it all with some simply sliced onions. Use what you have, like etc. Then I baked it in a hot oven until it seemed well-enough cooked.

This can be a very filling, impressive, fancy diet meal. Just serve it with a salad. For those who can handle the starch, add potatoes to "decorate." Sweet potatoes are also good.

Like most of my recipes, variations are totally flexible. You can make individual servings if you have the right size and quantity of baking pans.

I'd love to know how you've played with it, your successful and less so variations. You can update me in the comments.

Enjoy!

ps thanks "h"