A reason to celebrate every week.
Jews like to celebrate, and, lucky us, we have a joyous celebration each and every week of the year: the Sabbath. “It is often said that as much as the Jewish people keep the Sabbath, in truth it is the Sabbath that keeps the Jews,” says Elizabeth Kurtz in “Celebrate: Food, Family, Shabbos” (Feldheim, $34.99), “and at the very heart of our celebration of Shabbos is family gathered around the table enjoying a delicious Shabbos meal.”
Take food away from any celebration, and it’s just a day on the calendar. With food we nurture, hold together a family and build a community. With food we honor our traditions as we create new ones. With food we show our love.
“It starts and ends with love,” says Kurtz. “My entire relationship with food, reading and writing recipes, cooking and eating, is all about love. I do many things for my family, but no carpool, camp application or help with a complicated homework assignment brings anywhere near the smile that a delicious meal, especially on Shabbos or Yom Tov, brings. Absolutely nothing.”
Kurtz grew up cooking with her mother, her happiest times, she says. “There were no expectations of excellence and achievement like there was for my school work, clubs or gymnastics. There was just love. We would pick a favorite recipe or maybe try something new, and then on went the apron and off we went into a magical place of creativity, happiness and love. As I think of it now, it was the most wonderful time.”
“Celebrate” offers over 200 recipes to help you do just that, recipes that are easy enough for every day, but special enough for celebrations. Kurtz also includes tips for planning ahead, freezing, rewarming and instructions for converting almost every dish for Passover. You’ll find nine challah recipes alone (including Apple-Date Swirled Challah, Sweet Challah with Streusel Topping and even a Gluten-Free Challah), must-have recipes for stocking your pantry as well as tips for keeping a healthy kosher kitchen by dietician Kimberly Rothstein, whose “secret” is what she calls the four R’s of healthy cooking: “Replace, reduce, relish and relax. Keep these in mind and you’ll be in great shape (pun intended).”
The Sabbath is special, and a special day deserves a special menu with dishes that we might not “potchke” (fuss) with during the week, like this showstopper gratin from “Live Life Deliciously: Recipes for Busy Weekdays and Leisurely Weekends” (Shadow Mountain, $32.99) by Tara Bench, who demonstrated it for a group of food writers and bloggers hosted by Melissa’s Produce, the largest distributor of specialty produce in the U.S.
“For much of my career I was a food stylist,” she told us as she peeled potatoes for her luscious Cheese and Herb Potato Gratin, “so I’m used to thinking about what a recipe is going to look like as I cook it and when I serve it. We eat with our eyes. You want it to look good as well as taste good. It’s all about the presentation. I like to take a simple classic dish and make it beautiful.”
Bench, known to fans of her popular blog as Tara Teaspoon (tarateaspoon.com), was formerly food editor at Martha Stewart Living and food director of Ladies Home Journal and has more than 25 years’ experience creating recipes and styling food, so she knows a thing or two about presentation. Rounds of alternating sweet and white potatoes tossed with herbs and spices are baked up with cheese in a gratin worthy of a simcha table, yet simple enough to knock out for a casual family dinner. “You could layer the cheese and potato slices flat in a baking dish as a classic gratin, but this presentation is all about the wow,” she noted. “Standing up the slices, whether in rows or a circle, creates an impressive look and is worth the extra minutes to arrange them before cooking.”
Mixing different colored potatoes gives the dish “extra pop,” she said. For this dish she used sweet potatoes plus Yukon Golds, but suggested using Melissa’s Gemstone Potatoes, a mix of red, yellow and purple varieties, for even more pizazz. “I love adding color to a dish that might ordinarily be brown. Yukon Golds are buttery and smooth. I don’t do russets for this – I like a buttery texture. Russets are better for mashed potatoes or a baked potato. For a casserole dish I am happy with a waxy potato.”
She urged viewers to get a mandolin for slicing and to use it with a metal glove or guard for safety. “If you use the slicing blade of your food processor, the slices are a little thicker, so you’ll need to bake it covered a little longer. Every oven is different.”
While the recipe calls for dried herbs, Bench used fresh herbs from Melissa’s for the demonstration. “I use fresh herbs in the spring and summer when they are plentiful and cheap. I’ll use my spice cupboard in the winter months. Double the amount of fresh as you would dry.”
Chocolate Cookies & Cream Cake (pareve)
Decorating option: Sprinkle cake crumbs along the bottom of the cake, drip chocolate ganache down the sides, and cover top with meringue cookies, as in the photo.
Freeze the cake layers for at least two hours before frosting to keep crumbs to a minimum.
Yield: 10 servings
Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
2 cups sugar
1 cup (two sticks) margarine, melted
1 cup non-dairy creamer
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 1/2 cups finely crumbled chocolate sandwich cookies
Frosting:
2 (8-ounce) packages Tofutti cream cheese
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) margarine, at room temperature
3 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups crumbled chocolate sandwich cookies, divided
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch cake pans.
2. Cake: Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in large mixing bowl.
3. With electric mixer, beat eggs, egg yolk, sugar, and melted margarine in separate large bowl until fluffy.
4. Whisk together creamer and vinegar in small bowl. Add to egg mixture alternately with flour, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Fold in crumbled cookies until incorporated. Pour batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake about 25-30 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs. Let rest in pans 5 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack; cool completely.
5. Frosting: With electric mixer, cream together cream cheese and margarine in large bowl. Beat in confectioners’ sugar and vanilla until smooth.
6. Assembly: Place 1 cake layer, dome-side down, on cake platter. Cover flat surface with frosting. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup crumbled cookies. Top with second cake layer, right-side up. Spread frosting over top and sides. Sprinkle sides or top of cake with remaining 1 cup crumbled cookies, pressing into frosting. Refrigerate, lightly covered, until serving.
Source: “Celebrate” by Elizabeth Kurtz
Cheese & Herb Potato Gratin
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
3 medium sweet potatoes
6 small Yukon gold potatoes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
8 ounces Gruyère or sharp white cheddar, grated
(2 cups)
1/2 cup thinly sliced yellow onion, chopped
1/2 cup whole milk or half-and-half
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Peel potatoes, and, using a mandolin or vegetable slicer, cut into very thin slices. In large bowl, gently toss potatoes with salt, pepper, garlic powder, parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary, cheese, and onion, until evenly mixed. Be careful not to break the thin potato slices.
2. Working with a small handful of potatoes at a time, gently line up coated slices in 10-inch cast-iron skillet or 2-quart baking dish. Pour milk and broth over potatoes. Cover pan with foil and seal around edges.
3. Bake 50 minutes and remove foil. Continue to bake until potatoes are tender and top is golden, 15 to 20 minutes more. Test potatoes with a knife to see if they are tender throughout. Cool slightly and serve hot.
Source: “Live Life Deliciously” by Tara Bench
Jlife Food Editor Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” (Workman) and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook” (an e-book short from Workman), a columnist and feature writer for the Orange County Register and other publications and can be found on the web at www.cookingjewish.com.