Day 1: Challah and Lots of it

It's not even 9 am and I already have 6 loaves of challah rising on the counter. What's wrong with this picture?

I got a headstart on cooking this morning thanks to a 6:30 workout session with Julia. I was back home at 7:40 and by 7:50, I was covered in flour. Awesome.

Also on the agenda for today: thawing and making one of two briskets. My largest pot only fits one at a time. I'll be making the briskets with a Separdic-style sauce that has pomegranate molasses and tamarind puree, among other things. It's a hybrid of the two recipes that were featured in this week's Boston Jewish Advocate article (found here). It's a little sweet and a lotta tart and really, really tasty.

If brisket and challah aren't enough, I'll also be making a filling for my spanikopita, consisting of spinach, ricotta, feta, dill, salt, pepper, and onions. Not too difficult, right? I'll make the filling today and then layer the filling and filo dough into a pan on Friday. Step by step, people.

And lastly, just to get a head start on some of the other prep, I'll be baking some eggplant for babaganoush (the easiest recipe on earth, below). Wish me luck!

Babaganoush

3 eggplants 3 cloves garlic 1/2 cup yogurt salt pepper lemon

Prick eggplants in several places. Make a slit in the bulbous end of each eggplant and slip a garlic clove inside. Wrap in tin foil and bake in a 350-degree oven for 60-75 minutes, until soft all the way through.

Let cool until you can handle the eggplants; using a spoon, scoop flesh off of skin into medium mixing bowl. Add yogurt; stir to combine. Add salt, pepper, and lemon to taste. For a more rustic style, simply mix with a fork. If you prefer a smoother texture, take an immersion blender to the baba until it's as smooth as you like it.

Enjoy warm, cold, or room temperature.

Rosh Hashana Menus

The Jewish New Year is fast approaching, and here at NDP we might just be in over our heads; we're having lots of D's family for the holiday and very excited to host them all! With so many people to feed and not much time to prep, I've drawn up menus to keep myself on track and to make grocery shopping, prepping, and cooking as streamlined as possible.

Now, I haven't started yet -- the big cook commences tomorrow -- so no pictures so far, but right now, I'll share my menus with you as promised.

Keep in mind: I'm only making two of the meals entirely from scratch. We're being hosted elsewhere for one dinner (but I'm making the brisket), and we're doing a potluck for another (so I'm making only challah and a side dish). But I'm still cooking brisket, chicken, and 2 full meals -- one meat, one dairy. Hopefully this will provide you all with a head start -- or a kick in the butt -- for menu-planning. Enjoy and please share your menus in the comments!!

Also -- can't resist this one little shout-out: my friends at KOL Foods, the only purveyors of local, organic, grass-fed kosher beef and chicken, were published in the Boston Jewish Advocate this week -- and the article includes quotes and recipes from yours truly! Be sure to check it out -- you'll find 2 really yummy brisket recipes there: https://www.kolfoods.com/pdf/BrisketArticle.pdf

And now, menus.

Meal 1: Rosh Hashanah Dinner

Challah Minestrone soup Mesclun salad with hearts of palm, persimmons, and pomegranates Tagine-style chicken with preserved lemons and olives Roasted chicken with dried fruit and wild rice Simple sauteed green beans and peas with lemon and almonds Saffron rice baklava and fresh fruit

Meal 2: Rosh Hashana Lunch

Challah Watermelon-feta salad with pickled red onions and kalamata olives Spanikopita Sauteed shelling beans with tomatoes, oregano, and garlic Orzo salad with fennel, dill pesto, feta, and lemon Greek honey-almond cake Greek yogurt with honey and poached fruit

Recipes are, for the most part, taken from epicurious, gourmet.com, and a couple other places. A quick search on epi will reveal recipes for lots of these dishes, and though I haven't hammered out the final recipes I plan to use, these sites are where I plan to start. I'll likely pull a few recipes and pull together the elements of each that I like to make whatever I'm making. I'll do my best to blog the process as I start cooking tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Salmon with Herb Butter and Various Roasted Vegetables

D and I had people over Friday night. As of Thursday, I not only had done no cooking, I hadn't even figured out my menu. Now, I'm not one to plan these things all too far in advance -- but 24 hours is not much time to plan, shop, and make food for a dinner party. Not impossible, but not ideal.

When I'm cutting it close to the wire, I tend to keep it as simple as possible. I picked up a bunch of salmon fillets and all the good-looking vegetables that TJs had to offer. Without much time to contemplate interesting recipes and a lingering fear of making the whole house smell like fish, I wrapped each piece of salmon individually in parchment paper and tucked a bit of herb butter inside. The herb butter infuses the salmon while it steams, and the end result is both healthy, flavorful, and much less potent. No fish smell whatsoever in the house as of Saturday morning.

I made a vinaigrette with the herb butter, some capers, and lots of lemon and lime, and served it alongside the fish. In retrospect, I should have just made the vinaigrette first and skipped the herb butter step entirely; that's the recipe I provide below. It's a simple presentation that almost always pleases.

In terms of vegetables, I had a big variety -- eggplant, cauliflower, baby potatoes, grape tomatoes, zucchini -- but not enough of any one to feed 7 people. The solution: I roasted each separately, and then served them together on a big platter and let guests take some of each. Another success: the mix of vegetables gives the plate nice color contrast, and because I roasted them individually, I flavored each vegetable slightly differently to give the final dish even more appeal. Cauliflower got east-Asian treatment with galangal, tumeric, and a pinch of saffron; tomatoes got the sweet tangy complexity of red onions; potatoes were a nod to the season with the last of my summer savory; and zucchini were simple as can be, with just olive oil and salt. Given the slightly frantic menu planning and shopping for this dinner, I certainly can't complain about the end-product.

The only thing to end a meal like this is birthday cake - red velvet cake, in particular, to celebrate the lovely Rebecca's birthday. But that's another post for another time.

Salmon with Herb Butter and Various Roasted Vegetables Serves 8

8 fillets salmon, cleaned and patted dry 3 tbsp. butter, melted 2 tbsp. chopped herbs; I used a mix of mint, parsley, and chives, but any herbs will do 2 tbsp. capers, chopped 1/4 cup lemon or lime juice (I used half and half and needed 2 limes and 1 lemon) salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add citrus juice and salt to blender. With motor running, pour in butter in steady stream. Mix until fully blended. Transfer to bowl.

Add herbs and capers; mix to combine. Set aside.

Meanwhile, rinse fillets and pat dry. Rip 8 pieces parchment paper; each should be at least 8x11. Set one salmon fillet on the center of each paper at a diagonal, and drizzle 3 tbsp. vinaigrette over each one. Rub into flesh to help absorb. After washing your hands, wrap paper around each fillet and twist ends as you would a piece of candy in a wrapper, until snug.

Put individually-wrapped fillets on baking sheet in single layer. Bake at 350 for between 15-25 minutes, or until cooked through. My oven runs a bit cold, and my almost 2-inch thick fillets took about 22 minutes. Definitely start checking them at 15 minutes; you're looking for orange flesh that's not translucent but also not tough to the touch. You can always open the one you plan to serve yourself and check for doneness.

Various Roasted Vegetables serves 8

2 heads cauliflower, de-stemmed and trimmed into florets 4 zucchini, sliced on sharp bias 2 lbs. grape tomatoes 1 red onion 2 lbs. baby potatoes

Here's the method: put vegetables in a clear plastic bag with plenty of olive oil, salt, pepper, and whatever spices you're using. Shake, mush, and toss to get those spices and seasonings spread evenly over the vegetables. Put on a roasting pan in a single layer and roast in a 325-degree oven until done. Details below:

Cauliflower: I used 1 tsp. galangal (a mild, floral, fruity relative of ginger), 2 tsp. tumeric (for color), a pinch of saffron threads, salt, and pepper. Baking time was about 15 minutes, maybe 17.

Tomatoes: I sliced a red onion into 1/2-inch rings and scattered them among the tomatoes. Come to think of it, I also used a sliced garlic clove. Other than that, just salt and pepper. I tossed them once at minute 15 and left them in there for about 30 minutes, at which point the onions had basically melted into deliciousness and the tomatoes were about ready to burst. Perfect.

Zucchini: real simple -- slice on bias, toss with salt, pepper, olive oil, bake 20 minutes turning once halfway through.

Potatoes: I halved them but you don't need to. I coated them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and summer savory (two sprigs was plenty). I roasted them for about an hour. I like'em tres crunchy.

Granola with Tahini

Ahh lovely readers, I've missed you! I've been posting sporadically at best for the past month, because work has been absolutely insane and I haven't had time to even enter the kitchen, let alone write about it. That last post on zucchini soup was my lame attempt to give you reading material while I was at work, so as not to abandon you completely -- but I unwittingly passed along a post from last year, just before my Alaska cruise, and let you all think I was headed on a fabulous vacation. Not so! I spent Labor Day.....well, laboring. At the office. Until very late. But now all that should be behind me because we signed off on our research yesterday, and all that's left to do is write the accompanying speech. I'm hoping today is the beginning of my re-entry into my favorite room of the apartment. Cross your fingers for me, will you?

Busy times at the office need to end with something restorative. Sometimes it's a big bowl of pho, with its etherial broth and slurp-tastic noodles. Other times it's a piece of good toast with some homemade jam. This morning, the first in a month that I haven't had to start a 15-hour day at 8:30 am, I made my own granola.

I once was in the habit of making granola every week. It's a good thing to have around for breakfast in the morning, and it pairs great with that super-tart yogurt in the fridge. But lately there's been no time for such simple pleasures, and breakfast has consisted mostly of whatever I grabbed the night before at Trader Joe's. Needless to say, I was more than ready to put my own labor hours back into the food I eat.

My usual granola has almond butter, which I find creates clumps better than water or oil and whose flavor doubles down on the granola's nutty flavor. This morning, though, I was out of almond butter, so I went with tahini (sesame butter), which has a similar texture, instead. To balance the flavor of tahini, which can be overwhelming if not used sparingly, I added a splash of walnut oil, as well as a bit of chopped crystallized ginger, which paired well with the sesame flavor and gave a little punch. A generous pinch of cinnamon and a whisper of cloves brought the granola squarely into fall's territory, which I suppose is appropriate, given that the weather is dreary and it's dark when I wake up these days.

I was still concerned that the tahini might overwhelm, but it totally doesn't: because the granola cooks until golden, the other flavors in there -- almonds, oats, ginger, cherries, raisins -- get a chance to toast and intensify, bringing the sesame flavor into balance. I LOVE this batch and plan on making another one, some other not-super-early morning.

Hope you all had great weekends, and I look forward to seeing you around here more regularly!

Granola with Tahini

2 1/2 cups oats 1/3 cup maple syrup 1/4 cup tahini 1 Tbsp walnut oil, optional 2/3 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds), either salted or unsalted, depending on preference 2/3 cup sliced almonds 2/3 cup chopped pecans 2/3 cup raisins, cranberries, or other dried berry (I like half raisins, half cherries) 2 Tbsp chopped crystallized ginger 1/2 tsp salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon cloves

Preheat oven to 325.

In a small bowl, mix syrup, tahini, oil if using, salt, and cinnamon until incorporated. In a large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until well-distributed. Drizzle the syrup-tahini mixture overtop, stirring with a fork until all dry bits are at least slightly wet and clumps have started to form.

Spread granola on a large rimmed baking sheet in a thin layer and bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven, stir with a fork to move pieces from edge to center and from top to bottom. Make sure pieces that have started to brown are in the center and well-surrounded. Return to oven and bake 10-12 more minutes, until golden brown throughout. Granola will not be crunchy when it leaves the oven; don't worry -- it'll crisp up as it cools. Once cool, transfer to air-tight container; granola will keep this way for up to 1 month.