Attractive, Easy to Make Healthy Shabbat or Anytime Food

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

• be flexible, spontaneous
• don't obsess

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cooking should be enjoyable and creative.

Shabbat Shalom UMevorach

Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

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

No Carb Lasagna

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Shabbat Cooking with Minimal Water

This was not quite what I had been expecting... there have been major water problems in the Shiloh and Shomron areas, as far as we've been told. While I had been in New York, my neighbors had suffered from total lack of water due to shoddy infrastructure in the Mekorot Water System. Also, usually, when I return home, especially when it's late in the week, we get invited out for a Shabbat meal, but not this time.

OK, I'm an experienced and creative housewife. I found a way to prepare delicious Shabbat meals.

One thing that helps is disposables. I did the cooking, all the cooking in the oven in aluminum pans, and I made sure that we have enough disposable dishes and cutlery if needed. I even bought more disposable gloves and "wipes." And the kettle was full hours before "Shabbat.  And there are bottles of water all over the place.

Menu:

Baked Potatoes: unlike pasta and rice, you don't need any water for baked potatoes. I just slice them up a bit for quicker cooking and then wrap in foil and bake.You can't get easier than that.

Chicken: I cheated. I didn't do my usual soaking and pouring boiling water over it before baking. I just quickly rinsed the thawed (bought fresh) chicken under running water, and since we did have some water at the time I used my poultry shears to cut it into serving-size pieces. I squeezed fresh lemon juice over the chicken and added my usual paprika, black pepper and granulated garlic.

Baked in a hot oven, it was delicious as usual. Maybe I don't really need to do all that soaking etc...

Chicken Breast Plus: Since my poultry shears were out and chicken-dirty, I decided to use them to cut up the thawed chicken breast.

Over that I layered eggplant, mushroom, onion, tomato paste, fresh garlic and some oil in a disposable aluminum pan. I covered it with foil to be baked in a medium-hot oven. It tasted fine. I think it would have been even better if I had mixed up the tomato paste with oil, spices and water to make it more of a sauce.

Vegetable-Side Dishes: Yes, these too were baked in aluminum pans to save on washing, since we had no idea if there would be water. And considering that in the summer, dirty dishes and pots are a magnet for ants and other undesirables.

These are my usual variety of baked vegetables, as you can easily see. Basic ingredients, (not all in each dish,) are onion, squash, mushroom, eggplant, sweet potatoes and oil. I find that they cook more quickly in aluminum than in my ceramic or Pyrex baking pans. I suggest a medium heat.

For those of you who want specific temperatures and times, I'm sorry. Each oven is different. Also the smaller the pieces, the more quickly they cook. Just keep checking for smell and crispiness. I do not add salt.

Prevent the Salmon from Drying Out

When I serve a fish meal to me and my husband on a Jewish Holiday, I usually run into a sticky situation. The salmon cooks more quickly than the vegetables. So this year I wrapped the fish in foil, adding lemon and garlic to it. And then I put it all in the oven, so we'd have a perfect "one pot meal" on Shavuot.

Creative Vegetable Cooking

There are many people who have complained about my recipes, because I just can't give exact ingredients, temperatures, times etc. Sorry, for those of you who are too terrified of making "cooking mistakes." I guess that my cooking style would never work in a restaurant, because I pretty much never reproduce any food/dish exactly.

Maybe I'm exaggerating in this, but not by much. In recent years, not even my cakes are measured exactly, and cakes are more like a "chemistry formula" than vegetables. But I've discovered that after decades, pretty close to half a century of cooking, I've developed a "feel" for even my cakes and cookies. And since even the famous 1, 2, 3 cookies my kids adore, are really best and easiest produced with a food scale, I so rarely make them that I haven't replaced my broken scale for years, and I have still managed to make an irresistible version of them sans scale.

Back to my "Creative Vegetable" dishes. They don't need a scale, and you don't have to count, measure etc. All you need is a good covered pan/pot or an oven. I don't have a microwave, but I have no doubt, and would love your reports, that my creative vegetable dishes can just as easily be made in a microwave. 

Recently I've been on a fresh ginger kick. I even slice it into my quick oatmeal. I keep some root in the freezer and slice off a bit with a sharp knife when I want to cook with it. Leave it out for a few minutes to make it easier to slice.

The other day I "sauteed"* it up with onion, carrot, apple, mushroom and cabbage, plus some cooking oil.

When I bake my vegetables, I spread the same ingredients on a baking dish, bake 'n serve ones are fantastic, dribble some oil on top and then bake in a hot oven until seems ready. You may have to lower the oven's temperature, depending on your oven. Ditto about turning off before fully cooked, unless you're cooking more things afterwards.

I'd love to hear your reports of how your versions of my recipes are. So please don't be shy. Comment with reports and questions.

* my concept of "sauteing" is to put the cut vegetables in a good pot or pan, add some oil, cover and cook on low heat until softish. Turn off the stove when almost ready, because the pan's heat will continue the cooking for another few minutes.

Kosher KP Food for 52Frames

For this week's 52Frames challenge/theme we had to photograph Food, Extra Credit for a "favorite recipe." So I made a "one pot meal" version of my baked vegetables by adding pieces of chicken breast.

"One "Pot" Bake and Serve Meal!"
This is one of my very easy "one pot, bake and serve" recipes. Add chunks of chicken breast, onion, squash, pumpkin and whatever else you want, like mushrooms, cauliflower etc into a baking pan. Add a bit of oil and bake in a medium to hot oven until the chicken looks done and the vegetables are soft. For a vegetarian option, leave out the chicken.

Give it a try, and tell me how you made it and how well and tasty it came out.

This week, I just had the one shot. I haven't had time to spend on photographing various foods. Yes, it's almost Passover, and this recipe is good for Passover, strictly kosher for Passover, as well as for all year long. No Kitniyot (legumes,) no "Gebrochts," which if you don't understand the term, you don't have to worry, no chametz etc.

I Love Those One-Pot "Bake and Serve"'s

When I realized that this Shabbat my husband and I seem to be on our own, sans guests and invitations, I pulled out one of our favorite treats from the freezer, turkey drumsticks. I don't serve them to guests, because each is a full portion as far as we are concerned, and not all guests eat that quantity. Every once in awhile I buy a couple of packages, each with two inside. And then I look for different ways to cook them.

I always cook the turkey drumsticks along with some vegetables, and sometimes an apple, too. But this time I kept away from sweet things, if you agree that sweet potatoes aren't all that sweet.

One advantage to the turkey drumsticks is that they are pretty clean, especially compared to chicken. That makes for easy food preparation. The downside is that they are also pretty expensive compared to chicken, two-three times the price per serving, and the bone is pretty heavy. They definitely are a nice treat for us.

Here's the potful before cooking:

There are, as you can see, turkey drumsticks, cut onion, carrots, sweet potato, zucchini and cinnamon on top. I added a bit of water, so it won't burn, juice or wine would be even better, but I wanted to experiment on a very low sugar dish. Not that we're diabetic, bli eyin haraa, but I'm curious about how necessary the sweet stuff is when making turkey.

I cooked it covered on the stove top. I used my forty-year old Le Creuset pot which I bought when we lived in England. The original cover broke soon after, so I've been using different covers (aluminum foil when in the oven) ever since when necessary. It seems to have cooked up nicely.

And that is what is on the menu for tonight. I will serve it with more cooked vegetables, a large fresh salad, and for my husband a carbohydrate. I'm thinking of baking up potatoes with large chunks of pumpkin. If so, I'll eat pumpkin and he'll have both.

Easy "Fancy" Cooking

No doubt you know that I love "bake and serve," easy "one-pot" meals. And I'm always trying different variations of it.  This dish was polished off by me and my husband today for Shabbat noon meal. I served it with a big fresh salad, a cooked vegetable that had carrots, squash, cauliflower, onions and mushrooms, plus I baked some pumpkin. And my husband also had some rice. But I think that most people would find this plus a salad to be a very complete and filling meal. 

Ingredients: (Vegetables are all sliced thickly, since the turkey takes longer to be fully cooked, and I didn't want the vegetables to be overcooked and unrecognizably mushy.)

• two turkey legs
• a large sweet potato
• thick carrot
• large zucchini
• onion
• about 1/4 cup of very sweet red wine poured at the last minute on the turkey

Directions:

• cover with foil and bake in hot oven until almost ready
• turn off oven and let it finish baking
• if you're afraid it will burn lower heat, but usually the foil keeps it from burning
• ready when the turkey is cooked-- every oven is differnt so I don't give time or temperature, since mine isn't accurate

More than "Just a Meatloaf"

This is the meatloaf I served to guests Shabbat lunch.

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

Here's what's in the meatloaf:

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

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

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

 

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

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

Chanukah, 5776, 2015, Day #7, Now for The Turkey; Chodesh Tov!

I guess my Chanuka series is a bit off, since I blog in the morning and tell about the day before. This post is called "," but it's really more about the Sixth Day of Chanukah, not the Seventh. I hope that slight inaccuracy doesn't really bother anyone.

The 6th and 7th days of Chanukah are both Rosh Chodesh (beginning of the Jewish Month.) That makes all of the prayers much longer than usual, record-breaking long actually. There are extra prayers added for both Rosh Chodesh and Chanukah. There was a rousing Hallel said/sang in our synagogue, but less was done as song than we do at the Women's Rosh Chodesh Prayers at Shiloh Hakeduma, Tel Shiloh.  Regardless, we ended late enough. In a couple of hours, rain or shine, I'll be going to doven at the site of the Ancient Biblical Mishkan, Tabernacle at Tel Shiloh, Gd willing.

We had a quiet Shabbat, my husband and I, for a change, no guests and no invitations to eat at neighbors. I had started inviting people, but everyone had other plans, so I gave up. That's one of the reasons I decided to go for the turkey I had bought about Thanksgiving time. No, it isn't/wasn't a whole turkey or even a half. I bought four turkey drumsticks. There's a lot of meat on them, so it doesn't pay to serve for guests who frequently don't finish them. Each is a serving as far as I'm concerned. I decided to cook up two of them as a "one pot meal" in a "bake and serve" dish.

Nobody could really call this a traditional Thanksgiving recipe, but it's as close as we got to one. In a large round baking dish I placed:

• 2 turkey drumsticks, (yes, 2 more remain frozen and waiting)
• large carrot cut in big pieces*
• small sweet potato (yam,) cut in big pieces
• a green squash, also cut in big pieces
• a cut orange that had been waiting in the fridge for a special occasion, (an apple would have had been good, too)
• and a couple of large mushrooms, since we like mushrooms, but they're optional
• a bit of oil dribbled on top 

I covered it all with aluminum foil; you can also bake this in a pan that has a cover. And then I baked it at a high heat until I was sure that the turkey was safely cooked. 

This Not Your Thanksgiving Turkey Dish was moist and tasty. I served it with a large salad and some more vegetables, a Cauliflower and Carrot dish. My husband had rice, too. I drank some beer and he had wine; he also started with his chicken soup.

You don't have to use the exact vegetables and fruit that I did. If you're using frozen vegetables, add them when the turkey is almost fully cooked, or they will be an unappetizing and unhealthy mush. Please let me know if you try this recipe and whatever changes you've made, thanks.

*The vegetables are all cut in in big pieces so they won't overcook and become a mush. The turkey takes longer to cook than vegetables.

Could Be An Entire Meal

In this nice, and well used, bake and serve dish, I placed not only the pumpkin you see on top. There's squash, onion, eggplant and bite-sized pieces of chicken breast. Other vegetables can be used or added. There are no rules.

Add some oil on top, catsup is optional, bake in a hot oven. Cover half-way through. If you cover early, it will just take longer to cook. It's ready when the vegetables are soft.

Creative Vegetable Cooking

I don't cook by following recipes, and I don't shop to suit recipes either. I'm very flexible and creative. I try to buy the most reasonably priced and healthy and fun to cook produce, and then when the time comes to cook it, I just wing it, as the saying goes.

Usually I slice and layer the vegetables, onions on the bottom, eggplant next, then sweet potatoes and the more fun things like pumpkin and mushrooms. Of course it depends on what I have in stock and the mood I'm in. Carrots are always towards the bottom, because they take ages to cook and need the oil.

I'm not one for using salt and pepper in my veggies, just onion and fresh garlic. And I dribble some oil on top and bake uncovered until the vegetables are soft. Take a look!

#1 Before

#1 After

#2 Viewed from the side

#2 Viewed from above

#2 after being baked

They were both delicious and brought to our Shabbat hosts for two different meals. Both vegetable dishes are creative and healthy additions to any meal.

Easy "One Pot" Salmon and Veggies

This is all it is, just salmon and vegetables to be baked:

Along with the salmon steaks there are potatoes, and onions and pumpkin and squash and whatever else you want. To keep the delicate salmon from overcooking I covered it:

Add a bit of oil, and then bake until vegetables are soft.

Holiday Cooking, No Need to Gorge on Unhealthy Food!

In the Jewish world it's Holiday Time. We're in the midst of a three plus weeks of Jewish Holidays, from Rosh Hashannah to Simchat Torah.

My husband and I both lost a bit of weight a few years ago, and we don't want it to return. One of our tricks is to eat lots of cooked vegetables. They fill the plates, our stomachs but don't contain a lot of calories.  I've developed a few basic recipes which are very easy to prepare and impressive to serve. Some are almost, or can be entire meals. They are all healthy and diet friendly.

This is as simple as it looks and tasty, too. In a baking dish, bake and serve, I placed a squash, carrots, eggplant, pumpkin, a potato, onion and a tomato on the eggplant. All I added besides those ingrediants were granulated garlic and some oil on top.  I baked it in a hot oven until I could see that it was ready. Yes, it's that simple. When you cook like this, the flavor stays in.

Here's another dish made with the same technique but a different selection of vegetables. We brought it to the family who hosted us for a meal. It was a popular success.

I layered onions, eggplant, sweet potato, pumpkin and mushrooms. Because of the delicate mushrooms, it's recommended to cover with foil for some of the baking.

There's a limit to the amount of meat and poultry I'm willing to eat over six large meals in just three days or barely 72 hours, One meal that I prepared for just me and my husband was this salmon and vegetable bake.

As you can see, there are two pieces of salmon, sweet potato, onion, pumpkin and carrots. Yes, we polished off every single piece. It was accompanied by more vegetables and a salad, too.

A few months ago, I had bought some giant turkey wings, each packed separately and each large enough to satisfy two hearty appetites. That is especially if they are cooked and served with lots of vegetables. I cooked the last one for a meal my husband and I ate alone.

For a sweet "sauce" I used a small bottle of sweet Purim wine. This dish was our "tzimmis," a traditional sweet vegetable concoction served by many families on Rosh Hashannah. Besides the usual vegetables, carrots, sweet potato, pepper and mushrooms, I also added prunes, raisins and cinnamon. There was also water so it wouldn't burn.

Cook on a low heat in a covered pan until you're sure it's done. A trick to make sure the vegetables don't overcook and "disappear" is to leave them as whole or large as possible. Personally I can't stand overcooked vegetables. They loose their flavor and bulk. You can also add the vegetables later on during the cooking process, but this was very successful and absolutely delicious.

Try these cooking methods, and let me know how the food came out, thanks.

Cooking That Gorgeous NS2 Shekel Kilo Zucchini

Last week when I was shopping for fruit in Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem's main open market, I spotted some giant zucchini in my favorite bargain stall for only ns2 shekel a kilo. That's only about 60¢ for 2 lbs 3 oz.

So even though they clearly aren't fruit, I just had to buy one. And of course I should have bought lots more. But stupidly being my usual doubting paranoid self I was sure there had to be "a catch," like maybe they weren't as good, gorgeous and fresh as they seemed. That's why I only bought one.

This is how I cooked/baked it. I layered the baking (bake and serve) pan with onions, then strips of eggplant, zucchini, slices of tomatoes and some fresh garlic, as you can see. I poured a bit of oil on top and then put it in the oven.

With the help of a vegetable-loving guest, my husband and I almost finished it all off on Friday night. And that was just one small part of a large meal which included soup, chicken, salad, rice and two other cooked vegetable dishes.

One Pot Meal, Salmon and All The Trimmings

Bake and serve...

I prepared this in advance before Rosh Hashannah to serve me and my husband on Friday Night, Erev Shabbat.  There's a limit to the amount of meat and poultry one should eat, so I figured that a good salmon meal would be the perfect solution, and it was.

As you can see, there are a number of different vegetables, plus the salmon.  I also dribbled a bit of oil on top before baking it.  I didn't add salt.  I suggest serving with fresh salad.

Enjoy!

Delicious, Easy and Low Carb Musakka

Very simple, just layer sliced vegetables and some ground meat or poultry.  I

used:
onion
squash
eggplant
tomatoes

Dribble on a bit of oil.  Seasoning is optional.  Bake and serve. 

Honestly, what could be easier?

Serve with a salad, and you have a meal.  Those who can eat carbohydrates can have it with bread, pasta or rice.  Or add sliced potatoes when assembling it.

Simply Delicious

It really is easy to cook vegetables.

Look at this:

You can see how little work is was to make. 

• I lined the baking pan with cut onion.
• Then I quartered a beet
• and sliced a sweet potato
• and then an eggplant
• and placed some garlic in the spaces
• finally I dribbled some oil and baked it.

Because of the bake and serve dish it looked impressive.

Either serve as a side dish or with techina and some salad.

Two Super Simple Ways to Cook Chicken Breasts

I found, post-shiva, a bag of "something unrecognizable" in the freezer.  When sitting shiva, one isn't supposed to handle the mundane tasks of the house.  My kids took over, and here I am almost a month later still trying to get it to its usual mess.  I have found various foods in the freezer which I am 100% certain I didn't buy.  Among them was a bag of chicken breasts, which I took out to cook for Shabbat.  I don't know what the kids had planned on doing with them, but I made two different things.  We were expecting guests, so I felt like having something a bit different.

#1 I sliced up an eggplant, and lined the bake and serve pan with it.  Then I placed the chicken breasts and topped them with onions, tomatoes and some spices.  I dribbled just a drop of oil, put it in the oven and baked it.  You really can't get easier than that.  It's also very dietetic. 

#2  There were too many to fit in the bake and serve pan, so I took the rest and prepare them in a small frying pan.  First I cut up onions and placed them in the frying pan, then the chicken breasts and topped them with a  fresh tomato.  When that was ready, I wrapped it in foil and put it in the freezer.

And More Vegetable Treats

IMHO nothing is more delicious than veggies, really.  OK mint hagan daz ice cream is a close second.

Have you noticed my new ingredient, beets?  It's really like eating candy.  I bake all this.  It's pretty and healthy. Underneath the round squash, pumpkin and beets there are onions, eggplant and sweet potato.

Very easy, just bake and serve.