Sunday With Marlena Spieler

This is my last post for our series of cooking through the cook book, Jewish Cooking by Marlena Spieler. What a blast! I got to know two of my blogger friends more closely, had the opportunity to meet Marlena a couple of times and even learned to make Matzo ball soup from her aunt. This journey has been a pleasant and yet challenging one. It challenged me to try recipes that I may never have tried and every time, I was skeptical about it, Marlena proved me wrong each & every time. The recipes were fantastic, we have tweaked the recipes a bit, played with and savored almost all of the dishes.  Thank you Mel! for including us in this fun project.

Coming to this sweet recipe for today, I think those of you who know me, are aware that baking is not my forte. I bake, but have a few recipes that I enjoy baking and make them frequently. The name may not seem familiar to you, but if you are like me, use the store bought sugar cookie dough and this recipe is a breeze. I believe every family has their own version of sweet fillings. I used mango jam and it was delicious.

Sugar cookie dough – cut in 2 inch rounds

Mango Jam – 1/4 cup

Flour the rolling surface well and the cookie dough in 2 inch rounds. I flattened mine with a rolling pin, and spooned some mango jam in the center and folded the edges to make a triangle. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven 6- 10 minutes, until the edges turn slightly brown.

Eileen finished last of her post today and Mel has just a few more. Also go check Mel’s All clad pan giveaway for a chance to win an All clad pan.

Happy Tamil New Year to all of you!

Here is a visual treat of what we made this morning to celebrate this joyous day. Thai Red Jasmine rice simmered in milk with sugar, cardamom and saffron.  Cashew nuts and raisins sauteed in ghee and garnished. We will post the recipe tonight after we are back from work.

Basundhi is milk that has been simmering on the stove for hours  until  it reduced to about ¼ the quantity, add sugar, nuts and voila it is done. In India, this was something that most homes will not venture to make, because they have to worry about the gas cylinders getting empty (gas is not piped into homes, like here in the US, and is delivered home in portable tanks as liquefied petroleum gas or LPG which is hooked up to a 2 burner stove) So basundhi was another treat that made its appearance very rarely. It is an easy task, if you have the time to let the milk simmer for 4-5 hours and give it a stir once in a while. It is that simple.

One of the most important things is to simmer this is in a heavy bottomed dutch oven. We either use le creuset french oven or a stainless saucepan.  We have slowly been eliminating non stick pans from our kitchen and moving to all steel. Teflon coated utensils when cooked at very high temperatures release toxins into our food and I would rather have a teaspoon more of oil than have toxins as my appetizer. Now, the key is to invest in good stainless steel pots and pans, ceramic or cast iron skillets.

This was the first time we made basundhi at home.  And both of us enjoyed it!

2 % fat Milk – 1 gallon

Sugar – 10 tsp or more to taste

Cardamom powder- 1 tsp

Almonds – 1/3 cup, chopped

Pistachio – 2 T, chopped

• Heat milk on medium low in a heavy bottomed pan.
• Continue to simmer the milk until it reduces by about 25%. While the milk simmers, a  layer cream  will form on the top.
• Remove the layer with a spoon and set it aside in a small bowl.
• As the milk simmers, the color of the milk changes to a light brown.
• Stir the milk occasionally and set aside the cream as they layers form, repeat this process.
• When the milk has reduced, add sugar, the cream, cardamom powder and chopped almonds
• Allow it simmer for 5-8 minutes until the sugar has melted.
• After the basundhi cools down, let it chill in the refrigerator.
• Serve in individual cups garnished with pistachios.

Notes:

• The key is to stir the milk at regular intervals.
• Do not add saffron to this dessert.

We have off late been receiving quite a bit of emails from friends and family who have used our recipes and let us know they liked it. There is no greater joy than knowing that someone tried our recipe and their family enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to let us know you tried it. We truly appreciate your love and support. If you have time, take a picture and send it us and we will post it on the sacramentospice fan page.

Apple – 1 cup, grated with the peel

Walnuts – ¼ cup, roughly chopped

Honey – 1 T

Red Wine – 1 T

Ground cinnamon – less than 1/8^th of a tsp

Raisins – 1 T

• Grate apples , chop walnuts and place in a bowl.
• Drizzle honey and red wine over the apples
• Add ground cinnamon and raisins and mix well

The juiciness of the apples with crunch from the walnuts makes this extra tasty. This can had as is, I might even like it in on my oatmeal.

Check out Eileen and Mel’s offerings this Sunday.

Sunday with Marlena Spieler

Honey cake, just the name wants you to want to trying baking it at home. The house smells great, folks at home are happy and when you take the first bite, you are in blissful honey land. With every bite, you get the flavors all coming together~Ginger, honey , orange juice and ground cardamom. Yes, you heard me right, I used cardamom instead of apple spice that the recipe asked for and what I particularly liked was that the cake did not need butter.

Growing up, we did not have an oven like we do here. My mom would place sand in a pressure cooker and bake cookies for us. Then I remember a small movable round oven that would appear  every once in a while from the attic. If I am right, I think amma could only bake a dozen cookies at a time. I am sure she will be surprised when she sees the size of the oven we have.

Coming back to the recipe, honey cake is traditionally baked during Rosh Hashanah- when sweet foods are eaten  to welcome the New Year. I will eat the cake to welcome a new day everyday to come up with an excuse to eat this wonderful cake. It is not time consuming at all.

All Purpose Flour – 1.5 cups

Sugar – 1/3 cup

Ground ginger – ½ tsp

Ground cinnamon – ½ tsp

Ground cardamom – 1 tsp

Baking soda – 1 tsp

Orange blossom honey – 1 cup

Vegetable oil – 4 T

Orange zest – 1 T

Eggs – 2

Orange juice – ¼ cup

Fresh Ginger – 1 tsp, minced

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl mix all the dry ingredients.
• Make a small well and pour honey, oil, orange zest, eggs, orange juice and ginger.
• Whisk until smooth
• Grease the baking pan and pour the cake mixture and bake for about 20 minutes or until firm to the touch.
• Cool and if you can resist the temptation, store in foil for 2-3 days at room temperature before serving.
• This allows the flavors to all pop when you bite into the cake.

We baked the cake on Thursday and it tastes even better today than when we first tasted it warm.

Eileen has another honey cake on her blog and Mel has very tempting looking fritters.

We were having some really special guests coming home, but it was not confirmed until the very end as it was all dependent on the train reaching Sacramento on time. We wanted to make something that is light and simple. Just a few days ago, when we read this recipe, we wanted to make it right away. We love anything that has Meyer Lemons in it. You should have guessed by now, we have three recipes using Meyer Lemons. To add to it, it is a recipe from our favorite author, Marlena Spieler of course! It is celebration time, a time to celebrate and nurture friendships.

After we heard the train was arriving at the scheduled hour, we made this dessert. Marlena used heavy whipping cream and non fat Greek style yogurt, but we used regular milk and mountain high yogurt because that is all we had in our refrigerator. If you want to follow Marlean’s recipe, the link is here.

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 cup + 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
1 cup Milk
1 cup Meyer lemon juice (4-6 Meyer lemons)
2 tablespoons finely grated Meyer lemon zest
1 cup nonfat yogurt
2 tablespoons candied Meyer lemon, finely chopped

Instructions:

• Sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water in a small bowl for about 5 minutes, until it is completely dissolved
• Add sugar and 1/2 cup water in a saucepan; bring to a simmer and stir until sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat and add the gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin dissolves. Add milk, lemon juice and lemon zest. Let cool slightly.
• Whisk yogurt in a bowl. Add the  milk mixture, little at a time, gently stirring until it is well incorporated. Do not over mix as it should form any lumps.
• Pour mixture into a bowl  or individual ramekins and cover and chill until set for at least 6 hours or even overnight.
• Garnish each individual serving dish with chopped candied lemon peel.

What happens when you crave  Shrikand and you know it is a dish you cant have right away? I love shrikand and grew up walking down to Prashant hotel in Belgaum when I was about 12 and sitting there savoring my puris and Shrikand. At that time, it was new dish introduced to us. My parents were not huge fans of eating sweetened yogurt with their puris. But I loved it when we had it for the 1st time in a friend’s house. So when I pestered my mom to make some for us, she preferred giving me some money to buy it just for myself. As a kid, I had this weird habit- If I liked something  that I requested my mom to make, I insisted that everyone in the family eat it and say they love it as much as I do. So money it was to go down and eat it on my own. Yes, it was a safe town and we literally lived right next to the restaurant and everyone there knew us, so I had the privilege of  receiving extras coz mom would share with some of the waiters, who loved far away from home some of our home cooked meals.

Coming back to Shrikand, this is simply yogurt that is bundled up in a cheese cloth and sits overnight, so the next morning we get thick yogurt without all of the water. You then add a few things and voila you have Shrikand!

In my cheese and egg class at ARC, our instructor was talking about making our own fruit yogurt and not to buy the store bought ones.  She said they have a whole lot of ingredients that we don’t really need. I was intrigued and checked the ingredients for flavored yoplait, here is what was is in it

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Low Fat Milk, Sugar, Strawberries, Modified Corn Starch, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Kosher Gelatin, Citric Acid, Tricalcium Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Colored with Carmine, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3.

Really, we don’t need sugar+high fructose corn syrup+gelatin+corn starch. Try adding all this to your yogurt, you wont eat even a spoon of it. So what should we buy you ask? We make our own yogurt at home when the weather gets warmer. But the rest of the year we love our Greek Gods Yogurt.  It is rich, creamy and tastes like yogurt. Our new favorite is the strawberry honey yogurt. It is not overly sweet and has just a mild strawberry flavor.

So this is how we made our shrikand on demand, in a jiffy.

Greek God plain yogurt – 2 cups ( use whole fat or non fat)

Honey – 3 T or more to taste

Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

Saffron – 1/8^th tsp, slightly crushed

Chopped unsalted pistachio – 1 T

• Whisk the yogurt and honey with a fork, until smooth and creamy
• Add cardamom powder and saffron and fold in the ingredients
• Garnish with pistachio and let it chill in the refrigerator for at least 3-4 hours until the flavors are well incorporated.

You can of course add freshly chopped strawberries when they are in season. Use plain Greek God Yogurt to make various flavored shrikands. You can even add fresh mangoes or even fresh lychees. On days you want to indulge in a dessert after dinner, this  is a recipe that will come in handy. It is simple, tasty and healthy!

Sunday With Marlena Spieler

Citrus and sugar, what can go wrong. Our friends Dennis &  Mary shared with us their  bounty of Meyer lemons from their garden. There is nothing quite like using produce so fresh and well cared for. We made ginger lemon concentrate with the juice and the peel was used to make Marlena’s Pomerantzen. Marlena says in her cookbook, that this candied peel is a specialty among Jews especially of German origin. This in an easy recipe and also feels that we did not waste any part of the lemon, except the pith and seeds of course.

Lemon – 4 to 6

sugar – 2 cups

Water- 4 cups

• After we juiced the lemons, we scooped the pith of with a spoon. Or you can wait to do that after you boil in water
• In a pan, pour about 3 cups of cold water and add the peel.
• Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. This will help take the bitterness out if any.
• Drain the water completely and add rest of the water and  1 cup of sugar.
• Add the lemon peel after the sugar has completely melted and simmer for an hour
• Strain the lemon peel and arrange it on a baking sheet
• When it cools down a little, toss in the remaining sugar, such that each peel is coated with sugar.
• Store in a zip loc back in your refrigerator.

While we were planning to satisfy our sweet tooth with a few after dinner, we ended up using a few in a White bean salad with Spicy dressing. This is yet another one of Marlena’s recipes.

Eileen and Mel have more of Marlena’s recipe, so make sure you drop in there as well.

Sunday with Marlena Spieler

When the three of us were divvying up recipes and we got this recipe, we wondered if we would enjoy the recipe as we assumed that there would be eggs in the recipe. We are not big fans of eggs in a beverage. The title is deceiving. Marlena says in her book that no one is sure why it is called Egg Cream, it is probably because of the richness  at a time when folks could not afford to put eggs and cream together in a drink. This is very easy to put together ( about 3 minutes) and very refreshing after a work out or on a warm summer day!

Chocolate Syrup – 3 to4 T

Chilled Milk – ½ cup

Chilled Carbonated Water – ½ cup

Cocoa Powder to sprinkle

• Spoon the chocolate syrup in a tall glass
• Pour the chilled milk  and then the carbonated water carefully
• Dust with Cocoa powder and enjoy!

This is really one of the easiest recipes we have made so far. To make it a little bit more richer, you can add a layer of condensed milk over the chocolate syrup One of the glasses had a dash of Kahlua too

Mel & Eileen always have great recipes on their blogs, so hop there for more fun recipes from Marlena.

Here’s to Wonderful New Year ahead, with good health and happiness !

We welcomed the year amongst good friends and family with loads of food, fun and laughter. Our contribution was this cake.This Pesach cake dates back the 13th century, it is Kosher, rich and festive. We baked this to take to a party on New Years Eve. This cake has no oil or butter but 12 eggs, which when we read through the recipe thought was a bit much and very skeptical when the cake was baking in the oven too, but turned out soft, spongy and light and taste was citrusy and not eggy like we thought it would be.