One Bowl Meal Salad, Easy to Prepare

 

You can see almost all the ingredients here:

onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and canned peas

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

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

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

"One Pot" Meal, Fish and Vegetables

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

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

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

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

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

Tasty and Simple 21st Century Tzimmes

Tzimmes 

Tzimmes is a very traditional holiday food for Ashkenaz (European) Jews. There are still families who make it is a "one pot meal" with beef. That combination is from the days when most meals were thick soups or stews. Today's affluence has enabled the development of multiple-pot meals. Even in the half century I've been married, menus and cooking has gotten much more complicated. There are many more pots in the sink than a couple of decades ago, even though we are fewer people at the table. No doubt my grandmothers would find my tzimmes a bit strange, though familiar.

Ingredients (exact quantities aren't necessary)
1 larger or 2 medium carrots
1 medium sweet potato
piece of dlaat, pumpkin or similar preferable orange-colored squash 4"x4" or 10cm by 10cm
1 large apple
handful of raisins
handful of prunes
cinnamon to taste
approx 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
optional- a few slices of ginger root
2T vegetable oil
water up to 1/3 height of vegetables in pot
bit of coarse salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. slice carrots thick
2. cut other vegetables into large bite-sized pieces
3. place in pot, carrots first, then dried fruit and then the rest
4. top with sugar and cinnamon
5. add oil, water and cover
6. bring to a boil, then simmer until soft
7. add salt and pepper when cooking

Tasty with meat, poultry fish or add tofu or beans as a vegetarian meal.

"One Pot Meal," Dairy Vegetable Kugel

Notice that I used a different, for me, shaped pan, so the frozen kugel will be easy to recognize in the freezer, without having to uncover them.

Since my husband and I found ourselves eating alone on the Shavuot holiday, when it's traditional to eat dairy meals, I tried to come up with practical foods.

I used this Dairy Vegetable Kugel as a side dish, but with the addition of a fresh salad, it (certainly the leftovers) makes a perfect and tasty "One Pot Meal." An additional advantage is that you can make more than one at a time and freeze them.

Ingredients:
1 package broad noodles, (you may use any pasta)
1 package cottage cheese
6 eggs
3 fresh mushrooms
1 large onion
1 squash
2 tomatoes
seasonings to taste
You can vary/change the vegetables to your liking and what you have in stock.

Instructions:

1. boil the broad noodles
2. while they're cooking cut of the vegetables
3. Put the vegetables, cottage cheese, eggs and cooking/rinsed noodles and a large bowl and mix. Add whatever seasonings you wish.
4. Pour the mixture in baking pans. Optional to line with baking paper.
5. Bake in moderate oven 160c or 320f until firm and "bubbly" on sides. 
6. that's it
7. serve with salad if you wish

I used to make a sweet version of it, adding fruit, apples, raisins rather than vegetables, seasoned with cinnamon and sugar.

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.

Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meal

Since we have a rather empty nest, just my husband and myself, I don't need to cook as much as before when the house was full of kids and guests. And we still have lots of big pots.

Don't get me wrong; we do have guests, but not as many as in the past. Also, nowadays, my cooking experiments aim more for efficiency than impressive. That's why I decided to try a Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meal, serving (almost) exactly the same meal before and after the Yom Kippur 25 hour fast. Of course, this dish is perfect any time you want an easy hearty one-pot meal.

I don't have many real Jewish Food traditions, especially as pre/post fasts or Succot and Shavuot, which weren't at all celebrated by us. I didn't grow up with kreplach, which is what many Jewish families eat as Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meals.

For some strange reason, as I was trying to figure out what to serve Tuesday night before Yom Kippur, barley popped into my mind. The experts say we should have a complex carbohydrate as a main part of the pre-fast meal. I decided to cook up chicken with barley and vegetables, a one-pot meal, which can even be a soup.

Before the fast, I served it with a salad, and breaking the fast I heated up some ratatouille, I had in the fridge. I also served myself some of the liquid with a bit of whatever came along as a soup, while my husband had his chicken soup. It was delicious, satisfying and so easy to make and serve. I tried to calculate cooking exactly what we needed for the two meals. In the end there's some barley left over, which can be "recycled" into a new soup with added vegetables.

Ingredients:
chicken, I cut it into large serving size pieces
about a cup of barley
onion, cut
2 carrots, cut large
2 large squash, cut large
seasonings, paprika, black pepper, garlic, parsley, a pinch of salt
water, of course

Instructions:

1. add all ingredients to a large pot, leaving a good inch before top, so it won't boil over
2. bring to a strong boil and then turn down flame to simmer for an hour or so
3. Yes, that's it!

Precarious Cooking, Kitchen Chaos

Last night I really didn't feel like schlepping the food out to a neighbor for cooking. Being that it was the last really full day of work in the kitchen, every few minutes I was called in for something.

These were good "somethings."

Wall tiles needed my input, and there were other questions the "kitchen guy" had for me. So I couldn't disappear for half an hour or so.

So I decided to see where I could set up the two-burner hotplate I'd been cooking on for almost two years. I managed to find a "safe" surface within read of an electric outlet. The truth is that the place on the laundry room sink was more "precarious" than "safe."

So I cut up an onion, potato, carrots and a nice sized sweet potato. On top of that I placed two pieces of filleted frozen fish. Then I added some oil, covered an placed it on the burner.

Once it began cooking, I lowered the flame a bit and kept checking until the potatoes were soft. White potatoes take longer to cook than sweet potatoes and unlike most other vegetables, they are awful when not totally cooked. Only eggplants, which are a "cousin" to white potatoes need even more cooking.

I'm glad I decided on that fish meal, because it was nice, filling, tasty and so easy to make, even under the difficult conditions we have right now for cooking.

Low-Tech "Blended" Vegetable Soup

I don't have a stick blender. I did have one many years ago, and since I didn't use it, I passed it on to one of my daughters. She loves it, and I'm pretty sure that by now, that cheap one I got as a bonus, when buying something else, has been replaced at least once.


To be honest, I can't even remember when I last used the potato-masher. It may have been decades ago.

Yesterday's Vegetable Soup was very easy to make. It's my basic one-pot recipe, which I've made before. I don't measure; there's no need to.

Ingredients

• dried peas
• onion
• garlic
• carrot
• squash
• pumpkin
• dehydrated parsley
• whatever vegetable oil you like
• coarse salt and pepper to taste
• boiling water, time-saver rather than tap

Directions

1. Check peas, put in pot, add boiling water to cover plus.
2. Cover and leave for at least an hour.
3. Cut vegetables.
4. Add vegetables and oil to pot.
5. Start cooking on high flame/heat until boiling, then lower to simmer
6. Add more boiling water, no higher than 2", two inches from top of pot. 
7. After half an hour add parsley, salt and pepper. 
8. Cook for at least 10 minutes more. Turn off flame, and let it "sit" for another 10 minutes.
9. Mash optional, and serve.

PS You can always add more vegetables or leave out the pumpkin or squash. And of course you can cook with fresh parsley. I almost added some sweet potato but wanted to cut our the carbohydrates, so added an additional squash. If you want a heartier soup, then add barley or rice to the peas.

Pasta-Chickpea Salad, Pre and Post-Fast Meal

One of the popular suggestions for pre-fast meals is to eat complex carbohydrates, which take longer to digest. The experts consider that a good idea before fasting. So, on Friday I decided to make a Pasta-Chickpea Salad. Of course I had to make sure I had enough time to soak and cook the chickpeas, which I did. You can "cheat" by getting a can of them.

Cooking Chickpeas
First I leave the chickpeas in a covered pot full of boiling water for a couple of hours. Then I pour out the water, add new boiling water and simmer on the stove until chewable. Leave covered for another hour or so.

Pasta-Chickpea Salad Ingredients

• cooked pasta, drained
• cooked or from a can chickpeas, drained
• cut tomatoes, large diced
• diced onion
• olive oil, coarse salt and coarse pepper
• optional other salad vegetables and leaves and/or grated cheese

Mix all of the ingredients together. Yes, it's that simple. It's a simple "one-pot" summer meal. Which additional ingredients do you add? I'd love to hear.

PS for the post fast, fast-breaking breakfast meal, I heated up the salad, since my husband prefers warm pasta.

One-Pan Meal, Tuna Steak and Veggies

This easy to prepare, healthy fish meal can be served any time, but we had it on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. Honestly, there's a limit to how many meat or poultry meals even carnivores like us can truly enjoy.

My husband and I have made it a custom to have fish on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. One of the reasons is that for those of us who strictly follow Jewish Law, heating up food for that meal can't begin until it's dark. Since I just use an electric "hotplate," aka platta, I need to serve something that can heat quickly or be eaten cold.

Most years we eat salmon, which heats up very quickly and easily. But this year I decided to try these tuna steaks, since I'd have to "saw off" a chunk of a large piece of frozen salmon. The tuna tops online and is surrounded by zucchini and pumpkin. On top I sprinkled some paprika and dill, plus oil. Then I covered it and cooked it all before Rosh Hashana. It was served with potatoes and salad.

The One-Pan Meal, Tuna Steak and Veggies is a tasty, filling and easy to make meal.

"One Pot" Baked Chicken and Vegetable Feast

Since you can't really see everything in here I'll list the ingredients under the photo. 

• sliced onion
• sweet potato
• chicken breast
• zucchini
• pumpkin
• pepper
• and a bit of vegetable oil

I baked it in a "medium plus*" oven, first uncovered and then covered with foil.

When you cook like this, you don't need to add salt, since the flavors intensify and interact. You can certainly add other vegetables or leave out some. I like using the onions as a base for this sort of meal. You can make it with fish, beef or chopped meat/poultry. Or you can leave out the chicken completely and have it as a vegetarian dish. If you substitute tofu, then add some soy/tamari sauce or tomatoes.

If you want more "tang" to it, then add fresh garlic or ginger.

Think of my recipes as "suggestions." If you try it, please let me know how it comes out and what changes you made, thanks.

*Exact temperatures will have to wait until I redo the kitchen and get one of those new ovens. Mine if very old, and the temperatures, which were never very accurate to begin with, must be guessed at by moving a dial that no longer has numbers around it.

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.

Totally Delicious "One Pot" Fish Meal

I figured out how to keep the fish (salmon) nice and moist when cooking it up, actually baking, this "one pot" meal. I made all this for me and my husband to eat the second night of Rosh Hashanah. When we're home I serve fish, since there's a limit to the amount of meat and poultry one should eat in a two day period, and since you're not supposed to heat up the food until after you light candles, barely an hour before we eat, the fish heats up very quickly. I use an electric hotplate, which stays on all of the holiday, just like on Shabbat.

As you can see, I cut up potatoes, carrots, onion, pumpkin and a nice sized squash. The squash was a bit larger than the pieces of fish. I made four slices of squash lengthwise and then sandwiched the fish, plus sliced onion, between the squash slices.

Before baking in a moderate oven I dribbled some oil, but no other spices. Of course you can add whatever herbs and spices you like.

It was a very successful, delicious and easy to make meal. If you try it, I'd like to hear how it came out and how you changed this to suit your needs.

Easy One-Pot Chicken Meal

OK, just to be totally honest, I must admit that although I call this a "One-Pot Meal" I serve it with more foods. I served this on Shabbat to my husband and a couple of guests. There were also a nice fresh salad and two other vegetable dishes. But I didn't bother with an additional carbohydrate, and most people would find this enough with either a fresh salad and/or additional vegetable.

Of course, you can always cook this with more potatoes and/or carrots. I actually added another potato before putting it in the oven.  Be sure to put the squash, if you use it, inside the chicken, or it will burn, since it cooks more quickly than any of the other ingredients. And vegetables should be cut in large pieces or not at all.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
a couple of carrots
a large squash or zucchini
a potato or more
an onion
some garlic
paprika, black pepper and whatever you like

I baked it in an old Farberware, stainless steel pot, that had "lost" its handle. I started baking it without a cover, and after about a half an hour, I covered it with aluminum foil. It baked for a couple of hours, high heat. Use whatever heat your oven manufacturer recommends. Probably an hour and a half would have sufficed. It depends on the size of your chicken. This was a small one, which is why not all of the vegetables fit inside.

Everyone enjoyed the meal, and this sure is a good way to utilize an old pot of fantastic quality.

One "Tray" Meal, Fish and All The Trimmings

Two nice pieces of salmon are wrapped up in the foil. For me and my husband to have Shabbat afternoon. I did add a bit of oil before baking it. Now it's all covered in foil and in the fridge to be heated up on the electric "platta." All it needs is a salad for a complete meal.

I'll skip the potato; that's why there's just one. I love these "one pot meals."

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.

Morning Eggs with "Trimmings"

My usual morning eggs are/is a simple oniony "sunnyside up." I don't break and beat the eggs before adding them to the sauteeing onions, which are no more than an opinion unevenly cut and placed in a frying pan with some oil and then cooked covered for a bit. When I can smell it cooking, I add the two eggs, cover again, turn off when the yolk is solid and then that's it. I sometimes (in the summer) add a tiny bit of coarse salt, coarse ground pepper and some turmeric. But the other day, I was in the mood for "adventure," so I added some green cabbage to the onion, and then when I served it, in addition to the pepper and turmeric, I added some pesto* and horseradish**.

It tasted fantastic.

*I had prepared some "instant pesto" for Shabbat, and some was leftover. 
** The horseradish had been made/prepared for Passover. My husband "grinds" the horseradish root in the coffee bean attachment to our old Passover Moulinex Blender and then adds vinegar to it. It stays fresh and potent for months stored in a glass jar in the fridge. 

Colorful Cooked "Salad," Vegetable Dish

Yesterday, when I got back from a quick shopping trip in Jerusalem, suffering from the "clothes dryer" high and dry temperatures, I decided to whip up a nice refreshing cooked vegetable dish for myself. You'll probably notice that it has almost the exact same ingredients as the Perfect, Healthy and Easy Salad Mix I had made to bring to the Yom Haatzmaut barbeque. 

The key word here is "almost." I used most of what was left from the red cabbage, part of the inspiration for the choice of ingredients. I added the red cabbage towards the end so it wouldn't overcook, which makes it awful. It should remain crisp and fresh and bright-colored. 

• onion
• carrot
• fresh ginger (which I keep in the freezer)
• apple, the tarter the better
• red cabbage
• oil for sauteing

As in all of my recipes, you can add and subtract ingredients. If you want it to be a "one pot meal," then add either nuts or seeds for protein and/or cheese when it's almost finished cooking. Cover with cheese, close pan, count to ten and then turn off heat, or if you're using an electric stove top then no need to count to ten, because the hobs stay hot. 

This was cooked in a large covered frying pan. I added the cabbage after the carrots were partially cooked. The ginger gives it a nice "tang," perfect on a scorcher of a day.

This is based on a dish I had in Amsterdam thirty-nine years ago, in a kosher restaurant called "Beth Hamazon." I think they had peanuts in it. I don't remember all of the ingredients and spices they used, but there was something I really liked and tried to reproduce for years.

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.