Category Archives: recipes

Hummous recipe from shalach manos

Homemaking, recipes

I got a call from a friend last night, saying the hummous we sent in our shalach manos tasted exactly like the garlic hummous made by Sabra.  She asked for the recipe, saying it would much cheaper to make it herself than to buy it! 

We made two batches, one with fresh garlic, and one with garlic powder, and I don’t know which she got from.  They should taste basically the same, but I can’t guarantee it.  I’m not making any claim to making a perfect imitation of the Sabra recipe; I’ve never even tasted it!  Here’s the recipe we used, with our adaptations:

Avivah’s Purim Hummous

  • 1 c. cooked garbanzo beans (also called chick peas)
  • 1 T. tahini (the pure sesame paste, not prepared)
  • 2 T. lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped, or 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 1/3 c. bean liquid/water
  • 1 t. sea salt

Blend the garbanzo beans in the food processor.  When smooth, add the rest of the ingredients, and give them a quick whiz.  Once it was in the containers, we sprinkled a few whole garbanzos on top along with a bit of paprika. 

If you use dried garbanzo beans and cook them yourself, this becomes a very, very inexpensive spread.  A pound of garbanzos equals around 4 cups cooked, and I recently was able to find them for .79 lb (until then I was getting them for around 1.69 lb).  It’s a nice spread to make for Shabbos, quick to make and yummy to eat (and nutritious, too, of course!).  Once you make it yourself, you’ll wonder why you ever thought it was worth spending so much money buying it!

Avivah

Yummy Hamantaschen

recipes

Our table was filled for hours yesterday with hamantaschen in the process of being made.  This year we used a new recipe, that came from a friend (thanks, RM!), and my kids said they think it’s a really good one.  I haven’t tasted them myself, but they look beautiful, and I trust my kids on the taste.  🙂

 I’m not sure how many this makes, since we made three times the recipe, and I have no idea how many there are.  It’s not a small amount.  As I said, they were busy with them for hours!  I think that just one time the recipe is a good amount to start with.

 Yummy Hamantaschen

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 c. oil
  • 2 c. sugar
  • 3 t. baking powder
  • 6 c. flour (add a little more if it seems too loose to you)

 Mix everything together.  Roll out dough until thin but not so thin that it breaks when you pick up a piece of it.  Using the open side of a glass cup, cut out circles.  Put a teaspoon of filling in the center of each circle – you can use jam, pie filling, or make your own.  (We made lemon pie filling and chocolate, but the chocolate wasn’t a huge success.)  Pinch each circle into points on three ends (don’t press too hard or they will break, don’t press too lightly or they’ll come apart when they bake – you’ll get the hang of it), and place onto a cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Avivah

Amish oatmeal

recipes

Oatmeal is a great food, nutritious and inexpensive.  But most parents don’t consider serving oatmeal to their kids for breakfast -they insist their kids wouldn’t touch  it.  I’ve given my kids cooked oatmeal on a regular basis for breakfast for years, but there are many ways to use oats that can be more appealing for kids than as a simple cooked cereal. 

I have a page of recipes in  my notebook of breakfast ideas that use oats as the main ingredients, and rotate through them regularly.  When I see something new that looks good, I add it to the list.  Because I want to encourage moms to use inexpensive ingredients, I’ve already posted several recipes using oats, and here’s another one that we enjoyed for the first time a couple of mornings ago. 

Amish Oatmeal 

  • 1 1/2 c. quick oats
  • 1/2 c. sucanat
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 1/4 c. melted butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 t. baking powder
  • 3/4 t. salt
  • 1 t. vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients, mix the butter and egg, and then add the creamed butter and egg to the dry ingredients.  Spread in a greased 9 x 13 pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes.  Spoon into bowls, and serve warm with milk. 

If you want to soak the oats the night before, what I do is use kefir or buttermilk as the acidic medium, counting whatever I use as part of the milk called for, mix it up with the oats, and soak them overnight.  Then when I mix it up the next morning, I add the milk so it adds up to the total amount called for.   (I hope this makes sense – I realize that if someone hasn’t read what I’ve written about soaking oats in the past, this is probably confusing.)

Enjoy!

Avivah

Making mustard

Intentional Spending, recipes

Until last night, it never occurred to me that a person could make mustard.  It just seemed like one of those industrial kind of products that probably required special ingredients.  But last night, I suddenly thought that maybe the container of mustard seeds that have been sitting in the back of my spice cabinet for who knows how long, might have some connection with making mustard.  (I know, some of you are probably saying ‘duh’ right now.)  I like having a variety of spices, but sometimes my willingness to buy spices I don’t yet know how to use means that they sit around for a while, especially something like mustard seeds, which I’ve never seen called for in a recipe.

So off I went to research online, and I found a recipe that called for basically the ingredients I had.  We ran out of mustard last week (we don’t use it very often), and today seemed like as good a day as any for an experiment.  My ds6 and I made a batch this morning.  It took just only about five minutes and was very easy – the most time consuming part was putting the finished mustard into a jar and washing the blender.  🙂

I’ll share basically what I did here (I added some mustard powder that has also been sitting around, so estimated how much it weighed and put it in the ingredients as seeds) – but I’ll probably experiment a little more next time to see how different amounts of mustard seed and powder affect the end result.  It looks like real mustard and is tasty, though it’s a little spicy – my husband likes spicy mustard, but I prefer something more mild, so if this is a plus or not depends on who is tasting it. 🙂  

Avivah’s Mustard

  • 4 oz mustard seeds 
  • 1/2 c. vinegar (I used plain white)
  • 1/2 c. oil
  • 1/2 c. water (you could use broth or wine)
  • 1 T. tumeric
  • 3 t. lemon juice
  • salt to taste

Grind the mustard seeds until they are powdered – a blender works well for this.  Add the remaining ingredients, and blend all together until thoroughly mixed.  Yields two cups of mustard.

I can’t say how economical this will be for you, since it depends very much on the price you usually pay for mustard, and the price you’ll pay for mustard seeds (I buy most spices for under $1 in the typical little containers, less when I buy larger containers).  But for us, having all of the ingredients on hand that weren’t being used anyway, it was a great way to use something up and turn it into something useful! 

Avivah

Strawberry Bread

recipes

Here’s another breakfast loaf that our family enjoyed last week.

Strawberry Bread

  • 3 c. flour (we used freshly ground spelt)
  • 1 t. baking soda
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1 T. cinnamon
  • 1/2 – 3/4 c. sucanat (originally this recipe called for 2 c. of sugar, but this was waaaay too sweet, so we adapted it – we prefer to use the lower measurement)
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1 c. oil
  • 2 – 10 oz package frozen strawberries, slightly thawed

Combine dry ingredients, separately mix wet ingredients, and then combine the wet and dry.  Bake in two greased loaf pans at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

Avivah

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

recipes

We made these for the second time for breakfast yesterday morning – they’re a definite hit around here!  We’re able to buy frozen blueberries for a pretty reasonable price ($1.49 for 12 oz, enough to double the recipe below), so it’s an affordable breakfast for us.  But if you can’t and you’re looking for a frugal breakfast, either substitute something else for the blueberries or wait until you can pick them up cheaply.  Don’t assume that just because I’m making it, it must be an inexpensive recipe for anyone!

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

  • 2 c. flour (we used spelt)
  • 3/4 c. sucanat
  • 2 t. baking powder
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/4 t. cinnamon
  • 1 c. milk
  • 1/4 c. oil (coconut oil or butter)
  • 2 T. lemon juice
  • 1 egg
  • 1 t. grated lemon rind (substituted homemade orange zest instead)
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1 1/3 c. frozen blueberries, unthawed

Mix all the dry ingredients, then separately mix all wet ingredients (except blueberries).  Combine the wet and dry mixes, being careful not to overmix.  Add in blueberries last.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden.  We doubled the recipe, and baked half as muffins and half as a breakfast loaf (and my kids said we should make more next time since everyone likes it so much – to which I replied that I thought that considering they had apples and milk with their muffins, they had enough even if they wanted more!).  I’d estimate that this recipe makes about two dozen muffins.

By the way, muffins make a wonderful breakfast for Shabbos – much nicer (and cheaper) than bowls of cold cereal, and obviously lots healthier than cake.   They’re quick to whip up, and freeze well if you double the recipe and want to put some away for another meal.

Avivah

Honey Baked Lentils

recipes

I made these last week, after many months since last having served it.  When I served it then, my son’s friend was here for dinner and kept exclaiming at how our food was so much better than theirs (this had my kids looking skeptical, since his family often goes out to eat and a lot of what they eat is processed healthy food, the kind of food my kids know of as ‘treat’ food).  We served it at that time with soaked cornmeal corn cakes and several kinds of fermented vegetables – so it was a thoroughly healthy meal.  I don’t know why it took me so long to put them on the menu again!  My ds10 enjoyed them so much last week that he asked me to put them on this week’s menu, too!  It’s a quick, easy, and inexpensive dish, so I’m sharing it here with you.

Honey Baked Lentils

  • 1. c. dried lentils
  • 2 c. water
  • 2 T. honey
  • 2 T. soy sauce
  • 2 T. olive oil
  • 1/2 t. ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 small onion, chopped

Put everything into a covered pan, and bake at 350 degrees until tender.  I’d estimate this serves about 4 people; I think we use four cups of dried lentils for our family.

* I start preparing for this dish a couple of days in advance, by soaking the lentils overnight.  Then I drain the lentils off, and let them sit in the bowl for the rest of the day.  Before I go to sleep, I rinse them in a strainer again.  Even in this cold weather, they started to sprout within this period of time.  If you do soak your lentils first, you won’t need nearly so much water, since it’s already absorbed so much water through the soaking – we cut it down drastically, to maybe a 1/2 c. for the entire quadrupled recipe.  Though this isn’t necessary, it’s what I try to do with bean and lentils to maximize the nutritional value. 

Avivah

Homemade Strawberry Jam

canning, food preservation, recipes

We made a delicious experiment last week that was so simple that I had to share it with you, a sugar free strawberry jam! It’s slightly softer than a jam, so maybe to call it a fruit spread would be more accurate.

Here’s the proportions we used:

  • 3 lb. frozen strawberries (you can use fresh, too)
  • 1 can frozen apple juice concentrate
  • 1 box powdered pectin (use the pectin intended for low sugar recipes)

Put the strawberries and concentrate in the pot.  Cook on low, covered, until the strawberries are soft.  Mash the strawberries using a fork while keeping them in the pot.  Add the pectin, thoroughly mixing in so that there are no lumps.  Cook on medium-high for another few minutes, and then pour into jars.  It won’t look as if it’s at all jelled by this point, but don’t worry about it – it will continue to set after it cools.  If you cook it until it looks thick, it will be overdone and hard to spread once it cools.  (That’s what happened to our first batch.)  This recipe yields 7 half pint jars of jam.

If you’re not going to be canning it, you can store it in glass jars or empty peanut butter jars.  We canned ours in 1/2 pint jelly jars, processing for five minutes in a boiling water bath.  Once it’s canned, you won’t need to keep it in the fridge or freezer.

For one batch, we added blueberries; for another we used a different flavor juice concentrate.  All of the batches turned out well.  I think if you keep the basic proportions the same (7 c. fruit to one can concentrate), you’ll find you can successfully experiment with different fruits.

Avivah

Very Easy Vegetarian Chili

recipes

Chili is one of those flexible things that works well for improvising with whatever you have on hand, so you don’t have to be exact.  But I’ll share a couple of the recipes that I initially based mine on (and mine varies every time I make it, depending how much I have of what in the fridge :)).

Very Easy Vegetarian Chili

  • 1 c. chopped onion
  • 3/4 c. chopped carrots
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 c. chopped green pepper
  • 1 c. chopped red pepper
  • 3/4 c. chopped celery
  • 1 T. chili powder
  • 1 1/2 c. chopped fresh mushrooms (I don’t think I ever used mushrooms)
  • 1 – 28 oz. can whole tomatoes, chopped, or 1 – 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
  • 1 – 19 oz. can kidney beans (I cook them from dry, so about 2 cups cooked)
  • 1 – 11 oz. can corn (I use frozen, about a cup and a half)
  • 1 T. cumin
  • 1 1/2 t. oregano
  • 1 1/2 t. basil

Saute the onion and garlic until tender, add the carrots, celery, pepper, and mushrooms, and saute until all are soft.  Stir in the remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer twenty minutes more until done.

Here’s the next one – it has fewer ingredients and that makes it quicker and easier:

Vegetarian Chili

  • 4 potatoes, chopped
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 yellow bell peppers, chopped
  • 2 – 15 oz cans garbanzo beans (4 c. cooked)
  • 2 – 15 oz cans kidney beans (4 c. cooked)
  • 2 – 28 oz cans whole tomatoes, undrained
  • 2 T. chili powder
  • 2 t. cumin
  • 2 zucchini, sliced

Cook everything except zucchini until tender.  Add zucchini and cook ten minutes more.  Serves 8.

I prefer the second recipe, but combine elements of both.  For example, I use carrots (like the first) and potatoes (like the second) when I make vegetarian chili.  I tend to leave out the zucchini, especially since I make chili much more frequently in cold weather, when zucchini isn’t seasonal.  I also like to use stock instead of water (which doesn’t make it vegetarian), but it tastes good, or the pan drippings from Shabbos chicken.

Avivah

Pumpkin Bread

recipes

I realized last night that I never posted two recipes that Dina requested a few weeks ago  – I’m sorry about the oversight!  So I’m posting them now. 🙂  The adaptations I make are in the parentheses.

Pumpkin Bread

  • 15 oz canned pumpkin, or 2 c. cooked pumpkin
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 c. oil (we use coconut oil or butter)
  • 2/3 c. water
  • 3/4 – 1 c. sugar (I use sucanat and usually reduce the amounts of sweeteners called for, so I wouldn’t use more than 1/2 c. probably)
  • 3 1/2 c. flour (whole wheat)
  • 2 t. baking soda
  • 1 1/2 t. salt (sea salt)
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1 t. nutmeg
  • 1/2 t. cloves
  • 1/4 t. ginger

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, oil, and water.  In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients.  Then mix the wet and dry ingredients together until just mixed – quick breads will be tough if they are overmixed.  Put in three greased loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. 

Avivah