These pastries can be made bite sized or large enough to have for dinner. But however you make, you will want more of this beautiful earthy combination of bulgur wheat and mushrooms garnished with fresh herbs and wrapped in puff pastry dough. We tweaked the recipe to our taste. Since we made this on a weekday, we did not have the time to make the pastry with sour cream as Marlena says in her recipe. We instead used puff pastry sheets. This tasted so good, that when we had two on the plate to take pictures and by the time the plate returned to the kitchen, there was only one! You know who the culprit is

Mushrooms and bulgur wheat for sure are made for each other. The caramelized onions and mushrooms folded in with fresh herbs and bulgur wheat is a match made in heaven. It is a whole dish and we can rave about it for hours together. As kids, we have had vegetable puffs (read loaded with potatoes). Around 4 pm, bakeries nears schools will bake them fresh and woo you to come there dragging your parents asking for just one puff and end up buying some pastries as well. Good marketing technique eh?

Here is our version of Marlena Spieler’s Knishes

Uncooked bulgur wheat – ¼ cup cooked in ¾ cup water, strained.

Butter – 1 tsp

Vegetable oil – 1 tsp

Onion – ½ cup, finely chopped

Garlic – 1 tsp

Button mushrooms – 6, finely chopped (large)

Cayenne – 1 tsp, optional

Cilantro – ½ cup, finely chopped

Italian Parsley – ½ cup, finely chopped

Salt & pepper to taste

Thawed Puff pastry – 1 sheet

To make the filling

• Heat a sauté pan with the oil and butter mixture.
• When the oil is hot, stir in the onions , sauté on medium low heat until they turn golden brown
• Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds,
• Add the mushrooms and cook for roughly 10- 15 minutes until the water the mushroom releases is completely absorbed and it turns a little brown
• Add the cooked bulgur wheat and allow the flavors to blend together for about 2-3 minutes
• Season with salt, pepper and cayenne. Sauté well so that it is all well incorporated.
• Add the chopped herbs and stir well. Allow this mixture to cool.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
• Roll out the puff pastry just a little bit  on a floured surface and cut into the desired shape and size you like
• Place the filling the in the centre, brush edges with water and fold up and pinch together to seal.
• Brush with egg mixture if you like or bake in the oven for roughly 8-10 minutes until they turn golden brown.
• Serve warm.

Variations:

• You can try different variations of herbs like rosemary , dill or a combination of herbs
• Of if you want to reduce the use of puff pastry, place the filling in lightly buttered ramekins, cover the ramekins with the puff pastry sheet and bake.
• For a potluck, place the filling in a tart/quiche pan, cover with puff pastry sheet and bake.

Go over and see what Mel & Eileen have cooked today.

The earliest memories I have of Barley is my dad asking amma to make him Barley water. As kids, we would shun away from it. My mom would incorporate barley water in vegetable soup and I would slurp on it happily clueless that it had barley water. But now, I embrace it. I have made chicken Barley soup and this is the next one I made. It is a rustic soup, kinda.

I made a few variations to the soup depending on what I  had in the pantry. It was pouring heavily and the day called for soup, but not venturing out of the house to go grocery shopping. I have used the split peas, left over wild rice and barley in this soup. Feel free to use some of your left over beans in the pantry that you have very little of and don’t know what to do with them. Beans and barley slow cooked with mire poix and garlic, garnished with parsley is just what you want on a rainy day.

Olive oil – 1 T

Onion – 1 chopped

Celery – 3 sticks, chopped

Carrots – 2 , peeled and cut in rounds

Potato – 1, peeled and cut in big chunks

Garlic cloves – 3, minced

Wild rice – ¼ cup

Barley – ¼ cup

Green Split peas – ¼ cup

Yellow split peas – ¼ cup

Water – 4 to 5 cups

Canned cranberry beans – 1 can (14 oz)

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley – 1 tsp, finely chopped

• Heat oil in a Dutch oven and when the oil is hot, add onions, carrot and celery.
• Saute for 3-4 minutes and then add the minced garlic and give it a quick stir.
• Add all of the grains, salt, pepper and water and bring it to a quick boil, reduce to medium low and cover it with a lid
• Let it cook for about 40- 45 minutes or until the peas, barley and rice are well cooked
• Open the lid, add cranberry beans and let it simmer for 10 more minutes.
• If the soup is too thick for your taste, add another additional cup of water and adjust seasonings
• Garnish with parsley and celery leaves and a sprinkle of cayenne.

Variations:

• Marlena’s recipe calls for dried mushrooms. Use dried or fresh mushrooms
• I think this can easily be made into a slow cooker recipe.
• Use vegetables that are in season.

Check  what Mel and Eileen have cooked for you

On our face book page, we had asked readers what recipes they would like to see  on this website. We got a whole range of ideas. A few wanted one pot dishes, slow cooker recipes, Samosas, Southern fried chicken etc. We will definitely try to cook up all you asked for. To start off, lets make a one pot dish which is tasty and healthy all at the same time. It is easy to make for dinner and something you can carry to work the next day for lunch.

We used fresh vegetables, but if you are hard pressed for time you can always use a bag of frozen peas and carrot. Growing up, amma would try to make a lot of these one pot dishes which we loved to take to school for lunch. Rasam and sambhar were not our favorites as the rice would absorb everything and what we will encounter is a big hard blob of rice that one would not want to eat. We were lucky, there was a guy called Chimney( I think it was his nickname) who had the most number of hooks/handles in his cycle. He was paid a fixed amount for the month and he would come  at a certain time everyday to pick up our lunch to deliver piping hot food  to us at school. He carried more than 50 lunch bags on his cycle. We would wait for him in a designated corner and he would there for us to pick up our empty lunch bags. He was a fun guy who was always cracking jokes and handed our lunch box to us telling us a joke or having something really nice to say. Until we had him drop lunch off we had hot food. When we moved  to a different state and had to carry our lunch in the morning, one pot dishes like this was a blessing. I tell you we were spoiled.

Coming to the recipe, we liked the idea of using bulgur wheat instead of rice and we LOVED it. According to Wikipedia, “Bulgur is more nutritious than rice and couscous, because it contains more fiber and more vitamins and minerals and has a lower glycemic index than white rice or couscous.Bulgur has a glycemic index of 46.”

Oil – 1 T

Butter – 1 T

Whole Cardamom – 4

Wholes Cloves – 2

Ginger – 1 tsp, minced

Garlic – 2 tsp, minced

green chilly – 2 slit in half (optional)

Chopped Onion – 1/2 cup

Carrots – 2, small dice

Potato – 1, small dice

Peas – 1/4 cup

Mushroom – 4, sliced

Turmeric – 1/2 tsp (optional)

Mint – 1 T, finely chopped

Cilantro – 1 T, finely chopped

Cracked/ bulgur Wheat – 2 cups

Water – 4 cups

salt to taste

• Heat butter and oil in a saute pan with a lid
• When the oil is hot, add cardamom and cloves and immediately add onions.
• Sweat the onions and add ginger and garlic.
• Cook for about 30 – 45 seconds.
• Stir in all the veggies and saute well.
• Add turmeric, fresh herbs and bulgur wheat
• Stir well such they are all well incorporated
• Add salt and water and bring it to a boil.
• when it comes to a boil, reduce to the lowest setting on your stove, close with a lid and let it cook until the water evaporates completely ( about 25-30 minutes)

Notes: Use any vegetable you have in the refrigerator. You can add bell pepper, green beans or endamame as well.

Options: You can cook this in a pressure cooker or saute everything and transfer to a rice cooker ( than it becomes two pots cooking)

Variations: You can omit whole spices and that will give you a very delicately flavored pilaf

This recipe goes to Radhika and Sudeshana for the Tiffin or Lunch box event.

Salad Dressing

Sesame Oil – 1/2 cup

Juice of 1 clementine

Ginger – 1/2 tsp, minced

Soy sauce – 1 T

Chilli garlic sauce – 1 T

Peanut Butter – 3 T

Sherry Wine Vinegar- 1 T

Honey – 1 tsp

Sesame seeds – 1 tsp, toasted

• Whisk all of the ingredients in a bowl or pulse a couple of times in a blender
• Taste and check for seasonings and adjust to suit your taste
• Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

If you don’t like sesame oil, use vegetable oil and add just a tablespoon of sesame oil for flavor.

We added orange segments, chopped almonds, a few dried cranberries (just because it was staring at me in the pantry, crying to be used) to our greens along with thinly sliced mushrooms. Add shredded chicken too if you like.  This took exactly 10 minutes to put together.

Variations:

• Reduce the amount of oil and increase the peanut butter a little bit for an Asian inspired vegetable dip.
• Marinate your meats in it and grill, basting with the sauce

Sunday with Marlena Spieler

Pierogi, what is it you ask? To quote Wikipedia, “Pierogi are served in a variety of forms and tastes (ranging from sweet to salty to spicy) in Polish cuisine. Pierogi were traditionally peasant food, but eventually spread in popularity throughout all social classes, including nobles. They are served at many festivals, playing an important role as a cultural Polish dish. Polish pierogi are often filled with fresh white cheese , potatoes, and fried onions; in this form, they are called pierogi ruskie (Rusyn or Ruthenian pierogi), which is the most popular variety in North America. In Poland more popular are pierogi filled with ground meat, mushrooms and cabbage, or for dessert an assortment of fruits (various berries, with either strawberries or blueberries being most common). Pierogi are usually served with melted butter and sugar, or melted butter and bacon bits. Poles traditionally serve two types of pierogi for Christmas Eve supper. One kind is filled with sauerkraut and dried mushrooms, another – small uszka filled only with dried wild mushrooms.”

Make the filling a day ahead and cook the pierogi on the day you are ready to serve. The recipe called for eggs in the filling, but we omitted it.

Baking Potato – 2, cut in half

Unsalted Butter – 2 T

Onion – ½ cup

Chilli flakes – 1 tsp (optional, not traditional)

Parsley – 6 T, finely chopped

Wonton Wrappers – 16

Salt & pepper to taste

Sour Cream to serve

• Cook the potatoes in a sauce pan  with lots of water
• Peel the potatoes and mash well
• Melt 1 T butter in a sauté pan and sauté the onions until browned
• Add mashed potatoes, chilli flakes if using,  salt , pepper and 2 T of the chopped parsley
• Mix well and allow it to cool completely
• Spoon in a teaspoon of the filling in the center of the wrapper
• Brush water on all sides and top with another wrapper and seal well with your fingers or a fork.
• Boil a large pan of salted water and when the water comes to a boil, gently slip in all the dumplings and allow it cook in medium heat (just a simmer) for about 2 minutes.
• Use a slotted spoon and remove the pierogi .
• Drizzle the rest of the butter over the pierogi, garnish with 2 T of the parsley
• In a small bowl fold the sour cream with the rest of the parsley and serve.

Hop on Eileen and Mel’s blog as well.

We are also sending this to Ruth for Presto Pasta Nights. Presto pasta nights is celebrating it’s 3 rd birthday, Congratulations Ruth!

Sunday with Marlena Spieler

The first time I ever had coleslaw was at KFC. After eating some really gross oily chicken, coleslaw was a welcome diversion.  I have later had some really kick ass coleslaw and wondered how I liked the other one. Ah well, I guess it was not as gross as the chicken.

This was the first time we have made coleslaw at home and boy we were happy with the results. Rajesh made some spicy hot wings as well. The wings were wickedly good and the coleslaw complimented it very well. If you are very lazy you can always buy a bag of coleslaw mix (cabbage & carrots grated). But it really does not take too much time. If you have a food processor that you bought thinking you will use it and never did, now is the time to take that baby out.

Cabbage – 1 cup, thinly shredded

Carrots – ½ cup, grated

Red Bell Pepper – ¼ cup, finely chopped

Celery Sticks – ½ cup, finely chopped

Raisins – 3 T

White Vinegar – 1 T

Sugar – 2 T

Mayonnaise – ¼ cup or less

Salt & Pepper to taste

A dash of tobasco (optional)

• Place the cabbage, carrots, bell pepper, celery and raisins in a salad bowl.
• In a small bowl whisk the vinegar and sugar, salt & pepper together.
• Pour that over the salad and toss well. Set it aside for an hour or so.
• Stir as much Mayonnaise as you need, just enough to bring it all together.
• Add a dash of tobasco and check for seasonings.
• Drain any excess liquid before you serve.

The recipe called for green bell peppers, onion and celery seeds. If you are not a big fan of mayonnaise, use yogurt with a dash of lemon juice instead.

Eileen and Mel have some interesting recipes for you as well.

Sunday With Marlena Spieler

You either love cabbage or you hate it. Can you tell we love it? We cooked braised cabbage with apples in class yesterday and that was one of my favorites.  We had white and red cabbage at home. With one we made coleslaw and the other this salad. Coincidentally, the Jewish also love their cabbage and was almost the vegetable the Ashkenazim says Marlena. Garam masala gives it a kick we liked, it gives it a little bit of heat and the tanginess from the vinegar balances the dish very well.

Red Cabbage – 2 cups, thinly shredded

Red Bell Pepper – ½ , finely chopped

Red wine Vinegar – 1 T

Sugar – 1 T

Greek God Yogurt (plain) – ½ cup

Garam Masala – 1/8^th tsp

Raisins – 1 to 2 T

Salt & pepper to taste

Optional

Mayonnaise – ½ cup

Red onion – ¼ cup, thinly sliced

• Place the cabbage and bell pepper in a salad bowl
• In a small pan heat the vinegar and sugar until the sugar melts completely
• Pour over the salad and allow it to cool
• In a small bowl, whisk rest of the ingredients and combine well with the salad
• Chill the salad and serve cold.
• Before you serve strain the excess liquid.

You can make a sandwich or a wrap using this salad too!

Mel & Eileen have some tasty delights for you.

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

We would like to call this lazy man’s pasta. It is quick, easy and delicious too if you are looking for something light for dinner after a heavy lunch or brunch. The ingredients are really things you will most definitely have in your pantry, at least ours did. This is served cold and cooked the previous day by the Italian Jewish community and eaten on Shabbat, when no cooking is allowed. You really don’t need a recipe for this, it is that simple

The recipe called for Egg noodles, olive oil, Green Olives, garlic, parsley and salt to taste. We used wheat pasta, pimento olives and smoked olive oil. Our dear friend Cynthe, sent us this bottle. It is extra virgin olive oil that has been naturally wood smoked. It adds great depth and flavor to this simple dish. We loved the addition of  the smoked olive oil, Thanks Cynthe!

Dried pasta – 9 oz

Garlic – 1/2 tsp, finely chopped

Extra Virgin Olive oil – 2 T

Chopped Parsley – 2 T

Salt to taste

• Cook the pasta in water that has been salted
• Drain the pasta, add garlic, chopped parsley, chopped olives and olive oil
• Toss well and refrigerate overnight.
• Serve cold.

Make sure you check out what Mel & Eileen have cooked!

We are also sending this dish to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted by Michelle of Italian Mama Chef.

Congratulations says the maitre’d as she seated us, the word was out to all the waiters / waitresses knew that we were celebrating at Oak cafe right after the ceremony and they all remembered to congratulate us inspite of their busy schedule.

The cafe is completely student run and is a preparation for what they are going to experience when work in a fine dining restaurant.  The  students an eager bunch, Shankari demoed the recipes and had time to do this only on Presidents day which was a school holiday, but that didn’t stop the students or chefs from coming to class.  Their dedication speaks in the quality of food they put on the table. They surely love what they are doing and every dish speaks to you.

Reservations are needed as there is limited seating and these get filled up really fast. Our friend Mel has prepared the menu for the week of March 3rd featuring Traditional Jewish cooking.  Please make sure you call ahead and make reservations.

Thanks once again to all you @ Oak cafe who made it a memorable day for us, our desserts came with a surprise inscription, I was told feel free to tour the kitchen and take all the pictures you want. We still haven’t stopped speaking about it.