Chocolate Orange Cake

I found this on the net - there are multiple posters. It's a version of the clementine cake. Like that cake, it is gluten-free by chance, and without the baking powder it will be great for Pesach. I wouldn't even bother separating and beating the eggs. It is dense, moist, and EASY. 

It makes a big heavy cake in the springform; next time I might make two smaller springforms.

For Passover: one big one will move!

Chocolate Orange Cake

2 oranges
6 large eggs
1½ c granulated sugar (David says, use more!)

2 c almond meal/flour
1/2 c cocoa
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Glaze
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Cointreau or Grand Marnier

    (or a jar of ready-made!)

Or - 

1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 c. cocoa powder, sifted

A little brandy or whatever Kosher for Passover liqueur you have

Finely chopped pistachios are a nice extra on top.

Gradually add water, a few drops at a time, until you can spread it. This isn't stiff enough to frost the sides but makes a nice chocolately top.

• Place oranges in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 1-1½ hours, until fork tender. 
• Cool, cut open and remove pips/seeds if any. Cool.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Place oranges in a food processor and puree until pulpy. Add remaining ingredients, and blitz until completely incorporated. (if your food processor is too small, just do the eggs and orange and move it to a bowl to add the rest. Or use an immersion blender).
• Grease a 9" springform. Pour batter into pan, and place in oven for 50-60 minutes, or until middle of cake is firm to the touch.
• Allow to cool to room temperature before un-molding.
• Pour glaze over cake, and garnish with orange zest.

Glaze

Place ingredients for glaze in a a saucepan on low on the induction stove-top. Stir until completely melted.

Pasta Grannies Lemon Pudding

 I love watching Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel produced by a British food ethnographer, Vicky Bennison, who interviews elder cooks all over Italy to learn their regional specialties.

I never make anything from their brief vignettes but this lemon pudding really spoke to me, and it's delicious. Low sugar - basically eggs and lemon. Double it for this quartet of pictures - baked for Passover 2022 in Chestertown.

3 eggs, separated in bowls you can beat in 

2 to 3 T sugar

1 lemon

option: add 1/2 cup of berries. I tried blueberries and it worked.

Boil the lemon until it is soft, and puree in a food processor. Let it cool. (Since you mix it with the egg yolks, if it's hot it will cook the yolks.)

Spray an 8" springform or souffle pan. The grannies also sugar the pan.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar, and mix in the puréed lemon.

Beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the yolks until the batter is uniform in color. Add berries if you like.

Bake at around 365 for a half hour or so in the Breville. Cover with foil if the top browns too fast.

It puffs up and deflates, making a nice concave holder for fresh berries. The nonnas serve it with whipped cream. Not my thing.

(The boiled citrus is like the clementine cake, but this is very light, hence more like a pudding.)

This would be fun to make on Pesach - refreshing, not too hard, and even parve/ gluten free.

Check out Claudia Roden's yogurt cake, which is the same basic idea with the addition of, you guessed it, yogurt. You can also add blueberries.

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Moroccan Spinach Chickpea Soup

 https://www.greenprophet.com/2013/01/eat-like-a-sustainable-moroccan-chickpea-and-spinach-soup-recipe/

Pretty simple, hearty soup, not that thick - yet another combo of spinach, tomato, chickpea, onion, garlic....  Modified with less chickpeas and added carrots

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or more to taste

2 cups diced fresh or crushed canned tomatoes (1 can)

3 carrots, diced

1 can chickpeas,drained (2 cans)

3 to 4 cups vegetable broth

1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

4 cups fresh spinach, rinsed, drained, and chopped

Choose a large pot. Heat the olive oil in it and add onion, garlic, cinnamon, paprika, cumin and cayenne.

Cook, stirring occasionally 5 minutes or until the onions wilt.

Add tomatoes, chickpeas, vegetable broth and sugar.

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for 45 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper.

Just before serving, place equal quantities of spinach into 6 soup bowls. Ladle hot soup on top of the spinach.

Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy

Salisbury Steak is a fancy name for a hamburger with mushroom sauce, no bun. This version is remarkably stick-to-the-ribs, and as Nomi said - with mashed potatoes, it's next level good.

It comes together really fast, though it's a lot of steps and some odd ingredients. The recipe is from Rabbits & Wolves, though I've modified it a bit.

Lentil Salisbury Steak
2 C. cooked lentils (cooking formula: 3 parts water to 1 part lentils. So 3/4 c. lentils with 2/1/4 c. water)
1 C. bread crumbs
1/2 C. vegetable broth
1/4 C. soy sauce
1 T. Liquid Smoke
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 C. vital wheat gluten (I had to order this online)

Put the cooked lentils in a large bowl. Using either a potato masher or fork, mash the lentils until they are almost all smashed, leaving a bit of texture.

Add all the remaining Salisbury steak ingredients to the bowl except the wheat gluten - add that last.  (If you add the vital wheat gluten before mixing, it begins forming tough strings.)  Using your hands, continue to mix until fully combined. Knead in the bowl for a few minutes until it forms a  dough ball that isn't sticky any more. (The longer you knead the dough, the firmer they will be)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Spray a 1/4 sheet pan with oil Press into patties. Repeat until you have formed all the dough into "steaks", filling the pan with 8 flat burgers. 

Bake them for about 20 or until the steaks are firm. Flip after about 15 minutes to brown on both sides.

Remove the steaks from the pan, and set aside while you make the gravy.

Mushroom Gravy
2 tsp. olive oil
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 T. butter
3 T. flour
2 C. vegetable broth
1/2 tsp.sage, dried
1/2 tsp. thyme

1/2 t. soy sauce (optional, for color)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in the same pan on medium high, add the mushrooms and garlic. Saute for a few minutes, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Saute until soft and a bit brown. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside.

Reduce heat to low. Add the butter and flour. Whisk together and cook for 1-2 minutes to make a roux. It should be a bit thick and paste-like.

Slowly add the veggie broth, whisking to combine. Simmer until it has thickened 2-4 minutes. Sometimes it just doesn't thicken - continue to cook over low and eventually as the moisture steams off, it does thicken. Add the mushrooms back to the pan, and the spices. 

Place the steaks on a serving dish, or in the skillet, and cover with gravy! Serve with veggies and carbs!

Mashed Potatoes

Boil potatoes until just soft. Peel. In a large sauce pan, add about 1 c. milk (or cream, for decadence). Mash the potatoes, add 2 T butter, and heat as needed. These will have some lumps. That makes them authentic.

Jessica Fechtor's Five-Fold Challah

I learned of Jessica Fechtor's challah while watching the video about the King Arthur Cheesey Pan Pizza. I have made this challah quite a few times during COVID, making slight modifications.

A fabulous challah recipe from Jessica Fechtor’s “Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home,

The recipe calls for instant dry yeast rather than active dry yeast (which requires proofing). Fechtor recommends SAF-Instant yeast or Fleischmann’s BreadMachine or Rapid-Rise Yeast.

Makes 3 small loaves

Dry ingredients:
3 c (500 grams) bread flour or all-purpose flour

1 c. whole wheat flour
1 ½ t instant dry yeast (I have used regular and it worked fine)
2 t salt

Wet ingredients:
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk (save the extra white in a covered glass in the fridge for glazing later on)

¾ cup (190 grams) water
1/3 cup (75 grams) olive oil
¼ cup (85 grams) honey

1/4 c raisins, optional

1) Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until a wet, sticky dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic and let sit for 10 minutes.

2) Peel back the plastic. Grab an edge of the dough, lift it up, and fold it over itself to the center. Turn the bowl a bit and repeat around the entire lump of dough, grabbing an edge and folding it into the center, eight turns, grabs and folds in all. Then flop the dough so that the folds and seams ore on the bottom. Cover tightly again with the plastic, and let sit for 30 minutes. (That is Fold 1).

3) Repeat the all-around folding, flipping, covering and resting for 30 minutes four more times. (I keep track by using four bottle caps.) The dough flops more than it folds in the first round or two. Then, as the gluten develops, you’ll get proper folds. By the final fold, the dough will be wonderfully elastic, and you’ll be able to see and feel the small pockets of air within. Pull the plastic tight again over the bowl and refrigerate for 16 to 24 hours.

4) Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and divide into 9 equal pieces. (This is time-consuming.) 

Roll into 9 strands, adding raisins if you wish. (You’ll want to add as little extra flour as possible.) 

Braid from the center, pulling the strands and keeping the braid tight in both directions. Transfer the loaves to the prepared pan. Cover with plastic and let proof at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, until the dough is noticeably swollen and puffed and bounces back, very slowly, if at all, when you poke it lightly with your finger.

5) Preheat the oven to 375˚ F.

6) Remove the plastic from the loaves and brush with the reserved egg white. 

7) Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the bread is golden and gorgeous.

Moroccan Lentil Chickpea Soup: Harira

Nomi and Micah suggested this soup for our pre-Yom Kippur meal during COVID. Normally we have been with Elaine, but this year... It is delicious for anytime. This is based on a recipe from Epicurious, slightly adapted.

Ingredients are flexible - it would be good with vermicelli, for example. Serve with harissa!

4 T olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and cut in rounds
1/2 t ground turmeric
1 t ground cumin
1/2 to 1 t harissa (Mina brand is Kosher certified)
Salt to taste
1 bunch parsley, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups), divided
1 bunch cilantro, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups), divided
1 15-ounce can crushed tomatoes, crushed
7 cups vegetable stock
1 can of chickpeas, drained -15-ounce
1 c  green lentils
1 tfreshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose unbleached flour
1 large egg
Juice of a large lemon (about 1/4 cup)

1. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat and sauté the onion, celery, and carrots until the onion turns translucent and begin to brown, about 5 to 10 minutes. 
2. Add the turmeric, cumin, harissa, salt, pepper, 1 cup parsley, 1 cup cilantro, tomatoes, lentils, and the stock and  boil for 30 minutes. 
3. Whisk the flour, egg, and lemon juice into 2 cups  of water. Stir into the soup. 
4. Simmer the soup about 5 minutes more and serve, sprinkled with the remaining cilantro and parsley. And don’t forget to have some extra harissa in a plate on the side.

Magical Tri Melon Soup

This soup is August in a bowl. It's a Jane Brody recipe - she credits Gourmet magazine.

Because the mixtures have different densities (apparently something you can do with other types of soups, too), they don't mix when you put them in the bowl.

I added a third and it works perfectly - watermelon chunks  puréed with mint and squeezed lemon juice.

1 cantaloupe, ripe

2 lemons

1 honey dew melon, ripe

2 T. lime juice (or a fresh lime)

1/2 seedless watermelon, cubed

lots of mint

salt and agave to taste

Peel and cube the first melon. This is labor intensive - use a large cutting board. First cut in half, and scoop out the seeds. Cut in 1/8s and then slice each along the curve of the melon, leaving the flesh. Cube and throw in a powerful blender, like the ninja. Or, buy it cubed!

Squeeze in the juice of the lemon and a little salt. Empty into a pitcher.

Repeat with the honey dew, adding mint, lime juice, and salt. You can add a little agave if you like it sweeter.

The watermelon is less dense but will still hold its shape. Same procedure. 

Chill.

To serve, use flat soup bowls. Put a scoop of honey dew to the side of the bowl. Gently pour the cantaloupe into the open space, and also the watermelon. If you're lucky, it will create a crescent shape. So pretty.

Garnish with fresh mint. Do not serve to the Rosen clan. They don't like melons!