A perfectly shaped hamantashen box!

I'm not a huge fan of Martha Stewart most of the time, but I was browsing through her site looking for ideas for wedding favours, and guess what I found!

Source: http://thecraftsdept.marthastewart.com/2009/03/purimtreats.html

The picture doesn't give the best idea of it, but it's a triangle shaped box that you can make to give your hamantashen away in. Follow the link below the picture for the pattern so that you can make your own!

A recipe from my friend Howard

So as some of you know, I'm a food photographer. Last spring I photographed some recipes for an article in Lifestyle Ontario Magazine with one of my favourite people to work with, Howard Dubrovsky. Howard is vegetarian and so coincidentally all of the recipes that he develops are pretty easy to adapt to a kosher kitchen. Check it out:

Apple Rhubarb Crumble

For Filling:
4 cups of apple, peeled and cut into 1- inch pieces (approx 3-4 apples)
1 1/2 cups rhubarb
3 tbsp flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar

Cut the rhubarb into 1-cm thick slices. Toss all the ingredients together.

For Crumble Topping:
6 tbsp butter (very cold)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt

Break up the flour and butter using your fingertips until the butter is in pea-size pieces. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until the crumble takes on the texture of wet sand (add 1 tbsp of water if the dough is a little dry).

To Assemble: Place the apple mixture in a 9-inch round oven safe baking dish. Gently top the apples with the crumble mixture (do not pack the crumble too hard).

Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

TIPS:
• Crumble is not pie dough. It should not be an even dough Parts will look like wet sand and others will look more like dry sand.
• Firm apples, such as Granny Smith, work best with this dish.
• More or less sugar can be added to the filling depending on if a sweeter or more tart product is desired. • If the top of the crumble is browning too fast, cover with tin foil.

To me, the best part is that this one is SO EASY to make for pesach/passover. Just sub all of the flour 1:1 with matzo cake meal.

Happy Purim!

Sorry again for the delay in posting another recipe... The last one that I posted was over a month ago! I'm terrible, I know. But for what it's worth, I've been very busy. I just got back from photographing a Jewish deli in Toronto that's been getting a lot of hype: Caplansky's Deli. It's not kosher, but it's kosher style... And it's got to be the only place in Toronto where you can have a pint of beer good beer and a knish! Anyway, Zane Caplansky has a blog and he's a good guy, so you should go his site and read his blog and if you're in Toronto you should go and try his smoked meat sandwich because it really is phenomenal. It beats Shwartz's in Montreal hands down. Seriously. The guy makes his own mustard!

So it's Purim tonight! I'm not going to a Purim party or to a reading of the Magillah (the Book of Esther) because R is working late and I have a lot of work to catch up on here at home. But I did make hamantashen with my niece last weekend, and I'm here today to share my super easy (and not super fattening) recipe for these famous Purim cookies.

Hamantashen: (adapted from a recipe by Noreen Gilletz):

Ingredients:

8 tbsp margarine, cut into chunks
8 tbsp 1% cottage cheese
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsbp sugar
2-3 cups raspberry jam (or other flavour... traditionally these have an apricot or prune filling, but I like raspberries)


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Combine all ingredients (except for the jam) in a food processor bowl. Process until dough forms a ball on the blades, about 18-20 seconds. Chilling is not necessary.

2. On a well floured surface, roll dough 1/2 inch thick and cut into circles with the top of a juice glass. Place circles on a greased baking sheet and put about a teaspoon of jam in the middle of each circle. Close the top of the circle with a pinch, then pinch both sides and the bottom to form a triangle, leaving the filling exposed in the center.

3. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until lightly browned.

So now maybe you're wondering: What is Purim and what are these wonderful jewel-like cookies called hamatashen? Let me share what I've been learning:

Purim a holiday that celebrates another biblical story in which the Jews were supposed to be eliminated but they survived. (Isn't that basically what Channukah was about too?) The bad guy in the story is a guy named Haman who tries to convince the king to kill all of the Jews after one Jew named Mordecai refuses to bow down to him. Haman basically says to the king, "These people are different and they have values that differ from ours and therefore we shouldn't have to tolerate them!" Mordecai's beautiful cousin Esther was married to the king and convinces the king to change his mind and kill Haman instead of Mordecai and the Jews.

There's a sort of "woo, feminism!" thing going on in the story of Purim because back in those days, going before the king without being summoned was punishable by death. So yay for Esther!

So hamatashen are named after Haman, and they're supposed to be shaped like either his ears or his hat depending on who you listen to. Eating hamatashen is supposed to be a way of mocking Haman. Also, during the reading of the Magillah, people bring noisemakers and shake them whenever Haman's name is read so that his name will be blotted out from history. In my opinion, those two things kind of cancel each other out because making the cookies pretty much forces you to say his name out loud, but I get the general idea.

There's also a tradition to dress up. Our rabbi is going to the Magillah reading tonight as Batman in The Dark Knight and the cantor is going as Robin!

One more fun thing about Purim is that you're supposed to get so drunk that you can't tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai" although I'm not exactly sure how drunk that is or why it's a commandment. But a lot of people like to get very drunk on Purim. That's another thing that I'll be skipping this year, since I don't think that it's wise to spend the evening editing photos while I'm too drunk to see straight. But don't let me stop you!

Israel!

R and I have been dreaming of visiting Israel together ever since I got back from my first trip there (with a group of photographers) 3 years ago. Finally, after assessing our financial situation and realizing that we can probably afford it, we booked our tickets.

I'm going back to Israel!

A Van Dyke Brown print from the last time I was in Israel: Abbey Road meets the Western Wall.

And I apologise for my lack of cooking lately, but life has been crazy. I just did a job for Pepsi, and now I'm working on the new Toronto guidebook for Frommer's (I'll share some images from that sometime soon). And we just got back from visiting R's parents for a week in Portland, OR. I love that city. They love a lot of the things that I love: Interior design, coffee, used bookstores, crafting, and trees as tall as skyscrapers.

A coffee tasting at the Stumptown Annex on SE Belmont St in Portland, OR.

So that's all from here for now. If any of you have been to Israel and know of some good places to eat in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and up north, let me know!

Perogies

I love it when I can cook something that impresses other people. I love to hear exclamations of, "Oh wow, this must have taken you all day!" or, "I heard that these are so hard to make!" And I just smile modestly and say, "Oh, it's not thaaaat hard."

But really. Perogies are NOT that hard. You'll be shocked by how easy they are to prepare and how hard they are to screw up.

When I expressed an interest in making them, the first thing that R did was call Baba Luba. She gave us the base for the recipe and we ad-libbed the rest. Luba was especially vague this time around, and basically just said, "Some flour, a little bit of oil, a little salt.... Mix it up, roll it out."

Here's a more precise version of Luba's recipe. These measurements will make about 2 dozen perogies. These have the same qualities as a lot of the Jewish recipes I've come across since starting this blog: They freeze wonderfully, and they seem to get tastier when they sit in the fridge for a few days. So make lots, because chances are that they won't even make it to the freezer. They disappear FAST.

First, the potato-cheese filling:

Ingredients:
5-6 medium sized potatoes (I used yukon gold)
1 cup grated medium or old cheddar cheese
1/2 onion, diced
1 1/2 tsp salt
A pinch of pepper

Method:
1. Peel and chop the potatoes into small chunks.
2. Place them in a pot and fill the pot until the potatoes are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and continue to boil for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
3. In the meantime, fry the onions and grate the cheese.
4. When the potatoes are done, drain them and mash them in a bowl with the onion and cheese. Mix in the salt and pepper.
5. Place in the fridge to cool while you're making the dough.



Note: R also made some blueberry filling and we stuffed a few with that. He simmered some blueberries in butter, then added some vanilla vodka and allowed that to reduce a bit. It smelled heavenly!


Next, the dough:

Ingredients:
5 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp of salt
4 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup warm water

Method:
1. In a large bowl, mix flour and salt together.
2. In another bowl, beat the eggs well and then add the canola oil and warm water and mix again.
3. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture about 1/2 a cup at a time, mixing constantly, until all of the liquid mixture is combined. The dough should feel soft and slightly elastic. It shouldn't be gloopy at all. If it is, add more flour.


Now, the assembly:

1. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it's slightly thinner than corrugated cardboard. It's best if there isn't TOO much flour, since you'll need to roll it out again (see 2nd step), and adding flour makes the dough tougher each time.
2. Using a drinking glass as a guide, cut the dough into circles. When you have no space to cut more circles, bunch the dough up and roll it out again. Keep doing this until you've got no dough left.
3. Take the first circle and roll it out so that its diameter is increased by about an inch. You don't want it to be paper thin because it may rip while you're boiling it, but if it's too thick it will feel chewy.
4. Place about 1 1/2 tbsp of the filling inside, then fold the circle in half and pinch the sides closed. After you've done this a few times you'll get an idea of just how much filling you can stuff into your perogies and you might want to try putting a bit more than 1 1/2 tbsp.
5. Boil a pot of water and when it has come to a rolling boil, drop your perogies into the water. They're ready to be taken out when they start to float.





At this point you could choose to eat them as they are, but I like to fry mine in a bit of canola oil. It's best to do this over medium to low heat so that they don't stick to the pan.



See how easy it is? Go on, try it out and impress your friends!

Sweet indulgence.

Well, I finally caught the flu that's being passed around and I've spent most of the past two days being as inactive as possible while still trying to be productive. Today I'm going through my hard drive and cleaning things up. Lucky for you folks, I found one of my favourite cookie recipes while I was rooting around.

These having nothing to do with anything related to my kosher cooking journey, but I thought that I'd share them anyway since they're delicious.



This recipe is adapted from More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen, but I tried to healthy it up a little bit by eliminating the shortening, using 1/2 whole wheat flour and subbing 1/2 of the refined sugar with raw sugar. R had been trying to avoid sweets but I always want to share my food with him, so I try my best to make him feel less guilty about eating it.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c all purpose flour
6 tbsp Dutch process cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c margarine (at room temperature)
1/2 c white sugar
1/3 c raw sugar

1 large egg (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c chocolate chips


METHOD:

1. In a small bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat margarine and sugar until sorta fluffy. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well.

3. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 350.

6. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

They'll seem undercooked when you take them out (like, if you poke one you'll leave a finger sized crater), but don't worry because they get harder as they cool. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them with a spatula to a wire rack or some waxed paper and let them cool for another 10 minutes.


To see more of my food photography, visit my website: Robin Sharp Photography

Challah for lazy people.

I might be converting to Judaism, but my family isn't so I attended 2 Christmas dinners this year - one with my mom and one with my dad. Because my mom is interested in my conversion and wants me to share all of the stuff that I'm learning with her, I decided that she might be happy to try some of my newly aquired Jewish recipes. I baked a loaf of challah and brought it with me to our Christmas dinner. She loved it and saved the leftovers to make sandwiches with (there weren't many because my sister also got excited about the challah: "Is this that Jewish bread? I love this stuff!").

It still requires work, but making your challah dough in the bread machine saves you some of the hassle. I do most of my bread doughs in the bread machine. It's just easier and I've never noticed a decline in taste or quality. Then again, it's not like I'm a bread connoisseur or anything.

So here we go with the recipe:

BREAD MACHINE CHALLAH

Ingredients:
1 cup water
2 egg yolks
1 egg
4 tbsp butter (or shortening if you want it to be parve)
3 tbsp sugar
1-1/4 tsp salt
3-3/4 cups white flour
1 tsp bread machine yeast

Method:
1. Measure first 8 ingredients in the order listed into your bread maker.
2. Select the dough/pasta setting and press start.
3. When the cycle is complete, remove dough from machine to a lightly floured surface.
4. Divide dough into 6 equal portions. Roll with palm of hand into long smooth strips. The pieces should be thicker in the middle and gradually taper towards the ends. Braid the 6 dough strips. Place on lightly greased baking sheet.
5. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes or until double in volume.
6. Beat another egg and brush over challah. Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes.

Notes:
-I like to make things slightly more healthy by using a combination of white and whole wheat flour, but you really can't do that with this one. You need to use all white flour to get the right texture.
-If you need help figuring out how to braid your challah, there's a great video here!