Sights of Passover

Between family, seders and a bunch of traveling, it's been a busy week over here. Surprisingly, however, there hasn't been much cooking...at least on my end. My mother put out a delicious seder filled with brisket, turkey and more sides than you can imagine.

Now we're back home and settling into the remainder of Passover. Here's a little glimpse into what we've been eating...

Potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes. These fingerlings will join some chicken sausage, peppers & onions for my tried and true super easy roasted dish. Last night we baked some Idaho taters and overstuffed them with steamed broccoli, shredded cheese (for the kid), mayo (for me), and crumbled veggie bacon bits. Delicious.

Ring Jells

These are the epitome of Passover candy (for me at least). Sugary sweet gummy filling surrounded by crisp chocolatey goodness. I may have them in both "pink" (raspberry?) and "orange" (actually orange).

Macroons

I'm "eh" when it comes to macaroons, and can either take them or leave them, but my husband goes crazy for them, so we always buy a can or two during Passover.

My go to lunch for the week is salad, and then I try to dress it up any way that I can. Today's included tuna with mayo and a drizzle of mustard on top, eaten with...potato chips. 

The rest of the week looks a haze of potatoes, salad and chicken, topped off with a few ring jells and some macaroons. I also might buckle and attempt these.

Nomentashen

It's hard to pinpoint my absolute favorite food that goes along with Jewish holidays. I could try, I'm sure...but once I start to think about brisket and matzah ball soup and stuffed cabbage and honey cake, it all gets a little bit hazy, and I get a lot hungry.

Purim is no exception.

The holiday as a whole might be up there as one of my favorites. What's there not to like? Dressing up in costume, eating delicious treats, drinking wine, shouting and making loud noise, listening to an interesting story...it's all pretty special.

And so, in an attempt to harness some of the awesomeness that is Purim, the kiddo and I decided to make some Hamentashen yesterday. Hamentashen are cookies formed into triangles and are made to remember the villain of the Purim story, Hamen. There are a variety of recipes, but it's basically a cookie dough filled with deliciousness. This is our version.

Ingredients

The recipe only calls for 2 eggs...don't mind those other two stragglers - they became breakfast!

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp orange zest
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/8 cup orange juice
Filling of your choice (this can be anything you like. Traditional filling is prune, poppyseed or fruit jam.)

Our filling

Directions

1. Sift all dry ingredients together and mix with orange zest.

This recipe is super kid friendly, so don't be shy about getting them into the mix

2. Make a well inside the dry ingredients and crack both eggs into there. Add oil and orange juice and then stir to combine.

3. Knead dough and then dump out onto floured surface. Using a rolling pin, flatten to 1/8".

4. Cut out circles from dough about 2.5" in diameter. We just used a drinking glass and it came out fine.

5. This is where having a little sous-chef comes in handy. He cut out the circles while I filled them up. Spoon 1-2 teaspoons of filling into the center of the circle and fold up sides to make a triangle, pinching at the corners. We made half the dough with apricot jam filling and the other half with Nutella. 

Nutella

Apricot

6. Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Apricot Hamentashen cooling off

Nutella Hamentashen ready to be devoured

Allow to cool before scarfing down with a glass of milk. These are so good, you might just want to share them. Or not. 

Nuts About...Nuts!

I really love nuts. I definitely understand what the big deal is regarding food allergies, but it saddens me that I can't send my son to school with a good old fashion PB&J (and while I do share an affinity for sunbutter, please don't even try to convince me that it's "just like peanut butter").

We try not to overindulge in nuts too much here. Despite the fact that they have lots of excellent nutritional benefits (essentially fatty acids, rich in protein, fiber & folate, etc...) they are also high in fat, so we do our best to reign in our penchant for them. However, since the holidays rolled around, I could think of nothing better than whipping up a batch of spiced mixed nuts.

They're easy, delicious and a great departure from all the baked goods that find their way into my house around the holidays. I never use the same recipe twice, and find myself combining a few different recipes  into one that works for me. My inspiration for this batch came from a crazy combination of Emeril, Martha Stewart & Whole Foods.

I started off with a variety of nuts: Pecans (my favorite!), walnuts, almonds, filberts, and cashews. All of them were raw to begin with. I used a total of 8 cups of nuts total - breaking them up into two batches. Then I gathered my spices:

I went with brown sugar, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, salt, chili powder & some cumin(not pictured).

For each batch, I whipped up a couple of egg whites until they were white and frothy, then added the nuts to them.

Once the nuts were all coated and glistening, I coated them in my spice mix. Now, if you're looking for exact measurements, you're not going to find them. The best part about making spiced nuts is that you can always change up how you make them.

I'll do my best to give you the approximation, however. I went with a generous 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 3 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons chili powder, 1.5 teaspoons of cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne, and 3 teaspoons of salt.

Spiced nuts - pre baking

Preheat your oven to 300* and then bake for about 45-50 minutes. It is crucial that you keep an eye on the nuts and stir them every 10 minutes or so (more towards the end). You really don't want these to burn, and they can do so quickly, especially as they finish up.

Spiced nuts - done!

Let them cool off for a bit before you do anything with them. I still make the mistake of trying to taste them right when they get out and end up with a scalded tongue each time. But, it's really hard to resist when they come out smelling so fantastic.

I ended up packing them up in some Ball jars and have been giving them out as holiday treats to friends and family. These spiced nuts really are incredibly easy and fun to experiment with. I've found that unless you burn them, it's hard for them to not come out well. So, if you try these out, enjoy!

Do you have any favorite holiday-esque foods that you make/give/receive?

Sufganiyot

Hannukah starts tomorrow night, and in anticipation of the holiday I wanted to bring a dish to potluck inspired by it. Usually we go with latkes, but a quick look in the pantry told me that I didn't have enough potatoes to make enough for the entire group. 

Instead I decided on sufganiyot - doughnuts traditionally eaten on Hannukah. Of course, I  then realized that if I made fried doughnuts at my house, that by the time it came to eat them they might be mushy or soggy from having been left sitting around. In my mind (and house) the best donut is a fresh doughnut

I scoured the web for a baked sufganiyot recipe, and came across one that seemed like it would turn out well. Having all the ingredients on hand helped solidify my decision and soon I had some yeasty dough proofing in the kitchen!

After letting the dough rise, I found myself with a helper in the kitchen. Apparently hearing the word "doughnut" is an easy way to get an extra set of hands, and I wasn't going to pass it up.

It didn't hurt that one of the first steps after letting the dough rise was to flour a cloth (which was super helpful. This was a very sticky dough!).

After making sure that every inch of the dough was covered in flour, we painstakingly rolled it out.

I didn't have a "doughnut cutter" that the recipe called for, and instead, we made do with a ball jar size glass. It seemed to do the trick, and I just kept making sure it was dusted with enough flour to prevent any sticking.

After letting the doughnuts rise again, we popped them into the oven. I found that they needed about 5 more minutes of cooking time than the recipe called for, but it was still a quick bake.

We coated half in cinnamon and sugar.

And half in sifted powdered sugar.

The end result was mixed. Truthfully - they were tasty. They really were. I mean, how bad can sweet dough topped with more sweet stuff be bad? Everyone at potluck had at least seconds or even thirds. However, these are nowhere near real sufganiyot. They ended up being more like delicious, sweet rolls. 

I thought I was being slick with baking them, but the whole point of sufganiyot is to fry them in oil. When we relayed the events of our day of doughnut making to my father later on that evening he said "those aren't doughnuts" - and you know, he was right. While a yummy dessert these baked "doughnuts" just didn't pass the Hannukah treat test. Hmm...I guess that means we'll just have to make them again, and this time we'll fry them!