Sauerkraut Beef Stew

 

We somehow found ourselves with a can of sauerkraut, and I'd been trying to figure out what to do with it. For some strange reason, I began to imagine it with beef. Just to make sure I wasn't totally crazy, I did some google searches to see if such recipes exist, not that I actually follow recipes...

The recipes I found, and there are many, weren't at all kosher. They also required "slow-cookers" which I don't have. But at last I got some reassurance that people do cook beef with canned sauerkraut. Then I asked in a facebook group that prides itself on "real world" recipes, not those awfully complicated ones. Some nice people answered. They gave recipes/cooking ideas that also use "slow-cookers" or "cover well and bake in the oven," which I didn't feel like doing. I generally simmer beef on the stove for a few hours.

Now, to be honest, we haven't eaten it yet, but it looks and smells delicious. 

Ingredients:

kilo plus of the least expensive frozen beef in the store, onion, celeriac, a few carrots, a couple of tomatoes, a can of sauerkraut, a bit of oil, coarse ground black pepper and a couple cups of water. 

Directions:

1. thaw beef
2. soak beef or awhile in water, and then throw out the water
3. put beef in pot with some oil, high heat
4. add the onions, and then turn the beef over so it browns a bit all around
5. add vegetables, sauerkraut, water and pepper, then cover
6. as soon as it starts to boil, turn down heat to slow simmer
7. simmer for at least two hours

That's it!

I plan on serving it with potatoes, cooked vegetables and salad.

Simple Cooking: Using Up Bread/Challah - Stuffed Chicken

There are people who don't like to throw food out, and all sorts of kitchen and frugal experts suggest freezing or drying out leftover bread and challah to be used later. Two common usages for such bread are bread crumbs and croutons, neither of which I ever need.

Actually, I don't end up with much leftover bread or challah, since I don't buy bread much and only serve small home-baked challot or rolls on Shabbat and Jewish Holidays. Whatever is leftover is used for my husband's sandwiches when he goes to Jerusalem for the day. I supplement the leftovers with uneaten restaurant rolls, when out with friends.

But, davka, this year, close to Passover, when I must rid the house of bread I ended up with almost an entire store-bought white challah in the freezer. It had even been sliced for easy sandwich making, but I really didn't need it. I had decided to use what whole wheat flour was stored to make sandwich rolls, yes, to be blogged about in a couple of days, Gd willing.

Nu? What could I do with all that leftover challah? I decided to stuff a chicken for this Shabbat. I buy whole chickens, which is the most frugal there is here in Israel. Now that I think about it, cutting the chicken into the usual six pieces takes about as long as it took to make the stuffing. Yes, making bread-stuffing for chicken is really easy.

Since I hadn't stuffed a chicken in decades, I googled to make sure I remembered how. Then I just did what seemed right to me. Remember that pretty much everyone has different methods and recipes for various dishes, whether Chocolate Cake, Vegetable Soup or Stuffed Chicken, so you don't have to follow everything exactly. Cooking isn't Mathematics.

 1- Just before preparing your chicken for cooking, put the bread or challah in a bowl and add some water. Usually when I get the chicken ready to be cooked I pull out and throw away all the fatty pieces, but this time I kept them for the stuffing.

2- Squeeze out the water, either by putting the mush in a sieve and pressing down, or just by hand and tipping the bowl.
3- Add seasonings. Egg optional- I remember adding an egg, but since the recipes I saw didn't include it, I decided not to. You can use all fresh seasonings, all powdered or a combination. I used chopped onion then dehydrated dill (because I have a lot in the pantry,) pepper, paprika and garlic.

4- Place the chicken in the baking pan and then stuff it.

 5- Since I ended up with more stuffing than could fit in the chicken, I added it around the chicken. This solved a problem. The recipes had warned that wings and drumsticks could be burnt and should be protected with foil. By covering them with stuffing, they're safe. Also, contrary to all the recipes I saw, I don't tie, pin whatever the chicken together/closed. My chickens don't flap their wings and fly away when being baked/roasted.

6- Optional to top with sliced onions, carrots, peppers or whatever. I recommend using a bit of vegetable oil on top.

7- Start the baking with the chicken covered. Hot oven, just over 200C, about 400F. My oven is turbo, meaning has a fan, and I had the heat from the top. If you don't have a fan, then, I suggest cooking it longer. Depending on the size of your chicken*, it must bake at least an hour like that. When it seemed almost ready, I took off the foil and for the final 20-30 minutes, I baked it uncovered.

*Stage 1 of being fully cooked is when liquid quickly comes out if you pierce the chicken with a fork. When it reached that point, I uncovered it. Then once liquid was coming out on its own, I turned off the oven. There are online sites that give you charts for recommended cooking times according to weight of chicken and whether stuffed or not.

Blogging Isn't Dead

My Desk-"Multi-Tasking" 52Frames weekly photography challenge

Bloggers, am I the only one who has noticed a downward trend in page/post views? I wonder if it's personal, or maybe the anti-spam check has kept the fake views down...

I do blog a bit less than previously. No longer do I skirt the OCD daily posting on both blogs, even when it's done by writing in advance and setting up the post to be published on a future date. Now I blog less frequently and rarely on both blogs, this one and Shiloh Musings, on the same day.

Blogs for me are the ones we publish on our own "sites," not when using the "blog" option on conventional mainstream news sites. That's another genre completely.

Havel Havelim

Over a decade ago, bloggers from all over the world developed a community, visiting, commenting and even promoting each other's blogs in a few different "blog carnivals." There were some Jewish ones which I was involved in, and I'm still friendly with other bloggers I met through these "carnivals." Havel Havelim was the biggest of all and continued for many years. I still use the name when posting blog "roundups."

Very few of the blogs from way back when are still active, but there are some interesting, well-written blogs. Here are a few posts for your reading pleasure. Please read, comment and share. And if there are some blogs you'd like to recommend, then list them in the comments here with full links, thanks.

Listed below are titles of blog posts about Israel and Jewish topics from a variety of blogs. Click to read and enjoy.

Gala World Betar Reunion
Thank You
An Idolater Complains
Israel: Where We All Have Something to Give
Four Generations
Attractive, Easy to Make Healthy Shabbat or Anytime Food
The Unthinkable is Happening in The USA
Amazing New Poll Exposes that Israelis Are Vastly Against the Two-State Solution
Finally, Farewell to Tsipi Livni, Failed Politician
Purim, Two Weeks After Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet
A Lion taking care of kitties
Has the Peace Process ‘Prevented Palestine’? Joel Singer vs. Seth Anziska
Hurry to The Israel Museum Before Israeli Fashion Exhibit Closes

Enjoy, and keep on visiting and commenting on blogs.

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.

Easy Recipes and Enjoying The New Kitchen

Yesterday we had guests for a Succot lunch. They had been great fans of my new kitchen during the years I just talked and complained. I got a lot of support from them, so it was very exciting to host them. I served a fish meal, mujadarra, eggplant, baked vegetables, salad and salmon.

Mujadarrah:
1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils
small/medium onion cut
a bit of cooking oil of your choice
4 1/2 cups boiling water

Put all but water in pot, saute a bit, then add boiling water, cover, bring to boil, lower to a simmer until you can't see any water. Leave covered at least another 10 minutes. Serve.

"Impressive" Eggplant:
eggplant
tomatoes
onion
fresh garlic
vegetable oil

Slice eggplant partially, so it opens like a book.
Fill with sliced tomato. Sprinkle diced onion and garlic, then oil. Bake in medium-high (or whatever is recommended by your oven manufacturer) oven until cooked.

"Fancy" Salmon:
Filet of salmon
lemon slices
fresh garlic
mustard
Decorate your salmon. Wrap in foil, if you're baking it at the same time as the other dishes, so it won't overcook. Otherwise just bake in a medium-high (or whatever is recommended by your oven manufacturer) oven until it seems ready. You can check that the salmon has changed color and is flaky where thickest. Yes, it's that simple.

I enjoyed the meal and hope everyone else did, too.

PS It was so much fun being able to cook so quickly. I could fit all three baked dishes in the oven at the same time. I love my new kitchen!!

Cooking in New Kitchen, B"H

Yesterday, although it's still a mess in my house, I began cooking for Shabbat. I used both ovens, though not simultaneously. Since they are large and have a turbo setting I could even use more than one tray at a time. That's a timesaver for sure. I bought Electrolux which is larger inside than the Sauter.

Some of the cooking/baking was done in bulk so I won't need to do it weekly. Challot and cakes freeze well for sure. I may have enough challah rolls to get me through most of the fall Jewish Holidays, Rosh Hashanah, pre/post Yom Kippur meals, Succot and Simchat Torah, depending on how many guest we have and meals we're invited out. The cakes will be enough for a few weeks, especially if I make my traditional Rosh Hashanah Applesauce Cake. And I already froze some of the baked chicken breasts.

So, yesterday's cooking/baking was truly a time investment, besides learning how to use the new ovens.

For those wondering about oven temperatures, something I never paid attention to with my old oven,* I sort of followed the guidelines on the inside of the oven doors:

To whet your appetite, here are some photos of my cooking/baking experiments from yesterday:

Challah recipe

Simple Basic Cake**, with blended banana and mango rescued from the freezer

These Chicken Breasts were simply layered over sliced onion and topped with tomatoes, dehydrated basil and coarsely grated pepper. I baked them covered with foil. I could see their cooking progress, since I used a pyrex baking pan. (Recipe)

Oven Baked Chicken, the food my kids consider my specialty

Besides enjoying the ovens, I'm super happy to be finally cooking on gas after almost two years of using an old two burner electric "hot plate."

The kitchen is almost completely organized. I think that all of the chametz dishes and pots are stored, but I will need help with the Passover things which will be on higher shelves. More updates, Gd willing, in future posts.

Bottom Line:

Was the expense and chaos of a new kitchen worth it?
YES!

*The numbers had long been rubbed/cleaned off the old oven, so it was like telling time from a sundial. 

**I made a few small changes, cinnamon instead of vanilla, and the blended banana and mango instead of some of the water. That's the beauty of the recipe; it's very adjustable.

Turkey "Meatballs" in Homemade Tomato "Sauce"

I've been getting more and more turned off by the commercial tomato pastes and sauces, since they're all produced with various chemicals, additives, sugars etc. Here in Israel you can get nice juicy red tomatoes for under $1 per pound, even in our small local supermarket. So I buy a bag, cut them up and cook with garlic, onion (whatever herbs and spices you want) and vegetable oil in a covered pan. That's my "sauce."

I added a bit of boiling water. If I had a "stick blender," I'd probably liquify it. When it got nice and mushy, I mixed the ground turkey with raw egg a diced onion, parsley and garlic, of course. You can add whatever herbs and spices you like. I used to add matzah meal but don't any more. The meatballs still stick together and have less starch, plus no gluten this way.

Next I double-spoon it into the boiling sauce and cook until it changes color.

Now, it's all ready to be reheated when needed.

I haven't yet decided whether to serve with a pasta or rice. And of course there will be additional vegetables and a salad on the table.

Easy TNT Never-Fail Knaidlach, Matzah Balls

I discovered this super easy, never failed me yet, TNT tried and true  Matzah Ball recipe when I was newly married a gazillion years ago. I use olive oil when making it on Passover and vegetable/soy oil during the year. It's best cooking it up in the soup, chicken or even vegetable soup, but when I bring them to my daughter, I just cook them up in lightly salted water. This time the water also had a pinch of pepper.

Way back when, every good housewife had a little Recipe Box of handwritten index cards, I wrote this one:

3 eggs
1T water
2 Ts oil
1 tsp salt
dash pepper
1/2 c מצה meal

mix thoroughly
-in fridge several hours
shape into balls
drop into boiling soup or water

Here are pictures from this year when I quadrupled the recipe:

I'm just bringing the Matzah Balls, since my daughter is hosting and making the Chicken Soup.

****

This, how to double-spoon drop for making Kneidlach, is from last year, when I was cooking on gas, which gives a more powerful flame than the electric stove I'm using this year. Gd willing, next year I'll be back to cooking on gas, or at  least a more powerful stovetop.

Delicious, Attractive, Easy Turkey Breast and Veggie One-Pot Meal

Last week when I was shopping in Rami Levy I saw that they had a special discounted price for Turkey Breast, so I got a package. It weighed just under a kilo, meaning just over two two pounds, 2 lbs.

One of the great things about the Turkey Breast is that there is absolutely no waste. No skin, bones or globs of fat. It's like buying a good piece of fresh fish filet for a fraction of the price, at least here in Israel where fish can be very expensive. According to the experts, turkey is healthier than chicken or beef, and has more natural flavor than chicken according to most people.

So, I took out one of my baking dishes and filled it with all sorts of vegetables and topped it with pieces of the Turkey Breast, which I cut with my poultry shears, and then placed some large whole mushrooms.

Vegetables:
onion, carrot, sweet potato, zucchini, pumpkin, garlic and mushrooms

I poured on some oil and lightly covered with foil, stuck it in a hot oven and baked until the turkey had changed to a light/cooked color.

I served it for Shabbat Lunch, and it heated nicely on the electric food warmer. We had three guests, and everyone loved it. Even though we all ate plenty of it, there is still some leftover. Of course, it wasn't the only food I had served. I made a large tossed salad, rice and an additional vegetable dish which had eggplant and Jerusalem artichoke, among other things.

From now on I will look for more Turkey Breast to buy when on sale and keep it in the freezer.

Absolutely Delicious: Meatloaf Plus!

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

Very simple:

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

It also freezes well and has no carbohydrates at all.

*Adjust quantity to the size of your baking dish.

Mint Sauce for The Lamb

Now, to be honest, I've never made lamb, nor have I made mint sauce for lamb. Now, as you loyal readers know, and the rest of you are reading now, my husband has been hankering for lamb. He had been hinting rather broadly the past couple of years that he wants lamb for Rosh Hashanah. I asked/blogged around for advice on recipes and general lamb cooking instructions. I finally bought a monstrous piece, smallest I could find, in Rami Levy and even managed to get it into my freezer. That's child's play compared to fitting it into my oven, which I'll tell you about in a later blog post. I have a super tiny, actually two super tiny ovens...

Well, back to the Mint Sauce... all the recipes said the lamb should be served with Mint Sauce. A friend gave me a simple recipe, just my type, no quantities.

Chop up a quantity of Mint (Nana) add a teasp. of sugar Mix some vinegar with equal quantity of water and pour on the mint and let stand.

She said I should do it a few days in advance. So, here it is:

mint, cleaned and chopped

plus sugar

water and vinegar

bottled and waiting

I hope I did it right...

Cooking Lamb? Looking for No Fail Healthy Recipes

For the past few years just before Rosh Hashanah, my husband has been hinting for me to cook some lamb. So, maybe I'll take the plunge. Here are some giant frozen "things" labeled as "lamb" in Rami Levy, the discount supermarket I sometimes/frequently shop in, since it's next to Yafiz where I work.

These "things" are a bit large for my freezer and my oven, but I trust that they shrink when thawed out. The recipes I've seen aren't very appetizing. So, I'm asking my loyal, trusted and creative readers for help. And of course it must be kosher, meaning no adding dairy or fish products.

You should know that I'm not interested in adding a jar of jam or bottle of juice (especially not concentrate) or a cup of oil or things like that. I'm not that sort of cook...

So, please comment with your suggestions, guidelines and recipes. If you're a reader of this blog, you know that I'm not very good at following recipes and measuring, unless it's a cake. So, let's see if this request helps, thanks.

Easy and Impressive Homemade Bourekas!

A few days ago, we had a big family get-together with all my children and grandchildren and my cousin and most of her family, too. It was at my daughter's house in Ofra, and she did most of the food preparation with the help of her siblings. I only contributed two items, of which my kids have fond memories. One was my famous 1, 2, 3 Cookies, both chocolate chip and granola/oats, and the second are my Tomato/Onion/Cheese Bourekas. They are very easy to make and always look impressive. 

Ingredients:

batzek allim, puff pastry dough, readymade frozen or frozen malawach dough, which is basically the same though round

fresh onions sliced or cut into large pieces

sliced tomatoes

grated yellow cheese, like what you'd put on a pizza

one raw egg to "paint" on unbaked bourekas

Directions:

You can make your bourekas any shape, half-circle, rectangle, square, triangle or round. There are customary shapes for different types of filling. Especially when I am making bourekas for a large group I like long ones that can be cut when served. 

Cut a piece of the dough over half the size you need for the bourekas, since you will stretch it to the size you want. 

When it's the size and shape you want, place it on baking/parchment paper.

Put the onion along one third of the dough.

Top it with tomato.

Then sprinkle on the cheese.

Fold over the dough, sealing the edges well.

I fit three in these pans and "painted" them with raw egg.

Bake in a medium oven until puffed and brown.

The onions, tomatoes and cheese will bake up really well as the dough bakes. There's no need to saute the vegetables first if sliced thin enough. There's more than enough fat in the dough, which is a reason the vegetables cook so well inside.

Variations:
Use different vegetables
Don't use cheese
Fill with leftovers, but don't tell anybody!
Fill with cooked meat or fish.
Use differnt cheeses.

Please let me know in the comments how it comes out and what suggestions you have, thanks.

Stove Top Passover Cooking, Good All Year, Too

On Passover I have to cook my chicken and beef on top of the stove, because I don't kasher the oven for Pesach. I do have a small Passover oven which I keep parve for all the baked vegetable dishes etc. At this point in life, I'm not in the market to buy one of those ovens for chicken. First, there's no room and second I look at my life/age and say:

"For  just a few weeks use, it really isn't worth it."

also:

"We've survived so long without one, we will survive ad me'ah vi'esrim until 120 perfectly well fed, too."

The CPA daughter in me looked at my 60th birthday as

"OK, now you've hit the halfway point in the  me'ah vi'esrim 120. Oops!"

So, yesterday I did the messy cooking, the fleishig/meat stuff for the last of Passover, 5776, 2016. And here are some photos and instructions aka recipes. And why do I call these "instructions?" That's because one isn't to OCD trying to measure and count and follow exactly. I never know how long it will take to cook or how much exactly of anything I will add etc.

Chicken "Bottoms" with Parsley, Carrots, Onions and a Dash of Wine

In Israel, the bottom part of a chicken is the favorite, and I bought a couple of packages for the holiday. When cooking stovetop, it is best not to make too much at once. Four rather zaftig bottoms fit perfectly in this low pan. They were joined as you can see by carrots, onions, parsley, pepper, paprika and the wine that Eliyahu Hanavi didn't drink. Any wine can be used or nonne, too. I cooked it covered on a low flame until when poked and prodded it seemed completely cooked.

Beef Braised with Onions, Garlic and Ripe Tomatoes 

First I seared the beef in hot olive oil with the chunks of onion and garlic. Then I added the gorgeous red tomatoes and about a half a cup of sweet wine. I lowered the flame and covered it.  I also added about half a cup of water, nothing else. I let it stew for a couple of hours. You may need a bit more liquid, but my pot is a good one.

Two Baby Chickens with with Parsley, Carrots and Onions

Rami Levy was selling these tiny chickens on Tuesday when I was working. I wish I had bought lots more, but there's a limit as to how many I can carry. They fit perfectly in the pot side-by-side, and were cooked the same way as the "bottoms."

These recipes are easy, healthy and good all year round. And, of course, they are strictly kosher!!