Whenever I see granola at the supermarket, I think about mixing up the flavors to make the ultimate combination. Maybe I want cranberries and not raisins, or coconut and almond. Well, by making my own granola I can make my own flavors, and I can save money, too. Make two trays worth of granola and freeze half of it.
When it comes to lasagna, we Kosher Foodies always have to make a choice: dairy or meat. Well, I bought some Morningstar Farms Meal Starters to use as meat, and so I could have “meat” and cheese together! Layers of pasta, tomato, meat, cheese, and vegetables made for a very heavy and delicious dinner, the perfect comfort food for a winter night. Whatever you don’t eat can easily be frozen and reheated.
Remember when we made pumpkin ravioli and saved the ones with the store-bought wonton wrappers in the freezer for future use? Well, this time, instead of a classic brown butter and sage sauce, I decided to cook them up finger-food style as toasted pumpkin ravioli, not too unlike the toasted ravioli Rachael Ray inspired us to make a while back.
My favorite thing to do with the leftover vegetables and herbs in the fridge is make a frittata. It’s pretty easy to do, and works for any meal of the day. It’s also very easy to make it to feed a crowd, or for just one. And you can put virtually anything in it! This morning, I had about 1/3 of a box of frozen peas sitting in the freezer, some leftover red bell pepper, and a carrot. Then I found some thyme that was just begging to be used (my fresh herbs often end up in the garbage, it’s rather sad).
You can’t go wrong with caramelized onions and roasted butternut squash. Here’s a pretty easy (once you get the pie crust out of the way) special dinner recipe. Sure, it’s a bit fattening, but hey, once in a while you just have to splurge. If you’re having some company over and making dairy, this is definitely a great recipe to impress guests with. The list of ingredients looks rather long, but I found that I had a lot of the ingredients.
This recipe is from The Art and Soul of Baking, a book that I haven’t used in a while. I’m happy to have it opened up again, and keep finding more and more recipes to try… Continue reading
Happy 2010! What a great way to start the new year…with a giant baking project!
Bagels have been on my baking to-do list for a really long time. I live in New York, so it’s pretty easy to get a decent bagel. I’m also pretty busy with work and school, and bread-baking is a bit time consuming. Bagel baking is even more time consuming, and therefore not a priority. I keep it on my list, though, and often read recipes for bagels, wishing I could make them.
These were a team effort by me and Ricky Dweck. While he makes empanadas all the time, it was my first time, and his first time making vegetarian ones; usually there is chicken involved, but since we were serving these with pizza, we had to skip it.
These are very satisfying and delicious, and we made things easier by using store-bought empanada dough. It takes some time to dice up all of the vegetables and crimp all of the edges, so make a lot at a time and freeze what you’re not eating – they freeze very well.
I’m not sure why, but I decided that I wanted to make caramel cake to bring to my shabbat hosts. I was in a place with no internet, but luckily I have internet on my phone, so I quickly googled recipes for caramel cake.
There isn’t really anything caramel-y about the actual cake. It’s the frosting that’s caramel. Maybe I should change the name to Old Fashioned Caramel-Frosted Cake?
Milk and butter are very important parts of this cake, but I made it pareve. The caramel frosting was still rich and super-sweet, and the cake was nice and moist. Next time I will make it dairy and see how it turns out. Continue reading
What? Just because we don’t celebrate Christmas it doesn’t mean we can’t make candy centered around candy canes. In fact, we LOVE candy canes. And we love Danielle’s building because they have a tree with candy canes that we get to eat…the only thing better than candy canes is chocolate with broken candy canes on it. Williams Sonoma thinks it’s okay to sell their peppermint bark for more than $25, so we decided to make our own kosher version of the stuff. It was WAY cheaper and super delicious! May I add that it makes a perfect Hanukkah (or Christmas) gift? Continue reading
This is one of our dad’s few specialties. He makes them once a year during chestnut season, when they’re readily available and cheap at the supermarkets.
