Grilled Chicken Skewers

When Memorial Day rolls around I think summer. Like many others, I enjoy spending the day with my family doing something fun:) Today we headed out bright and early in the morning and went to Busch Gardens. Yes it was over 90 degrees and we were slowly starting to melt, but I really love watching my kids faces on their favorite rides - and the looks on their faces when Levi and I won the giant stuffed banana they have been eyeing for weeks was priceless.

Along with spending hours outside, barbecuing is another sure sign for me that summer is here. After we got home we busily worked to get dinner ready. We grilled chicken-veggie skewers, onions, asparagus and pineapple and added some corn on the cob to the mix. Kudos to Levi for grilling our yummy feast on this super, duper hot day.

Sometimes I wonder if heading out to an amusement park and finishing the day with a BBQ are proper observances of Memorial Day.  Today while I was doing this thinking, it occurred to me that it is because of our dedicated, brave and committed service men and women that we are able to celebrate in this fashion. Of course I stopped to think about those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and of course I am truly grateful to these brave men and women and their families. At the same time, I am so thankful that we continue to live in a free land - and that we can choose to spend the day enjoying our many freedoms.

Here is the "recipe" for the chicken skewers so that you too can enjoy a yummy summer BBQ :)

Chicken Veggie Skewers


Chicken breast - cut into chunks
Portobello mushrooms
Yellow sqaush
Onions
Red peppers
Fresh basil
Fresh garlic
Canola oil
Rice vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Oregano


(If you are using wooden skewers, you will need to soak them in water for about 20 minutes or so before using - this will prevent them from burning.)


Cut chicken breast and place in a bowl with some oil, rice vinegar, minced garlic and basil, pepper and oregano. Wash veggies and cut into chunks, place in a bowl with oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, minced garlic,  minced basil and oregano. Allow both the chicken and the vegetables to marinate (though in a pinch I only let them sit for about 10 minutes).  Alternating with chicken and vegetables, fill the skewers. Grill.


Enjoy!

Patty Pan Squash

Those of us living in Norfolk, VA are no strangers to storms, but the storm that blew through here yesterday seemed to really mean business. Within minutes of the sky turning grey (black?), rain started pounding on our house, the wind started howling and then before I  knew big hail was falling from the sky. Looking out of my window I watched my neighbor's big trash cans swim across the street and then  manage to be blown halfway up their lawn. The noise in my house was super loud and my kids were starting to get super nervous.

Thank G-d the storm blew past us and we only had a few branches fall from our trees. Other areas weren't so lucky, with downed trees and widespread power outages. 

This morning my phone rang at 6:30. I couldn't figure out who would be calling me so early in the morning. I picked up and quickly found out that my kids' school had no power - and that they weren't going to school.

So what to do on a beautifully sunny, no school day? I called a friend and we gathered our kids and headed out to Pungo to go strawberry picking. The kids were thrilled to take their buckets and start picking strawberries.  After baking in the sun and collecting the beautiful red treats for quite some time we headed to the farmer's market to pay. 

While the strawberries were being weighed, I decided to check out the rest of the produce being sold. I came upon a pile of beautiful looking Patty Pan squash that I purchased for dinner.

Once home I gave the squash a good scrubbing and turned them into a delicious side. A little perk - my kids loved the shape of these squash and were excited to try them - and then they loved the way it tasted!

Patty Pan Squash

3 yellow patty pan squash

3 white patty pan squash

Canola oil

Salt

Pepper

Garlic 

Dried sage

Pre-heat oven to 425. Wash squash and slice any way you like. Place in an oven safe dish and drizzle some oil into the dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic and dried sage and mix well. Place in the oven and mix every so often. Remove when the squash very soft. 

Enjoy!

Potato Salad and Painted Faces

Yesterday we celebrated Lag B'Omer with a BBQ and celebration at Chabad House. My brother Shmulie "drove" the grill and turned out delicious burgers and hot dogs. The tables were filled with buns, corn on the cob, cole slaw, a garden salad, potato salad and watermelon - and of course everything needed to make perfect sandwiches:) There were cupcakes for dessert, which the children got to decorate with icing, jelly beans and sprinkles. Cool refreshing drinks completed the menu.

Smiling faces were seen everywhere as the kids happily played on the playground, blew bubbles, used sidewalk chalk and played games with a parachute and hula hoops. The kids also LOVED having their faces painted by an excellent artist and everyone had a blast getting their cotton candy made by Rabbi Levi. 

With lively Jewish music in the air, friends and family all around and delicious food to eat, it was a wonderful event that more than 70 people enjoyed.

Throughout the evening I kept hearing that the potato salad was really good - and so today I will share my recipe for potato salad.

(PS...missed out on the fun yesterday? Not to worry...more fun is just down the road with the annual Shavuot Ice Cream party on June 8 at 5:30 PM)

Rashi's Potato Salad

Red potatoes, (I do around one per person)

Mayonnaise

Bread and butter pickles

Scallions

Salt

Pepper

Garlic

Dill (the spice)

Scrub potatoes (do not peel) and boil with some salt in the pot. When the water comes to a boil, lower it and allow to cook until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork. While potatoes are still warm, add sliced scallions, diced pickles and the mayonnaise, salt, pepper, garlic and dill.  Serve and enjoy!

(sorry there are no numbers...but I make it in different amounts each time and don't really have any real numbers to share)

Cholent for Jewish Bikers

Each year the JMA (Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance) hosts a "Ride to Remember". Each year members of Jewish motorcycle clubs from around the world gather in a chosen city for a special weekend together. The main event is, "The Ride to Remember", when they ride to remember the Holocaust and raise money to support Holocaust education.

This year the Ride to Remember was held in Virginia Beach. The festivities began with a BBQ at the oceanfront which my husband Levi and I attended so that Levi could help the guys put on Tefillin.  The next morning, we both attended the ceremony for the bikers held at the local JCC. My father, along with other area rabbis, addressed the bikers and thanked them for biking for a good cause. After the ceremony, everyone crossed the parking lot to hear the students of the Hebrew Academy sing.

At the conclusion of the song, the bikers all climbed aboard their motorcycles and got ready to ride. Someone else also donned a helmet and got ready to ride too - that would be my husband. My kids got such a kick out of seeing him drive off on a motorcycle! I am sure it was the highlight of their day.

After picking up my husband from his fun ride, we dashed back home to get some Shabbos cooking started before we had to run to Chabad House to run our Challah Twists club for a group of children. When the club had ended, Levi worked quickly to peel potatoes and onions, chop them up and mix them in with a bunch of beans and barley and seasoning. Levi had been asked to prepare the cholent for the bikers' Shabbat lunch the next day. Cholents prepared he headed for the oceanfront, delivered the cholent (which we found out after Shabbos was a huge hit!) and dashed back home - arriving roughly one hour before candle lighting.

On that note, today's recipe is not mine, but rather belongs to Levi. Levi is the cholent maker each week at Chabad House, and each week the cholent is finished to the last drop. So here is his recipe :)

Rabbi Levi's Cholent
(recipe is for an 8 quart slow cooker)


6 potatoes, cut into big chunks
3 onions, cut into big chunks
1/2 bag of large lima beans
1/2 bag of kideny beans
1/2 bag of barley
a bunch of ketchup
oil
salt
pepper
garlic
Water


Peel and prepare potatoes and onions and place in pot. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover with water. Turn slow cooker to low and allow to cook overnight. Enjoy!

Talking Cookies

As a child we had a book called, "Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree". A number of months back my mother found a copy of the book and I was thrilled to bring it home to my children. They loved reading about how Cookie Monster plead with a talking cookie tree to let him have some of its cookies. Of course they laughed at the idea of a cookie tree - let alone a talking one.

As an adult I have discovered that while trees don't talk, cookies can certainly have their own voice. I'm sure you have heard it before in your own kitchen. You know, the voice that says, "I'm super yummy!" or "Eat me, I am delicious". I don't know about your cookies, but mine tend to talk to me a lot. After the cookies are baked and have barely had a chance to cool off the choir begins. The cookies all start singing to me and hoping that I will eat them, and of course I do :)

A few months back I tried out a new type of cookie. I will call them "Heavenly Jelly Squares" At first they appeared to have flopped (yups this happens sometimes), but then I tasted one and it was delightful. My brother Shmulie came to eat some, and then let me know that whatever I had done to the "flopped cookies" should be repeated again in the near future. 

This past Shabbat we had a full house on Friday night. My parents joined us for dinner as did 5 of my 6 brothers. I decided to make these cookies and some oatmeal cookies. Sure enough, the jelly squares were a hit.  Of course I made a whole bunch of cookies, and they have been talking to me ever since. I did a pretty decent job of declining the offer - but when I saw just one cookie left tonight, I decided to go for it!

Here's the recipe :)

Heavenly Jelly Squares

2/3 cup of sugar

3/4 cup of oil

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

preserves or jam of your choice (Levi and I like raspberry best, while my kids prefer strawberry - so I make both)

Mix the sugar, oil, egg, vanilla, flour and baking powder in a bowl. Mix well, until dough is crumbly. Spray a glass rectangular dish with Pam and press the cookie dough into the dish. (Don't put the dough on the sides as you would do with a pie crust.)

Use your thumb to make rows of indentations. Drop a half teaspoon of the jam or preserves of your choice into each thumbprint. Bake on 350 until lightly brown. Allow cookies to cool and set before cutting and removing to a serving platter.

Salmon Croquettes

As children and teenagers we all had moments where we promised, "in my house it will be different".  As a child I was really not a very big fan of leftovers. The food we ate always tasted good, but for some reason the Margolin clan (that would be me and my 6 brothers) wasn't very fond of leftovers. As a matter of fact, my brothers and I were known to purposefully not put foods away so that we wouldn't be able to eat them the next day. Back then we thought we were quite smart  - looking back I'm not sure how wise that plan was :)

Being a wife and mother and the primary cook in my home, I have come to embrace leftovers. Sometimes the leftovers get eaten for lunch, other times I serve them again for dinner and there are times where the foods in my fridge get repurposed and turned into something else. When I happily serve that chicken soup another night I sometimes chuckle to myself at how the tables have turned. When they make my life easier, leftovers can seem miraculous!

This past Friday I baked a beautiful side of salmon for Shabbat dinner. After Shabbat there was still a fair amount of fish resting in the refrigerator. On Sunday evening I pulled the fish from the fridge and quickly turned it into salmon croquettes. The salmon got used and we ate a completely different dish - what could be better than that? I have to say they were delicious, and I was pleased that my kids ate them - and liked them - after I said they were salmon latkes. 

So the next time you find yourself with leftovers, do a little thinking and see what you can create with them.

Salmon Croquettes

10 oz baked salmon (skin and bones removed)

2 eggs

6 tablespoons cornflake crumbs

1 tablespoon chopped onion flakes

2 teaspoons canola oil

Salt, pepper and garlic if needed (when I made them my fish already had enough seasoning)

Place fish in a bowl and mash up with a fork. Add chopped onion flakes, eggs and cornflake crumbs. Mix well. Heat the canola oil in a non-stick skillet. Form the fish mixture into patties and place in the skillet. Allow to fry for about 5 minutes on medium. Flip and cook for another few minutes. Remove and serve. 

(We dipped ours in ketchup, but you can also do a mayo-dill dip.)

Perfection In A Slice Of Cake

A few months ago I noticed that my cousin Rashi in Alpharetta had posted a beautiful picture of a blackberry cake on her Facebook page. She had baked this beauty for her weekly Torah and Tea class (I have borrowed the concept and now host my own Torah and Tea on Wednesday nights!).

Being a big lover of cake -as most of us are, and a big lover of blackberries, I asked her for the recipe. I was delighted to find that she was using a recipe from a Kosher By Design cookbook for a lemon bundt cake, and was simply adding blackberries. It is a super simple - and super delicious recipe. 

After baking the cake once or twice, I decided to make some changes. I played around with the recipe until I got it to be exactly what I wanted. After seeing Rashi add the blackberries, I decided to give it a whirl. The results were amazing. I served it for dessert that Friday night and it was gobbled up. I made the cake again this week since I had an abundance of blackberries. In the words of one of my guests, "it was the best pareve dessert I've ever tasted". By some miracle I managed to hold on to a piece of the cake until Shabbos was over so I could snap a picture - and then it was promptly finished by yours truly :)

Here is the recipe the way I have been making it for years (it loses some ingredients and gains some new ones which aren't in the original)

Blackberry Cake

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup orange juice

3/4 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 eggs (best if room temperature)

2 cups blackberries

Preheat oven to 350.  (I baked mine on convection - makes it even better!)

Add all of the ingredients except the blackberries into a mixing bowl and mix well. Wash blackberries and add to the bowl. Using a spatula or spoon, gently fold the berries into the cake batter.  Pour into a cake pan coated with Pam and bake for about 45 minutes - or until a toothpick comes out clear.

Enjoy!

A Tropical Shabbat Dinner

As you may know, we host a Shabbat dinner at Chabad House each month. We switch off between doing a traditional Shabbat dinner menu and a themed Shabbat dinner menu.

After having tons of people throughout Pesach we sailed straight into our Shabbat dinner of 50 people.

Back in the summer when I designed the postcard for Shabbat with Chabad we included all the dates and themes for the entire year. So when I looked at my records I saw that this past Shabbat was to be a tropical themed Shabbat dinner.

To be honest I wasn't totally sure what should be served at a tropical themed Shabbat dinner - after all there are a good number of tropical places in this world - each with its own cuisine.  After doing lots of research I finally came up with what I thought would be a good menu. We started with a carrot salad based on a recipe I saw for Caribbean carrot salad, avocado dip, tomato-mango salad, a garden salad with carrot-ginger dressing and pineapple-teriyaki gefilte fish. Then we had chicken soup with matzah balls - I am fairly certain that Jewish people in tropical places still eat chicken soup with matzah balls! The third course brought pineapple-mango chicken, sweet potato kugel and green beans with toasted almonds. Dessert was brownies and fresh strawberries and pineapple.

All in all I believe it was a very colorful and tasty Shabbat dinner! (next month we will have a traditional menu - May 27 @ 8:00 PM)

Here is the recipe for the carrot salad

Tropical Carrot Slaw


Carrots, grated
Craisins
Scallions
Canola oil
Rice vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Sugar
Lemon juice
Lime juice


Grate carrots and place in a bowl. Add chopped scallions and a handful of Craisins. Dress with canola oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic, sugar, lemon juice and lime juice. I happened to discover that it tastes better after it has been refrigerated for a bit. Enjoy!