Ingredients

• 1/2 red cabbage, chopped into small stick-like pieces
• 1 green apple, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 onion, red or yellow, chopped into small slices
• 1/2 orange
• olive oil
• 1 tsp. fresh ginger root, chopped

In a wok-like saucepan, saute the onion in olive oil until translucent. Chop the apple into small cubes, discarding the core. Add the chopped ginger and chopped apple to the onions and saute for about five minutes. Add the chopped cabbage and squeeze the orange for its juice unto the cabbage mixture. Cook until the apples and cabbage are tender. Serve warm or room temperature.

Batya has a similar red cabbage dish posted on her site; hers includes a carrot. If you have made a similar dish, what variations have you tried?

• 1/2 cup steel cut oats (double for more)
• 1 cup of water (double for more)

Grind the oats – I use my coffee bean grinder. Soak the oats overnight (or longer). Cook for about twenty minutes in twice as much water as the measurement of the starting oats (so 1 cup of water if you started with 1/2 cup of oats). Stir every five minutes, more toward the end.

How do you like your oatmeal? I eat this straight, but my family members like oatmeal with maple syrup. Some people like a pat of butter or a teaspoon of cinnamon in their oats.

• • •

Now I will tell you how I came about this version. A few years ago, my father decided steel cut oats would be a good to try, for nutrition reasons. We found it took about 40 minutes to cook, however, and it was still gritty. Then I was reading a book about fermenting grains, and I decided to soak mine. That helped, but they were still somewhat gritty. Finally, I read this post about a man who had healed his own cancerous tumors with a mixture of grains and seeds, including oats. He ground his first, and in the comments I found this note by Eileen Weaver: “One of the reasons this worked well was that the grains were soaked overnight, after being FRESHLY ground. The soaking activates the enzymes that would have sprouted the seeds/grains.The activated enzymes begin to convert the storage forms of protein/starch/minerals to active forms, and dramatically increase the vitamin content. All seeds, whatever form they are in are better for soaking because of this.” Eileen convinced me. I’ve been hooked ever since.

More on soaking grains.

And why steel cut oats? “I would argue that cut oats are better for you simply because they are processed less than the rolled variety.”

Quick Oats, Steel Cut Oats, or Regular Oats: What’s the Difference?

mushrooms on top of sheperd pie - bottom is turnips, middle is kasha and vegetables

Ingredients for Potatoes/Turnips Layer (bottom layer)

• 4 large turnips, cooked and mashed with the garlic cloves (or 3 cups mashed potatoes)
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tsp. salt

Ingredients for Vegetables Layer (middle layer)

• 1 chopped onion
• 1 tsp. olive oil (or other vegetable oil or coconut oil)
• 1 cup cooked cauliflower (or cooked broccoli or cooked brussel sprouts, chopped into pieces)
• 1/2 cup grated carrots
• 1/2 cup diced red or green peppers (optional)
• 1/2 cup kasha, cooked
• 1 Tbsp. red wine or sherry
• 2 tsp. oregano or marjoram or thyme (and/or fresh parsley)
• 1 tsp. soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for Mushrooms Layer (top layer)

• 8 oz. sliced mushrooms
• 1 Tbsp. corn starch or potato starch (original recipe said corn; I always have potato starch available from Pesach, so I used that)
• 1 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp. cold water
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock (or stock from potatoes, if you used those instead of turnips)
• ground black pepper to taste

Cooking and Assembling the Shepherd Pie

Bottom Layer: Cook the turnips covered in water. Add garlic cloves. Add salt toward the end. Mash the turnips at the end.

Middle Layer: While turnips are cooking, sauté the onions in the oil for about 5 minutes. Cook the kasha until tender. If vegetables (cauliflower, brussel sprouts and/or broccoli) are not yet cooked (I used leftover vegetables), steam until tender. Mix the onions with the kasha, cauliflower, carrots, and other ingredients for the middle layer.

Preheat oven to 350°. Spread the turnips in a lightly oiled baking dish. Layer the vegetables with kasha on top. Bake uncovered for about 15 minutes.

Top Layer: combine mushrooms, wine, soy sauce, herbs and stock in a saucepan and cook until mushrooms soften and release their juices, about ten minutes. Add the corn or potato starch and let it continue to cook, stirring until it thickens. Add pepper to taste.

Put mushroom layer on top of the baked bottom two layers. Garnish with scallions or parsley if desired. You can also cut the pie into pieces and put the mushroom “gravy” on top of each one, but I generally like my guests to take if they want, so it works better to have the whole dish in the middle of the table as a choice.

This shepherd pie can be a nice accompaniment to a meat or fish meal, or it can be a main dish alone if you have a guest who is vegan. Or maybe you just found out you are lactose intolerant and crave a casserole. As Ilana-Davita remarked that my last recipe on hummus might be more suitable to a summer post, here’s a tasty dish befitting a cold January evening.

shepherd pie before the mushrooms are added on top: carrots, broccoli, onions, kasha

Hummus with Parsley, Garlic, Tahini, Lemon Juice, Sea Salt

Ingredients

Note: this recipe creates a small amount – to make more, double, triple or quadruple it.

• 1/2 cup chickpeas
• 1-2 small garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• pepper to taste
• 1 handful fresh parsley
• 2 wedges of lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp. tahini (sesame paste)
• 1 small piece of wakame seaweed(optional)

Soak the chickpeas for at least four hours or overnight. Cook the chickpeas, covered with water, in a crockpot until tender (a few hours in my crockpot). Optionally, you can add a stamp size piece of seaweed for extra minerals and a bit of flavor. You can also add some sea salt while the chickpeas are cooking (add salt toward the end of the cooking). When the chickpeas are ready, drain the water, reserving a bit in case you want to use it to moisten the hummus. Blend in a food processor the chickpeas, peeled garlic cloves, tahini, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. If you want regular hummus, you are now done. Take the leaves off the stems of the parsley and add the leaves to the hummus, blending them until you have a smooth, green paste. If you would like it to be smoother or softer, add some of the chickpea water. I love a homemade hummus that has the consistency of ice cream.

One of my guests remarked that it looked like wasabi. The homemade green hummus went well with the homemade pita bread that I served at our Chanukah party last night.

Have you ever made homemade hummus?

Radish, Kale, Parsely in watercolor by Leora Wenger, 2011

So here are some salad dressing ideas:

• Olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, sea salt, turmeric, pepper and garlic powder
• Olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper
• Ilana-Davita’s Sweet and Tangy Dressing (balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sweet chili sauce, salt and pepper)
• Rachel: crushed garlic, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, dried oregano (if your kids don’t mind “green stuff”) and olive oil
• Rachel: lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper, and olive oil
• Olive oil, honey, mustard, a little orange juice and a little vinegar, salt and pepper.
• Ilana-Davita: balsamic vinegar, olive oil, soya sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper
• Sandy: Cilantro or basil in the blender with vinegar and olive oil.

Get the idea? How do you dress your salad? If you comment and it fits the olive oil category, I’ll add it to the list.

lentils in a jar turned upside-down so the water drains

Equipment

• 1 mason jar
• 1 screen lid (I bought this green Sprouting Strainer Lid from Amazon)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup brown lentils
• 1 cup water

Place the lentils in the jar and screw on the screen lid. Let the lentils soak for about 12 hours. After that, drain and rinse out the lentils every 6-8 hours (I confess, I sometimes waited 24 though not on purpose and the lentils were fine). You drain the lentils into the sink and then rinse the lentils. You turn the jar upside down unto a plate and let it drain again. Repeat in about 8 hours. The lentils are ready when they sprout little tails (in about 3 days). You can then store them in the refrigerator. They will last for at least one week.

Why sprout?

• It’s fun.
• The lentils are tasty and add crunch to a salad
• Of course, there seem to be numerous health reasons to sprout.

I covered the lentils with a sock to keep them out of the light. Most of the recipes seemed to suggest this is not necessary, so I left the sock out of the post. Here was one simple post I found that talked about sprouting in general.

Ingredients

• Oil to cover the pan

Dry ingredients:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup oat milk (or rice milk or almond milk)
• 3/4 cup applesauce (you can try a full cup or even more – my previous version of this cake, without measuring applesauce, was moister than this one)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup sugar (you can add more maple syrup instead, if you want)

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl. Mix the wet ones in another bowl. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a pan – I used a tube pan this time, because my last one was quite moist. With 3/4 cup applesauce, a regular baking pan should be fine, though it will probably take longer to bake the middle than the sides. Mix all the ingredients together and pout into the pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Question: is it hard to obtain maple syrup where you live? You might try molasses, but it will then be a different sort of result, darker and with molasses-like flavor.

• • •

Upcoming recipes for this blog – I finally took photos of the sprouting process, so I hope to post about sprouting lentils soon. As Chanukah is coming, I have two diametrically opposed blog post ideas: 1) sufganiyot – doughnuts recipe AND 2) a group post (meaning your participation) about salad dressing with olive oil, for those of us who wish to partake in a food way of the miracle of oil and would prefer not to consume mass quantities of fried food in order to do so.

Conversation from yesterday:

Me: I’m going to make the corn bread again in a week or two.
Middle Son: Why?
Me: So I can post it on my blog.
Middle Son: Why can’t you post it now?
Me: Because I need to measure the amounts.
Middle Son: Can’t you just post it and let them figure out the amounts?

Fortunately, Middle Son is not in charge of posting recipe amounts to this blog.

If you would like some recipes now, I suggest you visit Batya’s newest Kosher Cooking Carnival.

Ingredients for Mock Chopped Liver

• 3/4 cup lentils
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• salt to taste
• 1 onion
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. coriander
• optional: ginger

Cook lentils until soft (add a bit of salt while cooking). Soak walnuts for about one half hour. Sauté onions for about one half hour – the lengthy sautéing helps to caramelize the onions, bringing more flavor to the recipe (if you stop after 15 minutes, it will still taste good). Blend lentils, walnuts and onions in the food processor with spices.

The inspiration for this recipe comes from Mary’s Lentil-Walnut Spread, Lentil Walnut Pate and my friend Klara.

I added this post to Ruth’s Real Food 101.

Why Quinoa?

If you find yourself making rice for many meals, why not substitute quinoa at times? Quinoa has a delicious, mild flavor and cooks in 15 minutes flat–more quickly than rice. It supposedly richer than rice in protein, fiber, magnesium and calcium, and it is gluten free. I felt fortunate to find a box that was pre-washed (for Central Jersey locals, it was Roland brand in Stop and Shop with an O-U certification). Otherwise, one has to rinse off the naturally occurring bitter coating known as saponin. An advantage to quinoa is Ashkenazim may eat this grain on Pesach, so you will find me linking to this post in the month before Passover.

Quinoa Pilaf: The Main Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 stick chopped celery
• 1 chopped onion

Optional Ingredients

• chopped carrots – add with onions
• chopped zucchini – add with onions
• chopped or crushed garlic – add with onions
• salt and/or pepper to taste – add with onions
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• fresh herb (dill, oregano, basil) – add toward the end
• 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds – add at the very end
• 1/4 cup craisins (dried cranberries) – add at the very end
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 1 chopped scallion

Quinoa Pilaf: The Recipe

Assuming you have already rinsed the quinoa, boil 2 cups of water with or without a bit of salt, then add the quinoa. Saute the onions and celery (or not – you can just add chopped celery without the sauteing, if you prefer – the newspaper version just had you mixing in the celery with walnuts and olive oil). Mix with the quinoa and with any other optional ingredients (the newspaper version used craisins, pomegranate seeds and lemon juice). May be served with scallions on top.

I like the recipe warm, but I found it tasted OK cold as well. Also, I was able to reheat the dish easily.

More quinoa recipes:

• Pragmatic Attic: Ruby Red Quinoa Salad
• Crunchy Quinoa Salad (Klara’s recipe)

Or maybe you want to try millet: Millet with Carrots and Zucchini