lasagna meets autumn

ok, so in truth i don't eat a  lot of pasta, or dairy, but this one was so good even i ate a bit. i was making lasagna for clients this morning, and was inspired to try out my hand with an autumnal themed version of the dish. what inspired me you might ask? well, in particular it was the mounds of gorgeous butternut squash that have migrated to my kitchen courtesy of my dear farmer friends at  Adamah at Isabellea Freedman. as an aside, for those of you not familiar with adamah, check them out, they are doing amazing things with organic vegetables, intentional community, and growth - in all its forms and expressions. but i digress.... there is something uniquely satisfying about the aroma of sage, walnuts, squash, caramelized onions, and good cheese bubbling away and suffusing your home on a crisp fall day. and by your home, i mean my home. but if you make this lasagna then maybe your home too :)

-1 package whole wheat lasagna noodles (or whatever type you like)
cook noodles according to instructions, or, you can do what i do, which is place them in really hot but not boiling water off the flame, and let sit for a few minutes, it makes them pliable enough to use easily and yet they dont stick together

-1 small package ricotta, about 15 oz, i buy mine, but if you want to make your own then you are awesome, same thing goes for those of you who make your own lasagna noodles, also, next time invite me over, few things are as good as fresh pasta and fresh ricotta

1-2 ounces of grated/shaved parmesan, romano, or asiago cheese

8 ounces of grated mozzarella

1 small or 1/2 of a large butternut, or other orange fall squash
-cut squash into quarters, remove seeds, place on a greased baking dish, roast at 350 till easily pierced with fork, about 45 minutes, peel and slice

bechamel sauce
-3 tablespoons butter
-3 tablespoons flour
-3 cups whole milk
-salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste
melt butter, mix in flour with a whisk, heat milk til scalding, pour into butter/flour mixture and whisk til smooth, cook over low flame for a few minutes til it reaches desired consistency, add salt, pepper, and nutmeg. many thanks to jacques pepin and his amazing book Complete Techniques for the advice on a classic bechamel, even if i didnt follow it exactly, also many thanks to my sister hodayah for gifting me with said book

sage walnut pesto
-2 bunches sage
-1 bunch fresh oregano
-5 cloves garlic
-1 large handful walnuts
-olive oil
-salt to taste
add walnuts, herbs, and garlic to blender, start juzzing, drizzling in olive oil til you get your desired consistency, finish with a bit of good sea salt

1/2 cup of caramelized onions
so lots of recipes claim you can make caramelized onions in 15 minutes, not true. it takes closer to 45, but it is totally worth it. i usually make a big batch, whatever will fit into my largest frying pan, every week or two, and then have them on hand for use in everything tasty. to make: peel onion, cut in half, slice thinly, heat pan, add oil, add onions, and sautee away over really low heat til light brown and delicious looking

ok, so once you have all your ingredients made, which really is less work then it seems from the above, you assemble just like you would a regular lasagna. spray the bottom of the pan with a bit of oil, put some sauce, noddles, sauce, butternut, onions, dollops of pesto, dollops of ricotta, sprinkle with both cheese, and repeat and repeat til the pan is full. bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes depending on depth and size of the pan you used. serves 9 big geshmake slices or 12 smaller ones if you are having lots of side dishes.

enjoy for dinner with someone you love, and then curl up on the couch with a nice white wine or steaming mug of tea, and be present in the moment of transitions, as one season flows into the next, the riot of colors on the trees outside your window, the leaves fluttering to the ground.....

happy eating!
shayna



 


      

a rosh hashanah of simanim

rosh hashanah, the jewish new year, marking 5773 years since the creation of the world and of humankind, just passed last week. on the first night, when we gather together at dinner, it is customary to eat certain symbolic foods, the most well known of which is to dip an apple in honey for a sweet new year. as an aside, my two year old nephew gave a rousing rendition of the dip an apple in honey song, of which we have about seven videos, all of which he insisted we make of him, he is a little star in the making, well, at least of his yeshiva production of channah and her seven sons. it was particularly poignant because i remember being a little kid singing that song myself, and while rosh hashanah is the new year and a day of dialogue with our creator and a day to contemplate life, it is also a day to mark the transition of one year into the next with your family and friends, the generations gathered together.

anyhow, i digress. the simanim. there are in fact numerous simanim other than apple in honey, some of which have specific "yihi ratzons" or little prayers based on word play associated with the name of the item. for a modern take on the idea when we eat dates my sister always blesses everyone to have lots of hot dates that year, although traditionally they revolve more around the destruction of one's enemies, but you get the idea. most people (at least nowadays, i have no idea what was done historically) eat a bite of each symbolic food at the beginning of the meal and then move on to the real food, but i thought it would be fun to have the real food be made of the simanim and then as each course is brought out to discuss the symbolism of that food and what we would like to manifest in our coming year corresponding to it. i thought it would be a lovely way to focus the dinner on the moment of transcendence that rosh hashanah represents that we were currently in the midst of but in a very relatable way. what follows below is a list of all the simanim i could find and the corresponding menu, note that the list might not be exhaustive, and if you know any others please let me know. also, since the original list of simanim is not in english there is some confusion over what certain words mean and therefore may exist more than one opinion as to which food they are, in that case i tried to incorporate as many as possible, especially because most of them are vegetables and the more colorful veggies on your plate the healthier your new year will be.

the simanim:
fenugreek
gourds
beets
leaks
honey
apples
fish heads
fish
cabbage
dates
fatty meats
sweet drinks
pomegranates
carrots
spinach
black eyed peas

the menu:

1st course:
-whole wheat challah
-raw honey tachina
-chilbeh
-pan seared striped bass stuffed with a black eyed pea hash
-salad of spinach, avocado, pomegranate seeds and apples
-lemon and toasted sesame cabbage slaw

soup course:
-coconut butternut soup with lots of ginger and nutmeg

 

main course:
-spicy sweet brisket with dates and dried apricots
-lavender balsamic honey roasted chicken
-quinoa (to soak up all those geshmake meat juices)
-roasted beets and leeks

 

 

 

 

 

dessert course:
-carrot cake with parve cream cheese frosting

 

 

 

to drink:

-agave sweetened pomegranate lemonade

-some dry red wine, this year we went with the catina gabriele montepulciano d'abruzzo and the en fuego tempranillo

 

 

 

and for the table:

-white flowers

 

there is a custom on rosh hashanah and yom kippur to wear white, and in particular for married men to wear a kittel, it reminds us that life can never be taken for granted, that we only have a limited number of days on earth and to make each one count, and it inspires us to strive to be like the angels and do good in the world. when i was little we davened at a little shiteibel in boro park where i grew up, a shteibel being just a very little cute shul, anyhow we davened by the deshe chasidim, and though the womens section was usually empty on shabbos, all the women being home with their children, on rosh hashanah the rebbetzin and her daughters would come downstairs and they would be dressed all in white head to toe, and they would stay in shul from the moment in started until the moment it ended, and even though they were totally separate from the men in a womens section of near silence they would pray. with tears on their cheeks, for hours, standing in front of the creator of the universe, making a din v'cheshbon, an honest assessment of their lives, asking him for goodness. it was the most powerful example of female prayer i was witness to in my youth, and i still think about the simultaneous feelings of malchus, of majesty, and also of bittul, the giving of oneself to god, that those women embodied.

so yes, i like to have white flowers on my table on rosh hashanah as well, and carry over the theme of purity and renewal it symbolizes.

 

 

right now we are in the aseres yimmei teshuvah, the ten days of repentance between rosh hashanah, the day we are judged, and yom kippur, the day we are forgiven. blessings that we use this time for self reflection, for growth, for connecting with loved ones, for soulful explorations, for speaking aloud with the divine and sharing with him what is on our minds and in our hearts. blessings to know that if we will it all is forgiven. may we be written and sealed for a new year of goodness. of sweetness. and many many smiles.

happy eating!

shayna

ps- i realize i did not actually give you any recipes in this post, it was more one of ideas, but if something sparked your imagination give a holler and i will happily share how i made it.

post tisha b'av split pea soup

today is tisha b'av, the 9th day of the hebrew month of av, it is a day of fasting and mourning, commemorating numerous tragedies that have befallen the jewish people throughout history, most importantly the destruction of both our first and second temples. it is a really hard day, we dont go to work, we dont listen to music, or take showers, or even brush our teeth, or do much of anything, instead we sit on the floor and embrace our brokenness. our communal brokenness, our historical brokenness, our global brokenness, and our personal brokenness. as afternoon approaches we begin to feel the light of chatharsis after eicha, kinos, and long talks with the one above, we begin to feel the eternal hope of our people, the hope of our inner divine spark which never gives up, which always believes things will get better. as we share our sadness with our creator, and give him some of our burden, to partner with him in making it better....

that is also usually the point in the day where people start fantasizing about food, and all the yummy things they are going to eat after the fast. trust me when i say never to go grocery shopping while fasting, i assure you in that moment your eyes are much bigger than your stomach. 

when i was little we called tisha b'av tissue bug. i still call it that in my head. i also still have the book "in the mouth of the wolf" which i got for my bat mitzvah and read every year, it is about a young girl hiding in nazi germany during the shoah. i have not read it in years, but maybe one day i will pass it on to my daughters. but maybe by then the geulah will have come, and instead of a day of mourning this will be a day of joy. i hope so. these days on tisha b'av afternoon i often watch the pbs documentray called kingdom of david, available on netflix streaming, it chronicles the jewish exile and destruction of both temples. being in america, and away from the communal outpouring at the kotel, it is a good focus for what this day is really about. a few years ago a well respected modern orthodox female communal leader laughingly told me that nobody thinks about the beis hamikdash anymore on tisha b'av. i didnt know how to respond to her. i still dont. but i bless her, and you, and me to know what is broken. to accept that it is broken. and to work to fix it.

but i was going to tell you about soup.

when i was little to break our fasts my mother would always give us orange juice, ice cream, and home made soup. today i will be breaking my fast on coconut water, which is easier on the stomach and full of electrolytes. and on split pea soup, which is gentle to your tummy, hearty, and satisfying. my recipe follows, but whatever you do, dont fill your body with processed crap post a fast (sorry for foregoing the ice cream mom), you just released so many toxins, give your body a moment of healing.

split pea soup:

16 oz green or yellow dried split peas
1 lb carrots, sliced into thin rounds
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 can cheap light beer, budweiser or coors work well
a few spoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

heat soup pot over medium heat, add oil, onion, garlic, and carrots, saute for a few minutes. then add peas, broth, beer, thyme, soy and fill the pot up with water, turn flame to high bringing to a boil. once boiling, turn down flame to low (to avoid burning) and simmer until the peas break down and the soup has a creamy consistency, around 1.5-2 hours. you will loose a lot of water during the process and may have to add more so keep half an eye on it, giving it an occasional stir. at the end add the salt and pepper and cook another 5 minutes to meld the flavors.

serves 6.
recipe can be easy doubled, tripled....


so that is where i am. sitting on my floor, watching sad movies. really wanting to wash my face and drink some water. getting a headache. thankful that it is not so hot today. thinking about making soup. thinking about what is broken in my life. still aware of how many blessings i have. trying to understand where that fits into the bigger jewish picture. wanting to let god in but still a little bit pushing him away from the pain of everything that has gone wrong.

thank you for honoring me in this place, and maybe even joining it in your own way. blessings for an easy and meaningful fast. and a nourishing, loving, and healthy post fast.

shayna

why yes i did make a 4th of july red/white/blue cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh berries

i was jealous of your tart, so i made my own

so we have this awesome washington heights shabbos meal pot luck club that was recently started, shout out to my friend E for being the motivator behind the idea. it's a great way to host low key style, and a great resource to meet new people and hook up with a meal of friends of your friends when you don't have one planned. so at the inaugural summer event a few weeks ago E had this lovely fresh berry tart he picked up from some food genius in BK, and being incredibly jealous i decided i had to make my own. those of you who know me know my food is usually home style so this was a little ungapached compared to what i normally go for. but hey, into every country table a little artistry must fall. and yes i did just declare my tiny city apartment table squeezed into a corner of my living room to be a country table, got a problem with that?  :)

vegan fresh berry tart:

for the crust-
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup earth balance or butter (if you dont care about the parve part)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

for pies or tarts i always make the flaky pastry dough crust from the all new joy of cooking page 859, substituting all butter or all earth balance for the shortening, substituting half whole wheat flour (as indicated above), and leaving out the sugar. follow her directions for making it in the food processor, roll out between two sheets of waxed paper, and then bake blind at 400 for 20 minutes weighted with dry beans or pie/tart weights at the beginning which you remove halfway through. i have not yet tried making crust with coconut oil but imagine it would be divine, that will be experimented with soon friends..... as you can see from the pic below, i don't currently own a tart pan, although it is the next thing on my kitchen wish list, so if you want to buy me one i will be forever grateful and even make you a tart. for realz. i will bake. for you. in the meantime, my initial inclination was to use a pie pan, but that is really too deep and the delicate little slices would not release as well, so i used a springform cake pan and only formed the tart sides partway up, and after baking removed the side ring, it worked pretty well.

for the cashew cream-
1 cup raw cashwes
enough coconut milk to cover the nuts
2 tablespoons agave

soak the nuts overnight in cold water, drain and rinse well. place in food processor or blender, pour in coconut milk til the nuts are just covered, add agave and jujj away until smooth and creamy.

spread a thick layer of the cashew cream over the baked tart shell, smooth it out, and if you have any leftovers that you didn't already devour they can be stored in the fridge for a week.

and now to make it pretty-
1 pint blueberries
16 oz strawberries
1/2 pint raspberries or blackberries

wash all your berries, cut the tops off strawberries and slice in half, and lay out on your tart in circles or whatever design you think is pretty.  don't skimp like i did, although in my defense the strawberries i bought went moldy on me within a day and it was right before shabbos so i had to make due. i don't think anybody noticed but i will rat myself out to you now.

in terms of checking black and raspberries for bugs you gotta figure out what you do, so open a sefer, learn something, talk to a rav, check out the berry construction to see what you find necessary, and make a decision for yourself and be comfortable with it. i personally soak them in white vinegar and water for 15 minutes, drain and rinse well, and then look at each one to see if any little white worms are crawling out. after 10 years of part time mashgiach work with rabbi abba i still follow my momma's lead on this one. when i was about 5 we had a mulberry tree in our yard in syracuse, and even though all the neighborhood kids would join us in climbing said tree and pop the delicious berries into their mouths on the spot my mom made us wait, come inside, soak them, and check for worms, way to go with your piousness mom, at the time i resented you but i am still doing what you taught me when i was 5 so i guess you did something right.

anyhow, now that your tart is beautifully assembled give it a little sheen with some preserves, paint them on with a pastry brush, i personally use fig preserves that i heat up in a hot water bath because they have very little added flavor or color and just give things a hint of sweetness and some shine. if you are trying to keep things refined sugar free feel free to skip this step altogether or to get the no sugar added preserves.

 
leave your now divine looking tart to set in the fridge til it cools, at least a few hours, serve and enjoy. ok, so in truth mine might not look as divine as it could have, as i mentioned my berries went moldy and i skimped, and i don't have a tart pan, but the taste was still divine, and for a totally macgyvered tart it was a pretty good effort, and rest assured the next one will look as good as it tastes!

happy eating!
and happy 4th of July....
shayna

all things watermelon..... in a salad

dear readers, and by that i mean mom and friends who happen to randomly click on my blog through facebook. hi. you have not seen me in a while, i recognize, and lest you think i had disappeared into a vortex of sauteed kale and ice coffee, i thought i would say hi. actually what happened was that i was making a feta watermelon salad last week, and when i came to and realized i was standing over the serving bowl making yummy noises while i picked at the salad completely not aware of what i was doing, i realized that i had to tell you all about the goodness that is watermelon. in a salad. but before we get to that, my apologies for my long hiatus, both of my grandmothers passed away in late winter and B and i broke up, and the confluence off all this loss in one month was a bit overwhelming. since everything i cook, and everything i say, comes from my heart, i felt the need to be with myself for a bit, in a space of contemplation. but then this morning, after finally catching up on some much needed sleep (i love my job but do miss the days of unemployment), and while enjoying the breeze from my ceiling fan before the day heated up (shout out to Dr. Schulyer Wheeler who invented the electric fan in 1886, the man was a visionary) i realized i was composing a blog post in my head, which means i should share it with you instead of only with my id or my ego or... i don't know, i am a chef not a psychologist. so hi. welcome back.

as you may have noticed from weather.com, or from having a pulse, summer is here. and with it comes the plethora of amazing local fruits and vegetables that make this my favorite time of year, despite the insanity of it being almost 100 degrees. PLEASE GOD let it cool off and just give me the fruits and vegetables anyway, thanks. so to celebrate summer i bought some watermelons last week, and not realizing just how big the yield would be from said watermelons have been "forced" to enjoy the watermelon in all its forms, sliced, juiced, grilled, in a salad, you get the idea. not that i mind, watermelon juice is much better than cabbage juice, so happily i didnt buy too many heads of that. ok, onto the recipes!

1) Watermelon and Feta Salad:

1/4 of a ripe watermelon, cubed
5 oz crumbled sheeps milk feta
1/4 of a red onion, diced
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil

ok so before you say, olive oil and watermelon !?!?!? let me preemptively say, yes, because i had the same reaction. i have made the above salad a number of times in the past without olive oil and it was wonderful, but while trolling the internet for other people's watermelon ideas to steal and use for my insane stock of watermelon i came across the addition of olive oil suggestion and though at first skeptical, after i tried it was when i started making the yummy noises, and yummy noises always speak for themselves.

mix all of the above in a bowl and serve immediately. if you need to make it in advance prep all the ingredients and wait til serving to combine. serves 6, and can easily be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, you get the idea. enjoy!

oh, and if you can't find sheeps feta you can use cows too, the sheeps is just a little easier to digest and doesnt make you as farklepmt.

2) Spinach and Grilled Watermelon Salad:

1 lb baby spinach, washed, spun and checked for bugs
1/3 to 1/2 of a watermelon (depending on size), sliced into 1"slices
5 oz crumbled blue cheese
1 cup toasted walnuts

for the dressing:
the reserved grilled watermelon juice (see below)
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

grill the watermelon on a cast iron grill pan indoors or on your BBQ grill outside. Watermelon grills very quickly so you wont need more than a minute per slice, flip and do both sides. do this at least a few hours in advance, preferably the day before, then chill your grilled watermelon (overnight) in the fridge.

to assemble your salad, fill a lovely serving bowl with your washed and checked spinach, remove your grilled watermelon from the juices that have collected while it was resting, but reserve the juices for your salad dressing, then cube the watermelon and add it to the bowl, along with the blue cheese and walnuts.

to make the dressing pour the reserved grilled watermelon juice, lime juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic in the blender and give it a jujj. dress your salad and enjoy. serves 10.

a word about lime juice. and lemon juice for that matter. while fresh squeezed is best, the convenience of bottled cannot be beat. a good compromise is the stuff from santa cruz organic which has wonderful almost fresh squeezed flavor and unlike most bottled lemon and lime juice does not contain benzoate, a preservative, which when combined with citric acid forms benzene, a completely toxic chemical.

oy. did i leave you with a sad note instead of a happy watermelony one? ok, let me remedy that with the following. WATERMELON. SUMMER. BEACH. BBQ. EVENING BREEZES. better? chodesh tov and blessings for a beautiful love filled shabbos.

happy eating!
shayna

kitchen appliance meltdown

in the past few weeks my blender's motor burnt out, and then the top to my food processor fell off the counter, where it was innocently drying, and cracked in half. i did have the joy of buying an awesome new blender, and black & decker sells replacement parts for the food processor, so i guess all in all it is more annoyance than anything else. but i think it is clear that my kitchen appliance karma has run out. how does one regain good kitchen appliance karma anyway? donations to the used kitchen appliances of america habitat?

then again, my computer is making a whining noise, and the drawers in my dresser refuse to stay in. so maybe i just have a dybbuk in my apartment messing around. or it may just be things naturally wearing out because of my refusal to spend my hard earned money on anything new unless forced to do so when things literally fall apart (have you seen my favorite white sweatshirt with the holes in the elbows?).

one of those things. but i am betting on the dybbuk.