Shabbat and other food prep
Oct. 10th, 2008 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI'm not going to have or be a guest at meals this Shabbat, so things are fairly low key, especially because I'm planning to walk over to Honk!Fest in the afternoon, so I won't be wanting an involved meal then. I have leftover turkey meatloaf from (before) Yom Kippur, baked spaghetti squash (I should do something more to it; not sure what), and some spicy tofu sauteed with greens and mushrooms. Current thoughts for other dishes include a kohlrabi-apple slaw, some form of braised greens, and perhaps some eggplant.
I was running close to the wire Wednesday, unsure what food I was in the mood for. In the end, I made two dishes. Turkey meatloaf was easy, mixing ground turkey with bread bits (six grain and pumpkin seed) and a jar of TJ's spicy eggplant and red pepper spread, the top adorned with kfP ketchup. The other was... not refried beans. I sauteed onions and red peppers, tossed in some beans I cooked the day before (I'm blanking on the kind, but cow patterned in deep red and off white), and added cumin. I think the leftovers might be enhanced under melted cheese (few things aren't enhanced by melted cheese :-). Both nice, neither very spicy, and the meatloaf felt like a good mix of protein and whole-grain starch.
I now know two people who share my birthday (read: not famous people, like John Lennon and the Count from Sesame Street, but friends), and there was a hava amina that the one who was organizing a celebratory outing in my neck of the woods would bring his posse over to my house for birthday cake afterwards. So when I got home after the fast, I had some food, and started thinking about making cake.
Which is when I realized that not only did I not have white flour or eggs, I didn't have any milk or milk substitute either. Great. For the flour, I used white wheat, and for eggs I could use flaxseed meal (make a gel with hot water), but there wasn't any particularly easy way to replace milk without soy/rice/almond milk around. So ideally, cake without it. I decided I'd run out of time if I used Chef Google, so pulled out The Joy of Cooking (from the 80s, a graduation present from my mom, who knew how much I liked her copy (Mom never used a lot of cookbooks, but Joy was always there)) and flipped through the cake section, pondering.
In the end, I made two cakes (thinking of Howard and Ethan as I finally baked cake in the tins they'd graciously gifted me with after bringing dessert years ago), both rather permuted from the given recipe. First up, an apricot cake. It called for fruit puree, but I still had some boozy apricots in the fridge, left from the bout of liqueur making, and wasn't interested in pulling out the food processor. So they became a layer of fruit in the middle. And it called for milk, so I used the sugary alcohol with the fruit instead, plus some water. And flax gels, and white wheat flour.
Once that was in the oven, I started on the other cake, realizing then that I should've done them in reverse order, since the applesauce cake had double the cooking time. Ah, well. This had less substitution, since I had applesauce (from last year's apple-picking), raisins, and walnuts, and the recipe even stated a substitution for the egg (more baking soda, except that I wasn't paying enough attention, and used baking powder instead... Oops.). Plus white wheat flour seemed reasonable for this closer-to-fruitcake sort of cake.
Verdict: both came out well. The apricot cake has a very tender crumb, and the applesauce cake is tastes of autumn. Baking with actual butter (which I hadn't done in years, partly because it's more convenient to have pareve desserts, and partly because I don't often take out butter early enough to make creaming it with sugar anything other than a chore) makes a difference. (Yeah, everyone else knows this already.)
However, my friend couldn't make it, leaving me with lots of cake. Which is good, but I have an inability to resist cake. So much of it is now frozen in pieces, and I feel all virtuous. Well, sort of: I did leave some for snacking now...
I'm hosting a number of holiday meals this coming week, and Sukkot brings its own challenges. (Getting the sukkah up is one of them! Also getting lulav and etrog (the most expensive fruit of the year), and getting the porch more organized and decorated and better lit.) Food needs to be hearty, because we'll be sitting in the cold to eat it, and hot food makes a huge difference. And since my porch is so narrow, it has to be food that isn't too complicated to eat, since people will be balancing plates on their knees. (I have some small tray tables I can use for incidentals, but it's not enough for everyone to have a surface to eat from.)
Current hosting includes first night (Monday) dinner for 5-6; Thursday night dinner for 5; and Shabbat dinner for 4-5. There's the possibility of guestage second night, and I'm out second day lunch and Shabbat lunch.
Always, a hot soup, a thick one that will hold the heat. I like making soup thicker with barley, but I've got someone watching their gluten intake coming. I should check whether small amounts are ok (I think it's not a celiac sort of situation). If so, a vegetable soup with barley seems perfect, and I'll toss the celeriac root and leaves into it (also carrots, but they're not as tricky a vegetable for me as celeriac). If not, a vegetarian chili (beans and likely TVP, though that might be a gluten issue also), using the hot peppers instead.
I had thought about making a turkey for first night, but decided it was too much, so now I'm thinking chicken baked with rice. Vegetables will depend on what looks nice at Russo's. Currently I'm leaning towards eggplant and something with sweet potatoes and kale. Also sauerkraut in some form, possibly as itself, possibly cooked with apples and vegan sausages. Dessert is likely to be apple based. For Thursday, with some fussy eaters coming, either chicken and rice again, or lasagna with a minimum of vegetables (so weird, but they're otherwise nice :-), and a green salad, since those are all things I know they eat.
Shabbat is easier, since the only constraint is not to have fruit with the main course. On the other hand, my guests include some amazing hosts, and it's always a bit intimidating to serve them, even though I know they're not judging. Everything is so beautifully prepared and served by them that my slapdash, family-style approach feels... far from refined. I shouldn't feel like this, I suppose, but every time I host them, I get intimidated. Ah, well. I think it's far enough out (with a farm share delivery in between) that I'll wait to see what I'm inspired by next week.
I was running close to the wire Wednesday, unsure what food I was in the mood for. In the end, I made two dishes. Turkey meatloaf was easy, mixing ground turkey with bread bits (six grain and pumpkin seed) and a jar of TJ's spicy eggplant and red pepper spread, the top adorned with kfP ketchup. The other was... not refried beans. I sauteed onions and red peppers, tossed in some beans I cooked the day before (I'm blanking on the kind, but cow patterned in deep red and off white), and added cumin. I think the leftovers might be enhanced under melted cheese (few things aren't enhanced by melted cheese :-). Both nice, neither very spicy, and the meatloaf felt like a good mix of protein and whole-grain starch.
I now know two people who share my birthday (read: not famous people, like John Lennon and the Count from Sesame Street, but friends), and there was a hava amina that the one who was organizing a celebratory outing in my neck of the woods would bring his posse over to my house for birthday cake afterwards. So when I got home after the fast, I had some food, and started thinking about making cake.
Which is when I realized that not only did I not have white flour or eggs, I didn't have any milk or milk substitute either. Great. For the flour, I used white wheat, and for eggs I could use flaxseed meal (make a gel with hot water), but there wasn't any particularly easy way to replace milk without soy/rice/almond milk around. So ideally, cake without it. I decided I'd run out of time if I used Chef Google, so pulled out The Joy of Cooking (from the 80s, a graduation present from my mom, who knew how much I liked her copy (Mom never used a lot of cookbooks, but Joy was always there)) and flipped through the cake section, pondering.
In the end, I made two cakes (thinking of Howard and Ethan as I finally baked cake in the tins they'd graciously gifted me with after bringing dessert years ago), both rather permuted from the given recipe. First up, an apricot cake. It called for fruit puree, but I still had some boozy apricots in the fridge, left from the bout of liqueur making, and wasn't interested in pulling out the food processor. So they became a layer of fruit in the middle. And it called for milk, so I used the sugary alcohol with the fruit instead, plus some water. And flax gels, and white wheat flour.
Once that was in the oven, I started on the other cake, realizing then that I should've done them in reverse order, since the applesauce cake had double the cooking time. Ah, well. This had less substitution, since I had applesauce (from last year's apple-picking), raisins, and walnuts, and the recipe even stated a substitution for the egg (more baking soda, except that I wasn't paying enough attention, and used baking powder instead... Oops.). Plus white wheat flour seemed reasonable for this closer-to-fruitcake sort of cake.
Verdict: both came out well. The apricot cake has a very tender crumb, and the applesauce cake is tastes of autumn. Baking with actual butter (which I hadn't done in years, partly because it's more convenient to have pareve desserts, and partly because I don't often take out butter early enough to make creaming it with sugar anything other than a chore) makes a difference. (Yeah, everyone else knows this already.)
However, my friend couldn't make it, leaving me with lots of cake. Which is good, but I have an inability to resist cake. So much of it is now frozen in pieces, and I feel all virtuous. Well, sort of: I did leave some for snacking now...
I'm hosting a number of holiday meals this coming week, and Sukkot brings its own challenges. (Getting the sukkah up is one of them! Also getting lulav and etrog (the most expensive fruit of the year), and getting the porch more organized and decorated and better lit.) Food needs to be hearty, because we'll be sitting in the cold to eat it, and hot food makes a huge difference. And since my porch is so narrow, it has to be food that isn't too complicated to eat, since people will be balancing plates on their knees. (I have some small tray tables I can use for incidentals, but it's not enough for everyone to have a surface to eat from.)
Current hosting includes first night (Monday) dinner for 5-6; Thursday night dinner for 5; and Shabbat dinner for 4-5. There's the possibility of guestage second night, and I'm out second day lunch and Shabbat lunch.
Always, a hot soup, a thick one that will hold the heat. I like making soup thicker with barley, but I've got someone watching their gluten intake coming. I should check whether small amounts are ok (I think it's not a celiac sort of situation). If so, a vegetable soup with barley seems perfect, and I'll toss the celeriac root and leaves into it (also carrots, but they're not as tricky a vegetable for me as celeriac). If not, a vegetarian chili (beans and likely TVP, though that might be a gluten issue also), using the hot peppers instead.
I had thought about making a turkey for first night, but decided it was too much, so now I'm thinking chicken baked with rice. Vegetables will depend on what looks nice at Russo's. Currently I'm leaning towards eggplant and something with sweet potatoes and kale. Also sauerkraut in some form, possibly as itself, possibly cooked with apples and vegan sausages. Dessert is likely to be apple based. For Thursday, with some fussy eaters coming, either chicken and rice again, or lasagna with a minimum of vegetables (so weird, but they're otherwise nice :-), and a green salad, since those are all things I know they eat.
Shabbat is easier, since the only constraint is not to have fruit with the main course. On the other hand, my guests include some amazing hosts, and it's always a bit intimidating to serve them, even though I know they're not judging. Everything is so beautifully prepared and served by them that my slapdash, family-style approach feels... far from refined. I shouldn't feel like this, I suppose, but every time I host them, I get intimidated. Ah, well. I think it's far enough out (with a farm share delivery in between) that I'll wait to see what I'm inspired by next week.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 07:56 pm (UTC)I might go with chili anyway...
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 07:28 pm (UTC)And seriously, what else can we bring? I'm so disappointed with you shooting down the Russo's run...
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 07:58 pm (UTC)What would you like to bring? Easiest for me would be dessert, but I'm open to lots of stuff.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 08:07 pm (UTC)And thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-12 03:05 am (UTC)