Category: The Nine Days

Lentil Soup

There’s nothing like a healthy and hearty soup when the weather starts turning cold. I love the texture that lentils lend to soup. They add a wonderful thickness, but they still kind of melt on your tongue. Leftover lentil soup is great mixed with pasta for lunch the next day.

As a mom, I have to say that my favorite part of serving soups is being able to hide veggies in there. My older ones are starting to catch on to my sneaky tactics but sometimes I get lucky and they’ll down some veggies. Not an easy feat in my house!

Hearty Lentil Soup

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed and drained
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt & pepper, to taste
optional add-ins: chickpeas, baby spinach

Method:

In a soup pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the carrots and celery and continue to saute for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and continue to saute until the vegetables are coated and the paste begins to caramelize. Add lentils, broth, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper.

Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes until lentils are soft. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Other Hearty Soup Recipes:

crockpot mushroom barley stoup
minestrone soup
fire roasted tomato rice stoup
bubby’s cabbage soup with flanken
Asian bigger bowl soup

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Butternut Squash Fries

I think you’ll agree that the very best recipes are the ones that you just came up with on the spot. They’re usually not recipes at all. Just a little of this and a little of that. Am I right?

These addictive healthy baked butternut squash fries are a great example. I whipped them up in no time, and they were gone in minutes! They’re the perfect side for a healthy burger or light dinner of grilled chicken.

What are some of your favorite last minute “no-recipe” dishes? Share them with me in the comments below!

Healthy Baked Butternut Squash Fries

1 butternut squash, cut into sticks*
extra virgin olive oil
garlic powder
chili powder
smoked paprika (use regular paprika if you don’t have)
kosher salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place the butternut squash sticks into a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic, chili, smoked paprika and salt. Mix the squash until well-coated with spices and oil. Place the fries on a rack set over a baking sheet (if you don’t have a rack, place directly on baking sheet).  Bake until crispy and tender, about 30 minutes.

*To cut sticks out of your butternut squash, look for a squash with a long “neck” or top portion. Separate the top from the bulb (set the bulb aside for soup or cut into wedges and bake with the fries). Cut the top off of your squash and stand it up on your cutting board. Cut the sides off the squash to create a square shape. Slice the square into slices and cut each slice into sticks.

TIP: To get the best crunch out of baked fries, place them on a rack set over a baking sheet. This allows the heat to circulate around the fries, so that they get nice and crunchy.

DOUBLE TIP: When baking fries, make sure not to overcrowd the pan. This creates “steam” and the fries will come out soggy.

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Honey Mustard Roasted Potatoes

This is one of those recipes where you whack yourself over the head and wonder, “why haven’t I thought of this sooner?”

Potatoes are my thing. I just can’t get enough. I’ll eat them any way, pretty much. But sweet? who would have thunk it? I mean sweet potatoes are usually reserved for “sweet potatoes”. But these little starchy red pillows need to be savory. Some thyme or rosemary and fresh garlic – now that’s a good roasted potato, right? Wrong.

Don’t mistake these for over-the-top sweet. They’ve got just enough honey to caramelize the edges without being cloying. Plus, the garlic, onion and mustard give it that savory quality that makes for the perfect balance.

CASE IN POINT: I’ve got two daughters. One loves honey to the point that she was dipping her finger in the jar during every Rosh Hashanah meal. The other one things it tastes like raisins. And she doesn’t like raisins. When I made these potatoes, my honey-loving daughter couldn’t get enough. She kept telling her sister how amazing they tasted. But my honey-hating daughter wouldn’t hear of it. She likes her potatoes prepared as simply as possible. Preferably just potato – cooked. Now somehow, some way, we got her to try one. And her eyes lit up. And then she grabbed her fork.

So there. Honey mustard roasted potatoes. For those that love sweet. And those that love savory.

Happy Holidays!

Honey Mustard Roasted Potatoes

2 lbs red potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1-2 tbsp honey
kosher salt, to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes well and pat dry. Cut in half and place on a baking sheet. Add remaining ingredients and stir until potatoes are well-coated. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes – 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

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Grilled Corn with Za’atar Garlic Butter


If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I am part of a group of kosher food bloggers called the Kosher Connection. Each month, we are challenged to put our own twist on a link-up theme. Over the past year, we’ve had:

KOSHERCONNECTION July 2012: frozen desserts
August 2012: grilling
September 2012: honey
October 2012: root vegetables
November 2012: stuffing
December 2012: Chinese food
January 2013: miniatures
February 2013: home-made gifts
March 2013: Passover desserts
April 2013: The Best Thing I Ever Ate
May 2013: croutons
June 2013: cold soups

This month, we celebrate our one year anniversary as a group with a fun link-up – The Great Blog Swap. Each member of the Kosher Connection was issued a fellow KC member’s blog and challenged to create a recipe inspired by one on their site. My secret target blog is This American Bite.

This American Bite is a personal blog dedicated to whole food cooking with a passion for vegetarian and BBQ. Living in the Midwest with his wife an two children, Yosef Silver began This American Bite to share his passion for healthy kosher food. As a resident of Kansas City, Yosef brings his fresh approach to BBQ and has previously been a judge at the Annual Kosher BBQ Festival. This year, he plans to compete with his team, The Epicurean Bite. We wish him the best of luck!

Many of Yosef’s recipes are inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine, and za’atar is a spice you will find in a lot of his recipes. One such recipe is garlic, za’atar and olive oil stovetop popcorn.As an ode to Yosef’s Kansas City living, I decided to do a twist on his recipe by grilling fresh corn and smothering it in garlic & za’atar compound butter. I never imagined that the corn would come out so incredibly delicious. I have to say that it was literally one of the best things I have ever eaten! Garlic & za’atar compound butter is my new favorite combination, thanks to This American Bite!

First up, we’ve got the grilled corn. I couldn’t imagine doing a This American Bite blog swap without paying homage to his passion for barbecuing. I’m not exactly a BBQ aficionado, and on the day of my photo shoot, the weather here in Brooklyn topped off at 102 degrees. I wasn’t, shall we say, enthusiastic, about sweating over a hot grill. My reluctance turned to exuberance as soon as I took a bite out of the moist, barbecued corn. Grilling the corn in their husks keeps it deliciously moist while still imparting a smokey flavor.

Grilled Corn

Fresh corn in their husks
olive oil or compound butter

Method:

Remove the outer husks from the corn. Carefully peel back the remaining husks and remove the silk around the corn. Wrap the husks back around the corn and soak in water for 15 minutes. Remove the corn from the water and peel the husks back to grease the corn. Brush with olive oil or softened butter and close the husks up as tightly as possible.

Grease the grill with an oiled rag and set the heat to medium. Grill for approximately 30 minutes, rotating the corn every 5-10 minutes.

As I wrote in a recent post, I’m not that big on butter. Compound butter, is another story though. Who can resist a creamy flavored spread on top of warm crusty bread? Compound butter is simply butter mixed with other ingredients to create a flavorful spread. It can be sweet (strawberry butter is popularly served over pancakes) or savory (maitre D’hotel butter mixed with fresh parsley and lemon is a culinary favorite). I’ve tried quite a few flavors of compound butter in the past, and this za’atar and garlic version is by far, the best one I’ve ever had.

If you’re not familiar with za’atar, it’s a mixed herb and spice blend popular in the Middle East. Za’atar is primarily made up of sumac, thyme, oregano, sesame seeds and salt. The spice blend is widely available in supermarkets, but you can also find it on amazon.

Za’atar & Garlic Compound Butter

1/2 cup butter, softened (see note)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp za’atar
kosher salt, to taste

Method:

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix to combine. Place the butter in the center of a sheet of parchment paper and roll it up tightly. Twist the sides of the parchment paper to create a log of butter. Freeze or refrigerate until ready to use.

NOTE: For pareve, you may substitute with margarine. I prefer Smart Balance Light trans-fat-free butter spread.

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Now that I’ve shared my “This American Bite” inspired recipe, lets get back to where we started – The Kosher Connection Anniversary. Aside from the great roundup of recipes in the link-up below, we’re also celebrating with a spectacular giveaway! The KC is giving away 2 Emile Henry products – a Bread Cloche valued at $130 and a 4.2 qt Dutch Oven valued at $170! Use the Rafflecopter below to win- you can enter up to 23 ways! Two winners will be chosen at random.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The contest winners will be contacted via email. They will have 48 hours to respond before other winners are chosen. This contest is open to United States residents over the age of 18


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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