Adventures in Mama-Land

They sell all these "seasoned nori snacks" in health-food stores but a) they're way overpackaged, and b) none have a hechsher. And now, I can add reason c) - mine taste way better!  (I’m assuming, not having tasted the packaged ones) I admit, they don’t look like much, strewn on a plate like this… but believe me, these pack a mighty tasty punch.  And I just bought two packages of nori for $1.99 so at that price, we can afford to eat these to our hearts’ content! How to make them: Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a bowl, mix some combination of sriracha, tasty soy sauce, sesame oil, and a bit of water.  Brush on one sheet of nori.  Stick another sheet of nori on top and brush with more mixture. Using kitchen shears (I wouldn’t want to do this with a knife), slice into thin strips or any shape you want. Bake 5 minutes or less, checking often so they don’t burn (remove when curled). p.s. if I had any in the house, I probably would have pressed some sesame seeds on...

“It’s my own invention!” Here’s a quick easy medium-hearty soup to go along with a rice-based stir-fry – especially good for a cold evening when there wasn’t much in the house beyond rice and tinned tomatoes… I improvised this, writing down what I did along the way so you could enjoy it, too (cuz I knew ahead of time that it was destined to be just as fabulous as it turned out to be!). What’s in it: 1 tin tomatoes (the big kind of tin – 700-something ml?) 2 tins water or nice veggie broth 2 cubes frozen ginger 4 cloves garlic 3 tbsp ch soup mix (omit if using nice veggie broth) 1-2 cups of frozen corn kernels, depending on how much you like corn; I forget how much I tossed in 1 package extra-firm tofu, browned in wok 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (contains fish) black pepper to taste sriracha / hot sauce to taste, optional – OR red pepper flakes, optional 4 tbsp soy sauce (s/b a bit less?) 6 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (I used lite = low sodium, just because we bought it by...

When I say easy, I mean easy; domestic goddess, I am not these days.  Not even up to my usual, slovenly, standards. But anyway – pumpkin.  I bought four biggish ones on November 1st for 99 cents each (up from 49 cents last year , and FREE the year before!), plus I found one BIG one this evening walking to my mother’s house (sitting at the curb, but it only had a couple of squirrel-bites out of it… and I figure the roasting takes care of any squirrelish germs; I hope I’m right!). So here’s what you do: Open the top of the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds.  I generally throw away the cap, but you could roast it, too.  SAVE THE SEEDS! Slice the pumpkin almost all the way down on one side, then the other, then pull it apart with your bare hands – this is my “Incredible Hulk” moment, where I feel huge and powerful and furious… for a second, until the, um, fruit in my hands snaps apart easily. Use a metal spoon and scrape the “gunk” off the inside walls of the pumpkin....

If you’re dipping macaroons or any other dessert and you have extra chocolate left over at the end, grab some popsicle sticks (or skewers, or not, if you don’t have anything)… and dip whatever you’ve got handy, then pop it in the freezer! These are bananas and marshmallows; it would probably work with lots more kinds of fruit.  We had frozen chocolate-coated bananas all the time as kids, but Ted had never tried one and claims it’s his new favourite dessert.

Don’t be disappointed… this is more of a state of mind than a recipe.  Okay, more of a technique , but that sounds all boring and pretentious. First, have some leftover pumpkin.  You can buy it tinned, but at this time of year, pumpkins are cheap and plentiful (not as cheap as they will be come November 1st!).  Roasting them is easy, so don’t bother boiling (that’s what I used to do – cut up & boil – why???).  Cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, place face-down on a pan (I use tinfoil because they get messy).  Roast at whatever temperature your oven is at (300-350) until you can poke through the skin & flesh with a skewer.  Done! When cool (I just leave them in the oven overnight, where fruit flies can’t find them) purée in food processor. (while you’re waiting for them to cool, read this heartfelt entreaty about why you must buy a pasta maker ) Now for the noodles.  You won’t use the whole pumpkin for noodles, so maybe divide i...

In case you weren’t aware, “potchkedik” means “almost too much trouble to bother.”  Remember that ALMOST!  Lots of steps and annoying and nonsense… but sometimes, very worthwhile. But at this time of year, my thoughts wildly turn to pumpkin and so I was sucked in by these “ Crispy Pumpkin Purses ” from Jamie Geller’s site, Joy of Kosher, and decided to make them for erev Yom Kippur.  Of course, as I said in this post , that might not exactly be the best time to savour delicious and effortful food… as my mother said the other day, “we used to just eat a boiled chicken; chicken, and chicken soup.”  Luckily, we now have “extras” in the freezer, so we can enjoy them another time. These are basically rice-stuffed samosas, with a few nice touches.  The filling is a mix of puréed roasted pumpkin and pre-cooked risotto.  Risotto should be fairly “creamy” when cooked (though pareve).  Because I was making these pareve, I used the non-dairy option of substitu...

Naomi’s narration: “Looking at this painting... it looks like cheese because it's all yellow, and it's autumn, and some people are having a picnic and there's a town in the background and children playing and someone going fishing.  The people are poor people [peasants] and the people come from Ireland.  Some men are cutting down the wheat and the wheat looks like tents.  I do not like this painting because it's all yellow!  I prefer paintings with bright colours:  pink, purple, green, blue, red, turquoise and orange.” This is not exactly up to our usual standards, but it’s a start.  We’re both t rying to get back into the swing of things, which is surprisingly tough right now considering that, theoretically, we learn all through the summer.  (I have no idea how she decided that the people were Irish, but I suppose peasants look like peasants all the world over…) Here’s how we do picture study narration: After a few minutes of guided picture study,...

Around here, the one thing we all agree on, food-wise, is potatoes.  And it occurs to me, as I type this, that we have had some form of potato every night this week:  potato soup on Sunday (after Tisha b’Av ), the same potato soup revisited as a curried carrot/fish stew on Monday, and mashed potatoes last night with our “girls’ night” STEAK binge (Ted & YM were off in Lakewood for a wedding). But it’s too late, because tonight is scalloped-potatoes night, and I thought I’d share some tips for getting this quick-easy and yummy-for-all-ages supper to the table quicker.  (Of course, in your home, scalloped potatoes might not be supper.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s okay – I’m serving it with farmers’ market corn on the cob, and that, in my opinion, is a meal.  Ted prefers to have a protein on the side of one of my all-starch suppers – like salmon or beanie burgers (try these ones – just smoosh them for burgers instead of balls).  Chacun a son gout.) ...

This is one important staple if you’re thinking of cooking anything even remotely Asian-inspired.  But sometimes, we don’t plan ahead and run out. So! Once you’ve poured off the last drops, grab your trusty bottle of cheap-and-flavourless cooking oil:  we use canola, but whatever you usually use for salads and things will be fine.  Pour some into the sesame-oil bottle.  Less is better, of course, because it won’t dilute the flavour, but if you need, say, 1/4 cup or whatever for a recipe, use that much.  Put the lid back on and shake your new oil well. Refrigerate for a few hours or more – giving it more time lets it pick up more flavour.  Use as you would sesame oil.  The colour isn’t quite so rich & beguiling, but it will impart some yummy sesame taste.  You could probably get even more flavour by toasting actual sesame seeds, adding them to the oil, letting it sit for a while or overnight, then filtering out the seeds.  But then, yo...

So apparently, there is this RIFT in the pad thai world.  Purists who say NO KETCHUP at any cost.  And impurists like me who are excited to have discovered an interesting shortcut to an interesting sauce.  I found this vegan pad thai recipe through a facebook friend but decided, on learning of the Ketchup Controversy, that it needed doctoring and authenticity – a tough thing given that my love for pad thai began after my love for eating kosher, meaning that unlike real Chinese food, I’ve never had it prepared authentically in a Thai restaurant. I’ve made many rice-noodle-based stir fries in my time, but this sauce is a first for me and I wanted to do it right, or at least, kind of yummy. So apparently, there are four things in REAL pad thai sauce, and two are unavailable to me: sugar fish sauce soy sauce tamarind juice There is also, occasionally, sriracha chili sauce and – lo and behold! – I found this brand with a hechsher!  It only came in a JUMBO bottl...

Update: February 4, 2015 This post has been moved to my fabulous new food blog .  I hope you'll join me there!

Mmm… this was great; truly classic light Shabbos lunch fare.  Another delicious new favourite from the Kosher by Design Teens & 20-Somethings cookbook… (that’s a link to BUY the cookbook, but you can find the complete recipe here ). Basically, you round up all the basil your garden has to offer, throw in a half-cup of pecans, some garlic, sea salt, olive oil, lemon juice and mayo, whir it up in the blender…   … and then toss it with a whole bunch of store-bought gnocchi!  What?  No store-bought gnocchi handy?  No store sells it near you?  Kosher store-bought gnocchi costs a ridiculous $6 for half a pound???  Make it yourself – it’s easy!  No recipe for this, but here’s what you’ll need: 4 organic potatoes, preferably russet or another baking variety, scrubbed and poked with a fork Salt, kosher or sea salt or whatever you like 1 egg all-purpose flour, maybe a couple of cups? Big pot of seasoned / salted / oiled water (see recipe ...

I’ve already mentioned this peeve:  sites that make you create a high-security password to access such highly confidential information as PACKAGE TRACKING.  Today’s medium-security site is Starbucks, where I went to register the nice gift card my sister Abigail thoughtfully picked out for me.  (she knows how much I love green) Anyway, an attempt to use my usual password formula* produced this error message.  Sheesh. * password formula:  Instead of using the same password for every single site (very unwise), you can use the same BASE password for many sites, combined with a numeric code that varies with the name of the site.  Base password can include two words, like beetle and fish , with a punctuation mark (maybe #) in between.  Then, if the code number for the S in Starbucks is “27” then your password could be something like “beetle#fish27”.  If you want to make sure it passes the HIGH STANDARDS of websites like Starbucks and Canada Post, h...

… as a shoddy housekeeper, that is! Our only REAL item of value, beyond the miscellaneous computers and electronic whatsits sitting around, is a pair of silver lechters, candlesticks that were my grandmother’s.  For some reason, she left her main, brass ones, to my mother, leaving these super-amazing Birk’s sterling pair for me (though not explicitly TO me, my grandmother had only one daughter).  I love them very much.  There are two bases that can each hold a single candle, OR you can put in the inserts, which hold 3 candles each, for a total of SIX… exactly the number I light every Shabbos. But they’re silver, and I have a really REALLY bad track record with silver.  For years, Elisheva has been asking me if she can polish them (I keep saying yes!).  So they have gotten really black and dusty and waxy and disgusting. Sometimes, at fairs and in infomercials, they try to sell you a handy-dandy “tarnish plate” that magically – without dangerous or effortsome s...