Flexitarian Shabbat
More from Rabbi Avi Finegold. Cross-posted at jcarrot.org.
For many of you, having guests at a Shabbat meal means often juggling various dietary restrictions preferences that guests may bring to the table. Michael Pollan makes the interesting point that the French consider it improper to impose your diet onto your host, and yet how many of you can recall meals in which you were left with virtually nothing to eat as a result of your kashrut/vege- pesce- ovo- lacto- tarianism/ or any possible allergies. Peter Berley’s The Flexitarian Table may hopefully solve at least some of the issues.
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New kosher grass-fed cheeses, and a pasta in which to appreciate them
This has been a busy summer in the kosher cheese world — or, at least, in my kosher cheese world — as I’ve discovered two new brands of high-end cheese — Mainland and 5 Spoke Creamery.
For no particular reason — the wonderful smells, maybe — I often spend a few minutes dallying through the troves of specialty cheese whenever I get to my local Whole Foods. On one such expedition the most peculiar thing caught my eye — a heksher, and a legitimate one, no less! Of course, on further inspection, the OK heksher was the least extraordinary aspect of the product which caught my eye.
This particular mild cheddar was organic, made of milk culled from grass-fed cows, and imported from New Zealand. The grass-fed milk gives Mainland Organic Cheddar a more complex flavor than any other mild cheese I’ve tried — definitely worth including on your next cheese platter. (The steep price — $7.00 for eight ounces — might preclude you from enjoying it on a more frequent basis.)
Over at my local kosher market, new cheeses also popped up, with equally delightful credentials: these were made of hormone-free raw milk by an Amish farmer. (I can practically hear Garrison Keillor saying “Made by Norwegian bachelor farmers … so you know they’re pure, mostly.”) Well, “5 Spoke Creamery” presents us with three Kof-K certified, artisanal varieties — Red Vine Colby, Redmond Cheddar, and Herbal Jack — all with the complexity of flavor and superb texture one should expect of finer raw-milk cheeses.
They’re also on the pricey side, but I couldn’t help myself from devoting some to a decadent macaroni and cheese. After the jump, enjoy an excellent recipe I’ve adapted from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.
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Ben & Jerry’s Raspberry Ice Cream
Raspberry isn’t the first flavor that comes to mind when I think of Ben & Jerry’s, but it’s listed in the “Greatest Hits” chapter of their recipe book, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. I’m glad I did. This ice cream is delicious, creamy, and very fresh-tasting, with little juicy bits of berry throughout. And the raspberries came from the farmer’s market, so I get to use Blush again!
One thing I should mention about the Ben & Jerry’s book is that the recipes couldn’t be much easier. They’d never ask you do anything as complicated as tempering eggs or seeding berries. I’m okay with a few seeds, but I’m not comfortable feeding my guests raw eggs, so I substituted their egg-free sweet cream base for the one with eggs. If you’re willing to live on the edge, you can add two whole eggs and substitute one cup of milk for the half-and-half. Ice cream with eggs supposedly keeps better long term (not that I would know).
Since my raspberries were pretty mild, I also reduced the sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup, and I thought it was about right. Use your judgment.
Without further ado:
Raspberry Ice Cream
1 pint fresh raspberries
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
2/3 cup half-and-half
Combine the raspberries, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the lemon juice in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.
Pour the cream into a mixing bowl. Whisk in the remaining sugar, a little at time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the half-and-half and whisk to blend.
Drain the juice from the raspberries into the cream mixture and blend. Mash the raspberries and stir them into the cream mixture.
Transfer the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions.
Makes a little over 1 quart.
(Cross-posted to Apikorsus.)
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Farmer’s Market Finds
We foodies tend to get excited when summer comes around and farmer’s markets start popping up everywhere. Summer’s almost over, though, and so far, I’ve found very little at my local farmer’s markets that seemed blog-worthy. Maybe it’s because it’s been a drought year, or maybe I’ve been making lousy choices. Either way, most of the the produce I’ve picked up has been no better than what we get at the supermarket. A few times I bought “interesting” items, such as shungiku, which the sign at the market said was “good in stir-fries.” When I got home to my computer, I learned that shungiku is also known as “edible chrysanthemum,” and that’s what it tastes like — a flower. (Sorry, but eating flowers has never been my thing.)
Then, recently, the yield started to improve, culminating in this batch of heirloom tomatoes, which I bought on Monday:
They were a mixed bag, but the good ones were very good. As I collected the tomatoes at the market, I scribbled down their names with little descriptions (such as “big bumpy red”); if my notes are accurate, the ones in the picture are (from top, left): Green Zebra, Black Plum, Red Zebra, Speckled Roman, Brandywine, Pineapple, and Costoluto Genovese. The Speckled Roman was decidedly the sweetest and most flavorful (though this probably has more to do with the individual crop and even the particular tomato I selected than the cultivar). The Black Plum and Green Zebra tomatoes were also very good. In general, the greener tomatoes were crisper and easier to slice, but otherwise they tasted very similar to the red ones.
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The Road to Memphis ‘07
As Team KosherBlog prepares for the ASBEE/Kroger BBQ competition, I felt obligated to share this picture with you:
Let’s all practice our best Homer Simpson impression together - “Mmmm, Brisket” [drool, drool, drool]. That is the best looking brisket I have ever made.
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Kosher BBQ Competition in Memphis
I just received my registration packet for the 19th Annual ASBEE/Kroger Kosher BBQ Contest & Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. If you plan on being in the Memphis area for the weekend of October 21st, 2007, come out and cheer on team Kosherblog! (For now that’s just me and Jabbett, so we’ll need all the support we can get!) Teams can compete for Best Brisket, Best Ribs and Best BBQ Beans.
If you’d like to enter a team of your own, here are the parts of the registration packet:
Do two northerners (I won’t call us Yankees, out of respect for Jabbett’s sports loyalties) stand a chance, cooking BBQ in one of the BBQ capitals of the country? Stay tuned, and find out…
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Ice Cream Maker Update
I have, in fact, been using my ice cream maker quite regularly. I just haven’t posted many recipes, partly because so few of the desserts I’ve made have stuck around long enough to have their pictures taken. It’s a pity, since some of them were quite pretty, but so be it. I may as well post the recipes, anyway. (Several can be made without an ice cream maker; I’ll mention that wherever applicable.)
One of my first dairy desserts was a maple-pecan ice cream from Joy of Baking. It was very good, rich and custardy, with a prominent maple syrup flavor. I served it with bread pudding, but it could easily stand alone.
Lots more after the jump!
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Home-Brewed Root Beer
When I learned a few years ago that Sassafras (the original flavoring for root beer) grew in abundance in Brooklyn, I was determined to brew some of my own root beer. After all, I have a thing for kitchen-chemistry. When I found myself cycling through Prospect Park (where sassafras can be found in abundance) with my daughter the other week, I decided it was time to try.
It was an easy matter for us to locate sassafras-saplings, and we collected several roots. They went into the refrigerator at home until I could get the other ingredients. I had purchased Stephen Cresswell’s Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop a while back, and I was going to make his Three Root Beer. The other roots I needed were burdock (purchased at the local Whole Foods Market) and licorice (purchased at Kalustyan’s). I was going to use regular instant-yeast (instead of the recommended ale-yeast) which I had at home.
The basic recipe goes like this:
1) Boil the roots in water for about a half an hour.
2) Add sugar and boil until disolved.
3) Remove from heat, strain out the solids and cool to a temperature that won’t kill the yeast. I waited for 100°F.
4) Add yeast and stir until dissolved. Since I was using instant yeast, this was fairly quick.
5) Put mix in bottles. I used 1.5 liter soda bottles, cleaned very well. Leave an inch or two of head-space.
6) Leave bottles for 2 days at room temperature.
After 2 days, the bottles were hard, from the buildup of gas. Time to refrigerate them, which stops the yeast. When they were cold, it was time to try it. It worked - I had made my own soda! There was a definite root-beer flavor, but the other roots added their own flavors. It was a very refreshing result.
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Pareve Parmesan Cheese Substitute
Here’s a recipe I came across for a parmesan cheese substitute that’s kosher, pareve and even vegan (I’m told). I’ve looked far and wide for a product that I could use in my meatloaf or meatballs. This one fits the bill - and it gave my dishes amazing flavor. Parmesan cheese is very umami-rich, so it makes sense to use miso & yeast, which are both umami-rich foods.
1/2 cup almond flour or well ground, blanched almonds
2 tablespoons Red Star nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons chickpea miso (Miso Master brand is certified by the Atlanta Kashruth Commission)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Blend all ingredients well in a food processor.
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Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
A friend of mine (we’ll call her the Enabler) recently asked whether I’d be making ice cream for Shavuot — maybe cheesecake ice cream? I answered that I’d thought about it, but I couldn’t very well make ice cream to serve with cheesecake, let alone cheesecake ice cream.
But apparently I could.
Let me explain. The cheesecake recipe we’re using this year (a no-bake version, since our oven is broken) calls for 12 ounces of cream cheese. Cream cheese comes in eight-ounce packages, so we bought two and had four ounces extra — exactly the amount called for in this recipe. And strawberries are at the height of their season, so we had two pounds in the fridge. Tell me that isn’t a sign from God. (Actually, don’t. I prefer the illusion.)
In any case, I’m very pleased with the result. The ice cream has a mild cheesecake flavor without being overwhelmingly rich, and the fresh strawberries really hit the spot. Here’s the recipe:
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Adapted from Joy of Baking
4 oz cream cheese
3 large egg yolks
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar (divided)
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used extract)
1 pound (about 2 dry pints) strawberries
- In the inner container of a double boiler (or any medium stainless steel bowl), blend the cream cheese, egg yolks, and 2/3 cup sugar with a whisk or, preferably, an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). (At this point, you may wish to begin heating the water for step 4.)
- In a small saucepan, heat the half-and-half to the scalding point along with the vanilla bean, if using. (If using extract, do not add it at this point.) Stir frequently to prevent a skin from forming. When the cream reaches the scalding point, the milk will begin to foam up rapidly. Immediately remove from heat. Take out the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out with the back of a knife, then mix the seeds back into the half-and-half.
- Slowly pour the scalding half-and-half into the cream cheese mixture while whisking the mixture to prevent the eggs from cooking. (If any lumps do form, force the mixture through a strainer.)
- Fill the outer container of the double boiler (or a saucepan) with water and bring to a boil. Place the bowl or container of custard over the simmering water and heat, stirring constantly, until the custard reaches 170 degrees F or coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and continue to stir for a few minutes. Set aside.
- Cut up half the strawberries and puree them in a food processor or blender. Stir the remaining two tablespoons of sugar into the puree, then stir the puree into the custard along with the vanilla extract, if using. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate several hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.
- Freeze the chilled mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Chop the remaining strawberries. Remove the ice cream from the machine and stir in the strawberries. Transfer to freezer to harden.
Cross-posted to Apikorsus.
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