Category: Recipes

Fish Tacos with Broccoli Slaw


I’m not a huge fish person, so fish tacos are not something you’d normally find on my menu. Recently though, we’ve started cooking less meat in our house, and plain old chicken, even with endless preparations, gets kind of tired. My husband came home from work one day raving about the red snapper he’d had for lunch, so when I saw some fresh snapper at the fishmonger, I decided to surprise him with something fresh and different from our usual fare. I’ve been making it ever since, and not just with red snapper.

Fish tacos should be a light and filling dish, so I don’t like to fry my fish with a heavy bread crumb topping. Instead, I dust it with a light coating of flour, giving it the perfect golden crust that you just can’t get on it’s own. I wouldn’t even call this fried fish – it’s only lightly pan-fried in a little oil.

Panfried Red Snapper

4 red snapper fillets (or any white fish fillet)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp ginger
pinch of cayenne pepper
s&p, to taste
canola oil, for frying
lime wedges, for serving

Method:

Add olive oil, garlic and lime to a shallow bowl or ziploc bag. Place the red snapper in the liquid and marinate for 15 minutes. Remove from bag and shake off garlic and liquid. In a separate shallow bowl, whisk the flour with the spices. Dredge the fish in the flour and shake off, so that only a light coating remains. Pan-fry the fish in hot oil until golden on both sides.

Flake gently with a fork, add to fish tacos and serve immediately.

Ask any fish taco enthusiast and they will tell you that every fish taco needs 2 accompaniments – a sauce and a slaw. To make things easier, I combine the two. My creamy broccoli slaw is a great change from typical slaw recipes that use cabbage. It’s dressed with a delicious combo of sour cream, jalapeno and lime – the perfect complements to flaky fish.

Creamy Broccoli Slaw

1 12oz. bag broccoli slaw*
1/3 cup mayo
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup rice vinegar
juice of 1/2 lime
zest of 1/2 lime
1/2 jalapeno, seeds and veins removed, finely diced
2 tbsp sugar
salt and pepper, to taste
avocado slices, for garnish

Method:

In a bowl, whisk the dressing ingredients. Pour over broccoli slaw and mix well. Serve with fish tacos, garnished with avocado slices.

*If you cannot find broccoli slaw, you can make your own. Shred 1 bunch of broccoli stems with 1 carrot and 1/4 head of red cabbage.

NOTE: For dairy free broccoli slaw, you may use additional mayo in place of the sour cream.

To assemble your fish tacos, heat up some soft corn tortillas in a dry pan, lightly browning on both sides. Holding the tortilla in the palm of your hand, fill with slaw and top with flaked fish and avocado slices.

1 year ago: linguini lasagna
2 years ago: blueberry corn pancakes

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Vegetarian Chili & Cornbread

For one week of the summer, I welcome the opportunity to put on my dairy apron, which usually collects dust until Shavuous comes around. Lighter meals of grilled fish and salads are also appreciated on these hot summer days. But for some serious meat eaters, the nine days* can be a challenging time. I know, because my husband is one of them. If he comes home from a long day of work to a pot of mac and cheese, he takes a bite and then asks for the next course. To him, a meal without meat is not a meal at all. The good news is, meat-eaters can still enjoy some hearty dishes, albeit without the 6-hour wait tag.

Vegetarian chili is a great option for the nine days because it is so versatile. You can serve it up in a burrito, over baked potatoes, or as a base for shepherds pie. You can also go the classic route and eat it alongside cornbread, or go Mexican with a tray of enchilada’s. Usually, chili needs to cook for several hours, but because I don’t like to sit over a hot stove in the summer, I’ve come up with a great recipe that doesn’t require endless hours on the stove.

For more great Nine Days ideas, including other meat-lovers recipes, visit the new Nine Days category.

You can also check out my new Nine Day Album on Facebook for great dairy and pareve recipes that are not on the blog.

*The Nine Days is a mourning period over the destruction of the Holy Temple. During this time, observant Jews abstain from eating meat and drinking wine as well as other joyous activities.

Vegetarian Chili

1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 jalapeno, finely chopped (seeds and veins removed)
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
3 heaping tbsp tomato paste
3 soft plum tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pinto or black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup veggie stock or water
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a pan and add onions and garlic. Saute until translucent. Add the jalapeno (keep some of the vein and/or seeds for more heat) and saute for another minute. Add the chili, cumin and garlic and continue to saute until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and saute for another 1-2 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cook, covered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally so that the chili doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Add additional veggie stock, if needed.

To me, chili without cornbread is like a hot dog without mustard. It’s just a must-have! It took a long time for me to come up with the perfect cornbread recipe that is moist, not too sweet, and, well…corny (you know I mean that in the taste of corn sense). The combination of coconut milk and creamed corn keep the cornbread moist and pareve. That means you get to whip them up with some REAL meat chili when the Nine Days are up!

Moist Pareve Cornbread

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coconut milk (I use Coconut Dream Original)
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 14.75oz. can creamed corn

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, & salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, oil and egg. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to incorporate. Add the creamed corn and mix to combine. Pour into  a 9″ square pan, cast iron skillet, or 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes (less for the muffins, more for the pan) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cornbread may be kept at room temperature for up to 2 days and will keep for an additional week if refrigerated.

VARIATION: to make these dairy, substitute the coconut milk for whole milk and half of the oil for melted butter.

I mentioned lots of fun ways to use chili earlier in the post, but I especially love this one-dish-meal option. You can choose to layer the chili into a square baking dish, or serve them up in individual mason jars for a fun twist. Since the cornbread is cooked on top of the chili (and will rise during baking), I only use half of my cornbread recipe for it. You can use the remaining batter for cupcakes or double up the chili recipe, and make 2 pies.

Layered Chili Pie

1 recipe vegetarian chili
1 8oz. bag shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 recipe cornbread batter
1 scallion, chopped

Method:

Pour the chili into a 8″ square pyrex dish. Top with shredded cheddar. Mix the scallions into the cornbread batter and pour on top of the cheese. Bake, at 350 degrees, for 25 minutes. or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

To prepare individual servings in mason jars, fill 1/3 of half pint jars with chili. Top with a tablespoon of cheddar cheese, and 1/3 cup cornbread batter mixed with scallions. Repeat with approximately 6-8 more jars. Bake at 350 (without the lid) for approximately 15-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

1 year ago: Corn Flake crunch ice cream
2 years ago: sushi salad II

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Fourth of July Tartufo

If you’re looking at the screen quizzically wondering what tartufo is, don’t worry. I didn’t know what it was until recently either! A few weeks ago, a few kosher bloggers and I went out to celebrate the anniversary of the Kosher Connection group. It’s a team of kosher food bloggers that joined together to help each other navigate the blogging world. If you follow my blog, you may have noticed our monthly link-up challenges.

We met at Siena’s restaurant in Brooklyn, to celebrate the partnerships and friends we have made over the past year. Siena served us a variety of dishes, sampling their Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. Some of the highlight dishes included their fried zucchini chips with homemade marinara, a medley of fresh salads, ravioli cooked to perfection and a standout tuna steak over white beans and spinach.

For dessert, we were served a tasting of their finest sweets including cheesecake, tiramisu and tartufo. I had to ask the waiter to repeat himself, as I’d never heard of it before. It was a layered ice cream dessert with marachino cherries and vanilla ice cream at the base and pistachio ice cream on top. It was served as a rectangular slice and drizzled with chocolate. The ice cream was delicious, but I couldn’t get over the pretty presentation. After a few hours milling over the tartufo concept (and browsing the internet for every tartufo recipe I could find) – I had a stroke of genius. Why not find blue maraschino cherries, and layer red and white frozen desserts in celebration of Independence day?

I was so excited about my idea that I went straight for the grocery in search of blue maraschino cherries. Little did I know that kosher ones are not that easy to find. So, I did what any idea-obsessed blogger would do…research. I found a kosher company that makes maraschino cherries in a variety of colors and I called them up. I asked where I might find the blue ones in Brooklyn, and they gave me two different locations. I was on it. The next day, I drove out to a shady little store on Coney Island and picked up my loot. I drove straight home, my ice cream already thawing on the counter.

When I uncovered my tartufo the next day, I never imagined it would turn out so pretty. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. The ice cream layers had sunken into each other, and the maraschino cherries peeked out a tad too little. But still. My experiment had worked. Wonderfully. Happy 4th of July!

Fourth of July Tartufo

1 12.5″ x 6.5″ loaf pan (3″ deep)
1 1/2 quarts vanilla ice cream
2 pints red sorbet (strawberry, cherry or watermelon)
1 10oz. jar blue maraschino cherries
1 bar dark chocolate
red, white and blue sprinkles

Method:

Remove the ice cream and sorbet from the freezer and thaw until softened. Drain the maraschino cherries and place on paper towels. Pat dry. Line the loaf pan with parchment paper. Add a thin layer of ice cream to the bottom of the loaf pan. Top with maraschino cherries. Continue to add more ice cream until cherries are covered. Place the loaf pan in the freezer until the ice cream hardens, at least 20 minutes (the longer the better). Top the ice cream with a layer of sorbet (about 1 1/2 cups). Return the loaf pan to the freezer so the layer can harden and set. Continue layering the ice cream and sorbet into the loaf pan, freezing in between each layer (this keeps the layers from sinking into each other). Once you have reached the top of the loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap and/or foil and freeze overnight.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate. Turn the loaf pan upside down onto a serving platter and remove parchment paper. Drizzle chocolate over the ice cream loaf and top with sprinkles.

If desired, you may drizzle each individual slice with additional chocolate and sprinkles.

Serve immediately.

Yields: 10-12 servings.

NOTE: You may halve this recipe and use a smaller loaf pan for a smaller ice cream loaf.

1 year ago: snap pea, corn & red currant salad
2 years ago: grilled chickpea burgers

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3 Ways with Duck Sauce Chicken

Recently, I was given the opportunity to develop some recipes for the Joy of Kosher Gold’s Pure Foods Campaign. Being a huge fan of many of Gold’s products, I was right on board. While Gold’s is mostly known for their horseradish, they actually produce a wide variety of products including their fantastic wasabi sauce, bbq sauce, and my favorite, their amazing collection of duck sauces.

Since Gold’s duck sauce plays such a huge part in my recipes, I decided to do 3 ways with 3 different types of chicken, and 3 different types of Gold’s duck sauce. Fun, right? Gold’s actually makes 4 varieties of duck sauce including sweet & sour, spicy garlic, snappy ginger and hot & spicy. My husband is not a fan of spicy foods, so I knew just which ones to choose.

In the following post, you’ll find recipes for:

>Chicken wings, using snappy ginger duck sauce
>Chicken breasts, using sweet & sour duck sauce
>Whole chicken quarters, using spicy garlic duck sauce

I hope you enjoy my 3 ways with chicken and 3 different duck sauce varieties. Check out more Gold’s recipes on Joy of Kosher.

STICKY GINGER CHICKEN WINGS

For my first recipe, I decided to do a sticky ginger chicken wing recipe. This makes use of Gold’s delicious Polynesian style ginger duck sauce and brightens up the flavors with fresh ginger, garlic and soy sauce. If you’ve never tried fine shreds of fresh ginger in a sauce, you’re in for a huge surprise. Finely julienned threads of ginger, practically melt into the sauce, giving it a bright and refreshing finish.


First, I sear the chicken wings in sesame oil with a light ginger-scented coating. I saute some finely julienne fresh ginger and minced garlic, adding snappy ginger duck sauce, chicken stock and soy sauce, to create a delicious sticky coating. I bake the chicken wings with the ginger glaze until crisped around the edges. These chicken wings make for the perfect appetizer at your next dinner party!


For the complete Sticky Ginger Chicken Wings recipe using Gold’s Polynesian-style snappy ginger duck sauce, visit this post on the Joy of Kosher website.

SWEET & SOUR PINEAPPLE CHICKEN

For my next recipe, I decided to do a take on a classic Chinese dish – sweet and sour chicken. Growing up, my mom would often fry up shnitzel for dinner, always serving it alongside a bowl of Gold’s sweet & sour duck sauce for dipping. When I got older, and started eating out, I was shocked to find that all people did not eat their shnitzel that way! As an ode to my childhood, I prepared this dish shnitzel style, instead of in little nuggets. It saves you on frying (and calories!)

I started off this recipe with classic Chinese takeout food in mind, and I couldn’t believe just how close it came to the real thing. This dish tastes like a perfect cross between sesame and sweet & sour chicken. I started off sauteing some onion, pepper and pineapple chunks until tender. I fried up the shnitzel in a crispy tempura batter, and prepared a sauce with Gold’s Cantonese-style sweet & sour duck sauce, ketchup, brown sugar and pineapple juice.


For the complete Sweet & Sour Pineapple Shnitzel recipe using Gold’s Cantonese-style sweet & sour duck sauce, visit this post on the Joy of Kosher website.

SPICY GARLIC CHICKEN

Finally, for our last recipe, I’m bringing up a not-so-old recipe for spicy garlic chicken using Gold’s Oriental-style spicy garlic duck sauce. This recipe went viral on Pinterest (4500+ repins), when a famous Pinterest user repinned the recipe here. It has become my blog’s most popular recipe, and you’ll see why when you revisit the recipe here.

What is your favorite recipe using Gold’s duck sauce? Share it with me in the comments below!

Watermelon Limeade

There’s nothing like an ice cold cup of lemon or limeade to cool you off on a hot summer’s day. Summer, or winter, I’m a huge fan of citrus drinks, but all too often, I find that they are overly sweet. This lightly sweetened watermelon-limeade is reminiscent of agua fresca, a refreshing fruit-infused water drink popularized in Mexico . Aqua fresca is a terrific thirst quencher for summer picnics and barbeques.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been wanting to set up a lemonade stand for my kids. So when I was testing this recipe for the blog, I knew just  what to do with my pitcher full of limeade. My girls couldn’t be more excited about their reenactment of one of their favorite books “Pinkalicious and The Pink Drink,” while my son stood by asking for continuous refills. I set my kids to work designing a sign for our table (isn’t it adorable?!) while I put together all the necessities. Since we used tiny little cups, we set our price at just 5 cents, a total steal for today’s economy!

We live on a very quiet block, with not much foot traffic, so my little ones grew increasingly sad as they waited for someone, ANYONE to buy a cup. With construction going on directly across the street, we were lucky enough to have the contractor buy a round for all of his workers. He generously gave my kids more than 20 cups worth of pay. After that, traffic picked up and thanks to the generosity of strangers and friends my elated children netted $6.51. That’s a whole lot of profit when you’re asking for a meager 5 cents a cup.

I’ll never forget the excitement and smiles on the faces of my children, and the pride they showed in their first business venture. Our pink lemonade wasn’t just a thirst-quencher. For two little girls in Brooklyn, it made a favorite book come alive and wishes and dreams come true.

Watermelon Limeade

1/4 watermelon, or 3.5 lbs
3 cups water
1/4 c sugar dissolved in 1/2 c boiling hot water
juice of 2 limes
2 limes, sliced
ice cubes
sliced limes, for garnish

Method:

Peel and chop watermelon Add the watermelon to a food processor and blend until completely smooth. Pour the watermelon juice through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth, squeezing to release all the juice. Discard watermelon pulp. Bring 1/2 cup water to a boil and add 1/4 cup sugar. Mix until sugar is completely dissolved and set aside to cool. Add the watermelon juice, water, cooled sugar syrup, lime juice, sliced limes and ice cubes to a pitcher. Pour into glasses and garnish with sliced limes.

TIP: If you don’t have a citrus squeezer, see my kitchen tips for a great way to juice your limes!

1 year ago: smores chocolate toffee bark
2 years ago: salad nicoise

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