The Bunny Box

Welcome back to Date-Night Cooking! After last week's minor fiasco with bland food out of Albania, I decided against sticking exclusively to recipes offered up on Global Table Adventures. You'll be happy to know that this week's country offered up a healthy, flavorful, balanced meal!   You see, for this week, I did a little Pinterest hunting and found out that one of the prominent regional recipes in Northern Africa (where Algeria can be found, in case you were wondering) is chermoula. Chermoula is a creamy, rich, pesto-like marinade for meats, but particularly for fatty fish, like salmon. I found this recipe over on 64 sq ft kitchen (follow link for recipe). Salmon with chermoulla and Algerian Green Beans. A simply divine plate. So, let me begin by saying how much I miss eating fresh salmon. The Huz and I used to eat it weekly as our Shabbos dinner main course, usually served with green beans and couscous (the other compone...

Last week, I played some catch up with you guys and introduced you to stay-at-home date night. Continuing in our new endeavor to cook foods from every country in alphabetical order (a la Global Table Adventure ), we took on Albania last night. Ok, last week, when we did Afghanistan, I was blown out of the water. The flavors were bold and bright and earthy and I was just--Wow--it was great. This week? Eh. Byrek with puff pastry...gotta love that crust... We had a couple problems for this week's meal. First off, the main course is lamb in yogurt sauce. Now, kosher lamb is pretty expensive, and not as widely available in my area as beef. Also, when eating kosher, you can't mix meat and dairy, which would mean finding a substitute for yogurt in the recipe. The thought of taking that kind of risk with such an expensive piece of meat was just a little too daunting for me, so I figure we'll wait to make lamb when I can follow the recipe to a T. So, we went ahead w...

Well it certainly has been a while since we've had a good recipe post, huh? How does shakshouka sound? Okay, I realize not everyone has heard of this dish, but it is a Moroccan staple, according to Wikipedia , and pretty popular in Israel. The dish consists of eggs poached on top of a sauce consisting of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices cooked up in a cast-iron skillet. Sound good to you? Then proceed... The idea to make shakshouka was born of a conversation with my boss about "Jewish" food, and after discussing various Ashkenazi (Easter European Jewish) dishes, I mentioned that Sephardi (Spanish and Middle-Eastern Jewish) dishes are a bit different. After briefly discussing shakshouka with my boss, I went to see if I could find a recipe, since I'd never actually made it before. The recipe I found was over on The Shiksa in The Kitchen , and I started out with that recipe followed to a "T" and then made a few minor changes based on personal ...

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine steered me towards a produce subscription service called Washington's Green Grocer  (H/T to Diana).  If you've never heard of a produce subscription before, here's how it works: You sign up to receive a box of produce, select the box size and the types of produce you would like to receive ( Organic , Local , etc .) and how frequently you would like to receive it (weekly, on-demand, etc.). They determine which specific produce will be in each variety of box for a given week and provide you with a list. You then have the opportunity (up until the night before delivery to your area) to remove items which you don't want to receive and replace them with extras of the other produce being offered. You can also order other items at no extra shipping cost (though you must pay extra for the items). The box is then delivered and the rest is up to you. After snooping around their site for a bit, I figured I could give it a try, an...

I want to begin this post with a very important announcement: Apparently, I like sloppy joes! The only memory I have of eating sloppy joes has me sitting at a friend's house as a little girl eating what was clearly nothing but overcooked ground beef and ketchup. That was never my thing.  I'm sure I attempted to nibble politely, but rest assured I had no interest in trying it again after that experience. Then last week, my husband came home from work and requested sloppy joes because his coworkers had mentioned they would be eating it for dinner and now he wanted some.  It's not like him to request anything for dinner.  When asked, he usually just says, "Whatever you want."  Naturally, I wanted to jump on this opportunity. I did a recipe search and found something that looked ok.  As I planned this dinner, I kept thinking of alternative foods I could have available for myself, because I don't like sloppy joes. In that spirit, I actually went out to ...

I'm trying to get in a habit of posting here more regularly, which is probably a bad idea with the end of the semester rapidly approaching.  I really don't cook much these days, and when I do it's fairly boring.  I did make cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving that came out pretty delicious, but it's not post-worthy and I didn't get any pictures. (Recipe here .) We've been living off of a lot of Shabbos leftovers, basic pasta dinners, tuna, and eggs lately.  It's not that I don't enjoy those dinners from time to time.  It's good to have a break.  But after a bit, it just leaves me feeling kinda "meh" about life.  So every now and then, I get these flashes of inspiration and wreck my kitchen to create a dinner that brings a little spirit back to the table. Which brings us to Tuesday.  On Tuesday, I stood around wondering what we'd eat for dinner when I remembered two things: I had a package of tofu in the fridge I had stir-fry veggie...

First of all, I'd like to state the obvious: I love calzones! They're easy to make and so wonderfully customizable for whatever I've got hanging out in the fridge.  Er...maybe not ANYTHING, but at least the stuff that hasn't developed it's own ecosystem. Secondly, before I tie that statement to anything relevant (like, say, a recipe) I want to talk about my week.  Not this one.  Last one. Last week, The Huz took a week off from work so we could have our first real family vacation.  We took a trip to Albany to visit his grandfather (very enjoyable trip, though unfortunately he passed away this morning, BDE), took The Boo to the library for the first time (she had a blast in the baby room!), took a trip to the beach (deets and pics to follow), and spent the weekend out of town with some friends. All in all, it was a wonderful, though exhausting, week. Let me focus for a minute on that beach trip. Ahhh....thanks... I've been craving the beach ...

You're gonna hate me. I hate myself for this. I made AMAZING stuffed portabella mushrooms on Tuesday, but I was so hungry that I ate them before getting any pictures. :( I know. I'll accept my punishment. But trust me. These were amazing. Served with roasted veggies=FULL MEAL OF AWESOME! Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms Portabella mushrooms 1 package garlic couscous, cooked (or whatever couscous you want to make is cool, too) Ricotta/cottage cheese Shredded mozzarella Optional: sauteed spinach, sauteed onions, fried crispy onions, Any other awesomes Wipe mushrooms with a damp paper towel to clean and remove stems.  Rinsing mushrooms waterlogs them. They're little sponges. Place in a pan, gill side up. (Some people remove the gills, but I love their flavor so I keep them.) Sprinkle mushrooms with a pinch of salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. Spread a layer of ricotta/cottage cheese on.  Don't skimp.  If you're going to add any other toppings...

I know, I know. It's been a while since my last post. I'm supposed to be better about keeping up on it, but I'm not. For what it's worth, I have a lot to talk about today! My first story is kind of sad and tragic. You see, a few days ago, I decided to try making "Coffee Pops." I'd seen the idea on several other blogs and thought it would be a good way to get my coffee while holding my daughter without worrying about scolding her.  So I brewed a pot of coffee, mixed it with milk and splenda, and poured it into my bunny Popsicle molds. I had high hopes and I was eager. Perhaps TOO eager. The next morning, I went to remove a popsicle from one of the molds, but it hadn't loosened enough and my dear, sweet bunny pop cracked in half. In honor of the bunny's memory, I wrote a poem.   Ode To A Popsicle Stick    Little Bunny Fu-Fu  That's what I might have called you  But your life was cut too short to have a name.  ...

As some of my Facebook followers are aware, I recently went cherry picking. If you've never gone fruit picking before, let me tell you that it's incredibly fun, and it's a family friendly activity, too! But here's the thing: You end up with a lot of fruit! So what to do with all those cherries? Well, I know what I want to do! I recently saw a fantastic sounding recipe for Chocolate Chunk Cherry Ice Cream. The recipe was pretty simple, and I knew that with one of my favorite secret ingredients, I could make it pareve to boot! So tonight, I went ahead and broke out my ice cream maker. Now, I can't really give you results on it yet because it's still hardening in the freezer, but rest assured that tomorrow you'll be seeing an update with the outcome and the recipe. But to tide you over.... Tonight I wanted something easy for dinner because I didn't get home from shopping with my mother until after 7. (I got SHOES!!!!) I had bought some "Spicy Ita...

When you read as many food blogs as I do, you begin to notice food trends that everyone writes about. Around December, everyone is writing about gift-able recipes like cookies, fudge and various candies, all with seasonal ingredients incorporated in (like ginger, peppermint, etc.). You also notice non-seasonal food trends, like baking certain types of breads or utilizing newly popularized ingredients. Right now, one of the popular trends seems to be homemade skillet (or pan) pizza. This style of pizza is made using a homemade dough and is cooked in a cast-iron skillet, often with toppings like olive oil, vegetables, marinara sauce, and sparse cheese. My theory is that these have been popularized by the recent movie, "Eat, Pray, Love" which featured a scene in which Julia Roberts ate just such a pizza. Somewhere along my ramblings through the blogosphere in the past few weeks, I stumbled across a recipe for a pizza fitting the above description that appealed to me simply b...

Let me begin this post by apologizing for not having any pictures. If this bothers you as much as it bothers me, remember that I always accept donations to the camera fund. :oD Now on to business. For a while I've been saying that I want to start eating healthier, at least most of the week. This week I decided to actually do it. For this trick, I had to head to the grocery store and buy some healthy foods, like frozen vegetables, to stock up my freezer/pantry. As part of this, I planned my meals for the week by hunting through my blogs and piecing together some ideas. Meal planning is something I keep thinking I need to do more of, too, but it's hard for me to remember to do it. Also, I often make the mistake of planning something for two meals, and then I get reminded around night 2 that the Huz "needs" to eat a lot of food or he'll "starve," and the leftovers from the previous night just won't cut it for him. So here's my plan for this we...

A couple posts ago ( here ) I wrote about a creamy pumpkin sauce that I had made and mentioned the changes I wanted to make to it. I'm now ready to post the completed recipe and a (sad, blurry) picture. The second time around preparing this sauce, I made the changes I wanted to make, but mostly I played it by ear. The resulting product was creamy and a perfect mix of sweet and savory. I piled it on my pasta (in a most unhealthy fashion) and was really satisfied with the taste. The pumpkin gives the sauce a slight nutty taste and a richness you don't find in your average tomato sauce. The main thing you need to know about this recipe is that I am seriously approximating all measurements. While cooking this, I didn't measure a thing. So if you choose to make it (which I strongly recommend) taste it often while cooking and be prepared to adjust. At one point while throwing it together, I accidentally added a bit too much salt. I balanced that out by adding more pumpkin...

Well, here I am in the midst of what would be midterms if I had any. Instead, I've got more than my fair share of papers to write before Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean I'm not more than happy to distract myself by cooking something interesting for dinner and then blogging about it. So come on. Enable my procrastination and read on. On Monday I announced on Facebook that I had made pasta with a "creamy pumpkin sauce." I also mentioned that I hadn't perfected the recipe and wouldn't blog about it until I had. Here's the problem with that. I'm unlikely to remember to perfect it later on if I don't blog about it now. So here goes: I wanted to make pasta, but I didn't want to make boring ol' pasta with cheese. I wanted something quick and easy, but interesting and tasty. Well, let's say I got 3/4 of it right. It was quick and easy and definitely interesting, but it was definitely bland. In the following recipe, I'm ...

This week, The Huz and I stayed in for shabbos lunch and had my brother over. I did a little food experimentation, and some of it was good, some of it not so much. So here's the menu: 1) Homemade challah 2) Baked gefilte fish 3) Beef minestrone soup 4) Butternut squash stuffed with quinoa salad 5) Vanilla cake Challah I've discussed my challah recipes with you guys. I think I make some pretty tasty challah. But this week, I didn't feel up to making something that time-consuming. Instead, I experimented. Remember that pizza dough recipe? Well, I decided to try it for making a small batch of challah. Truth be told, if I cut my normal challah recipe to 1/4 it would probably be about as easy. But I didn't have the patience for math. So I went with what I had. The main thing I enjoy about the pizza dough recipe is that I don't have to leave it rising for hours. I did give it 30 minutes to rise after forming the dough and another 20-30 minutes to rise once sha...

This shabbos, I decided we were due for some time at home. So, I decided to make a soup shabbos, for simplicity. I made a huge pot of chicken soup (with kreplach) and some fish for dinner. I have enough of that left over to last quite a while, so I'm going to freeze some of it for later. For lunch, I took the minestrone soup recipe from this post but made a couple changes. First, I halved the recipe, because I needed it to fit in my crockpot. Second, I added some beef. Third, I took out the beans, green beans, and spinach, because I didn't really like them in the original soup. So what I ended up with was a REALLY good, hearty soup. It's perfect for Fall and Winter, and was really quick and easy to throw together. This is a meal soup, not a starter course. Here's the new-ish recipe: Beef Minestrone Soup Ingredients: 1-2 tbsp olive oil 1 clove garlic, chopped 1 small onion OR half of one large onion, diced 1 lb flanken beef, cubed 3 carrots, chunks 2 zucchinis...

I know what you're all thinking (all two of you!). "Two posts in one week?! Is she MAD?!" Yes. I am. But that's neither here nor there. I'm here to talk to you about the single most important food group out there: Soup. I have always been a soup fiend. When I go to restaurants, it's the thing on the menu that usually attracts me the most (and appetizers, my other favorite food group). I've often thought that if I were to go on any kind of diet, it would be a soup diet. In my opinion, there's just nothing more satisfying, more comforting, more spiritually uplifting then a big bowl of hearty soup. Now here's the sad part of my story. I have rarely been successful at soup-making. I can make all kinds of foods and make 'em delicious, but soups are the only things that have seemed to allude me. Whether I was burning the chicken soup because I hadn't yet mastered the concept of "simmering," or making vegetable soup that was ...

As promised, I return. I started out the night planning to make a minestrone soup that sounded amazing, but realized that since I have a paper due on Thursday it might not be the best idea to make something which requires so much prep work. So instead, I decided to make homemade pizza. It all started out innocently enough. I whipped up the dough in a matter of minutes (recipe below), preheated my toaster oven and took some pictures. Then, I rolled the dough out, placed it on a little baking sheet and put it in the toaster oven to prebake the crust a little to avoid sogginess. I start cleaning up and suddenly, my toaster oven breaks. It just shuts off and refuses to turn back on. Now, I don't have a milchig oven. My toaster oven (which was a wonderful wedding gift from my father's friend) was all I had for milchig baking. But I didn't have time to mourn that loss just then. I had pizza dough to save! Now here I was, two small pizza crusts all set, and my only option...

Earlier this week, my mother and I headed into Annapolis for a little day trip. I mention this only because I wanted to include that picture. It's a pretty place and probably a lot more pleasant to hang out when it isn't 90 degrees out. Now on to cooking. Wednesday night, I made some D-E-LICIOUS sweet and sour meatballs for dinner. The recipe was given to me by a friend who we stayed with for Shavuos last year. She had made it as an appetizer for a yom tov meal, but I felt pretty confident that, if served with whole wheat pasta, it would make an excellent weekday dinner. Boy was I right! It was not only incredibly yummy, but it was really good and filling too! It lasted two nights (even with Yaakov eating it!) Now, here's what I discovered: It's a little difficult to take appetizing pictures of sweet and sour meatballs with a point and shoot camera. But here's what I've got for you: The above photographed meatballs are not fully cooked. Once cooked, ...