Pareve and decadent peanut-butter cookie dough truffles–EASY!

It may not be summer yet, but we’ve had a few days so far that have really hinted that it’s on its way.  And for summer Shabboses, what’s really nice is an easy no-bake dessert that isn’t tremendously patchkedik (involved, preparation-wise).

These truffles capture the “cookie dough” vibe perfectly – they’re soft inside and not too sweet for a grown-up palate, but not too peanut-buttery and healthy-tasting (okay, they’re not healthy at all!) that kids will turn up their noses.  In other words, they’re just right.  And you can make them with just FIVE things you probably have sitting around your kitchen the week after Pesach – at least, I did.

Spatchcocking a chicken for Pesach: the secret to moist, juicy, kosher chicken

Has this ever happened to you?  You’ve been cooking up a storm, roasting a chicken, which fills up the house with all kinds of delicious fragrances while it's cooking, and then you bite into the chicken and...

AAAAAACK!!!!  Dry!  Dry!  Dry!

There are some things that taste as good as they smell.  But chicken is often not one of them.  Dry chicken is like the eleventh plague of Pesach.  (Just tying this in here to keep it seasonal!)

And whole roast chicken is the WORST, hands-down.  The breast (my grandmother used to call it the "keel" to be polite, but I don't know if this ever caught on) is up there, proud and tall (we've bred our chickens to be built like this), while the lesser thighs (lots of kosher stores call them “backs” to be polite) bask in all the juices and generally turn out okay.  (This is the bit I usually eat.)

Another problem with roasting a whole chicken?  By the time the thighs (way down at the bottom) are done, the breast (way up at the top) is overdone.  We do all sorts of desperate things to prevent dryness in our chicken.  Cooking it upside-down.  Cooking it in bags.  With fruit.  Sticking a beer can up inside.

Any cook worth her salt will tell you that if you want things to cook evenly, you should make them all about the same size and ensure that they are in even contact with the heat source (in this case, the heat source is the hot air of the oven).  Flat things cook better than misshapen lumpy things like a whole chicken.  If only we could change the basic shape of a chicken!

Oh, wait, there is.  There’s one quick and easy fix to the dry whole “wrong-shaped for cooking chicken” dilemma:  spatchcocking.

Spatchcocking (I think it’s also known as “butterflying”? – or maybe it should be) will…

• Give you a flat, evenly-shaped bird
• Cook your whole chicken faster
• Ensure even cooking, so no parts are over- or undercooked

There is one caveat, however: it's not for the squeamish. If you like to upend your chicken into a pan and pretend it was never part of an animal (let alone a whole animal unto itself), then this is not the prep style for you.

Delicious, delightful, Kosher for Pesach soup lokshen (noodles)

Around here, it’s not truly Pesach cooking season until the soup lokshen are ready.  Each year, this is how I inaugurate my brand-new, shiny-clean Pesach kitchen.

(What?  Yes, I’m still going on about Pesach… when do you want me to blog about Pesach, DURING Pesach?  Before Pesach??  Oy.  This was the first chance I’ve had to breathe, and post this, in nearly a month.)

This year, I mentioned to a friend that I was getting ready to make the lokshen, and she said, “what?”

It turns out that not everybody makes Pesach lokshen… go figure.

It’s exactly like making blintzes during the year, except you leave out the flour.  And because blintz leaves are mainly flour, you have to add a LOT more egg.  This bowl has maybe ten eggs in it.

What’s the exact recipe?  You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve never written it down.  Here are all the components:

• 10 eggs (Large)
• Several Tbsp of oil
• About 1/4 cup of potato starch
• Salt and pepper
• Some water but not enough to make it too runny (probably about 1/4-1/2 cup?)

If you make enough blintzes during the year, you’ll probably be able to get the hang of making this batter – just add enough water to make it feel like regular blintz batter.  For whatever reason, I always end up mixing this with an old-fashioned egg beater, literally the only time of year that I do that.

I also have a special nonstick crepe pan, and it’s the only time of year that I voluntarily use a nonstick pan.  It just works so, so well for this exact purpose.  Way better than a regular frying pan or skillet would, because there’s no side to get caught on when you’re tipping the blintz off.

So here are the steps, a little wonky and out of order.  (On the back burner, by the way, is a pot of ready-for-the-Seder chicken soup bubbling away!)

1.  Mix your mixture (see above)

2.  With a ladle, pour a thin layer onto hot crepe pan, swirling pan until covered – immediately pour off excess back into bowl.

  

3.  When the leaf is done, tip it upside-down onto a cutting board or plate to cool.

How to turn humble onions into sweet, savory magic: caramelize them.

Want a secret weapon in your cooking arsenal that you can pull out anytime to make anything taste better?

One that can make the difference between a dish that's good and a dish that's fabulous?  Between so-so and WOW?  A secret ingredient you can toss into almost anything, because it's totally pareve and versatile?

No, it’s not a dream.

Yes, this magic ingredient exists... and it's onions - the caramelized kind.

Is it magic?  Or science?

Onions are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  When they're raw, they're hard, sharp, with a nasty sting that makes your eyes tear up.  But when caramelized, they're soft, mellow, sweet and... well, full of all that caramelly goodness.

The word "caramelization" refers to the browning that happens in the onion's sugars.  Sugar in an onion?  You betcha.  Even the most humble yellow onions have plenty of sugar, and the special sweeter varieties like Vidalia have even more.

Did you know that you can actually caramelize onions in the crock pot? 

My mother’s secret pralines: turn ordinary pecans into… magic

I have the secret!

But you have to swear you won’t tell.  These are my mother’s top-secret recipe, which was my grandmother’s top-secret recipe before that… which may not not really be all that secret after all.

I wish I had a great picture to show you, but believe me, these turn out looking beautiful.  Every time I make them, they go so quickly that there’s no chance to take a picture.

So now, like me, you can make Pralined Pecans (or pralined almonds, as I did during Pesach) any day… or any night! Anytime, really. They are super super easy. And they always turn out well, despite my occasional neglect – crystally and nice and nostalgic.

Ready? Here goes!

Three Magical Ingredients!

• 1/2 lb whole pecans [about 2 cups] - I don't know what she means by WHOLE pecans - I use raw (unroasted, unsalted) pecan halves
• 1/4 cup water [or sherry, my mother says]
• 1/2 cup sugar

Linzer Tart, gluten free by Paula Shoyer (shh... it’s Kosher for Passover too)

Planning for Pesach yet?

No???  Why the heck not?

Oh, yeah... because it's January.  Then again, when better to test out recipes so your family doesn't have to live with those thrown-together first-time "experiments" when yom tov rolls around?

And if you think of it as the most incredible gluten-free pie crust you've ever seen, EVER, then it becomes a little easier (so to speak) to swallow.

Plus, hey, who doesn't love a new cookbook?  Especially when, like Maryland mom Paula Shoyer's brand-new The New Passover Menu, it's a totally user-friendly experience, complete with prep times, cook times, hints for advance prep and freezing... plus, get this:  equipment lists. 

Yes!  A cookbook writer who GETS what it's like to work in a bare-bones Pesach kitchen, not sure if you have a pareve sieve or not.  (Though she recommends that everybody run out to buy a waffle iron for Pesach, which may not be the most practical suggestion ever.)

I discovered Shoyer through an invitation to watch her cook in the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.  Who could I resist an invite like this?  (Not me!)

Annual "not-always-homeschool" matzah bake.

So the one thing that apparently never changes is – I forgot to take pictures of the finished matzah.  Some years, I do; others, I just get so distracted and carried away by that point in the festivities that… well, I don’t.

(previous years’ Matzah Bake posts:  5773, 5772, 5771, 5770 (just us, no friends))

Like everything this year, it was both weird and bittersweet.  I’ll be honest:  I don’t like kids that much.  I mean, before you slam the browser shut, you should know up front:  I LOVE baking with kids.  But I don’t like kids that aren’t mine, even the nicest ones, and all my closest friends know it.

So when I invite “kids” over for matzah baking… yeah, there is the element of having fun and playing with dough.  But you can be sure it’s also my main “social thing” for the day / week and perhaps year.  Here, apparently nobody gets that.  Instead, we got two kids we kind of know, bigger boys than I’ve baked with before (but that’s okay; big boys are sometimes suckers for this kind of stuff!), and two random friends they brought along, off the street, perhaps.

(Two random friends baking matzahs.)

The catch is – the two random friends don’t really speak English.  The boy kind of knows some words.  The girl, not at all.

So I ended up doing the whole thing pretty much in Hebrew, with the help of the biggest boy in the red shirt at my right.  In general, it was okay, except for needing to be taught certain Crucial Vocabulary Words, like rolling pin, flat, and “stuck to the table,” several times over.

But I had a great concept for this year’s matzah bake, given that the kids were older than I’ve had before, and the homeschooler in me totally wants to share it.  Instead of just baking matzahs, I decided to do a Baking Science Experiment.  (“Hayom, anachnu madanim”… “Today, we are scientists.”  “How do you say experiment???”)

In order to do a Science Experiment, you need a Critical Question to investigate – in this case, “how are chametz and non-chametz doughs different?”

And you need at least two Experimental Things to test, preferably with only one small difference that allows you to investigate the Critical Question.  So I decided to let the kids work with OLD DOUGH and NEW DOUGH to see which was easier to work with. 

I told them we were going to make a SLOW DOUGH and a FAST DOUGH.

First, I explained the 3 steps we’d use for both:  1) Make the dough, 2) Roll the dough, 3) Bake the dough.

Then, we jumped right in. 

1.  The slow dough was first.  I gave each kid half a cup of flour in a bowl and added a bit of water.  They had as much time as they wanted to knead it into a nice dough (“batzek yafeh” – it took a few tries for me to stop saying “batzak” and “betzek”!).  Once they each had a dough, we stuck it in a baggie – SLOW DOUGH done and resting (ha batzak nach).

Happily, the “slow dough” gave us a good practice run at making the dough before it was time to make the “non-chametz” 18-minute matzah dough.  NOTE TO SELF:  No matter how they beg, do NOT allow children to wash their hands in between batches!!!

2.  Now it was time for the FAST DOUGH.  This was the one that would be timed, so we could try to finish in 18 minutes.  I doled out more half-cups of flour, we started the timer, and OFF.  Except for the youngest, everybody had a nice dough made pretty quickly.  This time, we rolled it out right away (yay for last year’s rolling pins!), poked it with a fork and popped it into the oven.

So the question on all of your minds, I’m sure, is… Did we finish in time?  Well, some things never change.  The matzahs were ALMOST ready by the time our 18 minutes was up.  At that point, I turned on the convection and they promptly crisped up, probably 2-3 minutes late.

No, we didn’t make it within 18 minutes.

But that wasn’t our goal – our goal here was Scientific Discovery.

So while the FAST DOUGH baked, it was time to pull out the SLOW DOUGH again for Step 3.

3.  Time to bring back the SLOW DOUGH out of the baggies (happily, we wrote names on each baggie).  I held up mine in triumph to show them the truth of chametz vs matzah:  it’s not about yeast (as everyone thinks), it’s not about baking soda (huh?), it’s not really about air and “puffing up” – it’s about fundamental chemical changes in wheat flour once it has rested in contact with water for more than 18 minutes.

The dough was perfect.  After it had rested for a while in the baggie, I let the kids touch it and pull it to see that it truly was stretchier than the FAST DOUGH that they’d just worked with.  Then, I gave them theirs to roll out, hole punch, and we baked those up as well.  There wasn’t much difference in the baked end results… but I hope the significant difference in workability in the SLOW DOUGH made an impact.

If you wanted to extend this scientific concept, by the way, for a complete lesson in chametz and matzah, you could try it with different grains.  Corn meal, for instance, probably won’t do much of anything even if you soak it. 

You could also test if these changes apply to all the “five grains” (wheat, oats, barley, rye, spelt) that are considered true grains in Jewish tradition (I suspect they wouldn’t to oats and rye, since they have very little gluten; not sure about barley).

Or, you could do like I did and schmear your matzahs with butter and salt and chow down, thankful to be here in Israel even if I do miss my “regular crowd” terribly much, even if I am surrounded by kids who don’t understand me or my experiments (okay, that one isn’t really new!).

Thankful to be free at this Season of Freedom.

Whether you’re making it yourself or just chowing down on your matzah, have a happy and kosher Pesach… from the entire BreadLand crew!!!

Schlissel challah: Witchcraft, divination or… good clean bread-based fun?

In answer to the question in the title… well, my vote is with the latter (cast yours below in the Comments section!). 

When I posted a reminder on facebook last night to think about including a key in the first post-Pesach challahs (see this old post to find out why), somebody posted a link to this article (“Shlissel Challah – The Loaf of Idolatry?”) and someone else recommended this one (“Serious Segulah or Pagan Piffle?”). 

One person wrote, “the origins of shlissel challah is completely avodah zarah [idol worship].”  Ouch.  One commenter in a thread of one of the posts above wrote that a prominent rav “called this shlissel challah minhag "ridiculous", a violation of nichush [divination], and told his wife not to "dare" do it.”

I read the articles – really, I did.  I love fascinating new information.  I love controversy.

The first article (“Loaf of Idolatry?”) made me sad, partly because his article claims to be all scholarly but he doesn't really prove his point at all.  It’s full of footnotes and nicely formatted, but it mainly lacks substance.  Just because Christians did it did something in Europe doesn't mean they started it (he says that they did it, but not that we didn't).  As one commenter pointed out, we do have (and I had seen but then forgotten) bread stamps from the time of the 2nd bais hamikdash.

As for the charge of nichush [divination], this is totally NOT the intention of that prohibition, which (in my limited understanding) is more against auguring by natural signs.  Like whether, if a rodent sees its shadow, winter will end sooner, or later, or whatever.  We’re not allowed to say the ending of winter has anything whatsoever to do with the cloud conditions over Punxsutawny Phil.

The author of the first paper (“Loaf of Idolatry!”) also claims those who use a key view "a die-cut piece of brass as an intermediary between them and the Almighty." Just so you know where he’s coming from.

There’s a reflex these days, in the religious community, against doing anything that smacks of “what the goyim do.”  I was even told at one point that it might not be such a good idea to decorate our houses with greenery at Shavuos (a well-documented and longstanding tradition) because it’s too similar to the Christian practice of bringing a tree and garlands into the house in December.

In the case of this article, I remain unconvinced.

That said…

I am most definitely against placing too much faith in segulos [auspicious deeds or objects], which has been way abused, if frum magazine ads are any indication.  There are always people willing to prey on the gullible or desperate by selling “charms” in various forms. 

But if you think of the key as an object to help us focus our kavannah [intentions] at a particular time of year... I say yea… and yay (cuz it involves bread, which I love)!

There’s a BIG difference in mindset between thinking, "this holy key will 'unlock' my income!" and thinking, "I hope this key symbolizes good things to come" (presumably with effort and prayer).  To me, this is a lot like what we do with various symbolic foods at Rosh Hashanah.

Israeli blogger Ester from Kosher & Frugal DID post a sensible warning we should all keep in mind: 

“Keys are often made of metals than can leach out into food if baked.” 

More from Ester: 

Transform Pesach brownies into… something else

If your family is sick of Pesach brownies, or never liked them in the first place, or you’re looking for something a little shmancier, why not turn regular brownies into… well, this little compact-brownie terrine-thing that I don’t have a name for? 

(If after reading this post you know what it’s called, please leave a comment letting me know!)

It reminds me of those 5-layer Pesach bar cakes that you can buy for ridiculous prices in stores… only much, much cheaper.

I use two cast-iron loaf pans, which is nice because they’re heavy, thick and sturdy, but I imagine any two pans the same size will work.  (cast iron is also nice because it kashers for Pesach nice n’ easy when I self-clean the oven…).

This is not so much a recipe as a technique I hope will inspire you to great heights of deliciousness.

• You may want to line your loaf pan with plastic wrap before you begin for ease of removal.  I forgot – doh!
• Bake two square pans of Pesach brownies (recipe below, or Ester has a good one at her Frugal and Kosher blog).
• Cut brownies in half and place one half in the bottom of the loaf pan. 
• Brownies may crumble; that’s okay.  Just spread the pieces out evenly and squish any crumbles in to fill the cracks.  It’s okay if it looks a bit messy; it will hold together after hours of compaction.  (is that a real word???)
• Sprinkle brownie layer with kosher l’Pesach liqueur.  Any flavour you like will probably work – I used chocolate.
• Top with another brownie half.
• Spread with melted seedless jam – I like raspberry.
• Top with another brownie half and top that with liqueur one more time.
• Cover with plastic wrap and add second pan.  Weight it down and leave it for several hours (or overnight?).
• Remove from pan if it comes out easily – if it doesn’t, leave it in the pan and slice/serve it from there.
• When it’s done, you can melt chocolate and spread a hard coating on the outside to make it more like the cakes you buy in the store.

   

Brownies Recipe (copied & pasted from this thread)

These are fudgy and gooey in the middle and always a big hit. You can never have enough. They are best served with vanilla ice cream.

1 cup oil

4 eggs

2 cups sugar (I used 1 3/4)

1/2 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon vanilla (don’t have vanilla yet – drat)

1 cup cocoa

1 bag (2 cups) chocolate chips (I used only 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and pour into a 9-inch round or square baking pan. Bake for about 30 to 45 minutes – until top is cracked.

Okay – you’ve read the recipe.  What would you call this dessert????

Annual Homeschool Matzah Bake 5773/2013

Once again, we had some friends over for what’s become an annual pre-Pesach ritual:  home matzah baking!   Not kosher-le-Pesach, of course, but still… fun.

Recalling pitfalls from previous years, I vowed to:

• have enough rolling pins this year (everybody wants to roll!)*
• mix the dough by hand (no mixer – too sticky and, surprisingly, slower)
• no pasta roller – it produces more professional results but also, surprisingly, slower

(previous years’ posts:  5772, 5771, 5770 (just us, no friends))

I also pre-measured the flour and water, so each bowl had 1 cup of flour, with 1/3 of a cup of water standing by to pour in.

*NOTE:  To make sure I had enough rolling pins, I went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a 4-foot dowel (maybe 1.25” diameter?) and had them slice it into 4.  With a bit of sandpaper, a good washing, and a final oiling step, I had four perfectly useable kid-size rolling pins, for maybe $7-8.  (I did try Dollarama first but they had no rolling pins of any description, and I certainly didn’t want to end up with those horrid plastic ones.)

 

With the kids, I talked about all the yummy things we put into challah… like eggs, sugar, honey, oil, yeast, salt.  Mmm!  And then I told the kids – we don’t use ANY of that in matzah.  It’s like the opposite of tasty bread.

I also showed them what flour is made of – not just wheat flour, but all five of the grains that are traditionally considered “chametz” at Pesach time.  I expanded the “chametz museum” from last year’s edition a little bit by going to Noah’s (natural food store nearby) and buying 10-35 cents’ worth of each of wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt, in as whole a form as I could find (they only had rye flour):

Naomi was dressed for the occasion in her brand-new apron from Uncle Richard.  She didn’t plan her outfit – everything just happened to co-ordinate perfectly.  Me with my Martha Stewart daughters… sheesh.

 

And then… well, the next little while was a blur, but eventually (not within 18 minutes, because my oven was broken; yay, the guy came to fix it this afternoon!), we all had some yummy black-bean spread on the matzah we’d made by hand.

 

And then… we did it all over again with another friend in the afternoon!

  

Happy Pesach, world!!!  Best wishes for a kosher and wonderful yom tov.

Love from the entire MamaLand administration, staff and volunteers (namely me).

Note:  for a full recipe and further instructions, you can visit Amital’s blog here.  Thanks for sharing your link!

Happy Baking Moment

Last Shabbos, Ted made brownies from a mix… and Sara came over and decorated it, all professional-like:

 

Happy happy chometz, nestled in its parchment… little suspecting Pesach is on its way!