Fresh Mint Ice Cream

The thing about this mint ice cream is that it’s not flavored with extract. Instead, I steeped some mint leaves in the milk and let that flavor the custard. Delicious! Then, I added some chopped up thin mints to the batter during the last few minutes of freezing. Wow! What a great minty combination! You get that bright fresh mint flavor from the ice cream, and then the chewy and pepperminty thin mint bite a little while afterwards. This is a great refreshing summer ice cream. Continue reading

Roasted Turkey Leg

Turkey is something that we usually only ate when we had a lot of company for Shabbat dinner. And in that case, we’d roast a whole turkey with celery, carrots, onions, and spices. It was good, and really the only way I knew how to eat turkey. Stephanie and I used to baste it every so often, and then when it was hot, but cool enough to handle, carve it. I never actually ate turkey at the dinner table because I’d pick at it while carving. Oh, we also had turkey on Thanksgiving. But this was not made in our house, so I had no idea how it was made. Continue reading

Sweet Kaak

Sweet kaak is nothing like regular kaak, except that it’s also kinda like a bread stick. Actually, it’s really more like a cookie made with orange zest. I usually don’t love orange zest, but for some reason I absolutely love sweet kaak. It’s a traditional Syrian treat, one that if I have in my cookie jar (okay, fine, I don’t have a cookie jar, but I do have airtight containers that I can leave on the counter and store cookies in) I will finish in about a day. Basically, they are sugar cookies that are twisted. Yum! Continue reading

Boston Cream Pie

Happy 2nd birthday, Kosher Foodies!! Today our blog turns 2. And to celebrate this momentous occasion, we would like to share one of our all-time favorite cake recipes with you. Sure, I made it over two months ago for Zeke’s birthday in May and wanted to share it with you the second I cleaned up all the forks and plates, but I figured that this special day warranted an extra special recipe, so here you go. It’s worth the wait.

Boston Cream Pie is actually cake. Delicious yellow cake with pastry cream in the center and drizzled with chocolate ganache. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Well what about if cut a hole out of the middle and stuff it with the cream, then put more cake on top and top that with lots and lots of chocolate? Yeah, it’s good. At least that’s what the people who ate all of it thought. It was a HUGE cake – I doubled a recipe that served 8-10, and at the end of the night only two slices were left. Those were quickly finished, as well. So if you’re in the mood to make an impressive cake, try this one. You won’t be sorry. Continue reading

Sour Cherry Linzer Tart

I wanted to make something different for Shavuot. The picture of this tart in the cookbook The Art and Soul of Baking just jumped out at me, and I knew I had to try it. Also, I love nutty crusts. When I read through the recipe and saw that it called for cherry or berry juice, I knew I wanted to make this tart even more sour and use POM! Continue reading

Cherry Apricot and Pistachio Biscotti

I love biscotti! They are the perfect after dinner treat, and are a great treat in the morning to dip in coffee. These cookies are filled with dried fruits and nuts, which makes me think they’re healthy, too! I usually take my time and make teeny skinny biscotti, but these are great cut a bit thicker, since you get a mouthful of the dried fruit. Plus, it makes making the biscotti that much easier. Continue reading

Chocolate Chip Cherry Muffins

Sour cherries and chocolate are an amazing combination. And muffins are a great freezer-friendly breakfast or snack. So when I bought an extra bag of dried sour cherries, I just knew I had combine them with chocolate. And I did! These muffins are great, and I made them a little healthier by using whole wheat pastry flour and cottage cheese in the batter, instead of all white flour and sour cream.

The tartness of the cherries combined with the sweet chocolate and batter is perfect. You may think you want to cut down on the sugar in the recipe, and I was thinking about it, too, but the cherries are super sour, so I was pretty sure we needed the sweetness to counteract the tart cherries. Maybe I’ll try to make these even healthier with raw sugar, agave, or even honey next time. Continue reading

Banana Pops!

On Monday I bought a Zoku Quick Pop Maker! I got home and put it straight in the freezer because I just couldn’t wait to try it out. And boy am I glad about that impulse buy! I had some overripe bananas hanging out on my banana tree (read: KA dough hook), and mixed them with just a teeny bit of sugar and some milk – voila, I made really healthy banana pops that rival those banana FrozFruits we used to eat on the beach (fine, more often we got coconut and strawberry. Claire always got lime).

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Old-Fashioned Banana Cake

The problem with making desserts for Shabbat is that we can’t take pictures of the final project…I mean, you can see the cake and how it looked right out of the oven, but you can’t see it sliced and on a plate, which is too bad because this cake was pretty. Okay, the pan is a little bit messy, but at least my counter is clean! Oh, and the other problem is that you have to make the desserts pareve. Which means no cream cheese frosting! Those who dare to eat pareve whipped topping dolloped some on top of their cake. I ate it plain and it was amazing just the way it was. Continue reading

Kanafeh

Please welcome our sister-in-law Adele, who learned to make this Syrian specialty from a Syrian cooking expert and is now sharing it with everyone!

This recipe was taught to me as part of my you’re-getting-married-time-to-learn-how-to-cook training by an amazing cook…. who does not use measurements.  I stood with her and watched closely,  taking notes diligently. After making this a few times on my own, a measurable recipe was born. Continue reading