Tag Archives: baking

Purim: Vegan Ma’amoul Cookies + Food Resources to Help Ukraine

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Vegan Ma’moul

Before I share a Purim recipe, I want to offer a few ways that you can help in Ukraine through food. Hamantaschen for Ukraine  (“bakery solidarity for Ukraine”)  has a list of bakeries across the US, EU and UK that are selling hamantaschen with proceeds going to a Polish relief organization supporting Ukrainian refugees.  Bake for Ukraine has all of the tools for you to host a bake sale to provide funds to help Ukraine. Cook for Ukraine has raised a few hundred thousand dollars for Ukrainian relief through people’s DIY meals and bake sales. Last, World Central Kitchen has already provided over 2 million meals to people in Ukraine and surrounding countries like Poland, Moldova and Hungary. Click here to learn more about how you can support WCK. Continue reading →

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Vegan Sourdough Challah

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Bread, a basic, humble food represents so much of what is happening during the pandemic. While some are fortunate to nourish their creativity and yearning for comfort foods by becoming amateur bakers, others line up 24 hours in advance at food banks to secure loaves of bread and other foods.  Bread highlights so many of our society’s problems, from the injustices of food access and increasing food insecurity during COVID, to the brokenness of food systems (such as the contrasting shortages of flour in supermarkets compared with food banks), to access to healthy foods (homemade breads, sometimes with heirloom grains versus processed), and the luxury of those of us with time and resources to delve into baking bread. Continue reading →

Dusseldorf and Date Cake

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Date cake

While we continue to hunker down at home, the competition to secure flour and yeast has become more challenging perhaps than buying hand sanitizer. I go through waves of intense cooking and baking, trying to conjure inspiration to keep my meals interesting, even when everything else in life has become so routine (and other times when I am not inspired and just have smoothies or oatmeal for dinner).  I have spent the past year or so trying to recreate many of my grandmother’s recipes and being stuck inside now during COVID19 has encouraged me to make more. She was a voracious cook who commanded her kitchen: you didn’t wander around because she would insist on putting together or finding for you whatever you thought perhaps you might want to eat (in a quantity larger than you needed).  And, I never left her home without tins of her mandelbrot. Continue reading →

Finding Order in Disorder & Chocolate Olive Oil Passover Cake

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Chocolate Olive Oil Passover Cake

I’m still the same as when I last wrote-focused on COVID19 most of the day and trying, like everyone else, to function as best possible. Beyond the obvious irony of living in a pandemic during Passover, how I will celebrate it this year has been hard (beyond simply finding holiday foods).

I know that many of you, like me, struggle to find grounding and order in this surreal moment. For me, the idea of the order of a seder and all of the holiday’s beautiful rituals that take us out of our normal daily routines is confounding and challenging now. If Passover already turns my regular routine upside down by changing what I eat, and completely transforms my kitchen, already creating a disruption, how do I create a semblance of the “normalcy” of the holiday routine when nothing is normal now? And, how to celebrate the idea of freedom and liberation when there’s so much sadness, stress, and darkness in our lives? How are we not consumed by these emotions and recognize the potential to survive and embrace the beautiful things in the world?

Continue reading →

Covid19 and Italian Corn Bread

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Italian corn bread

This is a frightening moment. It’s hard to write about recipes and food during this time when I incessantly read the news and my mind is mostly devoid of non-coronavirus thoughts or ideas.  I have noticed, though, that when I get especially anxious about what is happening, I am drawn to being in my kitchen. Chopping, cooking, baking all calm my nerves a bit and give me something purposeful to do. My sweet elderly dog patiently sits nearby, his intense eyes gazing at me, wondering if any crumbs might drop by his paws, completely unaware of the global crisis and singularly focused on food scraps.

In this challenging moment, my appreciation and awareness of beautiful, sometimes seemingly mundane things in life has become accentuated.

I have taped to my computer a quote by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Our goal should be to live in radical amazement. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” Continue reading →

Vegan Tahini Hamantaschen

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Vegan tahini hamantaschen

Purim Sameach! A quick post to share with you my new hamantaschen recipe-vegan tahini dough filled with pomegranate molasses-tahini-maple syrup-sesame seed mix. These are definitely not overly sweet and almost savory.

Continue reading →

Purim: Vegan Treats and Sustainable Tips

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This Purim round-up includes lots of tips and recipes to help you prepare plastic-free, vegan, healthy-ish and sustainable mishloach manot (gift baskets). There’s a range of recipes including, of course, vegan hamantaschen.

As important as giving treats to friends and family is giving matanot la’evyonim (gifts for low-income people) and I offer some resources for local groups for you to support.

 

Continue reading →

Rosh Hashana: Easy Baked Apples

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Baked apples for Rosh Hashana

I love visiting farmers markets wherever I am in the world to explore the diversity of local produce and foods, talk with farmers, and soak in the festive atmosphere. And, I am never disappointed in my regular jaunts to markets when visiting family in Chicago. During my recent visit, I found an incredible offering of apples I had never heard of grown by Nichol’s Farm. They had colorful bins arranged in two long parallel lines, fully stocked with apples arranged from the most tart to the sweetest.

I decided to experiment with many of these beautiful apple varieties by simply baking them with a touch of maple syrup and doused in cinnamon, with the intention of letting their flavors and textures be the centerpiece of the dish. The fruit alone would stand out for each of its deliciousness. And, what better (and super easy) dessert for Rosh Hashana? Continue reading →

Vegan Purim Recipes

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Adar2: Chocolate truffles

With Purim happening this week, I wanted to share of my simple, delicious, and vegan Purim recipes. Also, check out many of the great organization’s on the resources page for ways you can help low-income people in your community during the holiday. Plus, click here for a card I made a few years ago for Netiya about how to prepare healthy, sustainable mishloach manot.

Vegan Hamataschen
Chocolate Truffles
Stuffed Dates

Purim Sameach!

 

Portugal and Simchat Torah

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Simchat Torah cookies

I had an unexpected detour in my travels last year and ended up in Portugal, a place I hadn’t planned to visit and certainly not during Jewish holidays. Portugal had initially been a refuge for Jews fleeing Spain during the Inquisition but it subsequently followed in Spain’s footsteps, expelling or forcing the conversion of its Jewish populations. It was surreal at times to return to the country which now has a Jewish population of 1500 people now, spread amongst a few cities and towns. I spent time in the stunning Algarve region on the southern coast, including the town of Faro, where previously there had been a Jewish population, though the cemetery and museum were closed when I tried to visit. On the other hand, there’s a small but vibrant community in Lisbon, where I spent Simchat Torah. It is a spectacular, dramatic mountainous coastal city filled with the most beautiful buildings whose exteriors are covered in the most colorful tiles. It is quickly becoming an international cultural and technology destination and I predict it to become “the next Berlin.” Continue reading →