Probiotic Soda Recipes

Probiotic soda made from water kefir is an excellent way to stay hydrated and nourished all day!

If you missed my post What is Water Kefir? you probably want to check that out. Today I want to tell you how to make flavored soda from water kefir. In this post I will refer to the water kefir (a.k.a. tibicos) SCOBY as "grains." This term refers to the look of them, as in "grains of sand", they are in no way grains like wheat, barley, oats, rye, or spelt.



If you're starting from scratch, you will need to acquire water kefir grains. I ordered my grains from Keysands, which sells dehydrated and live grains. They have excellent, friendly customer service, so email them if you have questions. Follow their instructions to re-hydrate or revive your grains.
Now that you have a healthy batch of grains... Lets get started!

Focaccia Hamentashen

I've been wanting to make these for Purim for the past couple years, but something always comes up. Today I finally tested my concept, and I intend to put a couple in each Purim basket for mishloach manot/shalach manos I give my friends and neighbors. In Hebrew - פוקצ'ה אוזני המן

Start with your favorite pizza or focaccia dough recipe. I used my dad's pizza dough recipe. I think this one from Anne Burrell also looks good. The following proportions will make 8 hamentashen (enough for a test batch or family appetizer):

Dough:

• 3/4 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water (NOT hot)
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1 egg (optional)
• 2 cups flour (I used whole wheat for this test, but I plan to use all-purpose for the mishloah manot.)
• 1 tsp salt

My First Lychee Encounter with VIDEO

Lychee "nuts", or Litchi chinensis, are technically in season, though they're still not cheap. My kids go crazy for them and I think they are really beautiful inside and out. (I'd love to do an art project with the skin/shell.) They have prickly, leathery magenta skin. It doesn't have sharp spines, so you can easily handle them. If you leave them in the fridge the skins will dry out and become more difficult to cut open, but the taste of the fruit remains sweet. The texture is in between a grape and a plum, the pulp is white and translucent. I would describe the taste as sweet and perfumy. If you cut straight through to the the seed, like you might open an avocado, the flesh easily separates from both the skin and the seed.

Buying Falafel PLUS Hebrew Lesson

I thought my son and I were unique, occasionally ordering a pita sandwich with all the fixings, but no falafel.  However, on my last trip, a man ordered "chips" (French fries, for you Americans) on a hoagie bun.  That's it, a roll full of deep fried potatoes.  This shop, Shawarma Hacohanim, seems to have unusually sweet chips, but what really makes it my favorite is the fried eggplant, bell peppers, and friendly service.  The falafel is tasty and never under cooked, and the pita is VERY fresh - soft, springy, and delicious.  And another perk - I order and wait inside where there's no smoking!

my favorite take-homes: peppers,
eggplant, & sauerkraut

Most falafel shops begin serving falafel around 10 or 11 in the morning and are open late.  Most have some kosher supervision and are closed on Shabbat and holidays.  Hacohanim has some indoor seating and has a sukkah outside during Sukkot, so diners can fulfil the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah.  There seems to be a little price war between Hacohanim and the falafel shop on the other side of the small street.  Mimi of Israeli Kitchen wrote a post featuring the other shop with exterior photos of both.

A falafel sandwich is a delicate balance of ingredients and if one is off or missing, my falafel experience feels incomplete.  In the coming weeks I plan to teach you how to make many of the ingredients necessary to create you own falafel dinner.  First, we'll see how the experts put together a great falafel pita.

Lunch Apples and Breakfast Bags

Last week my 6.5 year-old daughter told me she liked the way I cut her apple for her lunch and put cinnamon inside.  I thought I'd show you what I did.  You will need a knife, a melon baller, and a piece of plastic wrap, or a bag and a rubber band to keep the apple together.



VIDEO URL
Start by cutting the apple in half.  By coring it with a melon baller you waste less than cutting pieces off the core.  Then cut the apple into pieces and put it back together.  My kids like when I put honey or cinnamon in the middle.  You could also hide raisins inside or even stick the apple together with peanut butter, if you want to get messy.

Another trick I want to share this week I call "breakfast bags."

Don't be Lazy - Wrap Your Baby

My maternity leave is over.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the last seven weeks laying around with my new baby and making the worlds most perfect food - mother's milk.  But now it's time I get back in the kitchen and cook a little more for the rest of my family.  Here's how I do it:



You can make a No-Sew Baby Wrap with 4-5 yards of knit fabric.  Do not try to sew two pieces together or your wrap will be weak where you need it strong - in the middle. Useful links:

• How to Select a Size for your Woven Wrap Baby Carrier
• Wrap lengths based on body size and carry technique
• WrapABaby.com video instructions for many different wraps
• Baby wrapping instructions - different techniques for different age babies

Wearing a baby is also great for sitting activities when you need two free hands  (like blogging, crocheting, hugging, and reading to older kids).  I can even nurse with my baby wrapped! Below is a picture of my husband wearing Avi while doing the dishes.  He was very skeptical at first, but now he loves to wear our baby. And they keep each other warm!

Matzoh Ball Soup

Kneidalach or matzah balls are a traditional soup accompaniment year round, but for many, Pesach, or Passover, is when they expect this treat. 

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1.5 Tbsps cold water, seltzer/soda water, or cold broth
• 2 Tbsps oil or chicken fat (you could scrape it off the top of cold soup if you make it a day ahead)
• 1/2 cup matzoh meal
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pinch of pepper
• wide pot with top and minimum 5 inches of broth

Directions:

1. Beat together with a fork eggs, oil, liquid.
2. Mix in matzoh meal, salt, and pepper.
3. Refrigerate for about an hour. The matzoh meal needs time to absorb the liquid and chill well.
4. Bring broth the a boil.
5. Wet hands with cold water and form small balls.
6. Simmer covered 20-35 minutes.

For matzoh ball tips and soup recipe see How to make great Chicken Soup.



You can make matzoh meal in your food processor from machine or hand-made shmura matzoh, or you can buy it plain or seasoned in little packets made by Manishevitz, Osem, etc.  How do you like your matzoh balls? Firm or fluffy? Small or soft-ball sized?

Please comment with your maztoh ball memories!

For more on making broth, see
How to make great Chicken Soup
Stock Pile - or - What I Learned from My Snails.

Homemade Pickle Tutorial

This is the sequel to Our Olive Adventure Part 3: Brine. It is a tutorial for making quick refrigerator pickles. For naturally fermented preserved cucumbers see "How to Make Kosher Dill Pickles."

Curing these pickles was super easy. There was no cooking necessary, only a few ingredients, and they are delicious and crunchy. I hope you'll try this at home and even add your own seasonings and special touch.

Our Olive Adventure Part 4: Dry Cure

Were you wondering what happened to the black olives I separated after Part 1 of our Adventure?  I started the process of dry curing them.  To learn more, watch the video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjw1AIEQrKY

Here's a picture of olives in the market:

Also see Part 1: Find Olives, Part 2: Pit and Soak,  Part 3: Brine, and Part 5: Fix Salty Olives.

Our Olive Adventure Part 3: Brine

Also see: Part 1: Find Olives and Part 2: Pit and Soak.


Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/user/CookingOutsideTheBox?feature=mhum#p/u/3/bTcgMNQJzBU

Fish Video: Dress, Bake, Eat

Amnon from the local outdoor market - shuk

soup nuts - shkedei marak

Last week I cooked some repeats (including Onion Challah, this time rolls with poppy seeds), and focused on some necessary family paper work while I let my husband handle the "cooking".  Besides baking frozen shnitzel (breaded chicken paddies) and serving pasta with ketchup, he managed to whip up a tasty simple vegetable soup. He simmered carrot, onion and celery with garlic powder and salt in plain water.  A good start and very welcome on a cold day.  Especially with the Israeli staple, "soup nuts".

I've also been playing with Windows Live Movie Maker, which I downloaded on my gorgeous new hand-me-down laptop.  Thanks dad!!  Below is a remix of my fish videos beginning with how to make a homemade mayonnaise-type sauce for fish. 






Below is the video of the lemon cutting method I mention in the video, followed by a pictures of the shuk at night, as promised.

Let me know what you think of my editing skills (or lack there of)!  I hope to have some new dishes and ideas up before you can say "Polly Locket picked a box of pickled olives."

Our Olive Adventure Part 2: Pit and Soak

Part 1 challenged you to find olives.  The first step toward making your fresh olives into tasty, edible olives is to remove the oleuropein, an extremely bitter compound.  It's a miracle anyone figured out that olives are edible.  I challenged my poor, innocent, son to try one of the raw olives, and he swore he would never eat my olives and there was nothing I could do to make them tasty (see video below).  We'll just see about that!


My friends' mom says that the minimum time it takes to get tasty olives is about four years.  I've come across a few options for speeding up the process.  You can crack olives with a mallet or stone, like Sarah of FoodBridge or slit them open with a knife.  I chose to try pitting my olives.  I haven't seen anyone do this.  I'm not sure if it will lead to mushy olives, or if it is just considered less gourmet, but I happen to own a cherry pitter, which was itching for some excersise this winter.  I have tried to use it on olives from a can, and it works much better on firm, raw olives.



My pitted olives began in a baking soda bath.  I used 4 tablespoons of baking soda per cup or 1/4 liter of water. 

The video cut out, but I went on to pour some water and baking soda into the tall jar, put the olives in, fill the jar to the top with the solution, then shove in a silicone cupcake/muffin cup to keep the olives submerged.  I covered the jar loosely and changed the solution four times over a week.  After that I switched to plain water, which I changed every other day.  The olives are currently still in plain tap water while I wait for an opportunity to buy more salt.  (I used all my salt for curing my black olives.)

Tomorrow I plan to transfer the olives to a brine in small jars using Sarah's curing method.  I've done a lot of research, and her formula seems the best for my purpposes.  However, I'm not interested in having spicy olives, so at least for the time being, I'm going to stick to just salt and vinegar.  Stay tuned!

Homemade "Mayonnaise" with Dill and Onion on Whole Fish

I've mentioned my technique for making a sauce for fish from mayonnaise.  I thought it was time to demonstrate. 



Traditional mayonnaise would include whipping a pasteurized egg yolk into an emulsion, adding a couple drops of vinegar (or acid of your choice), then VERY slowly at first adding an entire cup of oil.  You can do this with a whip attachment on a hand blander or food processor.

Challah for Healing

This post is part of a three part installment focusing on Challah - traditional Jewish egg bread.  This post will focus on baking and "taking" challah as a time to ask G-d for blessings and special requests.  This series is in the merit of a complete and speedy recovery for my dear friend Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana (Norma Kuras).  See adjacent posts for some challah basics and shaping techniques.

There is never a bad time to ask G-d for help; however, when women take part in the three mitzvoth (commandments/good deeds) specifically given to women, it is considered a particularly auspicious time to ask for things.  The three mitvot are: lighting Sabbath candles, managing family purity, and separating challah.  In the merit of a complete recovery for my friend, I am instigating a mass challah baking.  We want to get at least 40 women to bake Challah this coming week (in your own homes) before next Shabbat (Friday night, November 5.)
There are three ways to sign up:
1.Comment on this post with some form of your real name and your commitment to bake.
2. Join our Facebook event and mark yourself “attending”, or
3. E-mail me at nonrecipe@gmail.com.  If you want a reminder next Thursday, e-mail me.  (You can also use this e-mail address to send me pictures of you and your kids baking challah or doing another mitzvah in for Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana's recovery.  I'd like to collect as many as possible.  I think it will bring some cheer to Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana and her family.)

*Please specify if you can commit to taking challah with a blessing next week, if you are just baking challah in honor of Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana’s recovery, or if you would like to take on another mitzvah in the merit of her recovery (such as lighting candles before sundown Friday night or giving to charity.)  I hope the public display of your commitment will encourage others.

Below is an example of how to separate challah with a blessing by Hannah of Cooking Manager and A Mother in Israel.


Here are instructions on the formal way to take challah when you are asking for the healing a sick person, from my good friend Leor:

"1) Make the dough (it needs to have at least 10 cups of flour, so if one recipe of challah dough isn't enough, just make two batches and put all the dough together before the next step)

2) Take off a handful and make the bracha:

Baruch Ata Ado-nai Eloheinu Melech Haolam Asher K'deshanu B'mitzvosav V'tzivanu lehafrish challah (min ha'isa).

3) Set the dough aside in tinfoil.

4) Immediately afterward is when you should add any extra tefillos that you have, so in this case the yehi ratzon for a sick person.  (It's the same yehi ratzon that's in the siddur at shemone esrei, in refa'ainu, that you can add for a specific sick person.)  


Here's a transliteration: Yehi Ratzon Mil'fanecha Ado-nai Elo-hai V'elo-hai Avosai Shetishlach Mehaira Refuah Shelaimah Min Hashamayim, Refuas Hanefesh Urefuas Haguf Lacholah Nechama Gittel Chaya bas Chana Besoch Shaar Cholei Yisrael.  (Substitute the Lacholeh for Lacholah if the sick person is a male.)

And in Hebrew:
יהי רצון מלפניך ד' אלקי ואלקי אבותי שתשלח מהרה רפואה שלמה מן השמים, רפואת הנפש ורפואת הגוף לחולה_______ בתוך שאר חולי ישראל.


5) Burn the dough.  (You can burn it in the oven, but you can't have this dough in the oven at the same time as your challahs.  You can burn it before or after you bake the challahs.  Or, you can burn it on the stove, with a blowtorch, etc.)"


Thanks Leor!  

FYI: The amounts of flour that require a blessing are based on weight.  According to Spice and Spirit, you need between 13-15 cups of "sifted" flour (1666.6 g or 3 lb. 11 oz.).  Additionally, the authors write that you say the blessing BEFORE separating the challah.  Hannah says, besides burning the dough, you can set it aside until it is no longer edible.  In Pittsburgh I learned to stick it in the freezer in paper towel until Passover, and then burn it with all the other chumetz.  But that community did a community challah burning, so a cold mass of challah dough was no match for the bonfire.  Some people might not like the idea of having challah dough in the house after they have otherwise cleaned for Passover.  The attached printable challah recipe is well tested and makes enough dough to make the blessing (as well as enough loafs and cake for a small family all Shabbat). 

For more on baking challah, see the next post: Challah Basics. 

Update:  Thank you everyone who participated!  We got an excellent response with people baking, learning, and saying tehillim (psalms) in the merit of Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana's recovery.  Please continue to keep her in your prayers. 
I baked soft pretzels, Leor in Silver Spring, MD made 4-braid challah loafs, and Jennifer in Coral Springs, FL made these beautiful loafs:

Read Hannah's post for more about Nechama Gittel Chaya bat Chana.  Refuah Shelaima!

Pomegranate PLUS Salad Recipe

Pomegranates have recently become some of the most affordable produce in Israel.  My kids love them (I love them when the kids aren't spilling them) and they have many health benefits.  Inside you will find many juice filled sacs with tiny seeds in the middle which some people eat and some prefer to spit out like watermelon seeds.  These are called arils and according to Jewish tradition, a pomegranate (rimon in Hebrew) has 613 arils, the same number as the number of Mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah.  Below are pictures of local pomegranate trees from May and August.

We like to throw bunches of arils in our mouths and eat them like candy, seed and all.  Both my 4 and 5.5 year old love them.  You can also put them in yogurt, breakfast cereal, ice cream, or salads (see below); or make juice or syrup from them.
Here is a picture of a lady juicing pomegranates in our outdoor city market.

Below are pictures and video showing how to get the arils out.  I'm no expert, but this is the basic technique:
Cut off crown, score sides, break open. Gently rub off arils in a bowl of water. Use your hands to rub arils underwater and remove all the white membrane from the water. Drain.

 

This video is in honor of my mother, whom I love (and who butchered a pomegranate at my home last month).  After making this video, I learned another innovation from my friend Hannah.  It involves "drilling" into the top at an angle like you might with a tomato.  You can see a video of it in her post on Cooking Manager or  the demonstration in this YouTube video.

I recently tasted a delicious salad that my Israeli friend, Tzippy, made.  The base was baby greens chopped fine like you would herbs, plus chopped red onion, apple, and pomegranate arils.  She said you can add whatever fruit you like, like strawberries.  It was lightly dressed with olive oil, a little apple juice, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper (optional).  Below is a picture of a similar salad I made when I had guests.