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.

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.

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.