Tu B'Shevat Bars

Chag Sameach! Happy Tu B'Shevat.

One of my traditions every year for Tu B'Shevat (the new year of the trees) is making Tu B'Shevat Bars. This recipe contains fruits from all three 'species': hard outer shell (orange, nuts), hard inner pit (dates), and entirely edible (carob, raisins, figs). The recipe uses fruits primarily found in Israel.

I do warn you, however...these bars are addictive.

Tu B'Shevat Bars

1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped figs
1/3 cup orange juice
zest of 1 orange
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 Tbs. vanilla extract
1/2 cup carob powder
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground clove
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

In a small bowl, combine the raisins, dates, figs, orange juice, and orange zest. Set this aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, oil, and sugar on a medium speed with an electric mixer. Add the honey slowly while continuing to beat on a medium speed. Beat in vanilla and carob powder until creamy. Stir in flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until well mixed. Stir in nuts and fruit mixture by hand.

Spoon into a well-greased and floured 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees F 30 to 35 degrees or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool completely and cut into bars. Yields about 40 bars.

Note: this recipe contains honey, which means that it will overbake if not watched carefully. Check the bars after 25 minutes, and then check every 4-5 minutes after that.

Roasted Sweet Potato Burritos with Homemade Tortillas

Here is another off-the-cuff recipe that came to me in a moment of inspiration. The homemade tortillas would probably have come out better if I had a tortilladora (tortilla press), but I was able to roll out the tortillas between two sheets of parchment paper nonetheless. As it is, the rough edges of the tortillas give them a more nouvelle cuisine appeal.

SWEET POTATO FILLING
1 large sweet potato
1 16-oz can tomato sauce
1 cup granulated textured vegetable protein (TVP)
1 Tbs ketchup
2 green onions, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
2-3 Tbs canola oil
1 Tbs chili powder
1/4 cup prepared picante (preferably Pace)

Peel the sweet potato and cut it into 1/2 inch-size squares. Coat the sweet potato with 1 Tbs canola oil and place under a broiler for 5-10 minutes, flipping the potatoes every 3-5 minutes until they are tender and browned.

Mix the ketchup with 7/8 cup hot water and add TVP. Mix until TVP is completely rehydrated.

Saute the green onion and bell pepper in 1-2 Tbs oil until lightly browned. Add tomato sauce and stir. Add picante sauce and chili powder and cook sauce for 5 more minutes. Mix in rehydrated TVP and sweet potato.

HOMEMADE TORTILLAS
2 cups masa flour
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together flour, salt, and water to make a soft dough. Knead dough for about 2 minutes. Divide dough into 16 equal parts. Keep covered with damp cloth to keep dough moist. Line a tortilla press with two sheets of thick plastic wrap. Place each ball between plastic and press until tortilla measures 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Alternatively, you can roll out the ball between two sheets of parchment paper, although this is a lot trickier.

Preheat ungreased skillet. Cook tortillas one at a time for 50 seconds or until just barely brown. Turn, then cook the other side for another 50 seconds. Cover tortillas with cloth napkin to keep soft and warm.

Spoon about 1/4 to 1/2 cup sweet potato filling along a line just off the meridian of the tortilla. Wrap the tortilla around the filling and serve.

Peanut Butter Matzah Crunch

Well, we're rounding the curve on Pesach. Tonight was the sixth night. This means that we've used up the last of the Streitz's Passover coffee cakes and my family is clamoring for something new for breakfast. Even if we had another coffee cake, I don't think anyone could stomach another piece of almost-streusel topping.

My trick with the kosher for Passover coffee cakes is to mix a banana into the batter. This makes the coffee cake extra moist and it adds some nutritional value to...well...a breakfast of non-vitamin enriched simple carbs. But, now what do I do?

I came up with a new recipe tonight. I like it, but I'll test it on the kids in the morning. I call it Peanut Butter Matzah Crunch because that's about as descriptive a name as I can come up with. It can serve as breakfast or late-day snack. And frankly, it's no worse for you than the coffee cakes. It's got peanut butter and honey. What could be bad? I thought about adding flax seeds to the recipe, but I figured I'd give my family a break.

The nice thing about this recipe is that as it cools, the caramelized honey coating makes the matzah crispy. I haven't tested the recipe with milk, however, to see if the coating keeps the matzah crispy when wet.

"Crispy when wet" is not a phrase I ever thought I'd use on a blog. But I digress...

PEANUT BUTTER MATZAH CRUNCH

3 cups matzah farfel
2 Tbs. canola oil (or other pesadic cooking oil)
2 Tbs. peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cocoa powder


Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a 2-quart saucepan combine oil, honey, peanut butter, and salt. Simmer, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add to the farfel. Stir until the farfel is coated evenly. Spread onto a non-stick cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, stirring frequently (every 3-4 minutes) to prevent burning. Remove and cool. Break up any large chunks with a spatula. Store in an air-tight container.

Veggie Breadsticks

I get tired of listening to my children negotiate, stall, or whine whenever their dinner consists of one or more vegetables not on their favorites list. You'd think I was raising a family of carnivores (and not vegetarians) the way they pick at their peas. So, I am happy to report that I have found a new way to disguise...uh, I mean incorporate...vegetables in a "snack food." I present to you my recipe for veggie breadsticks.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be made with any vegetables on hand. I would also recommend substituting tomato paste for some of the liquid. But please do add the ground flax seed. What better way is there to get your omega 3 fatty acids, not to mention fiber, manganese, magnesium, and folate?

And by the way, Micah ate three of them tonight. On his own. Without negotiating, stalling, or whining.

VEGGIE BREADSTICKS

1 package active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

2 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1 small carrot

1/2 cup packed volume of frozen spinach (thawed and water squeezed out)

1/4 tsp. oregano

1/4 tsp. basil

2 Tbs. ground flax seed

garlic salt

Grind the spinach, carrot, and spices in a food processor until they form a thick paste. In a large bowl, combine the veggies, yeast, warm water, and 1 1/2 cups of the flour. Mix well to blend. Add oil, salt, and remaining flour and stir until the dough sticks together.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Dust your hands with flour and knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about five minutes. If the dough gets sticky, sprinkle it with a little flour. If the dough gets too dry, sprinkle water 1 tsp. at a time and knead in.

Roll the dough in a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a dishtowel and set in a warm but not hot place to rise until doubled in volume, 30 minutes to an hour. Preheat the oven to 450 deg. F.

Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal. When the dough has risen, punch it down, knead it a couple more times, and roll it out with a rolling pin onto a baking sheet until it forms a large rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes.

Using a knife or other sharp edge, cut the dough into strips 1 inch wide by pressing straight down on the dough with the edge. Spray the breadsticks lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle them with garlic salt. Bake in the center of the oven for about 10 minutes.

The recipe makes 8-10 breadsticks.

Mango Hamantaschen

Chag Sameach! Happy Purim!

I'm participating in a Biggest Loser contest at work (losing weight, of course), and our weigh-in day is Friday morning. Let me tell you, it's just not fair having Purim the night before a weigh-in day. But I was good. I had only two hamantaschen all day and I didn't inbibe in any alcohol.

But I've weighed in now...and the weekend starts tonight...so I'm extending my Purim celebration until Saturday night. I'm sure there must be a responsa out there for extending Purim through the weekend if it comes mid-week before a weigh-in day. There must be. I'm seeing single malt scotch in my future.

Last weekend I catered a lunch at our synagogue. It was a "fiesta" theme, which basically meant Latin American food from Mexico and Venezuela. As part of the dessert, I baked two kinds of tropical, parve hamantaschen: mango and pineapple. The pineapple filling was simply pineapple preserves from a jar, but the mango filling was rather inspired. The recipe is below:

Mango Hamantaschen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 eggs, beaten
2 Tbs orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup butter
Mango filling

Mango filling:
3 ripe mangoes (each about 3/4 pound)
1 Tbs fresh lime juice
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp corn starch mixed with 2 tsp water

Peel and cut flesh from mangoes, discarding pits. In a blender or food processor purée mango with the lime juice and 2 Tbs sugar until smooth. Heat sauce over a low to medium flame, stirring constantly. Add the corn starch and cook until it thickens to your desired consistency. This recipe makes a lot of filling, but you can always freeze the extra.

Sift or mix well the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, margarine, juice, and vanilla extract.
Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour and cover.
Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.
Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into circles with a 2 ½-inch round cookie cutter.
Put ¾ tsp of filling in the center of the circle. Shape into triangles using a standard hamantaschen fold.
Preheat oven to 325ºF. Bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Cook on a rack.

The Best Jewish Holiday You Never Heard Of

Now that we are many weeks past the hoopla of St. Valentines Day, I have a confession to make. I don't particularly like this holiday. Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the idea of a holiday that celebrates love and friendship. I LIKE placing a dot on the calendar to remind you to appreciate what and who you have. And I can pretty much put up with the crass commercialism and institutionalized guilt inherent in the season ("If you truly loved your wife, you'd forget about retirement, take out a loan, and buy her a diamond.").

No, I have other issues.

First of all, my tolerance for pink is pretty low.

Second of all, a holiday that once focused on love and relationships, has become an excuse to force kids to send each other cards with Charms Blowpops or Pixie Stix attached. What truly is the purpose of this?

And third of all, this is, and should be, a Catholic holiday. The history of the holiday is lengthy and fascinating, and the well-known legend of the St. Valentine who left the famous missive, "from your Valentine," before being executed by the Roman Emperor Claudius II, adds a certain amount of color to a holiday now known for hearts, flowers, and chocolate.

So, why is it that so many Jews also celebrate this holiday? Does this holiday fill a void not addressed by our own celebrations? Do we yearn for our own day of love? Is there NO holiday in the Jewish calendar that could be called the Jewish Valentine's Day?

It turns out that there is such a holiday. It's called Tu B'Av (15th of the Month of Av). How is it, that such a wonderful holiday could all but disappear from our calendar? Why did no one tell me about this? In Israel, the holiday has been getting a commercial rebirth. But outside of Israel...bupkes.

Tu B'Av comes in the middle of the summer, and in 2008, it will come on Saturday, August 16 (starting the evening before on Friday). Tu B'Av is known as the happiest day of the year. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted in the Mishnah as saying, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)…"( Taanit, Chapter 4).

You heard me right. Tu B'Av has all the power of Yom Kippur, but instead of not eating all day, you wear a white dress and go dancing. Wow.

Basically, six days after Tisha B'Av, the Jewish celebration of everything-going-wrong-all-in-one-day, we get Tu B'Av, a holiday that actually celebrates a bunch of GOOD things. For example:

• When the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years, female orphans without brothers could only marry within their tribe, to prevent their father's inherited land from passing to other tribes. However on Tu B'Av, they could marry whomever they wanted. And many went for the studs from the tribe of Naphtali.
  
• The Tribe of Benjamin was allowed to intermarry with the other tribes on Tu B'Av, which generally wasn't done because of nasty civil war between the tribes.


• Tu B'Av signifies the ATONEMENT for the sin of the Spies...you know, that horrible sin responsible for the 40 years of wandering in the desert. Ten advance scouts came back bearing such negative reports that it reduced the entire nation to mass panic. As a result of the sin of Not Showing Good Decorum, it was decreed by God that the nation would remain in the desert for 40 years, and that no person 20 or older would be allowed to enter Israel. On Tu B'Av, we celebrate the commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Trust Anyone Over 20."

It goes on like that. On Tu B'Av, by the glow of a full summer moon, young women, robed in white, would go out and dance in the fields outside the walls of Jerusalem. The men would follow in the hopes of finding a bride. Holidays just don't come any better than that. I couldn't MAKE UP a holiday this classy.

So, why did it disappear outside of Israel? I don't know, and I don't care. All that matters is that we bring it back. Now. With a vengeance.

Gentleman...it's up to us. This August 16th, treat your bashert with chocolate and flowers and buy her a nice white dress (although you might want to wait on the chocolate if she's wearing the white dress). Do it up right. We don't NEED Valentine's Day. We've got our OWN day.

To get the holiday started off properly, you can make her Dark Chocolate Raspberry Scones. Trust me, nothing says romance like chocolate AND raspberries. If you bring her breakfast in bed with these scones, you are pretty well golden for the rest of the season.

Here's the recipe:

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

6 Tbs. unsalted butter, chilled

1/2 cup milk

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 oz. semisweet baking chocolate

1/2 cup frozen raspberriess

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

In a larger bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes and distribute them over the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, stir together the milk, egg, and vanilla. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Chop the baking chocolate into small chunks, and stir into the dough. In a blender or food processor, chop up the still-frozen raspberries and fold them into the dough.

Using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet leaving about 2-3 inches between scones. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

And Then it was Thanksgiving

I did have great intentions of writing our family newsletter, the Yearly T'ruah, back in September. I was all set to go...but then I had to go and break my left pinky finger. Technically, I could still type. But when you spend 9-10 hours of your day furiously typing reports at work with your left hand in splint, you lose all enthusiasm for cranking out a typed newsletter once you get home.

So, now that my hand is no longer splinted, and my pinky is healing nicely, I have grand intentions of getting The T'ruah out before Chanukah. Of course, calling it the T'ruah doesn't make much sense anymore...but that's the way the oil burns.

But now it is Thanksgiving. Well, okay, now it is a couple of days AFTER Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law hosted the family dinner this year, taking over the tradition long held by my parents-in-law. My sister-in-law was excited about taking on the responsibility, and my in-laws were ECSTATIC about dumping it on her.

Of course, we followed my in-laws other family tradition and split up the cooking so that no one person was saddled with feeding an army.

One of my contributions was the vegetarian stuffing. Many years ago, I convinced my father-in-law that homemade stuffing was MUCH better than Pepperidge Farm's stuffing, so now I get to make it every year. Of course, I make a vegetarian stuffing which is served separately in a pan. Besides, even for those omnivores who insist on eating turkey and other animal flesh for Thanksgiving, it is much safer to eat the stuffing separately as many food studies have shown.

So, here is my recipe for Vegetarian Thanksgiving Stuffing:

1 pan cornbread
7 slices oven-dried white (or whole wheat) bread
2 cups celery
1 cup onion
1 tsp. sage
1 Tbs. poultry seasoning (or similar spice mixture)
5-7 cups vegetarian broth
4-8 Tbs. butter, melted
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Saute celery and onion in a little oil.

In a bowl, crumble together cornbread and oven dried bread. Add sauteed vegetables and spices, and mix together. Pour in broth and butter. Bake in greased pan for 30-45 minutes.

Blue-Yellow Swirled Cornbread

I finally have a new job (details to come in a later post), so I felt like celebrating tonight. However, Omri and Shirah were too tired to go out to eat, and we were out of any alcoholic beverage. Not much of a celebration. So, I had to settle with making a nice comfort food dinner of corn bread, black-eyed peas, and fried okra. I even got creative with the corn bread and used both yellow and blue cornmeal. I made up two separate batches and swirled them together. I recommend you try it. It's not much more work than a single batch, and it makes a unique and visually arresting cornbread. And the world definitely needs more visually arresting...cornbread.

Note: I'm not including the recipe since the cannister of cornmeal has a cornbread recipe on the side. However, I add 2 Tbs of ground flax seed to boost the omega-3 fatty acids.

Yes, folks, there you have it. Visually arresting cornbread with omega-3 fatty acids. I think we're no longer talking "comfort food".

Root and Tuber Kugel

Last weekend I catered a lunch for the Sisterhood Shabbat at our synagogue. We had a nice bagel lunch with cheese platter, hummus, cream cheese, green salad, kugels, and dessert. No one seemed to notice that we didn't have lox with the bagels and cream cheese. That, of course, was no accident. It was all part of my diabolical "vegetarian agenda" to convert the masses. Just you wait, I'll make vegetarians out of them yet.

I received rave reviews for a kugel recipe I invented. I call it the Root and Tuber Kugel because it has both roots (carrots and sweet potatoes) and tubers (white potatoes). Besides, it just so darn fun to say "Root 'n Tuber Kugel."

Ingredients:
3 large Idaho potatoes
1 large sweet potato
3 large carrots
1 medium onion, diced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt
fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup potato starch
3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Grate potatoes and carrots using the fine (smallest holes) disc in the food processor.
Squeeze out liquid and place in a large mixing bowl.
Stir in eggs, 5 tbsp. oil, salt, pepper and onions.
Sprinkle starch on top.
Pour boiling water over starch and stir thoroughly.
Coat a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray and carefully pour mixture into pan.
Bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, reduce heat to 400 degrees and bake for 40 minutes or until the top is a deep golden brown.

Spanikopita Pie

Pies are tricky things. My mother-in-law makes some of the best pies I've ever tasted, and I make a point of watching her every time she makes pie crust. I've learned some of her tricks, such as use ice cold water (yes, the recipe in your cook book was serious about that), cut in the fat with a pastry cutter, and handle the dough as little as possible. Once you've mastered the art of a good pie crust, the sky is the limit.

I came up with a new recipe the other day for spanikopita pie. It's a very simple concept: spanikopita...in a pie shell. The great thing about the recipe is that both my kids will eat it, and one of them will even eat it eagerly. I think this is a first for any spinach dish I've made for them.

Needless to say, I'll have to make it again soon.

8 " pie crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
4 Tbs. ice water

1 10oz. package of frozen spinach
1/2 lb. feta cheese
4 eggs
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. dill

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Prepare the pie crust by mixing the salt and flour together and cutting in the shortening. Sprinkle with ice water and toss with a fork. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate at least a half hour. Roll ball of dough into flat circle and place in pie plate.

Thaw spinach and squeeze out water. Add other filling ingredients and mix together. Pour into pie shell.

Bake at 450 degrees for 5-10 minutes to set crust, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake for 30-40 minutes until set.

Egg Nog Kugel

I believe the eighth night of Chanukah should be called the "fire hazard" night. We had seven chanukiot set up, which means that we had 63 candles burning (see picture to the left). Luckily most of the wrapped presents had already been unwrapped, so the chances of an errant candle setting off a horrific holiday blaze were somewhat reduced.

But what's a holiday without a sense of danger.
Switching topics...after my previous rant...uh, I mean homily...one might mistakenly think that I oppose ALL blending of cultures. Not true, not true, not true. And on Chanukah next year, I can think of no better way to celebrate the season than by making the traditional Chanukah noodle kugel with a slight Christmas twist.

Egg Nog Kugel

8 oz. wide egg noodles
4 oz. butter or margarine
6 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup egg nog
¼ cup sugar
½ cup raisins

Topping:
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup brown sugar
2 Tbs. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cook noodles in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and add butter. Set aside. Beat together eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, egg nog, and sugar. Add raisins. Add mixture to noodles. Pour into greased 8 x 12-inch baking dish. Mix together topping ingredients. Sprinkle over kugel. Bake for one hour. Serves 10-12.

Thanksgiving Wild Rice Pilaf with Tofu

Happy Thanksgiving! Well, Happy 2nd day of Thanksgiving to be exact. We are spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws who have moved their big feast to the day after Thanksgiving to better accommodate everyone's holiday family expectations. Now my sister-in-law can feast with her in-laws in Oblong, Illinois, on Thursday and feast with her parents in Terre Haute on Friday. This creates a defacto 2nd seder for Thanksgiving. My in-laws aren't Jewish, but they have a better understanding of Jewish ritual than do most Jews.

This creates a new tradition for the Thanksgiving meal: lasagna. Although the 2nd seder always has the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc., the 1st seder for the last two years has been vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread. It makes for a great Thanksgiving meal, but it's a little difficult to slice into sandwiches for leftovers.

Many have asked me, “Just what do vegetarians EAT during Thanksgiving?” I suspect many have an image of my family meagerly scraping the last of the mashed potatoes and corn onto our plate while the rest of the extended family, omnivores all of them, greedily gorge themselves on turkey and giblet gravy and toss half of their crescent roll to my hungry children to watch them scuffle over the buttery roll, all the time taking bets on who will end up with the black eye.

Although I have experimented with many vegetarian main dishes in the past on Thanksgiving, nowadays we just create a balanced meal of side dishes rather than a hierarchical meal of main dish and back-up singers. Having said that, some side dishes do get elevated to the status of “signature dish.” The wild rice pilaf with tofu has become a new tradition (three years running). Although it doesn't slice into sandwiches like turkey, it makes a great tortilla wrap for the week after Thanksgiving.

Wild Rice Pilaf with Tofu

Ingredients:
1 lb. (1 block) of extra-firm tofu, Chinese style
3 cups vegetarian broth (I recommend Rapunzel Vegetable Bouillon)
1 cup brown rice
1/2 cup wild rice (make sure it's Minnesota-grown)
1/4-1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 15 oz. can mandarin oranges, drained, syrup reserved
1 cup chopped pecans
sprig of rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400oF. Drain the tofu and press out the excess water on 2-3 paper towels. Cut the tofu into cubes. Marinate the tofu in 1-2 cups of broth for 30 minutes at room temperature or for several hours in the refrigerator. Remove the tofu from the broth and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Turn each piece of tofu over and bake for another 10 minutes until tofu is firm and light brown, but not burnt.

In a large sauce pot, saute the onions in the oil. Add the brown rice, 1 cup broth, 1/4 cup reserved mandarin orange syrup, and 1/4-1/2 cup water and cook until rice is tender. In a separate pot, cook the wild rice in 1 cup of water.

Mix together the brown rice, wild rice, chopped pecans, and tofu. Serve on a large platter, garnished with mandarin orange slices and a couple of sprigs of rosemary (optional).

Glutenschnitzel

Seitan, a vegetarian meat analog, is made from wheat gluten cooked in broth, traditionally a soy broth. Gluten is the protein found in whole wheat flour. It can be isolated from whole wheat flour by rinsing and kneading a flour/water mixture until all the starch is removed.

I used to make my own gluten from scratch back when I was in grad school. It was a lot of fun, but it was very time consuming, and it left a starchy mess that coated the entire kitchen. I finally gave it up and started making it the easy way by reconstituting store-bought gluten flour with liquid. I still miss making my own gluten. It's kind of like the difference between hunting wild game in the Boundary Waters and buying pre-packaged chicken wings at the deli counter.

The best book I have found on seitan is Cooking with Gluten and Seitan, by Dorothy R. Bates and Colby Wingate. I have had the best luck cooking seitan in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes instead of simmering it slowly. The pressure cooker gives a soft, slightly chewy seitan, whereas the simmering method always gives me a hard, rubbery seitan which is really not conducive to convincing your friends and relatives to become vegetarian.

Tonight I made glutenschnitzel, my own personal seitan recipe. It's made like vienerschnitzel or chicken schnitzel, but you don't have to pound the mean into flat cutlets. You simply slice the seitan into thin cutlets (about 1/4 inch thick).

I prepare three separate shallow bowls: one with white flour, one with an egg beaten with 1-2 teaspoons of water, and a third with bread crumbs. I coat the seitan cutlet with flour, transfer it to the egg and coat it completely, and then transfer the eggy cutlet to the bread crumbs. Each cutlet is then fried in about 1/4 inch thick of vegetable oil. I flip the cutlet over and fry the other side when the first side browns.

I usually serve Glutenschnitzel with a tomato sauce, such as a commercial spaghetti sauce.

Note: It is important to remember that like most meat analogs, seitan tastes and feels SIMILAR to meat but not EXACTLY LIKE meat. It is its own animal, so to speak. I find it important to appreciate seitan for what it is, rather than what it isn't.

Israeli Fruit Salad

I created this simple recipe for the sisterhood opening meeting. It celebrates the fruits of Israel.

1 pomegranate
2 oranges
2 green apples
4 tsp. lemon juice
4 tsp. honey
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix lemon juice, honey, and cinnamon. Remove seeds from pomegranates. Peel oranges, separate sections, and cut into ¾ inch pieces. Core apple and chop into ¾ inch pieces. Immediately mix apples with the lemon-honey dressing (to prevent browning), and then mix apples the rest of the fruit. (Serves 4-6 people)