Gift of Apples II -- Roasted Apple Sauce with Warm Spices and a Childhood Memory



I've written before about the gift of the bag of apples from our friends the Gombergs.  The bounty they shared (it must have been more than 25 pounds) was astounding and I had several reactions.  The first was gratitude. I was so delighted that they thought to give us some. The next was a personal challenge -- how many ways I could I use the fruit and what recipes could I create.  The last and most surprising was the memory the apples stirred.

It is not even a real memory or my own memory. It is a memory of mother's.  She once told me that when I was about two she, dad, my grandparents and I went to an apple orchard in upstate New York.  Supposedly, I lifted up a full bushel of apples and hoisted it in the air. Perhaps I even walked a few steps with it.  There are no photos of me doing this, only this hazy memory from my mom, my memories of her in danger of going wispy around the edges as she left us much too young with her mind and senses slowly fogged by disease and dementia.

In my mind's eye it is a breezy but warm day.  The trees around us are filled with Macintoshes, the favored apple of my New York youth.  A small, dark-haired girl in a short white dress with browned arms and legs is lifting a bushel basket full of the apples up into the air, surprised at the attention the adults she loves are giving her for such a simple thing.  She is only trying to help. The basket, probably almost as big as her, is loosely woven out of thin slats of shaped wood and is worn and well used with bits of scuffed green and red paint in spots. The handles cut into the toddler's pump hands.  She takes a few steps towards the adults. Someone reaches to take the basket from her and she plops down on the ground as the weight suddenly shifts.  Before she can cry or even laugh as the grass tickles her thighs, her mom scoops her up and hands her an apple.

The bag of apples from the Gombergs

I can see it so well, it is like it is a snapshot in my mind but it isn't. It is only a story I heard once from my mother who used it as an example of how strong I was as a baby.   Everyone else in that scene is gone now, there is no way to corroborate or color in more details or correct wrong impressions.  I think I prefer it that way.  The story of being strong, being independent and wanting to help others has become part of my definition of myself.  When I think of my re-imagined memory and feel the swoop of feeling for my mother, young and slim, I remember how in kindergarten,  I used to feel sorry for other kids in my class that they did not have a mother like her.  She made me feel like I was the apple of her eye. 

Roasted Apple Sauce with Warm Spices

Serves 4-6

The apples in this sauce retain their shape and just receive a slight mashing.  If you want a more traditional texture, peel the apples before cooking or put the cooked apples through a ricer or food mill. 

By "warm spices" I mean that to me the spices in this recipe (which were inspired by a gift from the McCormick at BlogHer Food 2010 of jars of McCormick's roasted coriander, ginger, cumin and cinnamon) have an essential warming essence.  To substitute for the McCormick products, pan toast the seasonings in a small, hot, dry fry pan for about 20-30 seconds, stirring constantly, until the aroma is released.

The result of the roasting and spicing is a complex, not too sweet apple sauce that works well as a snack or dessert (topped with yogurt or whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon) or as a side dish for grilled or roasted meats or poultry or even a savory bean stew.

The Gombergs gifted us with apples of the Beverly Hills variety, which have a yellow-green skin and are slightly tart.  Pippins or Gravensteins would make a good substitute.

Oil to grease baking dish
3 lbs. apples, unpeeled and cut into 1"-2" chunks (about 8 cups)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. roasted ground coriander
1/4 tsp. roasted ground cumin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 10"x14" baking pan, set aside. In a large bowl, toss the apples with the apple cider vinegar, and then mix with the coriander, cumin, ginger and cinnamon.  Place in prepared pan and put in the oven. Bake uncovered for about 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally.  Cover with aluminum foil, stirring occasionally and bake until the apples are tender (about 1 hour or so more, timing will vary.) Mash lightly.  Taste, add sugar to taste if desired.
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For other recipes featuring the Gombergs' apples see:
Apple and Cranberry Pie with Granola Streusel

For a collection of other recipes featuring apples, click here -- including baked, salads, candied and caramel.

Candy Apples with a Kick and Dates with a Twist Offer Sweet Tastes for All this Fall

My latest column in the j. has published and it is full of fall treats.

Try the Cinnamon Candied Apples for Simchat Torah or even Halloween or just for fun. The Dates with Marscarpone are stuffed with an orange-flower water and marscarpone cheese mixture, drizzed with caramel (or date) syrup and accented with pistachios and pomegranate seeds. They make a wonderful accompaniment to tea or a nice dessert to a rich meal.

See my column and the recipes here.

Check back to see if I update this with stories of candied apples past (which we called jellied apples growing up.)

Looking for other fall treats -- check out all my recipes including pumpkin (chili, couscous, mini-tarts) plus lots of advice on how to select and cook the hobgoblin of winter squashes here.

Want to make caramel apples instead of candied? Follow the recipe on the back of the Kraft caramel's package, or check 101 Cookbooks' all-natural version here.
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About the photos: Top candied apples with cinammon decors. Side, the dates on a marble plate from Vietnam. Click on the photo to make it bigger. I really liked it full size but it's hard to tell the dish from the dish in the small photo.

UPDATE:
Here's the recipes for your convenience

Cinnamon Candied Apples
Makes 4 to 5 apples

4 or 5 small Fuji or Gala apples

six-inch skewers or craft sticks

parchment paper

vegetable oil or spray

2 Tbs. cinnamon red hot candies or cake decors

1 cup sugar

3⁄4 cup boiling water

1⁄16 tsp. cream of tartar

Wash and dry the apples. Skewer them securely through the stem end. Set aside. Line a baking tray with parchment paper, grease with oil or spray. Set aside. Fill bottom pan of double boiler (or improvised double boiler) with water, set top pan inside, making sure it does not actually touch the water below it. Put the double boiler on high heat. Once the water boils, lower and keep at a simmer.

Put the candies in a heavy-duty plastic food storage bag and seal. Crush the candies into fine bits with a rolling pin. Put the crushed candies into a saucepan. Add the sugar, boiling water and cream of tartar. Put on a low heat and allow to boil, stirring occasionally. Cover and cook until the sugar mixture reaches “hard crack” stage, about 300 degrees on a candy thermometer. (Hard crack is when a bit of the hot sugar mixture is dropped into ice water and it separates into hard, brittle threads.)

Carefully transfer the syrup to the top of the double boiler. Working quickly before the sugar mixture cools, dip the apples one at a time in the sugar mixture. Swirl them in the syrup or spoon the sugar mixture over them until they are completely coated. Place on the greased parchment paper until the glaze hardens.

The number of apples you can candy will depend on their size, how quickly you can work and how rapidly the syrup hardens in the top of the double boiler. Store the candied apples in a cool place.

Dates with Mascarpone
Makes 16

1 tsp. orange flower water (optional)

1⁄2 cup mascarpone cheese

16 large Medjool dates (about 1⁄2 lb.)

2 Tbs. caramel sauce or date syrup

1⁄4 cup pistachio halves or pieces

1⁄4 cup pomegranate seeds

Orange flower water, which adds a delicate citrus note, can be found in some liquor and gourmet stores, as well as in Middle Eastern markets. If using, beat it with the cheese using a fork in a small bowl until combined. Slit each date lengthwise to remove pit. Stuff each date with a generous teaspoon of the cheese mixture (or plain cheese).

Refrigerate until 20 minutes before serving. Just prior to serving, place on serving platter, drizzle with the caramel sauce or date syrup (found in stores specializing in Middle Eastern food products) and scatter nuts and pomegranate seeds on top.

Being Energy Efficient in the Kitchen -- Plus a "Baked" Apple Recipe to Make in the Oven, Toaster Oven, Microwave or Steamer

Baby it’s cold outside and the gas and electric meters are humming, so I thought saving energy (and money) while you cook would be a good topic for a post.

True, covering your pot won’t save you as much as replacing inefficient appliances, turning down the heat, insulating your home, wrapping your hot water heater and getting your kids to turn off the lights, computer and television, but every little bit helps. Here are some basics to start with:

Don’t preheat your oven – most things will only take a few more minutes to cook if you don’t preheat. Put that casserole in a cold oven and take advantage of all the preheating time and energy.

If you are using the oven, use it – You are already paying for all that energy anyway, so why turn on your stove top and burn money there, too? Make a whole meal in your oven. Roast vegetables and potatoes to go along with that chicken. Make a dessert in there, too. Baked apples with raisins, almonds and honey (see recipe below), maybe? Or cook several meals at once to take advantage of all that hot, hot heat.

Grill friend – All those little kitchen helper appliances could be your worst enemy or your best energy-saving friend. Just use them in place of other cooking resources not in addition to. If your countertop grill saves you from having to preheat your range’s broiler, that’s great. But if you have the oven on anyway, maybe you should bake that chicken breast instead of grilling it. Try to use the toaster oven instead your full-size oven.

Home on the range –If you are using your range or stove top, make the whole meal “on top.” Consider using a multilevel steamer. Boiling water on the bottom, your main course in the middle and some tasty vegetables up top. You can even adapt the baked apple recipe below for a steamer. A personal favorite of mine is to use a pressure cooker. They create wonderful stews and soups in a fraction of the time and energy.

Putting a lid on it – Using a lid for a pot is a good idea. Water will boil faster if you can’t see it. Honest. Another tip is to only put enough water in the tea kettle for what you need at the time. I know some people who fill it up to the whistle. It takes forever to come to a boil and tea really needs fresh water every time to taste its best.

Magic Box – The microwave is one of the most efficient appliances in our kitchen arsenal, especially if you work it right. It’s great for one potato, two. But a family’s worth are better being cooked in the oven with yesterday’s dinner and just warmed in the microwave. Planning ahead to have “leftovers” or “pre cooks” not only saves energy, but your time.

Baked Apples with Raisins, Almonds and Honey
Serves 4

These versatile apples can be baked in an oven, toaster oven or made in the microwave or steamer, so pick the method that saves the most energy for you. Directions below are for the baked version. See the notes after the recipe to adapt it for a microwave or steamer.

4 granny smith apples
Juice of large lemon
1/3 cup apple juice or water
1/3 cup of raisins
1/3 cup of slivered almonds
½ tsp. of ground cinnamon
2-3 teaspoons of honey
1 Tbs. of butter or margarine

Preheat oven or larger toaster oven to 350 degrees. Core the apples, reserving a bit of the core to “plug” the bottom of apple. Place in a baking dish. Pour lemon juice over top of apples. Add juice or water to bottom of dish. Combine raisins, almonds, cinnamon and honey in a small bowl, mix well. Pack the filling into the cored out apples (you may have extra). Cut butter or margarine into small pieces and scatter on top of the apples. Cover the baking dish loosely with foil. Baste occasionally with liquid from bottom of baking dish. Bake for about 30 minutes or until apples can be pierced easily with a knife. Serve with syrup from the pan and with whipped cream, yogurt or ice cream if desired.

Microwave Variation: Use microwave safe baking dish and cover with plastic wrap or waxed paper. Reduce apple juice or water by half. Cook on high until done.

Steamer Variation: Place apples in rimmed dish or pan that fits within a steamer. Reduce apple juice or water by half. Cover with steamer lid. Steam over boiling water until done.
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Adapted from an article originally written for the Temple Beth Abraham Omer newsletter.

A Gift of Apples Leads to Apple-Cranberry Pie

The pie all started with a (very) large bag of apples from our friends' tree.  Mo said the apples were a type known as Beverly Hills.  I did a little research and found this is a California-born and bred variety known for its ease of growing and smallish yellow-green skin fruit.  It is crisp, sweet-tart and not as robust flavored as some other apples but ideal for cooking and baking.

And cooking and baking I did.  I hope to post all the recipes here, but we all know how slow I am to do that.  A number of folks have asked for this apple-cranberry pie recipe, so that prompted me to sit down and at least write this post up.

So far I have turned the apples into:

• Apple, Sauerkraut and Bean Saute served over noodles
• Roasted Applesauce with Warm Spices -- eaten warm, cold and at room temperature, by itself or with soy yogurt or regular whipped cream as a snack or dessert or plain as a side dish to grilled, smoked turkey. 
• Shredded Green Apple Salad with Thai Flavors -- as a side dish to the Thai Vegetable Curry Baked in a Pumpkin
• Apple-Cranberry Pie with Granola Streusel

And I still have some more apples to go. Gary is asking for more of the applesauce and I have some other ideas that are, shall we say, the apple of my eye, to experiment with.

Apple-Cranberry Pie with Granola Streusel
Serves 16 (Makes 2 deep-dish pies)

Use a sweet-tart apple good for baking such as a Granny Smith, Pippin or the northern California favorite - Gravensteins.  I prefer to leave the peel on, which makes the pie preparation very quick.  I had a cup of cranberries leftover from another recipe and tossed them into the pie recipe with very pleasing results.  Gary had just made a batch of his granola and I borrowed some for the streusel topping.  If your granola has raisins that get a bit overcooked when the pie is cooking, just pick them out.

Frozen cranberries are fine, just don't defrost before using.  Be sure to pick a granola that has a cinnamon flavor (as opposed to mango, pumpkin or some of the other versions out there right now).  Better yet, make a batch of Gary's and use some in this recipe.

Feel free to use commercially prepared pie crusts.  If frozen, use without defrosting.

Pie
6 cups 1/2" chunks of apple (see note above)
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1 cup fresh, whole cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 prepared deep-dish 9" pie crusts

Topping
4 Tbs. butter (or non-dairy margarine if desired)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 and 1/2 cups granola (see note above)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss apple chunks with lemon juice. Combine with cranberries, sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, cloves and nutmeg.  Mix well.  Divide into 2 pie crusts. Make topping. Cream butter (or margarine) with the sugars. Using a fork, mix in flour and cinnamon until crumbly then thoroughly mix in granola.  Scatter streusel topping evenly atop the two pies.  Place pies on baking sheet in middle section of oven.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake another 20-30 minutes until the apples are tender and the filling is bubbling.  Cool in pie pans on rack.

Four New Latke Toppings! Make Your Potato Pancakes Zing with Apple Pear Sauce, Beet-Horseradish Topping, Apple-Red Onion Compote and Apple Cinnamon Sour Cream

Apple Pear Sauce and Apple and Red Onion Compote for topping latkes

For many, latkes need no more than a dripping of sauce from a pot roast or brisket, a spoonful of apple sauce or maybe a shmear of sour cream. Then there are folks who like their latkes sprinkled with a bit of sugar. But for those who want to try something new this Chanukah season (or really any time), below are some recipes to plop atop their potato pancakes.

The Apple and Red Onion Compote adds savory but still sweet flavor to complement the rich taste of the fried potatoes. The Apple, Beet and Horseradish Topping is reminiscent of borscht with all the trimmings. The flavor combination is based on a salad of fresh shredded beets and horseradish I once had in a Ukrainian restaurant on the Lower East Side in New York. Be sure to use the plain, white prepared bottled horseradish without cream or beets. I like the Apple Pear Sauce best with unpeeled fruit, but peeling is an option if you prefer. Finally, the Apple Cinnamon Sour Cream Topping was developed by Green Valley Organics of Sebastopol, CA, for use with its kosher, lactose-free sour cream, but I think it works well with regular sour cream, too.

Apple and Red Onion Compote
Makes about 2 cups

1 medium red onion
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 medium apples, peeled, cored and cut into ½” cubes
1 cup apple juice
1 Tbs. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. ground coriander

Slice onions very thinly and then cut slice in half. Heat oil in large pan, Sauté onions over low heat until very soft, add apples and apple juice, raise heat to medium high. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Add sugar, salt, cloves and coriander. Cover and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the apples are very soft but not mushy, about 30 minutes. Remove lid and raise heat to high and cook, stirring, until all the pan juices have thickened and the mixture is no longer liquid. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Apple, Beet and Horseradish Topping
Makes about 2 and 1/2 cups

1 medium apple, peeled and cored
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1-15 oz. can of sliced beets, drained
1-2 Tbs. or to taste plain, prepared bottled white horseradish
1/2 cup sour cream

Chop apple into 1/4” pieces, mix with lemon juice and drain. Chop beets into 1/4” pieces, mix with drained apples. Stir in horseradish to taste. Refrigerate. Just before serving, pour off any liquid and mix with sour cream. Serve immediately.

Apple Pear Sauce
Makes about 3 cups

3 medium apples, peeling optional
2 Bartlett pears, ripe but firm, peeling optional
2 Tbs. lemon juice
3/4 cup apple juice

Core and cut apples and pears into 1” cubes. Toss with lemon juice. Put in medium pot with juice over low heat. Cover and cook at a simmer. Using a heavy spoon, stir, mash and break up pieces of the fruit occasionally as the sauce cooks. Once the fruit is very tender, about 30 minutes, (peeled fruit may require less time). Remove lid, raise heat to high and simmer for 10 minutes to thicken juices. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Apple Cinnamon Sour Cream Topping
(From Green Valley Organics)
Makes about 3 cups

For a non-dairy option, try plain soy yogurt.

1-12 oz. container regular or lactose-free sour cream
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Tbs. brown sugar OR 1 Tbs. agave nectar, to taste
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1 unpeeled apple, cored and shredded

Mix sour cream, applesauce, brown sugar or agave, cinnamon and salt together. Roll shredded apple in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze out excess water. Stir drained apple shreds into the sour cream mixture. Adjust seasonings to taste and refrigerate until ready to serve.
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The version of this post originally appeared in the j. weekly.
Need recipes, suggestions, background on Chanukah (Hanukkah) - check out my round up here.

Say it with Food -- Symbolic Foods and Seder Enrich Rosh Hashanah Dinner

Some of the symbolic foods of the Rosh Hashanah Seder

The Rosh Hashanah Seder, one of the oldest the holiday’s food traditions, is now one of its newest trends in celebrating the Jewish New Year.

Eating symbolic foods the first night of Rosh Hashanah dates back to Rabbi Abaye’s instructions in the Talmud to eat five foods that were typical of the season. These foods had names or qualities that represent wishes for health, prosperity and a “good” year. Some sources say what we would now call a Rosh Hashanah Seder, or “order of service” has existed for about 2,000 years.

Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews have a long history of serving and blessing not just the Talmud’s suggestions but a host of foods whose name or appearance supports the observance of Rosh Hashanah.

Jews outside these traditions have adopted the custom of a Rosh Hashanah Seder by adapting some of the long-standing practices and adding new ones ranging from blowing of the shofar to reflecting on goals for the coming year to celebrating the New Year as the world’s birthday.

But even Ashkenazi Jews who have never heard of the concept of a Seder at Rosh Hashanah have long served symbolic foods such as apples and honey and honey cake (for a sweet year), round loaves of challah (symbolic of the crown as well as the circular nature of time) and often a dish containing carrots. (Cut into slices, the carrots recall golden coins and their Yiddish name sounds like the word for multiply.)

Below is information on the symbolism of certain foods and how to create your own Rosh Hashanah Seder and links for more information.

Party Like It's 5770 -- Jewish New Year Cocktail and Baked Brie

My latest cooking column is up on the j. weekly site.
It's Apples and Honey with a Twist ... a wonderful apple and honey flavored cocktail and an amazing baked brie appetizer with caramelized apples, honey and onions.

Party like its 5770 and enjoy these for the Jewish (or any) New Year.

You can find the recipes here.

Below are some further twists I came up with when I adapted these recipes from entrants from last year's Apples and Honey Cook Off sponsored by the Jews Next Dor, a young adults group affiliated with Congregation Beth David in Saratoga, CA. For more info on this year's contest and for more of their apples and honey recipes, check out the Jews Next Dor's blog .

For the cocktail: Dip the rim of the martini glass in lime juice and then in honey or agave nectar crystals. (If you can't find them, raw sugar would work, too.)

For the baked brie: Substitute balsamic vinegar for the wine when cooking the apples and onions.

Boo Appetit -- Pumpkin and Other Goodies for the Season

We like our fright with a bit of delight over here at Blog Appetit, so here's a round up of pumpkin and other Halloween appropriate food. From pumpkin pies to pumpkin-based main courses to caramel and candied apples, we have lots of options for a spooktacular holiday.

This tamale-stuffed pumpkin would work well for Day of the Dead parties as well as for Halloween repasts.   I used some of Primavera's wonderful gourmet tamales, but you could use any kind of cheese or, better yet, cheese and chile, tamale.

Blog Appetit offers up several kinds of pumpkin pies for your eating pleasure.  Try this low-fat pumpkin pie variation for all the traditional treat with a bit less of the tricks.  For something a bit different, try this pumpkin and date filo tart.  It's super easy to make, is non-dairy and is deliciously different than the traditional pumpkin pie.  That tart is shown at left.  These pumpkin mini-tarts use individual ginger snaps for their crusts and a petite and neat to eat.

I used butternut squash when I made this sweet-and-sour cabbage soup, but pumpkin would work just as well.  In fact you can use pumpkin pretty much interchangeably with butternut squash in most recipes.  Want to learn more about how to select and prepare pumpkins, go to pumpkin boot camp and learn the basics.

I've made a lot of sautes using pumpkin or butternut squash.  One saute was inspired by what I could find in the farmer's market one winter day.  This Moroccan inspired chicken, chickpeas and pumpkin dish (pictured) is great served over couscous.  I also have a killer chipotle, pumpkin and turkey chili you should try.

My husband and kids think a caramel apple rules, while an old-fashioned candied apple makes me drool.  Unfortunately, most of you agree caramel apples are best.  In an informal poll I hosted on Blog Appetit, caramel apples were the clear winner.  The caramel apple at left was made according to the directions on the back of a package of Kraft's caramels.   My devilishly good candied apples feature the a bit of cinnamon heat from the candies used to give the coating its color and taste.

In Memory's Kitchen

Note: The following is adapted from an article I wrote for the Temple Beth Abraham newsletter.

It is amazing how often we don’t write or pass down the stories of our personal heritage. Records of our own family histories, traditions and food ways are in danger of being lost.

For example, my son recently interviewed his grandmother about what she did on the home front during WWII. Grandpa’s exploits in the Army were well known by the family, but Grandma’s participation in the Manhattan Project came as a surprise to him.

My grandfather, Poppa, was a magical story teller. He made his adventures of escaping from Russia and making a living during the Roaring Twenties come alive. Certainly my sisters and I knew his stories as well as we knew the plot of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It was a shock to realize my own children couldn’t hear the echoes of his presence in my life in their memories and recall these stories, despite my very carefully telling each of them about Poppa when they were young. I was grateful for the school assignment that prompted my teen-aged son’s questioning and a chance to tell him once again about our past.

But it is in the kitchen that many of us now wish we had taken the time to ask questions, jot down some notes or even just pay attention to what was going on. Most of our grandmothers cooked without written recipes what they had learned from their mothers or mothers-in-law, dishes of their homelands tempered by local availability, the fashions of their time, religious observances and economic situations as much as family likes and dislikes. For many it seems that somehow that cycle was broken in our generation or our mothers and these dishes remain memories too elusive to taste again.

To be honest, Anna, my mother’s mother, was not one of those cooks whose cooking would elicit Proust-like reveries. But Grandma had her specialties. My sisters and I, all accomplished cooks, still are trying to figure out what made Anna’s stuffed cabbage, cheese blintzes and a few of her other dishes that were the constants of our childhood so tasty.

My grandmother passed away before I realized I was running out of time to record her recipes, but I was lucky, I inherited the recipe cards of another Jewish grandma, my husband’s Aunt Lee. Aunt Lee was married to my mother-in-law’s older brother, so she seemed to bridge a generational gap for me. She was knowledgeable about food, having worked in her father-in-law’s fish store, and was deservedly well-known for her cooking. She also seemed to write everything down. She passed away a few days short of her 90th birthday.

Here is a recipe for her chopped herring she gave me a few years before she died. It is an old-fashioned recipe and I wondered if it would still have any appeal. I served it at a Jewish holiday dinner and was amazed how much praise and attention it received, especially from those who had grown up in East Coast or Midwest Jewish households. The herring, they said, tasted just like something their own grandmother had made.

Aunt Lee’s Chopped Herring Salad
Serves 4 as a first course or 8 as an appetizer

1 12-ounce jar of herring in wine sauce (Sometimes called marinated or pickled herring. Do not substitute herring in cream sauce.)
6 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
2 medium-sized, tart apples such as Granny Smith, peeled and cored
2 small onions, peeled
2-3 tablespoons vinegar or to taste
1-2 tablespoons sugar or to taste
3 tablespoons of unseasoned bread crumbs or matzo meal, more or less, as needed

Drain herring, reserving liquid.
Chop herring in to very small pieces, being careful not to reduce to a pulp. Set aside.
Chop eggs in to very small pieces being careful not to reduce to a paste. Set aside.
Chop or grate apples and onions. Set aside.
Combine herring, eggs, apples and onions in a bowl. Mix well. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved herring liquid. Add the lesser amounts of vinegar and sugar. Taste and adjust, adding more herring liquid, vinegar and sugar as needed.
Stir in the bread or matzo crumbs, adding more if needed to bind the salad. Serve on top of lettuce as a first course or with crackers or matzo as an appetizer or snack.

Variation: Using a food processor, process all ingredients to a smooth paste before adding reserved liquid, vinegar, sugar and bread crumbs. Serve as a spread rather than a salad.

Apple Battle -- Which Do You Prefer -- Caramel or Candied? The Halloween Countdown Continues

Vote for your favorite -- candied (jellied) apple vs. caramel apple. For a recipe for cinnamon candied apples, click here.

The caramel apple on the right was made from Kraft brand caramels with the recipe on the package. Here's the directions from the Kraft website (although I'd skip the Ritz cracker crumbs the on-line recipe recommends).

Take the poll (poll closes on 11/5/09) and leave a comment below about your favorite caramel and/or candied apple experiences, add ons, recipes or posts.

UPDATE -- Poll is closed -- 42 readers voted (thank you!), the winner at 78 percent was caramel apples. My favorite, candied apples, scored just 9 percent. Four percent liked both equally and 3 percent are not fans of either.

The Breakfast of Hunger Challenge Champions -- Getting a Good Start on a $1 a Meal a Person a Day

Here is part one of my basic menu for the week for my mythical family of four spending an average of a $1 a meal per person (which I figured out as $84 a week total).

I tried to use San Francisco Food Bank basics such as rice, cabbage, onions and carrots. If my family was able to get them in its food bag, the total would go down by almost $6, a significant amount of money that would add more fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and variety to the family’s diet.

Some Assumptions

The cost of staples (such as butter, canola oil, sugar, flour, etc.) made my tab higher than $84, but since I would only be using a fraction of those ingredients in my weekly menu I only counted the amount used for each meal. Because I tried to buy the smallest packages available, that did mean my per ounce price was less economical. In addition other ingredients would also probably last beyond the one week period such as peanut butter, but I included them entirely in the weekly total, although in my price per meal I figured out how much the ingredient cost for the ounces used. I did just count half of the cost of my eggs in the weekly total, since they were on sale -- two 18-egg packs for the price of one. (I included the other half in my staples accounting.) Since many households may have one or more of these ingredients in the house already, that would bring the shopping total down even further.

My week’s shopping cost $96.55. I spent $15.92 of it on “staples.” My purchases directly for the week were $80.63. I used $3.35 worth of my staples, which made my total for the week $83.98.

I assumed salt and pepper were available in the house. All other seasonings were made optional.

The Breakfasts

I tried to pack in as much nutrition as I could. I tried to keep the meals fairly easy (well except for maybe the Weekend Pancakes with Caramelized Apples) and anything involved could be made the night ahead and reheated. School age children could make the yogurt parfaits themselves and older children could make themselves the waffle sandwiches.

Total of 28 servings

Waffle “sandwich” – two whole grain frozen waffles toasted or heated in the microwave, on one spread 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 1 tablespoon blackberry or other jam, ¼ of a sliced banana, topped with the second. (note there are 10 waffles in the pack, so that will provide five servings of this option, but the waffles were on sale two packs for the price of one, but I only figured on eight servings for breakfast, so that leaves four waffles for snack or two servings of breakfast next week.) Serve with milk. (Note: if the waffles were not on sale for two packs for $3.15, I probably would not have been able to afford the whole grain option and would have spent $2 a pack for regular waffles.)

Breakfast parfait – ½ cup of cereal layered with jam or sliced banana with ½ cup of yogurt. Serve with orange juice. (Eight servings)

Popeye’s breakfast – Cook ½ pound of frozen spinach in a fry pan until heated through. Drain and squeeze out excess liquid. Dry fry pan, add butter or oil. Optional – when the butter or oil is heated, add ¼ cup chopped onion, 1 clove garlic minced and fry until lightly brown. Add eight beaten eggs, and salt and pepper to taste and scramble until the eggs are almost set. Add eight ounces of chopped, grated or cut up chunks of cheddar, and the spinach. Cook until eggs are done and cheese is beginning to melt. Serve one eighth of each mixture as a filling for a sandwich with two pieces of toasted, buttered bread. (Eight servings, reserve half for another breakfast.) Serve with orange juice or milk. (Note: egg mixture can be made the night before and reheated in the microwave.)

Weekend Special – Homemade pancakes with caramelized apple slices (four servings, 2-3 pancakes each depending on size). Serve with orange juice or milk.

First, mix the pancake batter and let it sit.
Pancake batter – 1 cup flour mixed with 1 tablespoon sugar and 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt. Stir in 1 cup of milk, 1 egg and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Mix well. Set aside.

Next peel, core and thinly slice two apples. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a fry pan or larger sauce pan. When the butter is melted, scatter apple slices in pan and sprinkle sugar to taste on top (optional – add ½ teaspoon cinnamon). Add more butter if needed. Cook on a low heat until the apple slices are soft. Keep warm.

While the apples are cooking, heat oil a skillet or large fry pan. Heat over a medium heat, when oil is hot, cook pancakes, turning over when bottom side is brown and top side is bubbling. Use about ¼ cup of the batter for each pancake. Serve with the warm, buttery apple slices on top or jam and butter. (Or warm about a ¼ cup of the jam in a small pot. When it becomes loose and a bit liquid, spoon one fourth on top of each serving.)

Still to come are menus for lunches and dinners, snack suggestions, my overall shopping list, and recipes for savory chicken stew, vegetable soup and Asian stir fry. I also plan on including some shopping lessons learned and some suggestions for using San Francisco Food Bank frequent “best sellers” such as cabbage and cottage cheese (although probably not in the same dish, but you never know). Plus, more ways you can help the San Francisco and other food banks combat hunger in our communities.

Read more about the Hunger Challenge .
To see other Blog Appetit articles on it and food banks, click here.
To donate, please click on the graphic below.








Note: FYI the totals were revised on Thursday, Sept. 25. Turned out I had made some math errors (that's what happens when you post at 1 a.m.!) and had not completed all the shopping I planned on, so I was able to take advantage of some sales and values I had not known about when I first figured out my totals and was able to buy some more fresh fruit and vegetables as a result.

Report from Las Vegas

I'm on one of my twice-yearly business trips to Las Vegas.
Unexpectedly we had some free time yesterday so we rented a car and drove to Hoover Dam. Much about the project (scope, construction, innovations, art deco design) are admirable. The location (in Black Canyon) is unbelievable. Some of the water history that led to its being built and the "spoiling" of such a natural wonder do leave some lingering questions.

On the way there we stopped at Boulder City. It was a "blast to the past." Once Nevada's largest city (population was then 7,000) it still retains elements of being a company town for the Six Companies, the corporations that banded together to build the mighty dam. Don't get me wrong there were lots of chain choices for fast food, but also lots of interesting seeming local ones. We at the Southwest Diner, where the prices, the quantity and the quality of the food were all very satisfactory. For under $10 you could get a pot roast dinner with soup or salad, mashed potatoes or fries, string beans and a dish of ice cream for dessert. The food and the decor at the restaurant were all on the homey side with lots of cutesy displays of Americana. The service was great. I had the taco salad and Gary had the pulled pork.

That night we tried the buffet at the Wynn. Many people had recommended it to us. It had all the requisite touches buffets in Vegas all have these days -- cooking stations with a variety of ethnic foods, lots of crab legs, sushi (a bit more limited than some), and a big carving station.
I particularly enjoyed the New Zealand lamb chops, the fig sauce from the grilled pork with fennel pollen (if the pollen was there it wasn't enough to either make me sneeze or taste it) and the wonderful selection of salads and cerviches. My big disappointment is that the dessert station ran out of candy apples before I could get one. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Wynn buffet, so far my favorite is the Le Village Buffet at the Paris.

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About the photos: Looking down from Hoover dam, neon red candy apples at the Wynn buffet.

8 Ways to Serve Latkes -- Plus a Zippy Cranberry Pot Roast Recipe

Mixed latkes with spiced and regular
applesauce and salad with goat cheese.

We are at the halfway point of Chanukah and I thought some of you out there might need some fresh ideas on how to serve the traditional potato pancakes.  So, check out my ideas to light up latkes for the remaining nights of the holiday and as a special present at the end, my favorite pot roast recipe to go with them.  Don't save this Zippy Cranberry Pot Roast just for Chanukah (or Hanukkah) it's great for any meal and the leftovers are wonderful.

So here are eight ways to enjoy your potato pancakes. (Need a recipe for latkes, check out shortcut latkes here and my traditional recipe here.

1. With spiced applesauce. Warm homemade unsweetened, chunky applesauce and for each 2 cups of sauce, add 1 tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. allspice and a pinch of ground cloves. Add brown sugar to taste if desired. Simmer until spices have blended. Taste and add more of the spices if you want a stronger flavor. Serve warm atop latkes with sour cream or yogurt.

2. With a side of red cabbage and apples. Peel, core and thinly slice a large tart, firm apple. Sauté in butter or oil until softened. Drain a jar of purchased pickled red cabbage and toss with the apples. Heat through. Taste. Add a tsp. of sugar and or a Tbs. of apple cider vinegar if needed to make sweet and sour to your liking. Taste again and adjust as needed.

3. Sprinkled with sugar. While I had not heard about this tradition until recently, I researched it and for many people it wouldn’t be Chanukah without sugar on their potato pancakes.

4. With an egg on top. A recent acquaintance told me how delicious a freshly poached or fried egg is served on top of a crispy latke. Nice for breakfast or a light entrée. Top with a sprinkle of chopped green onions or chives, a pinch of sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Serve on a bed of frisee lettuce for a really gourmet brunch.

5. Crumbled as a soup topping. I like to scatter bits of leftover latkes on top of a sweet potato, butternut squash or red lentil and tomato soup. Combine ½ tsp. curry powder (or more to taste) with a cup of Greek-style yogurt, stir well and garnish the soup with dollops of this as well. (Or skip the soup and try serving the latkes with mango chutney and the curried yogurt topping.)

6. Bite size as a base for appetizer toppings ranging from bits of smoked salmon or a pinch salmon roe atop a dab of sour cream to hummus topped with chopped green olives or bits of preserved lemon (available in jars at some markets).

7. As a foil for a spicy sauce. Try squirting a little Sriracha chili paste sauce or other hot sauce on your latke, serving with some fresh salsa or eating with a sweet and spicy fruit sauce such as this one from “Cooking Jewish” by Judy Bart Kancigor (Workman). Combine in a medium sauce pan 1-16 oz. can pitted black cherries (slice first) plus the liquid from the can, ¾ cup of raisins, 1 cup white wine, 2-24 oz. bottles of Heinz or other chili sauce and 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until reduced down and thick, about 20 minutes.

8. As a side dish to my favorite pot roast recipe with cranberries. 
Zippy Cranberry Pot Roast
Serves 8

Adapted from “The Jewish Holiday Cookbook” by Gloria Kaufer Greene (Times Books).

I wish I could take credit for this recipe. It’s easy and delicious and is a perfect partner to crispy fried potato latkes. I’ve made it with all sorts of cuts of meat, prepared it in the pressure cooker, and even cooked it ahead, frozen the sliced meat in the sauce and reheated it and this recipe has never failed to be anything but wonderful. The rich meat, spicy horseradish and tangy cranberries all really complement the latkes. This pot roast is also good over egg noodles. Be sure you keep cooking the meat until it gets really tender. My family likes when it is falling-apart soft.

1-15 oz. can of plain tomato sauce
1-14 to 16 oz. can of whole cranberry sauce
1 Tbs. prepared horseradish
1 tsp. powdered mustard
3 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
¼ cup red wine
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
3 lbs. boneless chuck roast

Combine tomato sauce, cranberry sauce, horseradish, mustard, vinegar, wine or juice and oil in a large Dutch oven or other pot. Bring the sauce to a boil over high heat. Lower heat until just simmering and cook for 5 minutes. Trim all excess fat from the roast and add to pot. Turn in sauce to cover. Cover pot and simmer over low heat, basting meat and turning occasionally. Cook for 2 to 4 hours or until the meat is very tender and no longer chewy. Remove meat from sauce. Leave pot uncovered and raise heat to medium high and cook down the sauce, stirring occasionally until it is as thick as you’d like. Cut meat into thick slices across the grain. Spoon some of the sauce over the meat on the serving platter and put the rest in a bowl to serve alongside.

How do you like to serve your latkes?  Please leave your ideas and any links in the comments section. Thanks!
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About the photo: Latkes, latkes everywhere at a recent latke tasting party.
A version of this article appeared previously in the Temple Beth Abraham Omer.

The San Francisco Food Bank Challenge -- $1 a Person a Meal

When I took on the San Francisco Food Bank’s Hunger Challenge to create meals and menus for $1 a meal a person I didn’t realize the tool I would use most when I was cooking would be my calculator.

Since families on food stamps only get $21 a week per person, I couldn’t spend any more. Out went the beef for stew when it turned out to be twice as expensive as chicken. Figuring out portion sizes, costs per ounce, cup and even teaspoon kept me going back and punching in numbers, somehow hoping that I could work in a little more of this or that and still get the totals I needed. Frankly, having to plan and shop and cook so precisely (if I was wrong my mythical family of four would be left hungry) took a lot of work, compromise, time and ingenuity. It almost seemed like a full time job and figuring how to make it all work was mentally exhausting.

Thankfully, clients of the San Francisco Food Bank have a little cushion to help them stretch their food dollars, but I didn’t take into account that they might have gotten some carrots, cabbage, onions, tomato sauce and pasta in their food bags. If they did have some of these popular items on hand, they would have a little more money to spend on fruit, whole grains and other foods.

I mention fruit and whole grains because that was the biggest disappointment of my menu making experience. It was incredibly difficult to shop in “regular” food stores that most people have access to and be able to afford these foods. A five pound bag of apples, for example, one of the best “fruit values” in the market costs about $7 and has about 14 or so apples in it. That means each apple costs about 50 cents, or half of a meal budget.
Try working in five servings a day of fruits and vegetables with that kind of restraint.
Whole grains were also elusively expensive in supermarkets. Why would brown rice (with less processing) be more expensive than white rice, for example? Regular pasta was on sale for 88 cents a pound, a real bargain. Whole grain pasta was $1.99 a pound on sale, a huge difference when every penny can make the difference.

Shopping in regular supermarkets did have some upsides. There were incredible bargains in store brands, two for one specials and sale items. The boneless, skinless chicken thighs for my stew were on sale for $1.99 a pound ($2 off), store brand bread with 3g of fiber and extra calcium was just $1.50 a loaf for 22 slices, low sodium, fat-free chicken broth was just $1.67 a quart.

Some guidelines I set myself

• I tried to work in fiber, vegetables and unprocessed foods as much as possible. I wanted to avoid processed foods for several reasons. First, they contain a lot of salt and sugar. Second, often you are paying significantly more for the packaging and convenience.
• I tried to make “double” portions of items when I cooked or have leftovers be the basis for another meal to reduce cooking time and make “scratch cooking” more convenient and also to help keep down energy costs.
• I assumed that some people would only have a small stove top and a microwave oven and might not have access to an oven. I also assumed that some people would have very limited freezer space.
• I tried to stay flexible. I wanted to have turkey meatballs with pasta. At the store, there were no deals on fresh or frozen ground turkey, but a great sale (two pounds for $5) on pre-made meatballs. While I would prefer fresh made, I changed my menu to include the frozen meatballs.

I recognize that I’m no expert and I don’t have to eat this way; for me it was a food blogging challenge, kind of an experiment. I would love to hear from anyone who has had to do this for more than a meal, a day or a week and get their suggestions and learn about their experiences. These people are the experts in this.

I’ve always been aware that my family and I are very fortunate in being able to eat well and have a lot of choice in what we eat. I’ve always tried to help out by donating food, money and time to local food banks. But after this experience the plight of those without enough to eat has been much more real to me and I in turn have become more of an activist. I hope reading a bit about my experience will make you one, too.

For more about how to help in your local food banks, go to Second Harvest.

Still to come: Recipes for a few of meals on my menu, my menu concepts, tips for shopping and cooking on a $1 a meal, how you can help and more. To read past articles on Blog Appetit about volunteering at food banks, click here.

Two Fall Dessert Recipes -- Apple Caramel Cheese Flan and Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake Ice Cream

Was it the brightly colored fall leaves that inspired me?  The crisp juiciness of the season's first apples?  The promise of pumpkin pie?  I'm not sure what lead me to create these two new fall-flavored desserts, Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream and Apple Caramel Cheese Flan, but there was one unifying theme -- cream cheese.

More precisely, a local dairy gifted me with six tubs of the stuff (but no other compensation).  I'm not mentioning brands here, but I will say I was motivated to develop some recipes, the result of which are posted below.  Use lactose-free cream cheese and the non-dairy margarine if you have lactose issues.  The recipes are tested and work with those products.  If lactose toleration is not an issue for you, use regular soft (not whipped or brick style cream cheese) and pile on the whipped cream.  Most commercial caramel sauces do contain some dairy, so you may also need to seek out a non-dairy caramel sauce for the flan or make your own based just on sugar and water. 

Try one of both of these as an ending to your fall (and even Thanksgiving) dinner.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream

Makes about 1 Quart

This frozen dessert has the flavor of pumpkin pie with the added tang of cream cheese. Not too sweet, it is rich and satisfying.

No pumpkin pie spice in the house?  May your own.  Combine four parts ground cinnamon, two parts ground ginger, one part ground nutmeg and one part ground allspice.  Add a dash of ground clove if you'd like.

2-8 oz. tubs soft cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup sugar

1-15 oz, can of plain pureed pumpkin

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Pour cream cheese in a large bowl.  Stir until smooth.  Mix in vanilla, sugar, pumpkin and spice.  Stir until very smooth and well combined.  Cover and chill.  Process in ice cream maker according to manufacturer instructions.  Eat immediately or store in airtight container in freezer.  Take out of freezer about 20 minutes before serving.  Scoop into serving dishes. If desired top with caramel syrup, whipped cream and chopped pecans or walnuts.

Apple Caramel Cheese Flan

Slice of flan with extra caramel sauce

Serves 8

This flan variation combines sweet, buttery, crisp and tangy for a refreshing dessert.  If you use the sugar and water homemade caramel option (see above), you won't need extra to drizzle at the end. Double the apple and butter if desired to use extra as a topping.

About 6 Tbs. caramel sauce, plus extra for drizzling

2 Tbs. butter or margarine

1 large Granny Smith apple, cored (peeling optional) and diced

1-8 oz. tub soft cream cheese, room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla

1/3 cup sugar

8 ox. apple juice

4 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat bottom of 9-10" cake pan with about 6 Tbs. of caramel sauce (heating sauce slightly if it is not easy to spread). 

Melt butter in large skillet, saute apple pieces until softened.  Scatter apple pieces on top of caramel sauce in cake pan. (Apple pieces will distribute through flan as it cooks.)

In a large bowl, stir cream cheese until smooth.  Stir in vanilla, sugar and juice, mixing until smooth and well combined.  Stir in eggs, again mixing until smooth.  Pour over apples in prepared pan.

Plan cake pan inside a large, rimmed baking pan.  Boil water and pour hot water inside the larger pan until it comes up about halfway to the outside of cake pan with the flan (do not pour water into cake pan).  You are making a ban marie to help the flan bake evenly and without cracks.

Bake about 45-60 minutes until the flan is somewhat set (it will still be somewhat jiggly) and lightly browned.  Carefully remove cake pan from the hot water, cover and chill for at least 2 hours.

When ready to serve, run a thin knife around the outside of the flan to loosened it from the pan.  Dip bottom of pan briefly in a basin or bowl of hot water.  Quickly invert cake pan over serving platter.  If flan does not release from pan. Turn over and dip pan back in hot water and try again. (Usually flan releases just fine the first time.)  Or slice and serve from pan.  Drizzle with extra caramel sauce as desired.

Easy as Apple Pie

For his dad's birthday last month, Noah decided to make him an apple pie. (A favorite of both Noah's and Gary's.) He used a frozen crust (he is 15 and still working on his crust making), picked out some granny smith apples and leafed through a few cookbooks before deciding what recipe to use as a guideline.

He bought himself one of those apple corer, peeler, slicer contraptions a few months back, so making an apple pie qualifies as one of those teen-boy friendly gadget projects much like reprogramming my screen saver. (It now says "Hi Mother.")

After his apples were peeled, cored and sliced he cut the slices into thirds or so, tossed them with some lemon juice, sugar, lots of cinammon and a grating of nutmeg. He also added in a few tablespoons of flour.

The result was juicy and spicy and tasted great. Unfortunately it was very juicy, almost too much liquid. Next time more thickener. This time I'm pretty proud of my guy.

(Next up? Noah's planning a peach pie. I can't wait.)

Monday -- Hunger Challenge 2009 Focus on Breakfasts

Last year for the San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge I devised a variety of interesting and hopefully nutritious breakfasts -- spinach and scrambled eggs, whole wheat waffles with peanut butter and jam and even pancakes with caramelized apples.

This year, I'm aiming to keep the amount of cooking lower in my "menus" and the breakfasts reflect how I truly eat.

For 14 breakfasts (seven days for two people), I will be spending a total of $8.17, leaving me a total of $47.83 for the other 28 meals (seven days of lunch and dinner for two).

That $8.17 covers the cost of a high fiber cereal ($2.99 for 10 one-cup servings), four servings of oatmeal (at about $.15 per serving that would be $.60), a quart worth of milk (half of the half gallon or about a dollar's worth) and seven bananas ($1.40 at about 20 cents each), figuring a half a banana per day per person. I also added in a half cup each daily of frozen, reconstituted, calcium enriched orange juice (about $1.18 worth of the juice). This is closer to what I would regularly eat and I imagine would be realistic in most households most mornings.

These items were purchased at Safeway and Trader Joe's.

If you would like to see the breakfasts we ate last time with recipes, shopping tips, etc., please click here. Last year's challenge only allowed us $1 a person per meal a day -- $3 instead of $4, which is a temporary increase. I can't begin to tell you what a difference that extra $1 a day a person made to my menu planning.

Hunger Challenge participants can also this year draw on a "typical" pantry contribution of vegetables, staples and more. I've decided to make those meal add ons and/or alternatives and you'll see them marked as such. To see other posts on our participation in the 2009 Hunger Challenge, click here.

More on the Hunger Challenge and How You Can Help

Be sure to check out the San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge official blog for info on what other food bloggers, media personnel and others are doing as they participate in the Hunger Challenge.

Also last year, Tyson donated five truckloads of food to Bay Area food banks as a result of comments made on its blog in support of the Hunger Challenge. This year, by blogging and tweeting facts about hunger in America they will donate food to the agencies. It's 100 pounds for each tweet and 500 pounds for each blog post. To pass on the word and help get the food, check out this post on the Tyson Hunger Relief blog.

Below are just a few of the facts from the Tyson post about hunger in America. Please go to the post to see more.

More than 35 million people in the U.S. are on food stamps--up 3 million since Jan
For every $1 donated the San Francisco Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of groceries
5.3 million Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($21,834 for a family of 4)

If you are not a Bay area resident, I encourage you to go to the Feeding America site to find a link for a food bank in your area and learn how you can help in your community.

Oil Vey! Chanukah Foods From Around the World -- This Thursday in Berkeley



Go Beyond Latkes to Learn About Other Chanukah Foods

 Come to an adult Chanukah (or Hanukkah if you prefer) party, 7 p.m. this Thursday, December 2nd at the Jewish Community Center in Berkeley.  After candle lighting join one of four hour-long talks about Chanukah, including mine about Chanukah foods from around the world.  Everyone gets back together at 8:20 p.m. for chocolate and port.

I've been doing my homework and will have a presentation as jam packed as a sufganiyah (Israeli Chanukah jelly doughnut) full of Chanukah foods past and present as well as a handout of some recipes to for some take home exploration.  I'll be covering Chanukah foods from apples to zvingous and a whole lot of tasty treats in between.

In addition to Oil Vey! Chanukah Foods From Around the World, the other talks are:

Christmas in a Jewish Family (presented by Dawn Kepler of the interfaith family group Building Jewish Bridges)


Oil: Miracle or Finite Resource: An Environmental Perspective on Chanukah (Presented by Ron Feldman of the JCC)

Light and Darkness: A Mystical Understanding of Chanukah (presented by Rabbi Bridget Wynne, executive director of Jewish Gateways)

Admission is free and open to all, but you must be 21 or older.

The Jewish Community Center of the East Bay is located at 1414 Walnut Street in Berkeley.

The event is sponsored by the JCC of the East Bay, Building Jewish Bridges, Oakland Ruach Hadassah and Berkeley Hadassah.

Go to the JCC website for more information.

What the Hunger Challenge Means to Me and Menus for Lunch and Dinner and More

“I’m hungry.”

When one of my kids whines that he needs to eat, maybe I grumble about having to deal with it, but I can turn to my stocked fridge, overflowing fruit bowl, full extra freezer or packed pantry and get him something to snack on or make him a meal. My only thought is what to serve and if it will spoil his dinner.

When a family is on food stamps it’s just not that easy. Very often the cupboard may be bare; whatever food is available needs to portioned out to make it through the month and to be honest, you hope there’s enough for dinner. And based on my experience this week, I bet there aren’t a whole lot of snacks, treats or even fruit in the house when all you can count on for food is $21 a person a week in food stamps. And portions will be smaller than you are probably use to.

I decided to join the San Francisco Food Bank’s Hunger Challenge because I feel those of us that are food obsessed need to use our talents for good, not evil. And helping to spread awareness and educate others about the issues and realities felt right. To be honest, while many of the meals I ate met the guidelines this week and all my planning did I did not stay on the program continuously, but even so my part-time experience made quite an impact. (The rules, such as they are, of the challenge allow for such “fudging.”)

Since I have two sons, I kept them in mind when I designed the week’s menu. Hearty breakfasts to fill them up and to keep their energy up in school and a variety of dinners and foods I know they would like, soup, stew, chili, meatballs and an Asian sauté. We aren’t much of a sandwich family, so only one lunch features sandwiches. We tend to eat leftovers from dinner at lunch when we are home, so I just planned 56 servings for a family of 4 for a weeks worth of lunches and dinners and figured they could be divided up any way you liked. I aimed for accessible variety -- flavor profiles I knew they liked and enough variety to keep it from getting boring. I simplified the recipes wherever possible to keep the KP duty down to a minimum.

My new best friend is green cabbage. It truly was a magic vegetable. The 2.36 pound cabbage I bought seemed to always be there when I wanted to add nutrition, fiber and bulk to any dish I was making. It made its first appearance in the chicken stew, appeared in a walk-on part in a salad, helped bulk up my Asian entrée and played a commanding role in its final performance in vegetable soup. From week start to end it stayed fresh, crisp and tasty. When I put the last scrap in the soup I couldn’t believe it was all gone.

I was also thrilled when I was able to work in a four-pound bag of rice, which meant I could add lots of rice to my meals and make them more filling.

For more about the San Francisco Food Bank’s Hunger Challenge, check out the food bank’s website and the Hunger Challenge blog. Click on one of the links below to read what other bloggers are writing about their experience planning, shopping, cooking and eating on $1 a meal a person.

Cooking with Amy
The Inadvertent Gardener
Vanessa Barrington
Been There Ate That
Petit Appetit Newsletter

See what else I’ve written about on the challenge here (including how to donate).

FYI – I spent $83.98 for the week’s food, just two cents below the cap. You can view my shopping list here. From what I thought I would be able to offer to what I ended up being able to buy was a huge gap. Vegetable after vegetable was crossed off my list, fruit after fruit. Whole grains went next; I just couldn’t afford them without literally taking food out of my family’s mouth. Plans and recipes changed and changed and changed as my shopping list shrunk and morphed depending on the realities of the marketplace and my ability to find sales and values. In a future post I’ll do something about the philosophy I tried to keep in mind for cooking for the week.

For my breakfast menus and recipes (well more of assembly instructions), click here.

Below is my menu with serving suggestions for 56 lunches and dinners (14 meals for 4 people). Watch Blog Appétit. I will be posting the different recipes in the next few days.

Chicken Vegetable Stew: 8 servings, 1 cup each – featuring two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, carrots, celery, cabbage, potatoes, onions and garlic.
Serve over rice. (Recipe to come, I’m still working on a dumpling option.)

Turkey Meatballs, Tomato Sauce and Spaghetti – 12 servings. (Reserve 8 meatballs and 1/3rd cup of sauce for Meatball Sandwiches) Eight servings of two meatballs each, 1/8 sauce, 1/8 pasta. Served with green salad made with a few ounces of shredded cabbage, fresh tomato, ½ sliced carrot and ½ sliced celery stalk. Dressed with oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. (Reserve 2 large lettuce leaves 4 slices of tomato for sandwiches.) Four servings Meatball Sandwiches. Toast 8 slices of bread. Slice meatballs in half. Spread sauce on top of a bread slice, layer 1/4th of sliced meatballs on top, add lettuce and tomato, top with more sauce and second piece of bread.

This was one of my only “convenience” meals. I had planned on making the meatballs, but the price of the frozen ones was great – 2 pounds for $5. I was glad to work in a meal that didn’t require as much time in the kitchen.

Asian-Flavor Sauté – 4 servings, 1 cup each. Not really a stir fry but almost a one-pot dinner with chicken, tofu, vegetables and Asian flavors. Serve over rice. Make extra rice, because leftovers will be turned into the next meal. (Recipe to come.)

Food Bank Fried Rice -- 4 servings, 1 ½ cups each (or more depending on the amount of leftover rice you use). This dish (recipe to come) combines the leftover sauté with additional veggies, eggs and leftover rice.

Vegetable Soup – 12 servings, 1 ½ cups each. A hearty, tasty soup featuring potatoes, cabbage, carrots, celery, tomatoes, onion, garlic and more. If needed, make it a heartier meal by serving with a slice of bread and/or a poached or fried egg on top (optional, note that will affect your egg count for other uses). Or put some leftover rice in a bowl before ladling in the soup. (Recipe to come)

Beef and Bean Chili – 12 servings. I’m still working out this recipe, so more detail when I’m done. Serve with a bit of grated cheese over rice (for 8 servings) and over baked potatoes (4 servings).

Stuffed Potatoes – 4 servings. The innards of four baked potatoes get mixed with chopped broccoli, cheese and a white sauce and get stuffed back into their shells. (Recipe to come.)

A word about beverages – Drink tap water. It’s healthy, it’s there and it’s cheap. (It’s even trendy now.) Gussy it up with ice or maybe a bit of juice for flavor. My budget did allow for two cans of frozen orange juice. I mostly worked it into breakfasts, but leftovers could certainly be drunk anytime. I also had two gallons of low-fat milk. While some is used in cooking, the rest is available to drink. One of my early shopping list revisions was getting rid of coffee, herbal or black tea, cocoa or chocolate syrup. With my emphasis on “real” food I just couldn’t afford it.

Speaking of snacks, I thought it might be good to save the milk for snack time instead of drinking it with meals. Also, I was able to provide 16 pieces of fresh fruit in my budget that are available for snacks or as meal add-ons (12 apples and 4 nectarines) enough for four servings for four people. There are also about 20 slices of bread unaccounted for. Even if some slices might be used to accompany the soup, there should still be some available for use with butter, left over peanut butter, and left over jam. Also there is a celery stalk or two extra and a carrot or two extra. They could be cut into sticks and eaten with a meal or as a snack. Any leftover eggs can be hardboiled and eaten as a snack. Or set aside two and turn into rice pudding with leftover rice, some sugar, some milk and a dot or two of butter. Some of the orange juice could be made into homemade juice pops. Pour into ice cube tray, stick in toothpicks and freeze. There are also two whole grain waffles left from breakfast. Toast, sandwich with peanut butter and jam, and cut into sticks or cubes for a snack.
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About the photo: My cutting board right after I used the last scrap of my magic green cabbage.

Nuts for Cashews

Piles of ripe, unprocessed cashews in the market in Nam Cat Dien, Vietnam.

These nuts (technically seeds) grow beneath a dupe or false fruit.  The false fruit falls off and the cashews are harvested, the skins and shells mechanically removed due to toxins and then the seed itself undergoes some heat treatment to get rid of the poison ivy-like chemicals (yes, even the ones sold as raw.)

In some countries the cashew apple is used as a fruit (it is astringent and can irritate some folks).  In others it is fermented into a wine or made into a liquor.  I saw it as a fruit in Vietnam and tasted some vile liquor made from it when I was in southern India.

Vietnam was the world's largest grower of cashews in 2012. I also show plantations of the plants with their colorful cashew apples in northern Cambodia, where they (and rubber trees) were being planted to reforest the deforested jungle and forest areas.

A note: due to Google Blogger mobile inadequacies photos aren't laid out exactly how I'd like them and you, the raeader, are used to, but once I return home I'll clean everything up.