"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

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.

Super Easy Way to Add Flavor to Meat/Fish/Poultry

There are two condiments that almost everyone has in their kitchens, catsup and mustard. Adding them to your cooking is the simplest, easiest way to add flavor to meat, fish, poultry and other foods.

I know that they all have additives, salt and sugar, but most recipes ask you to add those evils separately. There are times when even the most "natural health" cooks, like yours truly, need to cheat.

The other day when I was in a big rush to cook a couple of meals before leaving home, I put a couple of spoons of mustard and squirts of catsup on this chicken breast vegetable dish before putting it in the oven (covered) for baking. The result was stupendous, delicious, just perfect.

Sometimes we all need shortcuts. I draw the line at powdered soup mixes, jam and straight sugar. Even salt is rarely used for cooking in my kitchen. And when I use salt in soup and kugels, it's coarse, not table salt. What are your little cooking "cheats?" Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Lovely Lentil and Mushroom Dish

Here's another super easy vegan/vegetarian dish that can be either a side dish or a main course for those who need a protein and there's nothing else.

Cut an onion, some garlic and a few mushrooms. Put in a pot. Check then add a cup of lentils. Add a spoon of oil, then three cups of boiling water, cover and simmer until the water is almost absorbed. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Turn off the flame and leave for another twenty minutes.

That's it. It's that easy. Cooking doesn't have to be a lot of work.

Optional: Add carrots, squash and other vegetables, too.

Simple Chickpea Salad

Since we were hosting a vegetarian for a meat meal, I needed to serve a suitable protein for the guest. Summer weather made a salad seem like a good fit.

You need chickpeas, either from a can or cooked. I cooked these. It does take a few hours plus. First you soak them in boiling water in a covered pot for a few hours until they begin to swell, and then you pour out the water and rinse. Add lots more water and boil them for another couple of hours until they are nice and soft. Let them cool.

Once the chickpeas are cool, pour out the water, and in a nice bowl add:
chopped garlic
onion cut in small pieces, red onion is great if you have one
diced tomato

Mix them with the chickpeas, then add some olive oil and then coarse pepper and a bit of coarse salt to taste.  If you wish you can also add leaves or/or additional fresh vegetables. My guests loved it, even those who eat meat.

Easy and Healthy No Sugar Beef

If you check recipes in books and online for cooking beef, you'll see that so many require sugar, whether from jam, sweetened sauces, wines, juice or just plain sugar. You can cook a piece of inexpensive beef without any sweetener at all.

I buy an inexpensive cut of beef from the freezer section of the supermarket. I'm fussier about the price than the name of the cut. First, after thawing, I soak it in water to rid it of whatever salts and blood I can get out of it. Actually I use the pot for this, since health/hygiene experts say it's important to keep raw meat/fish/poultry off of eating and food prep surfaces.

Ingredients:
Beef, vegetable oil, onion, garlic, peppercorns, tomatoes or canned tomatoes preferably diced/chopped without added sugar or salt

Instructions:

• Cut up a large onion and some fresh garlic; store in a bowl on the side.  
• Cut about a pound of tomatoes or get a can/jar of diced or crushed tomatoes without added sugar; store in a bowl on the side.  
• Add a bit of oil in the cooking pot, (which should have a good cover)
• Turn on the heat and then add the beef. 
• Keep turning the beef so the outside looks cooked. 
• Add onions and garlic; continue turning for a few minutes.
• Then add the tomatoes and peppercorns, cover and lower the heat a bit.
• Let it cook for a couple of hours, checking periodically to make sure there's enough liquid. You may need to add some water.

That's it! Very no fuss and extremely healthy. No added sugar or salt is necessary. You can serve it with rice, pasta, vegetables, salad or whatever you like.

Low-Carb, Crustless Dairy Quiche

Here are the vegetable ingredients, before being shredded in the foodprocessor:
carrot, onion, celeriac (root), squash, cabbage

 All shredded and ready for mixing.

In the end I felt the need to add five 5 eggs and half that container of gvina tsfatit, which is a white salty cheese. I bought the 5%. This cheese is somewhat like feta, Bulgarian or any brined cheese.

You can add more cheese, or less. And you can certainly eliminate the cheese entirely if you want a parve, lactose free dish.

In all honesty, I wouldn't obsess over the specific cheese. It should be white and crumbly.

I added some matzah meal to absorb the liquid when baking.

One was baked in a pyrex casserole for serving the next day, and the rest was put in freezable baking pans for another day.

I baked them in medium heat until they felt "solid" when pressed. Yes, that's the same "test" I use when baking a cake and similar oven temperature. My oven is old, not at all digital, and the numbers are long faded away.

The Low-Carb, Crustless Dairy Quiche really tasted great. I didn't add salt,since the cheese is very salty. You can certainly add whatever fresh herbs you want. I didn't add any oil, not even on top before baking. So, this is also a low-fat recipe.

My recipes are "suggestions." Never obsess over quantities and ingredients.

Just enjoy and let me know how it came out and what you did to personalize the recipe.

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.

Simple Avocado Salad

The other day, I grabbed an avocado to take with me for lunch. OK, that is a pretty dumb thing to do, since avocados are awfully messy. That's not a problem when you're home, since avocados make great face (and no doubt neck) cream. So, it's no surprise that I didn't have lunch when I was out. But the minute I got in I quickly assembled a nice colorful salad with the avocado, a tomato and a mushroom.

I love the colors. And I also like how it looks on the newspaper. I was getting tired of photographing food on the same tablecloths all the time. On black and white the colors of the tomato and avocado really stand out. Yes, that's how red and yummy the tomato was, and you can see that the avocado was also perfectly ripe and ready to be eaten.

This salad took me just a couple of minutes to prepare and not much more to eat it.

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.

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.

Better and Simpler than the Finest Sorbet

I was going to say that's what I'm going to show you is better than the best ice cream, but in all honesty, if I had a choice between this simple treat and Häagen-Dazs Mint, I'd probably take the mint.

Since I only eat the mint ice cream on rare visits to the states, my super easy and extremely healthy "Mango faux sorbet" gets my vote.

As you can see, all it is in this recipe is a mango. At the end of the mango season here in Israel, they are very inexpensive. All you need to do is to freeze a ripe mango.

About fifteen 15 minutes before you want to eat the mango or serve it, take it out of the freezer. And then, after waiting the fifteen minutes, cut bite-size pieces with a sharp knife. If you're just eating yourself, like I do, then eat. If you're serving it, put the pieces in a serving dish with toothpicks. Serve immediately or return to the freezer.

The frozen mango has the same texture as a good sorbet, but without any other ingredients.

Would You Believe...?

This lovely vegetable "kugle," crust-less quiche, can even be made with leftovers.

Or you can cook up, I saute only, carrots, onions, squash, cauliflower etc specially for the vegetable kugle. Add just an egg or two a bit of oil, some more seasoning and bake. I made this with vegetables I had cooked up a few days earlier.

This vegetable dish looks fancy and is low carbohydrate and good for dieting and good for serving guests. Trust me, that this healthy vegetable dish is so easy to make that I won't even format it as a recipe. You can also saute a bag of frozen vegetables in a bit of oil, and then mix it with egg and pop it in the oven, moderate heat, like for a cake. Sprinkle some cheese, nuts or seeds on top or mix in for more variety.

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.

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.

Perfectly Pickled

It's really amazing how easy it was to make these pickles.  Contrary to what's written in other places, I discovered that the cucumbers don't have to be perfect.  When I got up from sitting shiva for my mother last week I found that we had too many cucumbers in the fridge, and even worse was that some were frozen.  I kvetched about it on facebook and a friend suggested pickling them. I did some Google searches for easy pickles and eventually came up with this method.  I boiled them, because I was afraid of spoilage.  The whole business didn't take long.  Here, "watch."

I rinsed off the cucumbers.  The dark color is from the iciness.  They were otherwise fresh and had no smell.  As per instruction I saw on the internet.  I cut off the ends.  Then I sliced them the long way and placed them in a pot.

I added, coarse (aka kosher) salt, white sugar, peppercorns, dehydrated dill and garlic.

I cooked the cucumbers and spices up with some plain vinegar and water until the color changed.  Then I left it to cool a bit until it was safe to put them in glass (from instant coffee) jars.

My husband and I both like the flavor.  Normally I don't like pickles.  But these are good.  The hardest thing is now remembering to eat them, since I never buy any; they're not on our regular menu.  Next time I pickle,  I'd like to add some different veggies, such as carrots.  Yes, I'm planning a next time.  It's really easy and a good way of using vegetables before they "go bad."

Two Passover Classics or Necessities, Kneidelach and Geffilte Fish

I'm the Ashkenaz (from European stock) grandmother; my son-in-law is from Tunisian parents.  The Jewish world is world wide, and even here in Shiloh, you can find families from almost every place in the world.  That means that there are lots of culinary customs.  We went to our now Tunisian daughter for the Passover seder.  I was asked to bring the kneidelach (matzah balls) and the geffilte fish (boiled fish balls.)

The little pieces of paper with the recipe, which for decades had been on the inside of the kitchen cabinet got lost, fell off, so even I had to check my blog.  By popular demand, here's my very easy, TNT kneidelach aka matzah ball recipe.

I usually double or triple it. This is enough for 4-6 bowls of soup.

1/2 cup of matzah meal
a pinch of salt and some pepper
other spices, like paprika, parsley etc optional
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of water
2 tablespoons of oil (soy or olive or any other)

Mix together and leave for at least 40 minutes.
It's a good idea to prepare the soup at this point, while waiting, so the soup will be boiling when it's time...  If you're not cooking them in soup, then boil slightly salted water for cooking the kneidelach.

Then put either spoonfuls (use the two spoon method like in drop cookies) or roll balls in your hands, into the boiling soup or lightly salted boiling water.

After it returns to a boil, cover the pot and lower the flame to simmer for another 40 minutes.

They can be eaten all year and in any soup. I love them in vegetarian vegetable soup! It's also very easy to make geffilte fish.

For basic quantities, may be doubled, tripled etc.:

per half kilo or one pound ground fish (whatever is available, combine a couple of types; I have a friend who uses canned tuna)

• a grated medium onion
• an egg or two, depending on size
• enough matzah meal, so it sticks together, not runny
• salt, pepper and sugar "to taste"

For the "stock," the liquid used for boiling the fish

• a sliced onion
• a sliced carrot
• salt, pepper and sugar "to taste"

Mix the ground fish with the first set of ingredients.  Make sure the matzah meal is mixed into the "mush."  Then slice your onion and boil it up with water, no more than a third way up the pot, and spices.  When the water is boiling strongly, add the fish, using the "two spoon" method.  Crown them with sliced carrots and let it all simmer in a covered pot for close to an hour.

OK, some people use their hands to make fish balls, rinsing their hands in a bowl of water when too much sticks to their hands.  I'm just not that sort of cook.  I also got married in 1970 when all sorts of warnings about the dangers of raw food were well-publicized.

Both the kneidelach and the geffilte fish may be frozen if you've made too much.  We serve our geffilte fish with homemade horseradish, ground or grated with the addition of vinegar.