It's Monday...and time to figure out what my family will be eating this week....here is my plan for this week? What yummy foods will your family be eating this week?

Monday: Sweet potato soup, cornflake crumb coated chicken strips, garden salad, rotini with spinach

Tuesday: Sweet potato soup (with star pasta added today!), grilled chicken salad, roasted carrots

Wednesday: Tomato soup, baked salmon with cucumber dill sauce, garden salad, steamed broccoli

Thursday: Tomato soup, salmon croquettes, baked potatoes, garden salad

If you don't want to do any food thinking..u can always pick some things from our menu plan...a good number of the recipes are already featured in this blog...I plan to post the dill cucumber sauce later this week!

Happy cooking and eating!

A Pareve Dessert for Turkey Day!

When I need to go to the grocery store, I try to go during work and school hours so that it is not crowded. Following these guidelines, I never have to wait to checkout at my grocery store of choice. This week has been quite a different story. Finding a parking spot was a challenge - and each and every register in the store had a line to wait in.

 Pre-Thanksgiving rush I suppose. (It's a good thing the whole neighborhood isn't preparing 3 course meals for Shabbat each week - because then my grocery store would always be full!)

As you may know, I have taken a very part time teaching job at the local Hebrew Academy. I love my job and especially love the great conversations I have with my cute third graders. With Thanksgiving approaching, I decided it was a good time for a unit on Modeh Ani. We talked about how we say Modeh Ani each and every morning in order to thank G-d for returning our souls to us - and entrusting us with another day to fill with amazing acts of goodness and kindness. We then moved on to speaking about the many wonderful blessings we have in our lives, and each student listed some of the things they thank Hashem for in their lives. The direction of our lessons then moved on to the importance of gratitude in our lives. We spoke about the importance of thanking those that help us and even wrote thank you letters to some of the important people in our lives. To culminate the unit, we read "Rivkah's First Thanksgiving" by Elsa Oken Rael - this storybook is about a little girl who explains to her immigrant family that Thanksgiving is a holiday for all Americans - and how as Jews in America their family (and all of ours too!!!) has soooo much to be thankful in this wonderful country.

Having spent a good deal of time teaching discussing gratitude with my students - I can say that I have plenty to be grateful for - things like a great husband, two cute kids, health for my family and of course the means to live a comfortable life! Along with the serious thanks - I am also grateful for whipped cream and other yummy treats!

If you are still looking for a pareve dessert to go with your turkey...here is a recipe that I found in Quick and Kosher by Jamie Gellar - hard as it may be to believe, I pretty much followed the recipe in its entirety - and it was AMAZING!

Applesauce Cake with Whipped Cream 
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
12 oz. applesauce
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt (I skipped the salt - just because I always do)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon sugar (I certainly used more of this!)
1/2 cup non-dairy whipped topping (I made a whole container)


Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan. Combine the flour, sugar, oil, applesauce, eggs, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and vanilla extract in a bowl and mix well. (I used a hand mixer.) Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Pipe whipped topping onto each slice before serving. Enjoy!

What We Are Eating This Week...

Cornflake Crumb Coated Chicken Strips

In case you need a little inspiration for your meals this week...I am sharing my dinner menu for the week. If you take a look, you will see that they are pretty simple dinners to make and include a fair amount of veggies too!

Here is what my crew will be eating this week:

Monday: Veggie soup, hamburgers, mashed potatoes and a veggie stir fry (broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms and red peppers)

Tuesday: Veggie soup, grilled chicken sandwiches (everyone gets to pick their fav fillings!) and a garden salad

Wednesday: Cornflake crumb coated chicken strips (what a long name!), pasta with tomatoes and basil, green beans and a garden salad

Thursday: Zucchini-spinach soup, honey-soy glazed salmon, roasted peppers and brown rice

What are you eating this week?

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

In order for dinner not to get ignored in my very hectic life, I like to create a dinner menu for the week on Sundays. Sometimes I actually follow it, sometimes we end up with more leftovers than I anticipated and can skip some things in the menu plan - and sometimes our days just spin out of control and dinner is whatever I can create super fast with whatever is in my kitchen. While these meatballs aren't in this week's menu, we feasted on them last week.

I had decided that I was going to make some sweet and sour meatballs as there is a recipe for them that Levi LOVES! Knowing that my two cuties don't like the sweet and sour meatballs I normally make, I decided to get two pots of sauce going for the meatballs - one with traditional Italian style sauce and the other with the sweet and sour sauce.

I quickly got to work on the Italian style sauce and poured some tomato sauce into a small pot and added some spices. I then got to work on my sweet and sour sauce and sauteed an onion and then opened a can of cranberry sauce and added it to the pot. This was when I realized that the recipe I normally use needs a whole bunch of ketchup - except all I had was one tiny little bottle of ketchup that was almost empty - not nearly enough. (I love ketchup - no clue how we were on empty of this staple!)

I quickly realized that I didn't have enough tomato sauce to make the Italian style meatballs for the whole family - but on the other hand was missing a main ingredient for the sweet and sour meatballs - and that's when I decided to combine the two.

I emptied the pot of tomato sauce, which was seasoned with oregano and garlic and mixed it into the cranberry sauce with onions. I then finished it off by adding the rest of the ingredients needed for the sweet and sour sauce. I quickly rolled the meatballs and dropped them into the boiling sauce - and then waited for dinner to taste my experiment - I was happy to find that my new creation was amazing!

Sooo..here's the recipe for the meatballs in sweet and sour sauce!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Sauce: 
Canola oil
1 onion, diced
1 15 oz. can of jellied cranberry sauce
1 29 oz. can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce
A few squeezes of Heinz Ketchup
Brown sugar
Oregano
Garlic powder
A splash of rice vinegar


Sautee the diced onion in a small amount of canola oil. When onions are soft, add the cranberry sauce and mix well. Add the can of tomato sauce, ketchup, oregano, garlic, brown sugar and a splash of rice vinegar. Make sure to mix the sauce frequently so that all of the ingredients become a smooth sauce. Bring to a boil - add meatballs - bring back to a boil and then lower the flame and allow to finish cooking. 


Meatballs:
1 lb ground beef (I use extra lean)
1 egg
A few tablespoons of cornflake crumbs
A few squirts of ketchup
Garlic powder


Mix all ingredients together - shape into meatballs and place in boiling sauce.

Hamburger with Basil-Parsley Dip

Time flies when you are having fun! It has been a year since I decided to marry my love of cooking to my love writing - and create this blog. I have loved sharing my thoughts on all sorts of things and more importantly, have loved bringing you into my kitchen! In the past year  I have posted roughly sixty different "recipes" for all of you cooks out there. One year later, I would love to know which recipes you tried and how they turned out. Did you love them? Did your friends and family love your new recipes? Are there certain types of recipes you wish you had seen more often? As I get ready to move into year two of "Un-Recipes", I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions - feel free to comment on this post or simply drop me an email at rashibrashi@me.com

Of course I can't post without adding a recipe - so I will share my sandwich I created for myself last night - I LOVED it!

Awesome Hamburger Sandwich


Hamburgers (When I made these last night they actually fell apart slightly - but they were broiled to a crisp and made for some delicious, crispy and juicy and crumbly burgers)


1 lb ground beef
Cornflake crumbs (Sorry - I'm not really sure how much I poured in..but it was just enough to get a texture that could be formed into burgers.)
1 egg
Black pepper
Garlic powder


Mix all ingredients together and form into hamburgers. Place on a cookie sheet and broil for a few minutes on low - then flip them over and broil on high until they are as done as you like.


Now for the sandwich part...


1 toasted Challah roll
Ketchup
Basil-Parsley dip (recipe to follow)
1 hamburger
Sliced avocado
Fresh baby spinach (taken from my dressed dinner salad)
Cucumber slices (taken from my dressed dinner salad)

After toasting the Challah roll I split it and spread Ketchup on the bottom half. Then I drizzled a little of the basil-parsley dip on both parts of the roll. Next up was the hamburger on the bottom, topped with avocado slices and then some spinach leaves and cucumber slices were pulled from the salad and placed on top of it all.  Place the top of the roll on top of the pile of yummies and enjoy!


Basil-Parsley Dip


Fresh basil leaves
Fresh Italian parsley leaves
Fresh garlic
Olive oil
Salt

Chop up the basil and parsley and garlic and place in a bowl. Cover the herbs with olive oil and sprinkle on a little salt. Mix and enjoy!

Cinnamon-Sugar Cookies

After an incredible month of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah - and countless meals served and tons of games played with the kids...it was time for a little down time.  So Levi and I decided to dash off to DC for two and a half days to get a little break! After making arrangements for our kids and booking our hotel (got the deal of all times!) it was time to pack up the food for our trip. My sister in law always says that if she is going on a vacation where she needs to bring food along - she is going to travel with me - because she knows she will have more than enough food!  So I got to work...first I made sure that we would have plenty of desserts :) We packed strawberries and whipped cream, jello and I quickly baked a batch of cinnamon-sugar cookies and a whole bunch of snacks. Realizing that we can't just eat snacks and desserts for all of our meals, we also took along sliced brisket for sandwiches, oven fried, coated, chicken strips, boiled eggs, tuna and lox. I rounded out our meal plans with some fruits and veggies and delicious salads all prepped and ready to eat in small plastic containers  - we left out the onions, tomatoes and dressing so that our salads were crisp when it was time to eat them. (We dressed them right before we ate them.)

To keep our food nice and fresh we packed all of the perishables right into our plug in cooler. This is one of our favorite toys! The cooler gets plugged in in the car so everything stays cool for the whole trip. Once we arrived at our destination, we plugged the cooler into the wall in our hotel room. No ice, no mess!

I have to say, after a super hectic month it was great to get away for a bit. We chilled out, slept in, visited a museum, took a boat ride, walked along the Potomac River and did some shopping too! As we were leaving DC we pulled into a scenic overlook, which is where I took the included photo - it was really cool to watch these little cloud fluffs passing by at right about eye level!

With all of the food that we brought along we certainly did not go hungry :) Of all of the snacks and desserts I packed, Levi's favorite (and I think mine too!) were the cinnamon-sugar cookies - so I have included the recipe for these cookies.

Cinnamon-Sugar Cookies


4 1/2 cups flour (you may need to use more)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 oil oil
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Cinnamon and Sugar


Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients (except for the cinnamon and sugar) together. Dough should be somewhat thick. Mix 1 part cinnamon and 3 parts sugar in a bowl. Form cookies by picking up dough and patting down into round cookies. I make mine about the size of my palm (I have little hands). Dip both sides of the cookies in cinnamon-sugar mixture and then place on greased cookie sheets. Bake for about 25 minutes - these cookies seem to be best when the outside is crispy and the inside is soft - the cookies will start to brown ever so slightly when they are ready. Enjoy!

Simchat Torah

I don't know about you, but I love Simchat Torah. It is such a lively and joyous holiday! Amidst all of the singing and dancing, I managed to do some thinking as I watched our holiday unfold. Sooo..here are some of my thoughts.

 I absolutely LOVED watching our Chabad House fill with people this past Thursday night. I loved seeing people who I see all the time, I loved seeing people who I only see a few times a year and I certainly loved meeting new people for the first time as they came to celebrate with the Torahs. After a delicious dinner, the children headed to a separate room for a cool magic show, while the adults got the Hakafot (dancing around the Bima with the Torahs) started. When the magic show was done, all of the kids lined up and marched into the Shul singing "Hashem Is Here" - it was a beautiful sight! I couldn't stop watching as the children sang and danced with our beloved Torahs - for it is the children who will make sure that the Torah and our traditions, are passed on from one generation to the next.

Later in the evening, we said a L'chaim for the safe return of Gilad Shalit, a L'chaim for all of the souls of those who have been lost in senseless acts of terror in Israel and of course we voiced our wishes that Hashem will protect our special land, even with the release of so many terrorists. Then we danced and danced as we dedicated the Hakafah to Gilad and all of Israel  - the energy in the room was kind of surreal.

Throughout Hakafot, something came over me each and every time I saw someone dance by with a Torah. Watching as our Torahs were held with such love and care. I couldn't help but feel an amazing sense of Jewish pride. I had this incredible feeling of how wonderful it is that for thousands of years our nation has held onto our Torah.

On Simchat Torah we read the last part of the Torah, and then we immediately start the cycle all over again - as the study of Torah truly never ends. As we said, Chazak, Chazak when we completed the Torah - I thanked Hashem that we have completed the cycle of the Torah once more...and when we started with Breishit, I looked forward at the coming year and all of the opportunities that will come along with it.

Along with all of the singing and dancing and being sentimental (it happens to me sometimes!), we also did our fair share of eating - sometimes it seems this is what we do best:) At our big Simchat Torah party on Thursday night we served a grand buffet, including a mexican style corn salad - here is the recipe.

Mexican Style Corn Salad


2 cans of corn
1 can black beans
1 small can sliced black olives
1 red pepper, diced
1 red onion, diced
Canola oil
Rice vinegar
Cumin
Lemon juice
Salt
Black pepper
Granulated garlic
A little bit of sugar if you would like


Drain the cans of corn, beans and olives and place in a bowl. Add diced pepper and onion. Season with canola oil, rice vinegar, a splash of lemon juice, salt, black pepper, granulated garlic and cumin (and a bit of sugar if you please). Mix and allow to sit for a little while to allow the flavors to mingle. Enjoy!