Chanuka, oh Hannukkah

Yes, it’s that time of year again — glowing lights, fried foods and sweet little presents.  To help us get in the mood here is the latest collection of Chanuka videos going viral this year.  Who’s your favorite?  Those sweet-toned YU boys in the Maccabeats, or the cool kids in the Fountainheads ?  Or maybe you have another favorite?  Check them out and let me know.

KCC #61 — Let Tevet Bring The Rain!

Welcome to the 61st Kosher Cooking Carnival — the Tevet 5771 issue!  As I’m putting together this issue it is still Kislev.  We are in the midst of Chanuka and the candles are burning, as is our wonderful land of Israel, both physically and psychologically.  The horrific forest fire in the Carmel Forest has claimed 41 lives (edited after posting — 42).  The weather continues to be hotter than normal for this time of year.  As the sun continues to shine and balmy weather brings warm breezes and banishes all thoughts of a wintry Chanuka, we still continue with our holiday traditions, the frying of latkes, the filling of sufganiyot, the caloric intake as if to bulk up for a winter that has yet to arrive.  But rumor has it that with the month of Tevet comes that rain!  Inclement weather is predicted for the erev of and the first day of Rosh Chodesh.  May the rains come and wash the burning land and perhaps the Carmel Forest can start to regenerate the green we long for.

Just a note — today, as I finish writing this post, erev Rosh Chodesh Tevet, the rain has come, washing the country in its blessing and causing Am Yisrael to smile and breathe a sigh of relief.  But still, the showers of last night and today are not enough, so please pray that the weather stays wet and gray!

Over the centuries Israel has been beset by many a tragedy, and how have we always managed to get through it?  We eat!  So let the Kosher Cooking Carnival begin!

The Kosher Cooking Carnival KCC is a monthly blog carnival, a “round-up” of blog posts about all aspects of kosher food and cooking.  It includes Jewish Law, customs, kosher restaurants, cookbooks and kosher recipes, too.  Every month it’s on another blog.  Next month the KCC is once again going home and will be hosted by Batya at me-ander.  If you’d like to host an edition, please contact Batya.

Anything Kosher

Leah of Ingathered brings back some childhood memories with her Quick and Easy Homemade Pickles.

Batya, of me-ander, decided to do something we do almost weekly in our house and did a little Cashing In, Frozen Foods.  In our house we always cook twice or three times as much as we need, just to feed the Freezer Gods.

Leora who lives over Here in HP posted a wonder No Cook Pea Salad.  This one is absolutely going into the Shabbat rotation at our house.

Jennifer is having some Adventures in BreadLand, and is stretching and folding, stretching and folding and wants us to Bake Bread Bold with “Stretch n’ Fold”!

Even though we are in the midst of Chanuka, not too long ago we were celebrating Thanksgiving.  Mirj of Miriyummy (hey, that’s me!) didn’t quite make the traditional dinner, but had a little party to give thanks, and served up some unconventional Thanksgiving food.

Desserts

Phyllis, our favorite Ima On (And Off) The Bima, made a supercool dragon cake for her son’s 5th birthday.  You can read all about it at Move Over, Cake Boss – Dragon Cake.

What do you do when you just don’t know what to call your creation?  You do what Mrs. S. over at Our Shiputzim:  A Work in Progress did.  Curious?  Find out what she called her dessert in Freshly Baked Goods Friday: Nameless Edition.

Not that I want to get political or anythings, but… with all this talk about a building freeze, Jennifer and her Adventures in MamaLand is building houses, gingerbread houses, and they look good!  Have a peek at Gingerbread Night.

One way to avoid politics is to focus on the ying and yang of the sweet stuff.  Mirj of Miriyummy (me, again) gives it to you in black and white with Reality Bites.

Diet Food

There were no entries this month for Diet Food.  Like, duh!  This is the Chanuka season!  Latkes, sufganiyot, anything fried, oil, oil, oil, get the picture?  Just in case you don’t, here’s one…

Everyday Meals

Ilana-Davita took one of my favorite side dishes and gave it her own personal twist in Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage with Apple.

If you head over to Here in HP you can read how Leora made Kid-Friendly Spicy Potatoes.  Sounds like something my kids would love to cook, and love to eat.  Very kid-friendly!

With the drought we’ve been having here in Israel Batya has come up with a very economic way to save water over at me-ander.  See this new innovation with Water-Saving Meatloaf.

Halacha

Mrs. S. on Our Shiputzim discusses the mitzvot of blogging on Chanuka.  Nothing to do with food, but worth reading, just so you know…  Happy Chanukah!

Jewish Shabbat and Holiday Food

Mimi of Israeli Kitchen receives some potato inspiration with 2 Recipes:  Spiced Olives and Potatoes with Olives.

Just in time for the last days of Chanuka (and who says this should only be limited to Chanuka?), West Bank Mama tells us Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Latkes.

Over at JewishBoston.com we have an interesting take on the usual latke thanks to Dan Brosgol.  Check out Hybrid Latkes: Low-Fat, High-Flavor, and Interestingly Textured.

Bookishima, who’s In Our Small Garden, wants to tell you All About Sufganiyot.

Mirj of Miriyummy (me, again) has way to chill down in Israel with memories of the cold north and little baby sufganiyot with There’s a Hole in My Donut.

Just because it doesn’t feel like winter yet here in Israel, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world isn’t freezing its tuchas off and in need of hot and nourishing food to stave off the cold.  Beth, the Upper West Side Mom, has a warming recipe for Fassoulyeh b’Lah’meh (Syrian Cholent).

And while were still talking about Shabbat food, doesn’t every shul have a Kiddush Club?  Mine does, so I blogged about it at Miriyummy.

Restaurants and Cookbook Reviews

Gillian Pollack of BiblioBuffet takes us down under and back in time with In Search of Nineteenth-Century Food.

In Jerusalem?  Hungry?  Batya at me-ander has found The Best Lunch Deal in Jerusalem!

Still in Jerusalem?  Still hungry?  The trials and tribulations that Batya of me-ander goes through to find us An Even Better Salad Deal for a Great Lunch!

Miscellaneous

Okay, so while this doesn’t fall under the issue of kashrut per se, I just couldn’t pass up including this entry from Erin Lenderts from Bachelor’s Degree Online: 40 Beautiful Coffee Table Books for Foodies.

Maybe I should call this the Not Kosher But Interesting Nonetheless category.  In any case, Jennifer Lynch submitted an entry which is good for those of you who keep kosher but like to read about weird, non-kosher restaurants.  Check out 20 Strangest Restaurants Around The World over at TopOnlineColleges.com.

Everything you wanted to know about the food pyramid but couldn’t be bothered to Google it yourself?  You can find the Top 50 Blogs About the Food Pyramid and Macronutrients at ADN to BSN.

So how many of us who regularly read the KCC deep-fry their turkeys for Thanksgiving?  Hmmmm, thought so.  We’re just not in that demographic, are we…  But just in case you ever get the, erm, hankering to try, Susan Howe discusses how Deep-fried turkey fiascos can spoil Thankgiving at Insure.com.

Have a happy holiday full of light!

Here are the previous editions of the Kosher Cooking Carnival:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,19, 20, 21, KCC Meta Carnival, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43,44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52,  53,  54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60.  Click on the numbers to check them out.  Blog about them and visit the various links.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of kosher cooking carnival-kcc using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

There’s A Hole In My Donut

A summer's day in Oslo, you can tell she's cold

Once upon a time, in 1970, my family spent some time in Norway.  There’s not much I remember, I was 7 at the time, but what I do remember was that I got to hang with some cool cousins, I got to say Jeg ikke gjør det oppfatte (I don’t understand) a lot, and I was cold, always cold.  Even in the summer.

You can tell it's summer in Oslo, we're only wearing sweaters

My family of four moved in with my uncle’s family of four.  Eight people in one house, two women sharing one kitchen.  My mother and aunt were in each other’s pots and pans and dinnertime was always a combination of my once Lithuanian now American mother, and my once Hungarian now Norwegian aunt.  We had a few weird combinations.  It was in Oslo that I learned to eat hot dogs with ketchup, which I still love to this day.  It was in Oslo that I learned to eat chunks of bread mixed with sour cream and sprinkled with sugar.  I’ve never seen that combo before, and quite frankly, am happy to never see it again.  And it was in Oslo that I had the most amazing jams, made from the most amazing berries.  They have berries up there that I’ve never seen in the States or in Israel.  I put jam on everything back then, except for hot dogs.

Cousin Rebecca and family in Sweden

My cousin Rebecca, that sweet little bald thing up there in the picture, the cutie on the right, left the frozen fjords of Norway and now lives in the frozen hustle bustle of Sweden.  I haven’t seen her in a while, but we chat on Facebook.  Just today I was complaining about how hot it is here in Israel.  It’s Chanuka, it’s not supposed to be hot on Chanuka.  We’re supposed to be wearing sweaters, eating hot latkes, drinking hot chocolate, and instead I’m trying to stay cool in the hot sunshine while walking to work.  Rebecca said she would trade places with me, she’s drinking her mug of hot tea while staring out into the brisk Swedish weather, with the temps a cozy -15 degrees C.  Yes, that’s minus 15.

So I’m trying to conjure up some memories of Norway to cool me off.  They say foodie memories can be very strong, so I’m making the traditional Chanuka sufganiya, otherwise known as the jelly donut.  Carine Goren, my favorite dessert diva, posted her recipe for sufganiyot on Facebook this morning, and the dough is rising now, ready for a bath of hot oil and then some yummy jam.  The last time we were in Ikea I picked up some Swedish lingonberry jam, and some of that spread on a slice of Rykrisp took my straight back to those white Oslo nights.  I think a little lingonberry jam on my Chanuka sufganiyot is the perfect remedy for a balmy Chanuka.

Jammy Donut Holes

Rising holes

I very rarely make full-blown jelly donuts for Chanuka, they’re a pain to fry, I never manage to get them just right on the outside, just right on the inside, and oy, all that oil!  So I make donuts holes, and we all get to dip them in whatever we like, and the filling becomes a topping.

This is Carine Goren’s recipe for sufganiyot, but she uses a whole kilo of flour to make 30 huge donuts.  I’ve halved the recipe, to make lots of little holes.

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon freeze-dried yeast
• 2/3 cups milk (I use soy milk), heated to lukewarm
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• Grated rind of half a lemon
• canola oil, for deep frying
• jam for filling
• powdered sugar for dusting

1. Place all the ingredients except for the oil, jam and powdered sugar in the mixer fitter with a dough hook.  Mix until the dough is smooth, it should feel like your earlobe, go ahead, give it a pinch.
2. Cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.
3. When the dough has doubled its bulk punch it down, knead by hand for about two minutes, and then pull off pieces and roll into balls.  The size of the piece should be based on the size of the sufganiya you want.  Golfball sized pieces will give you a full-size sufganiya.  We like to make bite-sized donuts, so our pieces are about a third of a golfball.
4. Put the balls to rise again on pieces of parchment paper.  Let rise again for about 20 minutes.
5. In the meantime bring the oil to a low boil in a pan.  I’m not going to tell you how big of a pot and how much oil, since that should be a cooking preference.  Big pots, lots of oil, lots of room for many large donuts.  I use a small saucepan with about 2-3 inches of oil, and fry about 4 or 5 holes at a time.
6. Carefully lower the balls into the hot oil and fry for 2 minutes on each side for the big boys, 1 minute or less for the babies.  Remove with a slotted spoon and let rest on some paper towels to sop up any extra oil.
7. Fill with the jam and dust with the powdered sugar.  Or do it Miriyummy-style, serving up the plain donut holes with the jam on the side, and dip at will.

Happy Chanuka!  May your holiday be filled with light, and yummy little holes!

Happy Chanuka, Hannukah, Chanoo… whatever….

While trying to wrap my head around this gorgeous, sunny and yet, depressing Chanuka weather, I’m trying very hard not to find solace in the plethora of sufganiyot both in the bakeries and on the blogosphere.  So far the best post I’ve seen about Chanuka comes from Mrs. S. of Our Shiputzim, and she is so right, I now can’t get that song out of my head, so I’m going to stick it in yours!

 

Please Rain!

It’s the first day of Chanuka and I am sitting in my family room with a Boston creme sufganiya and a huge cup of super-strong espresso with a splash of milk.  I am also sitting here in a flowing summer blouse, my favorite black summer skirt and a pair of Teva Naot sandals.  It’s the first day of Chanuka, it’s December 2nd, and we haven’t seen rain in over a month, let alone winter.

My daughter Sassy is buried under eight inches of snow in London and my cousin Rebecca just offered to trade houses with me, she’s in Sweden where the temps have just hit a high of -15 C!

We’ve prayed, we’ve fasted, we’ve promised to be good, we’ve even gotten together in spite of religious and national issues, and still it doesn’t rain.

The entire nation of Israel is depressed due to the weather.  Have you ever known beautiful, bright sunny days to do this to a person (let alone a whole country)?

Please rain!

Come Home For Chanuka!

I’m stealing this idea from Batya of me-ander, but hey, it’s a great message!  Pass it along!

 

Foodie Fridays #5

I spend a lot of time (some may say too much time) reading foodie blogs. They are always good for some entertainment, inspiration and it fills my need for food porn.

Here are some of the posts that have sparked my interest lately…

Risa over at Isramom is hosting the Kislev edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival.  I totally agree that it’s so weird that we’re now entering the month of Chanuka, with visions of latke parties while it snows outside, yet here in Israel we’re baking in the longest Indian summer on record.  Lots of great postings over at the Carnival, so check them out.

Hadassah of In the Pink is taking a school lunch poll.  In elementary and junior high we ate whatever the cafeteria served up that day, slowly dragging our feet when mystery noodle casserole was served, speeding up on Fridays when we had tuna sandwiches with potato chips, cutting the line for pizza and felafel day.  What did you take to school for lunch?

My favorite Cooking Manager, Hannah, regularly interviews bloggers on a Monday morning (I even got interviewed a few months ago).  This week she spoke with Sara Melamed who blogs Foodbridge.  Sarah actually made melouchia, and all I can say about that is better her than me!

The Nana10 webportal is always full of interesting recipes.  This week I found a recipe for Chicken Patties with Tehina in Silan Sauce.  Silan, for those of you who have yet to taste this ambrosia, is date honey.  I use it instead of bee honey many times, and it’s great with chicken.  This is going to be on my table this Friday night!  The recipe is in Hebrew, so for those of you that lo medabrim hasafa (don’t speak the language), if you really want the recipe, contact me and I’ll translate.

Image via CrunchBase

While not a foodie blog per se, Life in Israel has a very interesting post about someone who is trying to sell their leftover cholent on eBay!  Starting bid was $2 and someone eventually bought it for $4!  At the Miriyummy household we never have leftover cholent because we don’t eat cholent.  Or rather, Ju-Boy and progeny don’t eat cholent.  I love the stuff.   Maybe next time I should just buy a portion on eBay?

Baroness Tapuzina paid a visit to the Organic Farmers Market in Tel Aviv.  The market is situated down at Hatahana, the renovated Ottoman train station near Jaffa.  We’ve been going more and more organic at home, but for the time being have bought our produce and dairy products at the new “Green” section of our Supersol Deal.  But Michelle’s pictures are just so tempting, we just might give up a precious Friday morning and stop by.

And now for a subject close to my heart:  pizza, and New York pizza specifically.  Serious Eats takes their pizza, well, seriously.  I always enjoy their pizza articles, and was not disappointed with this one either.  I always try to make a good slice at home, but until I invest in a real pizza oven with a pizza stone, I’m going to have to try to settle for the Miriyummy version (coming soon to a blog near you).  But one very interesting thing I learned is that you get a much better dough if you make it up in the food processor.  I’ve been touting the wonders of my Kenwood Major, and what I really should be doing is bugging Ju-Boy and the kids for a really amazing food processor to replace the pitiful one I’ve been working with now.  Hey, it’s my birthday this Wednesday, help me nag Ju-boy!  Just comment on this blog and maybe it will sway the unswayable (he’s bought me perfume, again, I just know it…).

You know how you can tell Chanuka is on the way?  When the sufganiyot (jelly donuts) start showing up in the bakeries and supermarkets.  Just as the Christmas decorations start hitting the stores in the States sometime after Halloween, the jam-filled calorie bombs are showing up earlier and earlier.  I think I saw the first ones right after Rosh Hashana.  Now Roladin, that mmmmmmmmm bakery, has the 2010 parade of donuts up on their website.  Check them out, you can’t gain weight just by looking (or can you?).

Shabbat Shalom!