Monday, September 29, 2014

A Break-the-Fast Feast

Recipes to fill your Yom Kippur buffet, including bagels and spreads, kugel, and blintzes, plus egg dishes and sweet options


From epicurious.com

YK Break the FastYom Kippur is a fasting holiday and Jewish law prohibits any work until the end of the day, which makes for a rather unique culinary challenge: What can a hungry person do when cooking isn't allowed? In America, it's customary to break the fast with a comforting, easy-on-the-stomach meal featuring dishes that can be prepared ahead and either reheated or eaten at room temperature. While there are no rules about what can and cannot be consumed, it's common to serve dairy-focused dishes—rather than meat-based ones—because many people find them easier for empty bellies to digest. A typical spread includes bagels with smoked fish and cream cheese, baked casserole-style dishes like strata and kugel, blintzes, and assorted cookies and cakes. We recommend preparing a few different options, and we've gathered tons of classic and creative recipes to help you plan the ultimate post-fast feast. So, browse our picks for bagel toppings, egg dishes, kugel, blintzes, and sweet treats. And don't forget the bagels!

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For more great Jewish cooking ideas, check out our    page.  While you're at it, check out our High Holidays Holiday Spotlight Kit for ideas, crafts, recipes, etc. 

Monday, September 22, 2014

Have a Martha Stewart Rosh Hashanah

17 recipes to "shofar in" the New Year


Pear Honey CakeHave a sweet and prosperous new year with our collection of recipes for Rosh Hashanah. You'll find traditional Jewish holiday favorites including honey cake, brisket, roast chicken, matzo ball soup, tzimmes, sweet roasted carrots, and noodle kugel.

Honey cake is an iconic dessert for the Jewish New Year. This is a particularly luscious version, topped with caramelized pear slices.


Red Wine Braised Beef BrisketThis succulent beef brisket is braised in red wine until tender; the meat is generously flavored with shallots and garlic to produce a savory sauce. This easy recipe serves 6, just the right amount for a small- to medium-size holiday dinner.




Check out Jvillage’s High Holiday+    page.  While you're at it, check out our High Holiday Holidays Kit with many more ideas and suggestions for the New Year.


Monday, September 15, 2014

Yotam Ottolenghi's Middle Eastern–Inspired Rosh Hashanah Dinner Menu

Celebrate the Jewish New Year with vibrant new flavors in recipes from chef and best-selling cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi


by Esther Sung for epicurious.com

Rosh Hashanah Dinner MenuTraditional High Holy Days dishes such as brisket, tzimmes, and kugel may rightfully have their place at the Rosh Hashanah table, but if you're adventurous and looking to serve something different, what better time to do so than at a celebration of the start of a new year? We turned to London chef and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi for Rosh Hashanah inspiration, with a menu featuring recipes from all three of his cookbooks, Ottolenghi, Plenty, and Jerusalem. Ottolenghi's refreshing and unpretentious approach to Middle Eastern cuisine suggests new ways of cooking symbolic and traditional foods and ingredients: You'll find honey, apples, fish, and pomegranates all in play. Add a myriad of spices, herbs, and other Middle Eastern staples—couscous, harissa, eggplant, dried rose petals—and what you get is an intensely aromatic and flavorful meal with which to begin your new year.

Growing up in Israel, Ottolenghi notes, "[my family] didn't really celebrate Rosh Hashanah at home, although I was aware of the food traditions associated with this holiday. Apples dipped in honey is all I can remember."

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Monday, September 8, 2014

Seitan Brisket for The Vegan New Year

A wonderful vegetarian equivalent to the traditional meal dish.


By Leah Koenig on MyJewishLearning.com
Seitan BrisketLike many Ashkenazic Jews, I grew up believing that my mother made the best brisket in the world. Fragrant, savory, and unbelievably tender, it was the stuff of holidays, of memories--of sneaking back to the fridge at midnight, long after the guests had gone home. When I decided to become a vegetarian at age 17, I did so with the acute and sorrowful understanding that I was saying goodbye to one of my favorite dishes.

Brisket was such a sacred food, that I never even considered trying to recreate it for my meat-free lifestyle ... until a friend mentioned that he was trying to "perfect his vegetarian brisket." Intrigued, I began fiddling with my own version, combining the recipe I found in The Passionate Vegetarian with the tastes I recall from childhood. While the resulting dish is by no means an exact replica of my mother's, it definitely holds it own on the Rosh Hashanah table or at a Purim feast.

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Monday, September 1, 2014

Riso del Sabato

Sabbath rice


By Joyce Goldstein for MyJewishLearning.com

Riso del SabatoThe classic Italian Jewish Friday night rice dish is a simple saffron--flavored rice that recalls the classic risotto alla milanese. Some cooks make it in the manner of a risotto, adding broth in increments. Others prepare it as a pilaf, adding all the liquid at once and cooking it, covered, on top of the stove.

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