A New Recipe, Low Fat Chicken

 

Let's start at the very beginning....

A couple of weeks ago there was a sale on "chicken breasts" in our local supermarket, so I bought a couple of packages. A lot of people use them to pan or "oven fry" as schnitzels, but not me. Quite often I separate them and cut and bake with lots of vegetables, sort of like "stir fry," but neither stirred nor fried. In the meantime, I stored them in the freezer.

As our table was "filling" with expected guest for Shabbat lunch, I realized that I had to cook something else as main course for me and my husband for Friday Night. Friday morning I took the "chicken breasts" out of the freezer to thaw planning on cooking just enough for the two of us. As the cooking deadline approached I realized that the chicken was still frozen solid. I managed to break off half, but they fillets couldn't be separated at all.

I put the "chicken breasts" in a glass-like baking pan, so I'd be able see if it's cooking later on. I added onion, tomato, red pepper, mushroom plus a bit of oil and coarse black pepper. Covered with foil it started baking at 200C with the heat coming from below. After I could see bubbling "oil" I switched the oven heat to "top." 

Once I was almost 100% certain that it was fully cooked I took it out of the oven and sliced it to check that it was white and not pink. If it had looked raw, I would have returned it to the oven for more cooking.

My low fat chicken was super tasty, and since I had cooked more than needed, we have a couple of servings left over.

One Bowl Meal Salad, Easy to Prepare

 

You can see almost all the ingredients here:

onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and canned peas

What you don't see is the olive oil, pepper and a bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

You can substitute cooked or canned lentils or beans for the peas and even add canned tuna, or whatever.  You can also add other vegetables to the salad, like leeks or red pepper, fennel or whatever suits your fancy or you have waiting impatiently in the fridge. 

I'd love to know what version you make. Let me know in the comments, thanks.

Mango Memories & No Work Mango "Sorbet"

I think I ate my first mango in London.

We were there for two years in the mid-1970's. All sorts of imported "exotic" fruits and vegetables were available in Golders Green. Many were even from Israel. My Cousin Fran from Brooklyn visited us one winter day and brought a big bag of delicious fruit as a house gift:

"I figured that this was the best of kosher food for you, especially since I don't know what's kosher here."

Back to the mango:
Mango, avocado, artichoke and other Israeli staples weren't seen in New York when I was growing up. Certainly they weren't in our neighborhood stores, and my parents were pretty adventurous when it came to trying new foods.

It's not that mango wasn't for sale in Israel. During our early years in Israel, I was happy with the better than in New York standard high quality summer fruit like melon, watermelon, bananas and peaches. Davka, those weren't all that great in London. Imported lost some of the quality I had gotten used to.

I had read about the high healthy vitamin content in a mango so I bought some. They were a hit with me and our daughters, especially with the fussy eater. Mangoes are expensive, so I never used to buy them very often.

Now, when I buy mangoes for myself, I use them to "make sorbet."

• freeze ripe mango
• remove frozen mango from freezer
• thaw enough to cut slices
• eat
• One of my sons takes the chunks of frozen mangoes, mashes them by hand or in food processor and refreezes to serve more impressively as "sorbet."

Can anything be easier or more delicious?

Bonus:Totally healthy and no added sugar!

"One Pot" Meal, Fish and Vegetables

There was a time when I planned on writing a cookbook. I thought of calling it "The Lazy Cook Cookbook," because I don't like complicated food preparation. This "One Pot" Meal of Fish and Vegetables served over simple cooked salad is so typical of the my sort of cooking.

This "One Pot" Meal of Fish and Vegetables can actually look quite impressive if you bake it in a nice dish. The colors can be stunning. Use any of the following ingredients or others. There's no real "right or wrong." Not all the ingredients are included in this version. Please let me know how your version came out, thanks.

Ingredients: 
fish, filet or whole fish
onion
sweet potato
squash
pumpkin
eggplant
potato
fresh garlic
cabbage
beets
zucchini
lemon or just some juice

Layer in your baking dish. To keep the fish moist, cover with onion or squash. Dribble a bit of vegetable oil before baking 190 Centigrade/380 Fahrenheit. 

Check that vegetables are soft and fish fully cooked before taking it out of the oven. Enjoy

Easy to Make, Healthy Salad, Mostly From Cans

Yes, I call this salad "Easy to Make, Healthy Salad, Mostly From Cans." And it's not an oxymoron.

It can also be titled Corn, Bean and Tomato Salad, Corona Lock-down Recipe #4, because the canned food was delivered to us as part of the senior citizen care package at the height of the corona lock-down. Following are the first three recipes I developed with canned food from the carton:

• Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1
• Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2
• "Sauerkraut Salad," Corona Lock-down Recipe #3

If you had inspected my pantry before getting these COVID-19 "care packages," you'd have found almost no cans, not even tomato paste. The few cans would have been "food gifts" from the Purim mishloach manot. But suddenly I found myself with all sorts of canned food and decided to make up recipes.

This salad is also a great vegetarian-vegan "one pot meal." It contains protein plus raw and cooked vegetables. Of course you can substitute different types of beans and vegetables and add more fresh salad. Just looking at it you can probably guess almost all of the ingredients:

canned corn
canned white beans
diced tomato
diced onion
coarsely ground pepper
dehydrated dill
dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice

Yes, that's it. Think of the recipe more as inspiration than an exact recipe. Try it, and tell me how yours turned out and how you varied it. Enjoy in good health.

"Sauerkraut Salad," Corona Lock-down Recipe #3

This is the third 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
Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2

When I was putting away the cans, my head/mind kept trying to figure out what to do with them. Waste was not an option. Normally there's almost no canned food in my pantry, other than cans we received on Purim from others. But I believe that I must use these gifts, so I've been trying to figure out recipes.

Sauerkraut? Gevalt! That was never on our menu. Apparently sauerkraut is very healthy. Since simplicity is one of the hallmarks of my cooking or food preparation, I decided to add some to a salad. After half a century here in Israel, salad means minimally cucumbers and tomatoes. So I added  a few spoonfuls of sauerkraut. Yes, it's that simple.

Sauerkraut Salad

Yes, easy to prepare, healthy and surprisingly tasty, too.

"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.