Please join me...

Please join me over at KosherAcademic Maman as I (attempt to) undertake blogging (again), with a few twists (and lots of recipes).

Simple Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

The second recipe that I made from Smitten Kitchen was a simple tomato sauce. My colleague went on and on about how fantastic this recipe is, and how simple it is. True enough, it is three (or four, if you add salt) ingredients. After some discussion with another (kosher) foodie friend, she argued that the fantastic-ness of the recipe is from the specific tomatoes needed, that is, a can of San Marzano tomatoes, and that otherwise it is okay, but nothing special. We couldn't find kosher San Marzano tomatoes at the store, so HaSafran bought some organic Italian tomatoes with the hopes that these would work just as well.

Tonight we made the sauce and served it over linguine, along with a very yummy salad made by my lovely HaSafran. Initially we had it as is, with only a little Parmesan cheese, and it was good, but didn't blow me out of the water in its flavor. For seconds, I skipped on the Parmesan and added some feta and pine nuts. This transformed it into a real treat.

I will certainly make this again, although I do not think it will replace my usual marinara sauce.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter
from Smitten Kitchen

1 28oz can whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano, if possible, otherwise some alternate)
1 onion, skin removed and halved
5 Tbs butter (note that butter is the key ingredient here, so do not substitute with margarine. This is a DAIRY recipe!)
Salt, if desired/necessary

1. Put tomatoes, onion and butter in a (smallish) heavy saucepan. I had used an 8qt and it was too big.
2. Bring to boil over medium heat. Reduce to simmer for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a spoon.
   
3. Remove from heat, discard the onion, and add salt if necessary.
4. Serve on hot pasta, adding Parmesan cheese if you like, or you can add the feta and pine nuts as I suggest above.

Roasted Eggplant Soup

Last week a colleague of mine introduced me to the fabulous foodie website Smitten Kitchen. Since then I have made two of her recipes. The first, Roasted Eggplant Soup, I made on Friday for lunch and it was amazing! While I varied the recipe to some degree, it was, for the most part the recipe on the site. I will reproduce it below with my changes.

Roasted Eggplant Soup

1 large eggplant, top cut off and halved
3 medium tomatoes, halved
1 small onion, skin removed and halved
6 large garlic cloves, skin kept on
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
4 cups chicken stock or veggie broth
Salt and pepper
feta cheese to top (optional)
croutons (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Place eggplant, tomatoes, onion and garlic cloves on baking pan. Brush or drizzle with oil. Roast for 45 minutes (if you do not keep the garlic in the skin, take them out after 20 min or they will burn).**
2. Scoop eggplant out of its skin and place in pot. Add the rest of the vegetables, the stock and the thyme. Bring to a boil and then simmer until onion is very tender. (Mine took about 15 minutes, the website instructions say about 40 minutes.)
3. Puree with an immersion blender or by putting ingredients in a blender.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a bowl, and add feta cheese and croutons, if desired.

**ADDENDUM (17 May 2011): I finally got an oven thermometer, and my oven temperature settings are off by almost 50F. I would recommend checking the garlic after 20-25 min, just in case.

Claire's first bat mitzvah party

This is a big year for us here--in less than a year, our eldest child Claire will be Bat Mitzvah. In the meantime, many of the girls in her grade are becoming Bat Mitzvah already, and some are having parties. (An aside: in March of the 6th grade year at the school Claire is attending, there is one bat mitzvah celebration for all the girls. However, many of the girls still have an additional celebration around their actual bat mitzvah.) Last night Claire attended the first of her classmates' bat mitzvah parties.

Actually, the grade-wide bat mitzvah celebration puts us in an interesting situation. While we are very glad that there is this lovely celebration--and it is lovely, a very nice, fancy party where we honor all the girls--it seems...odd, perhaps? to invite all of our many family members and even more numerous friends to such a celebration, especially considering the emphasis will not be on Claire, but on all the girls. Sure, Claire will speak (briefly), as will the other 18 girls. To top it off, it's almost $90/person additional to what we are already paying for the actual celebration.

However, the cost of a Shabbat simcha is also prohibitive: For instance, inviting family, arranging places for them to stay, and then renting out the shul (since our apartment is not big enough to host that many people) and paying a caterer (if I could cook at the shul, it would cut back on the costs as well, but it isn't permitted) to feed people for Friday night, Saturday lunch, and perhaps even a smaller breakfast or brunch on Sunday...well, we haven't priced it out yet, but someone doing something similar for her son's bar mitzvah paid well over $5000, and that was for a lovely and MODEST simcha.

So we're trying to work through the various options, and soon enough we're going to begin calling various locations and catering companies/restaurants to try and price things out. If you have suggestions on how to keep the price down, please do let us know! We want this to be a special day for Claire, but not something that breaks the bank and stresses us out!

Garlic Sausage Soup

So this is our favorite thing to do with Romanian (kosher) Garlic Sausage. The sausage is from a fantastic butcher in Chicago (Romanian Kosher) which is just about the yummiest kosher meat around. Whenever we visit Chicago we try to bring back our favorites, garlic sausage being one of them. If you want to try this out and you aren't blessed with access to Romanian's garlic sausage, you can always pick up something local that you already enjoy and try it out. If your sausage isn't a bit spicy, you may want to add some garlic while sauteing the sausage.


The best thing about this recipe (besides the fact that it is FANTASTIC tasting) is that it takes all of about 15-20 minutes MAX to prepare. Check it out:

Garlic Sausage Soup

• 1 garlic sausage (about 12 inches long)
  Cooking spray
  1 large (28oz) can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp each: basil, oregano
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup small pasta (like small shells or macaroni)
• 4 cups baby spinach
  

1. Spray a large pot with cooking spray. Slice sausage into 1/2 inch slices and cut those in half. Saute in pan over medium heat until slightly browned, 3-5 minutes. (If you are not using a spicy sausage, you may want to saute garlic at this point as well.)


2. Add can the rest of the ingredients except spinach. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes or until pasta is cooked.


3. Add spinach and heat through until spinach has wilted. Serve and enjoy!