Miriam Kresh

Devlin, Yes, handling the dough is satisfying to body and soul, even if your hands are in it only briefly. The yeast question was Paul's, but I am interested in your comments about the exclusive use of stretching/folding in all your doughs. I remember a post 'way back in the original thread where you describe your basic procedure, using a long-fermenting poolish. This inspires me to try it too, for my weekday bread. I think, though, that to get the traditional dense crumb of a challah, one would have to use a recipe calling for kneading. Am I wrong? At any rate, I've given up using SD for challah, as the family finds my attempts too unlike the sweetish, soft, eggy, braided loaf they really long for. Miriam

Those sfenj look gorgeous, Michelle. I've never made a good doughnut, myself. I'm impressed. Miriam

There are certainly times when knowing how not to knead becomes essential - like if you've got those 40 loaves to do, or you're just after the delicious flavor of that long-proofed bread. But myself, once I feel I've mastered the technique that my home conditions demand, I think I'll go back to kneading sometimes. I like to knead. But then, I'm a home baker, whose one or two weekly loaves, plus the challas on Friday, are enough for my family. I must say though, that in the past week, while I've been a bit under the weather and easily worn out, the no-knead recipe put good, home-baked bread on my table, where before I would have just sent someone out to the bakery. I've also been thinking about other no-knead recipes. Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure (the first book) has a recipe for herb and onion bread that I've been making for years, with variations as the fit takes me. It requires the "normal" amount of yeast, stirring vigorously for a few minutes, 45 minutes first rise, and 10 minutes second rise before baking in a 350-degree oven. The dough is batter-like and sticky, like the NY Times recipe. I've always successfully baked it without a cover. Obviously, the herbs and onions provide plenty of flavor. But I've varied it with chopped dried tomatoes and basil, sugar, spices, and chopped prunes or raisins - it all works well, and I've never thought of it as "no-knead bread", but simply as a fast yeast bread. Elizabeth David discourses at length on the advantage of using less yeast and a longer proof, in her "English Bread and Yeast Cookery". Her recipes don't reduce the yeast so drastically - many call for 15g, while our 1/4 teaspoon is, I think, 1g (correct me if I'm wrong!). Her loaves do require kneading. I'm curious about other no-knead recipes...I'd better start hunting for "No Need to Knead", since it's been mentioned here quite a few times. Miriam

Bernaise, Looks like you've got everything covered! You're very considerate indeed to put so much thought and effort into your guest's comfort. More than providing them with acceptable food, you have gracefully avoided a situation where they would have to decline your hospitality - an uneasy thing for a guest to do. So everyone's social and everyone's eating something - all is easy. Good for you. Miriam

What?! Chanukah just around the corner again? Time to get organized. The latkeh-fry and family party are at my house every year. My married daughter and her family will be here for the second candle-lighting. We'll put on a CD of Chanukkah tunes, and I'm hoping my little grandsons will break into a shuffling, stamping dance of their own invention. We'll gorge on glorious latkehs - the traditional Eastern European kind, slathered over with sour cream and applesauce -and to make me happy, everyone will have a share of healthy salad. The little boys are just toddlers and so too young to understand the dreidel game, but I'll get them those atomic-powered spinning tops that light up and look like UFOs, and while they're figuring out how to destroy those, the older folk will sit on the floor and play for chocolate Chanukah gelt. Latkehs with toppings, salad and a cheese platter (cheeses from the sheep dairy Eretz Zevach Chalav, mentioned in Swisskaes' second blog - go to http://www.2eat.co.il/eretz/ and get a load of the cheeses); the new Golan "young" wine, which I see has undergone carbonic maceration; tangerines and a bowl full of nuts and some special chocolates from a new chocolatier called Neta (www.chocolata.co.il), shaped like menorahs and dreidels - that's the menu. Sufganiot, the next night. When it's just me, my husband and youngest daughter, I can limit the numbers instead of buying bagfulls, thereby limiting the calories. I think the calories in latkehs, by contrast, are good for you. Miriam

A while back upthread, someone was wondering if a Pyrex bowl would be safe to use...I dunnit, and it was fine. I overturned my loaf from its oiled bowl onto a circle of parchment paper that I had just gently laid on top of my very hot clay saucer, then clapped my biggest Pyrex bowl over the top. The bowl was hot too, it was a little inconvenient to handle but with a big fish slice, it wasn't really hard to remove from the saucer. The same fish slice removed the hot bowl for the last part of the bake. Nothing broke and the bread was good. Now, I think I could make a tongue-twister out of "oiled bowl." Let's see: "Oy, a boiling old oiled bowl." Three times, quickly. Miriam

It's a mistake to go through this thread before breakfast...here I am, morosely contemplating these mouth-watering photos and feeling motivated to eat, but not to put much together this morning. Maybe because I'm a little under the weather today - or because I had breakfast late last night. It was toasted sourdough bread (inspired from the minimalist no-knead thread), spread with salt butter, topped with tomato slices slowly sauteed in butter and besprinkled with fresh-ground black pepper and salt, and eggs fried in the same skillet. All that butter...no wonder my arteries ache this morning. ("Yes," says the little devil hovering over my left shoulder, "but you love butter, you know you love butter.") Breakfast was a cup of filter coffee. Vitamins, kyolic garlic capsule and echinacea on the side. I'm going back to bed. Wake me up if any of you guys bake croissants, please. Miriam

I baked a sourdough version on an open, hot clay saucer. This is my preferred baking surface, and I used it as I don't have a heavy lidded pot that would go in the oven. It rose well. Baking temperature was 230 C. I found that I had to add much more flour to make a dough solid enough to handle, probably 2 cups more. I used 100 grams of starter to leaven the bread, that's probably why. In addition, my Israeli bread flour acts differently than the American flours, I'm sure. The crust was light, but chewy rather than crisp and crackly, the crumb pierced with small holes. It was dense and somewhat moist, like the dark Russian breads available here, but by no means underdone or pasty. I did wait till the loaf cooled down completely before cutting. I liked this SD version, and think I might make a garlic loaf like Abra's with it. I haven't tried the bread with commercial yeast yet. Miriam

My well-loved sister was visiting from Calgary. Her beau back in the Frozen Wastes is a chef, and she is spoiled for good food, so I decided to stick with tried-and-true dishes instead of trying to impress with new recipes. This is what I made: Challa rolls - choumous from the shuk, where the vendor makes it himself - fat green olives. Chicken soup (all my Shabbat posts start with that chicken soup, I know, but if I try anything different, the family protests - they have an emotional thing with chicken soup. So do I, come to think of it.) Chicken, jointed and roasted in peach chutney with added S&P, minced garlic, soy sauce, ginger, brown sugar, lemon and orange juice. That chutney was a mistake that sat ignored in its jar for several months. It was a recipe for apricot chutney, but I had substituted sweet peaches for the tart apricots. Result: a curiously bland and sweet preserve somewhere between chutney and jam. I didn't like it, but didn't have the heart to chuck it. I'm glad now that I didn't toss it out, for dressed up with extras it made a good sweet-sour sauce for the chicken. The chunks of peach absorbed the other flavors in the roasting pan and cooked to spreading consistency, which thickened the sauce. Delicious. We licked our fingers. Garlic white rice Steamed broccoli spears with a little sesame oil drizzled over them Sweet potato salad with finely-chopped garlic chives and EVOO Tossed salad of baby greens and tomatoes with vinaigrette Pears in wine Wine: a modest Barkan merlot After-dinner drink: Vizniak I made last spring, which came ready just this month. Altogether a fruity sort of meal. We ate till we could no more, and Sis was smiling...I'm happy.

Kris, Shmaltz doesn't need water, just a drop of oil to get the rendering started. Keep the fat-laden skin on the lowest possible flame to prevent burning, and don't add the chopped onions until the skin is starting to look crisp. Stir a few times and allow the onions to become crisp, by which time the skin should be so too. I think that if the skin looked slimy, it was because of the water and not long enough cooking. But did you like using the shmaltz? I render a small quantity or twice a year, mostly for making matzah balls or to flavor potatoes. I wouldn't baste a chicken with shmaltz, though; it seems to me that the cooking juices have enough fat for basting. - Eh, edit here - always a mistake not to read upthread... tonyy13 has it exactly right, beating trespassers off and all. Miriam

Hormonal storms conjure up cravings for carbs, especially the salty, greasy variety, and protein. A whole roast chicken with a bunch of french fries, sort of thing. Or pasta with plenty pesto and cheese. Or simply a bagful of potato chips, oy vey. Not sweets, for me. Altogether as I get older I crave sweets much less. I look forward to being past all this... Miriam

All of KitchenQueen's post was valuable, but it was good to be reminded of preserving fresh produce. I understand that not everyone has time, after a full work-day, to shop for produce and then stand in the kitchen preserving it. But even one batch of jam, once or twice a year, is worth the trouble. Making and freezing pesto takes minutes, too (see the "What To Do With A Glut of Basil" thread in this category). I learned to make small batches twice a year rather than big mason jars-full every summer; it just works better for our family because we don't consume a lot of jam. When I was making big quantities of strawberry or peach jam, the family would just get bored with it and I'd find myself throwing some out at the end of a year. Better to make a few small jars of cherry and strawberry jam come springtime, then apple butter and peach jam late summer/fall. Or whatever fruit strikes the fancy at the time and is cheap. I'm the only chutney lover so I make a very small recipe, enough for 1 clean mayo jar at a time, and vary recipes according to whim (and the season). For the holidays, when I can expect more chutney-eating guests, I make more. Chutneys aren't commonly available here; a few boutique products may be found at very high prices. It's a pleasure to open a jar of my own apricot or apple and walnut, or hot mango chutney and spoon some out. Or to top pancakes with summertime preserves, or roast a chicken with them. And those preserves are sure appreciated as Purim or get-well-soon gifts. Miriam

If your mom likes coffee, remember that the coffee served in these places is usually slop. She might become more kindly if her morning cuppa tastes good to her, so if she favors a certain brand, that might be a good thing to send. Miriam

I've never blanched basil, but it occurs to me that doing so would cook off some of the aromatic essential oils. Can anyone tell us if that's so? And I wouldn't bother drying basil; it has all the flavor of straw when dried. At least, to me. However, I do freeze pesto, without the cheese but with the pine nuts, and have not found it bitter afterwards. The cheese is omitted because I want to keep the pesto "pareve"; that is neither dairy nor meat, for adding to either kind of meal according to the laws of kashrut. I wouldn't hesitate to freeze it with cheese if it suited me. Seems to me that freezing, either as pesto, or an ingredient in herb butter, or preserving in salt or oil, are good options. But two lovely things to make when basil is fresh and fragrant are basil mayonnaise - just add some washed, dried fresh basil leaves to a rather stiff mayo and blend it on in - and basil/orange peel vinegar. I don't have a recipe for the vinegar, but get a clean jar, place the washed peel of one orange and a big handful of basil leaves in it, and fill it up with cider vinegar. Leave it alone for at least 2 weeks to infuse. It will last a year, and is it lovely. I like it with sweet/sour salads, and beet salad goes particularly well with this vinegar. Miriam

I'm also a kitchen scissors fan, using them to trim artichokes, snip herbs, slice string beans, open difficult packaging, etc. But maybe the strangest thing I've done is take my electric drill, attach a clean paint mixer to it, and whirl the mixer in a bucket full of fresh grapes to crush for making wine. That was before I got onto a co-op where they crush the grapes for you. The paint mixer, I used to mix my handmade soap with, till I imported a much better squirrel-cage soap mixer. Still on this non-food tangent, I have seen photos of a soapworks where the salt scrubs were mixed in a small cement mixer. Miriam

Yes, most days, and if I made enough for two meals, I wait till the day after next before serving it again. It's all a mindset, isn't it? It doesn't seem like a big deal, making soup every day. It goes fast, a few minutes chopping and sauteeing, and the soup simmers away quietly while I'm doing something else. On the other hand, if I had to make a quiche or pie every day, I'd get flustered - at least, till I got used to it. Miriam And Eldereno, I admire your ability to foresee changes and to start planning for them, and wish more people had the cheerful, forthright attitude you show towards the elder in your care.

Do you go to several different grocery stores? Open-air market for produce unless it's raining or I'm not feeling well; it's about a 20-minute walk away. Freshly-ground coffee and spices in a small specialty store, also in the shuk. Greengrocer's if I get a sudden craving for some fruit or asparagus or something, and don't want to wait for it till next time I get to the shuk. A butcher's, for meat & ready-roasted chicken, occasionally. One of the local small grocery stores for milk, pitta, eggs, sometimes other dairy foods. I dislike buying at the local supermarket, as prices are high there, but do so about once a week anyway. They deliver, and the big discount supermarkets don't. That's important to me, as I can't shlep heavy groceries home and up the stairs to my apartment. We don't serve dessert often, but I will sometimes bring something home from one of the fine bakeries around town. Do you clip coupons? No. What do you usually buy at the grocery store? As I mentioned, milk, eggs, fresh pitta. In addition, various cheeses; yeast. Perishables with short shelf lives and high turnovers. Staples like sugar, a few canned and bottled foods like sweet corn, tomato paste, olives, frozen chicken and turkey, and non-food items such as cleaning materials, I buy at the super. No prepared, frozen meals or frozen pizzas (feh!) or the like. Do you tend to buy more meat or more produce? Produce. Are you too ashamed to make purchases from the "reject bin?" Nah. Do you make a list? Yes, and I use it. The difficulty is sticking to it. How many refridgerators and pantries do you have for food storage? One full-sized fridge in the kitchen, and my mother's old full-sized fridge on a porch. In the second fridge are mostly cold drinks and wine; it gets the overflow of Shabbat and holiday cooking as well. In the freezer I sometimes have fresh frozen fruit for making wine. Inadequate pantry space in my old-fashioned kitchen: I stash a lot of stuff in boxes under the kitchen table. In addition, I set up bins to hold dried herbs and spices, seaweeds, and winemaking equipment in the kitchen. Another cabinet outside the kitchen holds mostly herbal medicines and essential oils, but also mason jars full of dried nettles, bottles of vodka for tincturing, and some of my cookbooks. Do you enjoy grocery shopping as much as I do? I like to hit the big supermarkets and shop in a leisurely way, knowing that someone else will carry it home for me. And the shuk is always a pleasure.

I like to ask my guests if there's any food they really don't tolerate, and that's saved the scenario more than once. Like when I was planning on a major salad with three kinds of tomatoes in it, till I heard from my dinner guest that she hates raw tomatoes. (You Know Who You Are ) Adjusting the menu is easy. What's annoying is a vegetarian/vegan guest who hasn't informed you of this ahead of time. You can go nuts running around the kitchen, pulling drawers open and scouring the fridge for acceptable food at the last minute. One vegan friend simply brings his own bread, and I know to have brown rice, beans, and cooked veg for him. No problem for me, and everyone is relaxed over the meal, which may include dairy and egg dishes for the others. But how dismaying to sit a guest down in front of chicken and hear him (or her)say, "Oh, I don't eat any animal foods, but don't mind me, I'm happy with the salad. I didn't like to put you to any extra trouble..." You could kill such a guest. Leastways, I could. Gimme a list of do's and don'ts, it makes life easier. Miriam

You're welcome, Ludja. My mother likes to say, "Soy muy sopera!" (I am a soup lover.) So am I. Today's was spinach and mushroom soup on a light bechamel base, with a little rice in it. It was cool weather soup, filling, and followed by warm fish croquettes, then a salad of mixed greens. Simple food, and I am still amazed that my husband rose from the table satisfied, where before he would have needed lots of of chicken, or liver, or beef. He still gets all those foods, I just know to plan on smaller portions now that soup is served first. Miriam

Oh, man...it must be a burden to be so sensitive towards food touching. I'm comfortable with that myself, as long as the meal is planned so that the foods are compatible. Like, not sturdy feijoada next to some delicate Chinese or Persian concoction. In Jewish culture, some foods are set apart from others, and this I accept as natural, since I grew up with these restrictions. I don't refer to the prohibited foods: pork, shellfish, or mixtures of meat and dairy, but to customs some hold by, of not mixing fish and dairy, or fish and meat. Religious Sephardim, and Chassidim, have very definite opinions about those combinations. Morrocan housewives won't cook onions and garlic together in the same dish. I've been told that these mixtures are considered damaging to the health, although they are not treif like pork. Myself, I find mixing fish and meat as one dish distasteful, but fish and dairy can be very good. So cultural influences run through our preferences. Once, as a child, I asked my mother to serve my Latin beans separately from my rice, which upset my older brother. He told me, "What's this American business?! You eat your beans on top of your rice, like everyone else here!" Boy was I intimidated. Miriam

Advice I saw in the newspaper years ago stuck in my mind, and I've found it helpful: "Cook everything you buy, and eat everything you cook. " Using that guidline, I found myself either buying less to avoid leftovers, or making sure to eat the leftovers. I find it intriguing that you say processed food is actually cheaper. Are you buying out-of-season produce, or paying top price at a fancy greengrocer's? Even here in Israel, where fruit and veg are abundant and cheap, I could run up a large bill at the upscale greengrocer's, buying speciality produce on whim instead of getting less sensational stuff at the shuk. Another way is to serve soup before the main meal of the day; good soup obviously, even if it's just a quick miso. My husband is not a vegetable lover, but I found that he'll eat almost anything in soup form, especially if it's blended. As he has several chronic ailments, I'm always anxious to boost his nutrition. I found that once the (vitamin-packed, mineral-rich) soup is consumed, he doesn't feel the need to eat vast quantities of animal protein, as he did before. Better for his health like that. And a pleasant surprise was discovering that our grocery bill has gone down. Getting adjusted to buying and cooking less meat took a little while, though. A few times, we had to face lefovers we were just tired of, for me to break the habit. I guess the main issue for you would be finding an alternative to your hubbie's fast-food lunches. One suggestion: a wide-mouth thermos may contain not only soup, but stew, beans, all kinds of hot food. A goodly slice of cheese, a small salad, and some fresh bread on the side - I used to pack my kid's school lunches like that. I also remember that my co-workers's heads would turn towards my desk when I unscrewed the top of the thermos at lunch break, releasing the rich scent of chicken/vegetable soup, or of lentils and rice. Just leftovers, heated up quickly before leaving the house, eaten with a hearty sandwich or a big salad retrieved from the office fridge. Those gals would look hungry. Then they would all troop out to the falafel joint around the corner, wishing me a good appetite, a little sourly. Even the boss, on her way out to a restaurant lunch, was attracted by my meal. I was hard up in those days, but I believe I ate pretty well. It does take a little planning, is all. Would that work for you? Miriam

Very interesting, Janet. I wonder if people did follow Dr. Kitchiner's essence recipes. To answer your questions, vanilla is the only alcohol-based essence I work with in the kitchen, although I am used to tincturing medicinal herbs. It would be interesting to work with the lemon, cinnamon or ginger tinctures, but I confess these recipes seem more like historical curiosities than inspiration for daily cooking. Maybe these essences would have been handy at a time when fresh celery, lemons, and herbs were available only during limited seasons and cooks wished to preserve specific flavors for the rest of the year. Kind of neat, when you think about it. I don't think anything of freezing pesto for the basil-less winter - although of course it's never as good as freshly made, it's still pesto, with that rich basil aroma and flavor. I guess that lacking a freezer, alcohol-based essences, like herbs preserved in salt or in sugar, or in vinegar, would be especially appealing to people cooking for those large families of yesteryear. Miriam

Rebecca, I've been thinking of you off and on all day, and praying for your refuah shlemah. The past several months I've been cooking with little motivation. It showed, too, as many of the dishes leaving my hands were too salty, or under-salted, or did not work together. Most of the time I stuck to familiar favorites and made my husband take us out at least once a week, even just for a shwarma. I guess most people who cook a lot go through phases like that. I finally bestirred myself, though, and shlepped the tajine off its high shelf and cooked up a dish of turkey with onions, garlic, saffron, a little thyme, cumin, tomatoes, a few drops of tamarindi, a handful of raisins. Salt and black pepper, of course. At the end of the cook, I added some steamed sliced carrots. Sprinkles of finely-chopped cilantro over all. It is savory and good, and I'm glad the creative urge seems to be returning. What motivated me? Well, I read through the tajine cooking thread here on the forum... With the tajine I'm serving plain white garlic rice. My son, who used to live in the Bucharian neighborhood of Jerusalem, taught me how the old ladies there cook rice, draping a kitchen towel over the pot when the rice first comes to a boil, placing the lid firmly in place (and bunching the ends of the towel up over it so it won't catch on fire). Then you lower the flame to the lowest possible. As the rice cooks, the towel absorbs the steam. After 10 minutes the rice comes out perfectly cooked and loose, each grain separate. We call it "shmatta rice", to my boy's amusement. Steamed up two beets, which I made into a Moroccan sweet-sour salad with thinly sliced onions, cumin and lots of fresh, chopped cilantro. Chicken soup, as always, and challot I baked this morning. Nary a cherry tomato this Shabbat. Lunch tomorrow will be a roast chicken and potato kugel with coleslaw, and the tossed salad that makes its appearance at almost every meal here - back to substantial but plain. Hm, this needs a little more pizzazz. How about a salad of sliced tomatoes and oranges with plenty of whole mint leaves, and a light vinegar/oil dressing? We don't normally serve dessert, but it's raining out there. Cooler weather calls for something baked... I think that some homey oatmeal cookies with raisins and chopped walnuts won't hurt. Shabbat approacheth...Shabbat Shalom to all! Miriam

My married daughter's family is a little too large now to be comfortable in our succah. So we are spending the first Yom Tov with Daughter and Family. We'll have spicy Moroccan fish and chicken couscous for the evening meal, and I'm bringing the second meal. The pot-roasted beef with lamb I made for Rosh HaShannah came out very well, so I'm repeating that, with rice and some salads. Probably peperonata and corn salad, carrot salad. Have to provide the kind of food small children will like. My Tunisian/Moroccan son-in-law, whom I love, has one great character flaw: he won't eat gefulte fish. I try to excuse him on the grounds that he's Sephardic and sweet fish goes against his grain. His grandmother, a little old Tunisian lady with a headscarf and a long, hennaed braid coming down her back, bravely tried to eat gefulte fish, just to see what the big fuss was about, and couldn't finish her first bite. What can you do, I guess love of sweet chopped fish must be genetic in Ashkenazim. I should master the technique of uploadng photos, already - no excuse. I'll take some pics of the succah and one of the meals after Yom Tov. We eat every meal in the succah, and the men sleep there too - weather permitting. Succot is the time friends visit with each other, so I'll be baking honey cake and spice cookies to have around. The big hot-water pot is always kept on the boil for tea and coffee, and there's always wine around here. I keep lots of easy-meal groceries around in case of unexpected lunch or dinner guests. I don't like to be upstairs cooking while everyone else is hanging out in the succah, so I plan for quick, simple, satisfying things based on pasta, cheeses, or pates and breads - always a couple of salads, sometimes soup, sometimes a chicken roasted with vegetables. Time presses - hope to have some photos to show you Sunday. Chag sameach, everyone! Miriam

Judith, these photos are so incredibly evocative. I feel as if I'm right there, especially as there is much about the medieval streets and houses that reminds me of Safed, one of Israel's ancient holy cities, where I lived for several years. Even the fog. Really looking at the photos sort of squeezed my heart. These very old places are full of a certain energy, and you are aware that the air you're breathing has a different feel from the atmosphere anywhere else. It's not only the unique smells and colors, it's the feeling on the skin, in the lungs, and eventually in the heart. And although living, thriving people tread the streets, the presence of the dead, those who played out their live's dramas on the same streets, is almost palpable. The molino's big wine bottles (demijohns) and the stainless-steel fermentation tank where you filled up your jerrycans, well, they really made me turn green - with envy. The best winemaking equipment comes from Italy! Not easy to get that kind of equipment here, and all very expensive. I can't imagine driving up to a winery and filling up a jerrycan with a good house wine: wish I could, and what's more, wish I ran such a winery myself... Can you buy pepitas already shelled? They are very good sauteed in plain soy sauce till they have absorbed the liquid and have puffed up and popped. Fascinating marketplace photos, lovely food...cool blog! Miriam