recipes

Recipe: How to Make Almond Milk

I was told that making almond milk is easy, but in truth, I found the process a bit confusing from the “recipes” I read online. So I am writing up my own recipe in the hopes that it will clarify details on how to make almond milk.

Why Make Almond Milk

Best reason: it tastes yummy. It is richer and creamier than what I have purchased in stores. I think I really made almond cream, to tell the truth. Other reasons might be: you want to learn how to make a non-dairy (pareve) creamer from scratch or you like the idea of making a healthy drink. I made it because I usually have oat milk with my coffee, and on Pesach oat milk is chametz (sort of like bread, which we don’t eat on Passover). Almond milk is not, but our family only uses products that are certified kosher for Passover, and the almond milk I bought last year was so, so, so bad I had to throw it out. If you look at the ingredients on purchased almond milk, you will find ingredients other than almonds and water. This recipe is just: almonds and water!

Almond Milk Ingredients and Equipment

Almond Milk – How To

Soak the almonds overnight (8-12 hours) in water. In the morning, discard the soaking water. Crush the almonds until fine in the food processor. Place crushed almonds in a cheese cloth bag. Add water: the more water you add, the more milk you get, but it will thin the milk. I added about 1/2 cup of water and so I obtained almond cream. Squeeze the bag into a cup to retrieve the milk.

You will then have a bag of crushed nuts, so find a recipe that calls for crushed nuts. We made cookies with our crushed almonds, and that made my daughter and husband happy.

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On a separate note, I have recently set up a subscription by email for the Sketching Out blog. There is also a link on the right sidebar. This was in response to the upcoming “death” of Google Reader – I may write more on that topic in an upcoming post. Thank you to any of you who choose to subscribe.

Recipe: Zucchini Dill Soup

This recipe for zucchini dill soup is adapted from a recipe in Susie Fishbein’s Kosher by Design cookbook. When my friend made us the soup, my kids actually loved it (a first for a creamy, pareve vegetable soup). My friend said the secret is use lots of dill. So I renamed this recipe zucchini dill soup (as opposed to zucchini soup alone). My version has a vegetable broth base and less zucchini (but feel free to double the recipe for a crowd or to freeze some of the soup).

Make the Vegetable Broth

In a large pot boil these vegetables in water for over an hour:

• 1 or 2 turnips
• 2 or 3 onions
• 1 large carrot, cut into pieces
• 1 leek
• 2 cloves of peeled garlic
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 bay leaf

If you are missing any of the above, don’t worry. As long as you have some vegetables, it will taste good! Feel free to find your own substitutes (you could use parsnips, for example, but I find those too sweet). Onions, though, are a pretty good idea for a vegetable broth.

Make the Zucchini Dill Soup

• 5-6 cups of vegetable broth
• 2-4 zucchini, trimmed and cut in chunks
• 2-3 onions
• 1 bunch of chopped dill (fresh)
• 1 bunch of chopped parsley (fresh, optional)
• 1-2 garlic cloves, peeled
• olive or coconut oil, to saute the onions
• salt and pepper to taste
• optional: add fresh lemon juice

In a large pot, saute the onions and garlic until translucent. Add the zucchini for about 3-5 minutes. Add dill and parsley. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.

Either transfer the soup to a blender or food processor to blend until smooth, or use an immersion blender. My food processor worked better than my immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper.

The lemon juice was not in Susie Fishbein’s recipe, but the last time I made the zucchini dill soup recipe, I squeezed in half of a fresh lemon. I liked it with lemon.

Update: when you add the broth, you have a choice of just adding the liquid broth or including some of the vegetables, such as the root vegetables (turnips and carrots), garlic and/or onions. I would remove the celery and leek, because they are stringy. Definitely take out the bay leaf.

Sculpted Fish with Tehina Recipe

This sculpted fish with tehina recipe is adapted from a recipe for fish with sesame spread (Samak bi’Tehineh) in Aromas of Aleppo by Poopa Dweck. It is both healthy and easy (and I can’t say that about many of the recipes in the book – the more complicated ones are fun to read, but I doubt I will try them). Poopa uses oil to bake her fish, which is traditional in the Syrian Jewish community. I used water to bake mine. Guess what – use a good piece of fish and it will still taste delicious baked or cooked with water (and truthfully, I like it better than heating oil for cooking, anyway). Her recipe also called for larger amounts, and since I was 1) just trying out the recipe and 2) aiming to please mostly my husband and myself, I used a smaller amount of fish and other ingredients.

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 pieces of flounder fillet
• pan for baking the fish (and for displaying the fish – or transfer to a pretty oblong platter)
• water to cover the bottom of the pan
• lemon juice (optional)
• 1 Tbsp. tehina
• 1 black olive – cut to one slice for the eye of the fish
• 1 strip of red pepper for the mouth
• several slices of cucumber for the fish scales

Place fish in baking pan. Cover with water (not a lot – maybe half an inch?). Cover the pan. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until tender. You can also add lemon juice to the water for flavor before baking. When the fish is tender, take it out and let it cool for about 10 minutes. Mash the fish with a fork and add the tablespoon of tehina. Sculpt the fish into the shape of the fish: add olive for eye, red pepper for mouth and cucumbers for scales. Serve and gobble it up. Multiply amounts for larger crowds.

Bok Choy Red Cabbage Salad

I’ve made this salad two weeks in a row. Inspired by the fresh organic bok choy at the Highland Park Farmers Market, one week I made it with an apple and the next week I used the juice of a clementine. I preferred the apple, but both versions of bok choy red cabbage salad got gobbled up.

Ingredients

• 1/3 – 1/2 red cabbage, chopped
• 5-6 bok choy leaves
• 1 medium onion (red or yellow) – optional
• 1 piece of ginger root
• 1 tsp. coconut oil or olive oil
• sweetener: 1 apple or juice of an orange or a clementine (or use both the apple and the citrus juice)

Chop the onion. Chop the peel off the ginger root and chop into pieces. Put it aside. If using, peel and chop the apple. Heat a wok-like pan with the oil; when hot, saute the onion. After five minutes, add the chopped cabbage, chopped apple and chopped ginger. Chop the white parts of the bok choy off from the green parts. As the white part is thicker and takes longer to cook, add it first to the pan. If using citrus juice, add it now to the pan. After about ten minutes (or when the cabbage starts to soften), add the green parts of the bok choy leaves. Cook about three more minutes.

This makes a small portion – feel free to double or triple the amounts.

This recipe is inspired by the classic red cabbage salad, which I believe is a Russian dish. Of course, the Russians didn’t have bok choy to add the greenery.

Banana Bread or Banana Cake

Whether you call this banana bread or banana cake, it is a favorite dessert in our family. When I buy too many bananas and at least two brown ones are sitting on a shelf, it is time to make the banana cake.

Ingredients

• 2 (or 3) ripe bananas
• 1 cup sugar (I used white sugar, but you can try brown)
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/4 canola oil
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 2 eggs
• optional: cinnamon and/or chocolate chips

Mix eggs, banana and sugar until creamy. Add oil, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix in the flour last. Add to a baking pan, and bake for 45 minutes to one hour at 350°.

It’s probably a good idea to store this cake in the refrigerator.

In two weeks I will be hosting the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Send in your posts with kosher recipes, kosher restaurant reviews or kosher menus by September 16.

Chicken, Ginger and Cabbage

One friend thought I was vegan because I only post pareve recipes on my blog. I do have this one recipe for chicken stuffing, but in an effort to prove that I do eat chicken I wrote up one of my favorite chicken recipes. It is a stir-fry of chicken, ginger and cabbage. Last week was the Nine Days, and observant Jews do not eat meat or chicken during this period of mourning (mourning the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem and many other sad events in Jewish history, such as the massacre in York in 1190 C.E.). My children were very happy to resume eating meat on Monday (nahamu, nahumu– comfort, as the saying goes), and we have had this chicken dish twice this week (as well as other carnivorous goodies). I had leftover chicken I needed to use up – this is a delicious way to deal with the leftover chicken problem.

Chicken, Ginger and Cabbage Ingredients

• Three to four pieces of leftover chicken, taken off the bone and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 Tbsp. virgin coconut oil
• 1 Tbsp. chopped ginger root
• 1/2 head of cabbage, chopped (I use savoy cabbage)
• 1 tsp. tamari (or soy sauce) or to taste
• Optional: bits of chopped kale
• 1 large fry pan or wok

Cut up the chicken into pieces. Put the coconut oil in the pan and warm it up. Add the chicken, then the chopped ginger and stir. Chop the cabbage and add to the pan. Add tamari sauce. If you like, sprinkle a few cut pieces of kale as well. Cook until cabbage is tender. Serve on a bed of brown rice, though my daughter who doesn’t like rice eats it straight. My son who doesn’t care for the cabbage picks out the chicken. I have been known to pick away at the cabbage, leaving the chicken for others.

Creamy Yellow Vegan Soup

Ingredients

• 1 cup white northern beans, soaked overnight and then cooked with kombu
• 2 pieces of kombu
• 1 tsp. thyme (I used fresh from my garden)
• 1 small sweet potato
• 3 sticks of celery
• 1 garlic clove
• olive oil to saute the celery
• 1 heaping tsp. turmeric
• 1 heaping tsp. cumin
• 1 Tbsp. white miso
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Soak the white beans overnight and cook with two pieces (about one inch) of kombu. Saute chopped celery and chopped garlic in olive oil or coconut oil. Cook the sweet potato; discard sweet potato skin. Puree the celery, garlic, thyme, sweet potato, beans and kombu in the food processor. Add the turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper. Reheat the pureed soup on the stove. Stir in a spoonful of miso just before serving.

Garnish with scallion or whatever fresh herb you have available. In the photo are some leaves of fresh oregano from my backyard.

Matza, Nuts and Chocolate

Have any leftover matza? See any matza for sale and wonder what one might do with it? Here’s an easy dessert I made with my daughter during Passover.

Ingredients:

• 1 bag chocolate chips
• 1 sheet of matza, broken into pieces
• 1/2 cup of your favorite nuts (walnuts, almonds or pecans) broken into pieces
• Paper plates, a large spoon and wax paper

If you want, you can soak the nuts for a few hours to make them more chewable. Melt the chocolate chips in a saucepan. Add broken matza and nuts and mix with the chocolate. Put a sheet of wax paper on a paper plate (the flat white kind that one puts in the microwave work best). Put a spoonful of the chocolate mixture unto the wax paper. Repeat until you have filled the wax paper (you can probably fit about 5 or 6 of these on a paper plate). Repeat on another paper plate (our mixture made two platefuls). Place flat in the freezer. Serve straight from the freezer.

Do you have any fun, creative matza dishes?

Bok Choy with Onion

This recipe for bok choy is so simple it’s almost not a recipe at all but a suggestion to cook up some tasty bok choy. This vegetable with succulent white stems and dark leafy greens at top tastes delicious slightly cooked. In the photo, both the white and the green are parts of the bok choy. The purplish red is the red onion.

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 onion, red or yellow
• 1 bunch of bok choy

Chop up the bok choy into bite size pieces. Chop up the onion. Warm a wok-like saucepan with olive oil, then add the chopped onion and saute for about five minutes. Add the bok choy, mix with the onions, and saute for about ten minutes. Serve warm. Or, if you are like me and you make this hours before serving, serve at room temperature (though I think it tastes best warm – but don’t recook it, that will ruin the dish).

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Can you get bok choy in your local grocery store? Maybe it has a different name? If you can’t get bok choy, which darky leafy greens can you get? If you have prepared bok choy, how do you cook this vegetable?

Red Cabbage Salad

One of my favorite dishes to make in the winter is red cabbage salad. This lightly cooked dish is flavorful and warming.

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?