Drash on the Leevees

I LOVE this. Rabbi Yonah at Blog Shul completes his Midrash on the LeeVees album.

My son has been listening to the LeeVees Hanukkah Rocks album nonstop for the last two weeks. What can I say, it beats most any Hanukkah album every made, and 99.4% of all Christmas songs as well.

Best Recipe: Parve Mashed Potatoes

Now if you are like me, and I hope you are, you are a huge fan of mashed potatoes. I adore mashed potatoes.

The sad thing is ever since I have gone over to kosher, I rarely get my fill of mashed potatoes. Although Taboun Grill has delicious kosher meat dishes, their mashed potatoes are merely OK. I'm just not sure that the middle-eastern cooks really "get" the creamy goodness of mashed potatoes. Plus, there is no gravy.

I have been known to order mashed potatoes as a side dish with fish (yes, I eat fish and vegetarian when I go out), but still there's nothing like a big plate of roast chicken with mashed potatoes.

So this past Thanksgiving I was assigned to make kosher mashed potatoes for my large extended family. Of course only my mother-in-law and I care about kosher parve, but luckily she was in charge and was making all kosher turkeys! Yay!

First step was to invest in a potato ricer. My sister got one of these years ago, and has raved about it. I HATE to buy one-use gadgets, but every now then you gotta go for it. So I got the Oxo Good Grips Potato Ricer.

Then, I grabbed a 10# sack of russet potatoes. (Don't get me started on those waxy Yukon Golds.) I needed potatoes for 19 people, so I think I peeled about 8 pounds of potatoes. Probably 10-12 medium-large Russets. Not the huge-mo baking potatoes; the more modest bagged Russets.

Next, I got a stock pot of water going. I cut the larger potatoes in half, put the smaller ones in whole, added a couple good spoonfuls of salt, brought the water to a boil, and reduced it to simmer, cooking the tatties for about 1/2 hour until they were nice and soft.

Using a slotted spoon, I pulled the potatoes out and one at a time, put them through the ricer. This took all of 5-10 minutes and the texture was perfect.

Now here's the secret to parve mashed potatoes: TOFUTTI SOUR SUPREME. I added about 2/3 c Tofutti Sour Supreme, and 6-8 T of Smart Balance tub maragine, along with salt and white pepper to taste. (You can use black pepper, but I like white pepper for white mashed potatoes.) To make the potatoes a little looser, I added small amounts of the water you boiled the potatoes in - I started with a couple tablespoons and kept going until they were the texture I wanted. I probably used about 1/2 c of the reserved boiling water. This is instead of the milk that is typically used for dairy mashed potatoes, or stock for meaty dishes.

I received many rave reviews, from people who had no idea they weren't the typically creamy dairy potatoes.

Here is the formal recipe, sized down for a medium-sized family dinner. I like big portions, so if you want extra, size up. Keep in mind that the recommended amounts of sour cream and margarine are just personal preferences. Feel free to adjust as you see fit.

CREAMY PARVE MASHED POTATOES
8 servings

3 pounds of Russet potatoes
1/4 c Tofutti sour supreme
2-4 T Parve margarine (I prefer Smart Balance)
Salt
White pepper
Reserved cooking water from the potatoes

Peel the potatoes and put into a large pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

Remove the potatoes from the water; do not throw out the water. Reserve at least 1 cup!

Put the potatoes through a ricer, or mash with a fork or masher. Fold in the sour supreme and the margarine. Add small amounts of water about 2 T at a time to get the desired smoothness.

Serve hot with kosher gravy.

Recipe: Kosher Beef Barley Mushroom Stew

Here is a great winter meal -- all in one pot. The key to the recipe is making sure the beef is tender. Sometimes stew meat cooks quickly; sometimes it takes a bit longer. Figure a minimum of 2 hours total cooking time.

Ingredients
2-4 T olive oil
2 lbs beef stew meat (chuck, shoulder)
1/4 lbs beef fry (cured beef bacon), chopped
1 med onion, chopped
1 small celery rib, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic chopped
1 large can of tomato sauce (28 oz)
2 c broth (chicken, beef, or vegetable) or other liquid (water, red wine)
1/2 t each of dried thyme, rosemary and oregano
1 bay leaf
salt and black pepper to taste

3/4 c pearl barley
4 med red potatoes, chopped into cubes
8 oz mushrooms, quartered

1 c. frozen peas and/or green beans
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley

Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven or stock pot over a med-hi flame. Add half the beef cubes and brown on all sides. Remove from pot and add the other beef cubes. It will take about 5-10 minutes to each batch to brown.

Remove the beef cubes. Turn the flame down to med-low. Add the chopped beef fry and cook about 5 min until the beef is crispy. Add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic and saute until softened, about 5 min.

Add the beef back to the pot, along with the tomatoes and broth, herbs and pepper. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for one hour.

After an hour, add the barley, potatoes and mushrooms. Cover and cook for 45 minutes.

At the end of the 45 minutes, test the beef to be sure it is tender. It should be easy to chew and soft. If it is not, continue cooking, checking every 10 min. When the beef is tender, add the frozen beans and peas and the chopped parsley. Cook for another 10 minutes. Salt again to taste.

Serve with crusty (parve) bread.

Big Fun Mah-Jongg Sunday

While many Chicagoans were basking in the glow of a Bears playoff victory, I was feeling the true joy of having played 4+ hours of mah-jongg yesterday.

Some friends accosted me on my way to minyan after dropping my son at his Hebrew class. Given the choice between minyan with the altekockers and mah-jongg, I made a choice to pray another day. And God seemed like he was going to withhold victory, as I had bad hand after bad hand. But then at the end, I played and won a closed hand. Oh bliss, oh rapture!

Then, my regular mah-jongg group convened at 7:30 last night, and I had no compunction about going out in semi-blizzard conditions and icy roads. Again with the bad hands most of the night, but, then, joy of joys, I managed to win on a closed hand.

Wow, two closed hand victories in one day. True big fun.

Make All Happiness Joy: MAHJ!

I started playing mahjong about 9 months ago. I was pulled into the game by some friends (well, at that point they were acquaintances) at my synagogue. After a few lessons, I was off and running.

I know I really like a game when after I play it, I think about it, dream about it (literally, at night, dreams), and want to learn everything there is to know about it. That was me with mahjong. I couldn't wait to play the next time, and since that day, I think I've played almost every week.

I couldn't wait to tell my mother, who had a regular afternoon mahjong game when I was a youngster. I can remember the ladies mixing the tiles and calling out "crack...bam...dragon." But I never learned the game, and eventually she stopped playing. Bless her heart, we recovered two old sets, one of which belonged to my grandmother. I use it now, and it's wonderful to play with.

Mahjong American Style is a tricky game -- there is a lot of luck involved, and a decent amount of skill in choosing a hand, and it can be painful and beautiful. Even today on my Shabbat afternoon game, I went for a pairs hand that was a long shot. But it looked so pretty on my rack, I had to go for it.

A great part of the fun has been a newfound camaraderie with my mahjong ladies. Yes, I have turned into my mother! It's been a long time since I have had close girlfriends. As a work-at-home (not stay-at-home) mom, I've been out of regular social circles for a long time. And here I found a group of women who have been a lifeline for me; people I can call for advice, talk about our kids, our husbands, gossip, schmooze, laugh, and cry when our hands go dead.

I'll probably have a lot more entries on mahjong. Along the lines of "mahjong, it is so like life..." Gack!

Bad pundits...bad, bad pundits

This great article on how well the pundits who were WRONG about Iraq are doing; by comparison those who were RIGHT are still struggling on the outskirts of mainstream media outlets.

Can't we fire pundits? I'm so weary of these bobbleheaded babblers who are paid millions of dollars to discuss their empty useless hypotheses.

Half Birthday Cake

Made a 1/2 layer peanut butter with choco frosting 1/2 cake for my dear son's 7.5 birthday today.

It was a doctored white cake-mix with about 3/4 cup peanut butter added, a bit of extra vanilla and a reduced amount of oil. The cakes really rose up in the pan, so I probably could have cut the eggs.

The frosting was a 1/2 cup of melted chocolate chips, a few tablespoons of cream and 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, a dash of vanilla, with the added bonus of a cloud of powdered sugar that blew all over my kitchen when I picked up the handmixer.

Not my best effort, but the happy smile I got from the kid made it all worth while.

Love the Reese's Big Cup

You can keep your regular Reese's, your minis, even your Easter Egg and pumpkin incarnations. (Lalalala, I pay no attention to white chocolate and Nutrageous options.) Don't even bring me the fancy Long Grove Confectionary giant p.b cups, as enticing as they may seem. Sometimes the best quality chocolate and the creamiest richest peanut butter filling is just overkill. (Not to mention $3.00 each.)

Keep all those tasty but inadequate peanut butter chocolate candies, and serve me up a delicious Reese's Big Cup! It's got a thick slab of that tasty peanut butter filling, enrobed with just the right amount of creamy Hershey's chocolate. The downside? Only one per package. But at the tasty price of 79¢ (look for the BOGOs at your local grocery store), it's a bargain.

I should add that I have no objections to mini Reese's when used to make this delicious treat.

Parve Duncan Hines on the Jewel shelves

Yes, it was announced back in October 2006 that Duncan Hines, which had previously reformulated their parve cake mixes to dairy, were going back to parve. Ever since that announcement, I've scanned the boxes every couple weeks to see if the new parve products were out.

But tonight in my local Jewel in Skokie, I saw that the DH Deluxe Classic Yellow was marked parve. All the other mixes were still marked kosher dairy. I'm not a huge fan of cake mixes, but they are nice to have in the house in a pinch. And kosher parve is just that much better, as I can't imagine what dairy would be in a cake mix that would make any difference to the flavor or texture of the finished product.

As long as I talking about my local Jewel, they just switched their entire store around. It's still taking me 10-15 minutes longer to shop. But they have added a much bigger kosher food section. It does not yet rival the Howard Jewel in Evanston, but it is expanded signficantly. If only they had more kosher meat options. Trader Joes has a better selection of fresh kosher meat than the Skokie Jewel. Hint, hint.

Caution: Brain in Training

After reading "My 4-Week Quest: Be Smarter" in Wired 15.01, I succumbed to the siren call of My Brain Trainer. It is strangely addictive. I don't quite know my brain age, and one of the things I'm getting smarter about is knowing that my spatial visual memory is pretty bad.

I am doing well training myself to remember long sequences of letters, and then recognizing whether this is a match in the next sequence of letters. But doing that same thing with black and white shapes - very hard.

I'm hoping to become a Brain Master some day. Don't ask.

What is with kosher restaurants?

As a preface, It's no secret to my close family and friends that I took a giant leap into kosher eating and cooking about 6 months ago. Even though I had not cooked traif (pork, shellfish, etc.) for several years in my house, I still ate it out, and even would carry it in. I always felt funny about keeping any kind of kosher, because it seems so hard to right and fully. And if you're going to do it, can you do some of it, but not all?

After a lot of encouragement from my clergy and kosher friends, I gave up on cooking with milk and any kind of meat, so now we have either dairy meals or meat meals. I buy only kosher meat. I eat fish or vegetarian dairy when we go out. (Although I've been known to slip "off the wagon" and eat non-kosher meat. So sue me.)

This has led me to explore of the great world of kosher dining. I personally don't care for kosher dairy restaurants, as I will eat vegetarian out, but we have friends who prefer to eat kosher when they go out, so we go too. Suffice to say, we have been less than thrilled with the kosher dining options we have, and we have a good number to choose from.

The problem is Captive Audience syndrome. Kosher places know that they will always have a certain number of customers who have to eat kosher. Does this inspire them to serve the best possible food to this group in the most pleasant and helpful way? No, not really. The food at most kosher restaurants is mediocre, at best, and the service is just slightly worse. Put that on top of paying for kosher, which is always a little more (to a lot more) money than an equivalent non kosher place. But the mediocre places pack 'em in, so maybe I'm the idiot!

The one exception we've found is Taboun Grill, located on California near Devon in Chicago. The service is good, the food is delicious, and not outrageously priced, either. So that's a keeper.