Avivah Werner

Category: Pesach

  • Colcannon

    Cabbage is a great vegetable because it’s so versatile, inexpensive, and stays fresh a long time (good for someone like me who buys vegetables every two weeks or less); there are so many things you can do with it!  I’m making colcannon for lunch today, and thought it would be a good time to share this frugal and tasty recipe.

    Colcannon

    • 4 c. green cabbage, chopped
    • 2 c. water
    • 1 T. oil

    Simmer chopped green cabbage in 2 c. water and 1 T. oil. Drain.

    • 1 c. onions or leeks, chopped
    • 4 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
    • 1/2 c. butter
    • 4 c. cooked potatoes, quartered (can be baked or boiled – I boil them because it’s faster)
    • 1 c. milk (I use raw)
    • salt, pepper to taste

    Saute the onions or leeks in butter (add garlic now if you’re using it) until translucent. Add cooked potatoes and milk to the potato mix and simmer it all until it’s warm.  Then mash it all together, and add the cooked cabbage to the pot with the potato mixture and heat for a few minutes until its thoroughly warmed through.  Mix it all together, season with salt and pepper and top with some more butter if you like.  Filled with protein, carbs, healthy fats, and veggies – a balanced meal and cheap to boot!

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday.)

    Avivah

  • Kitchen, check. Now time to relax.

    My kitchen is officially turned over for Passover as of this morning, and I already have a pot of lamb broth simmering on the stove top.   First things first, you know!  The second pot is filled with potatoes.  Naturally.  🙂  Seriously, I find that having boiled potatoes and eggs on hand makes it very easy to deal with hunger for the first day we turn over the kitchen, when we’re not ready to start cooking in earnest.

    Today we have a busy but relaxing day planned.  Today is my ds’s fourth birthday- this year sure has flown by!  Last year we took the family to an outing to the duck pond where we all enjoyed ourselves very much, and ds asked me if we could go again for his birthday.  It’s such perfect timing, being spring weather and a good opportunity to give the ducks any leavened foods that we’re not going to be eating.   We’ll take with us the leavened food that the kids want to eat, too (like organic chocolate covered pretzels that we received for Purim).  I think we might make a trip to the duck pond an annual family tradition for his birthday; it’s the kind of thing that everyone can enjoy looking forward to.

    He also asked if I could buy ice cream sandwiches, which is what I did last year.  Initially I agreed, but then realized that today is Ben and Jerry’s free scoop day, and thought it would be more fun to take the family out for a scoop.  (Here’s a link for their site if you’re interested – you can check the store locator to see what’s in your area if you’re interested – www.benjerry. com.)  No, it’s not a bit healthy!  Yep, call me a nutritional rebel.  😆

    The only Ben and Jerry’s in the city isn’t participating in the free scoop day, though, so we’ll be going to a neighboring city (where my dh works), getting the ice cream there, and then picking dh up from work.  That will be a treat for all of the kids as well as dh since it means a lot more time together and we get him from work infrequently.  Then we’ll all be able to go to the duck pond together and will be back in time for dinner.

    In the summer I got some free items from someone who was downsizing, and saved one to give to ds today.  It’s a beautiful hand painted laquered wood kiddush cup – here’s what it looks like.  Because it’s intended to be used at the Passover seder as the cup of Elijah, it has Eliyahu written on the front in Hebrew.   We already have a cup of Elijah, but since Eliyahu is the name of my ds, it’s perfect for him.  It’s kosher for Passover use, so he’ll use it this year for the seder and then an use it as his regular kiddush cup every Friday night.  I think he’s going to be really excited to be able to have something he associates with being big that is all for him.

    I hope all of you who are preparing for Passover are getting to the point where you can relax and have some fun, too!

    Avivah

  • Traditional food preparations for Passover

    >>I’ve been starting to plan meals for Passover, in the hopes that better planning will mean we eat more than matzah spread with whatever.   I was wondering if you could post a bit of about creative passover meal ideas.  And also I was wondering what you know of sprouting, lacto-fermenting, etc during Passover.  What can be sprouted that isn’t kitniyos?  All I can think of is sunflower seeds, and perhaps quinoa could be sprouted.  We like fermented green beans best (dilly beans), but that is kitniyos.  I’m not sure what other options there would be, that we would like.  Can a person make kefir, or kombucha, or… for Passover?  Do you worry about soaking grains when you are eating matzah?  You can’t exactly soak matzah, right?
    And also, I’ve been wondering, when you soak nuts and grains, if you don’t have a dehydrator, how do you get them back to normal?  Particularly, if you soak grains, can they be ground for flour in that state? <<

    I haven’t yet planned my Passover menu (I’ll do it on Thursday next week, after I see what I get for a very good price that I want to integrate into my planning), and I don’t know if it will be very creative!  But I’ll be sure to post about it once I have it basically worked out.

    I don’t think there’s much you can sprout for Passover, since it’s generally beans, seeds, and grains that are sprouted, and we don’t eat any of those!  I suppose you can try to sprout quinoa, but I’ll just do an overnight soak with an acidic medium in a warm location.  Nuts can be soaked and dehydrated, but I’m not planning to bother with that for the week of Passover- I generally use my dehdrator for that; the times I tried to use my oven to dry nuts that had been soaked and grains that had been sprouted, it didn’t turn out well at all!  (My oven doesn’t go low enough and the result was slightly scorched.)  (In answer to your last question, grains that are sprouted are ground after being dried if you want to use them for flour.)

    Lacto fermented vegetables are a cinch for Passover – just shred the vegetables (I make up combinations all the time – try napa or cabbage with onion, garlic, carrots and some curry powder – this is an easy one that always turns out well), add some sea salt and water, and let them sit on your counter until they’re ready.  (The salt I use throughout the year for table use is Real Salt, which is certified kosher for Passover – this would be a very good addition to fermented vegetables.)  The hardest part is that some vegetables like cabbage will take more time than a week to be ready to eat!  You can minimize the time needed to ferment cabbage by chopping it very finely. But most vegetables can be ready within 2 – 3 days.  Most hard and crunchy vegetables can be effectively fermented – have fun experimenting!

    Last year I asked about using the kefir grains and was told that I shouldn’t use them on Pesach (Passover).  Realize that in virtually every situation that I’ve asked a question like this, the rabbi I approached had to rely on my detailed description to make his decision, since these kind of questions aren’t common.  So it’s possible that it being an unknown food was a contributing factor to the decision and it was cautionary rather than kefir grains being problematic in and of themselves.  I don’t know and it doesn’t matter to me – I was told not to use it for this one week a year so I don’t.  I don’t find it hard to enjoy raw milk without culturing it for a week, so not having kefir is no hardship for me!

    If you do want cultured dairy, you can easily make yogurt by buying a kosher for Passover plain whole milk yogurt starter, then following the instructions I gave here.  I usually use a dehydrator but explained in the post that I just linked to how to use a cooler as the insulating box, with a heating pad/hot water bottle on top – since I don’t have a Passover dehydrator, that’s what I would do.

    I don’t use kombucha, so I can’t share any tips with that – I tried to make it about three years ago and I think I killed my scoby.  😆 Maybe it wasn’t dead but it was so unappetizing looking that I threw it away.

    Because of the high phytic acid content, I’ll be minimizing the use of matza, but matza meal can be soaked overnight in an acidic medium if you use it for cakes, muffins, or pancakes. You can use shredded coconut and nut flours in place of flours for baked goods – I have a number of recipes in my ‘recipe’ category that will be appropriate for Passover use, even if I didn’t label them as such.

    Tonight I’ll be preparing beef liver for the first time (will share more about that another time), and bought a new grill to kasher it on so whatever we prepare will be able to be used for Passover.  That will be a nice traditional addition to our Pesach menu, I hope!

    Someone once commented that her Jewish mother-in-law gave her a Jewish cookbook and the entire book was filled with healthy recipes that work well for a gluten-free diet.  I was wondering what in the world she could be talking about, and realized that she must have been given an older cookbook with Passover recipes!  Once you get past the modern day food imitations that supermarkets are filled with that are marketed especially for this time of year, you realize that this really is an easy time of year to eat well, easier than during the rest of the year when grains and beans may be a staple of your diet.

    Stick with traditional fats- extra virgin olive oil, rendered chicken fat (shmaltz), butter, and extra virgin coconut oil.  Then add lots of fruits, vegetables, eggs, fish, meat and chicken, along with quinoa, potatoes, and sweet potatoes for the starch, some nuts, coconut, and dried fruits for dessert – there’s hardly anything to miss eating.  And all of it is healthy, simple, and delicious!

    Avivah

  • Keeping everyone fed when converting kitchen for Passover

    I was going to respond to the comment made recently and share about how to make the ‘turning over the kitchen’ stage as stress-free as possible.  Then this morning I noticed that last year I responded in detail to this, so I figured I’d repost it since many of you didn’t see it then.

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    >>Whats your eating plan for the next week before Pesach? Just curious. I enjoy reading about your Pesach preparations. <<

    In keeping everyone happy in the time you’re converting your kitchen from regular use to Passover use, I think keeping everyone fed on time in an appropriate manner adds a lot to general happiness!  Seriously, there absolutely must be a plan for meals.  And the plan can’t be not having food in the house and hoping the kids won’t complain too much.  That’s just not going to work!  I can’t stress the need for a plan enough – it doesn’t have to be complicated.  Just take a few minutes to think about the 3 – 6 meals that you’re not going to easily be able to cook in your kitchen the way you usually do and how you can handle it in a way that you will be able to stay relaxed.

    In my experience, the biggest issue is what to feed everyone for the two days that the kitchen is being done.  Before that, they can eat regular food.  After that, you can cook Pesach foods.  During the time you’re cleaning the kitchen, you don’t want to have to be cooking chometz when you’re in the middle of kashering everything. And the kids still have to eat, right?

    So here’s what I did.  At the beginning of the week, I made a few chometz dishes in disposable  pans, and put them in the fridge.  Those could be easily reheated in the oven, and then served directly from the pan.  Today we’re in between things – after all of these years, I haven’t figured out how to avoid that, since you have to wait 24 hours after using the sink before kashering it (I guess I could start washing dishes in the laundry sink 24 hours before I kasher the rest of the kitchen so the sink could be done at the same time, but that presents it’s own inconveniences…).  Tonight we’ll finish everything – kashering the sink, oven, and stove.  But until then, we’re kind of in the middle of things, and it’s an awkward position – I can’t yet cook everything in Pesach dishes, and I don’t want to take out chometz dishes to cook with.

    So for breakfast today, I pulled out the prepared pan of bread pudding for breakfast.  We served it in large chunks on napkins after heating it up, and had some bananas and kefir with it.  For  lunch, we had lasagna and vegetable juice – but everyone got paper plates and utensils then :) , and for dinner, we’re having these unhealthy instant entree things (hey, we can live wildly once a year, right? :) )) that we were given a few days ago when someone was getting rid of all the chometz in their freezer – a combo of mini hot dogs, potato puffs, and a couple of other things, with some corn and tomato salad.  Those will also just need to be eaten warmed up.  Oh, and the kids had spelt soup croutons and cream of wheat for a snack mid day.  That’s just about the last of the chometz, I think.  For myself and the others in my family who don’t eat flour, I roasted a turkey at the beginning of the week for dinner meals through the end of the week.  And since dh prefers when I do this, I’ll probably make some kitniyos for the time leading up to Pesach (like a pot of rice), that will be prepared in an electric cooker on the patio table, and served there as well (on paper plates, and washing the cooker in the laundry sink in the basement).

    After dinner when the littles are in bed, I’ll kasher everything.  Tomorrow morning, I’ll be able to use Pesach dishes and pots, and everyone will have a regular kosher l’Pesach breakfast.  I need to do my veggie shopping, too, because I’m very low.  I’ll start making a menu plan for the next few days sometime later today or tonight, and I’ll share that when I have it done.

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    Hopefully by sharing this now it will give you time to think ahead so you can plan for this stage and minimize the stress involved.  Note that I said minimize, not eliminate – there are inherent pressures involved and expecting yourself to feel ultra relaxed every minute and wondering what you’re doing wrong if you’re not, is unrealistic and will just set you up to feel like a failure.  Do the best you can and give yourself credit for every little (and not so little) thing you’re doing to get ready for Pesach (Passover)!

    Avivah

  • Clarifying what products need Passover certification

    Have you ever noticed that packaged foods that are certified for Pesach (Passover) are very expensive?  (How’s that for a nicely phrased understatement? 😆 )

    After seeing the prices for some foods I want to use for Pesach that are certified for Passover use, I decided yesterday to get some more information about these foods and if they really need that additional Pesach supervision that I’ve been paying extra for until now.   Although I have a few more items I want to call about tomorrow, the information I’ve learned will help me to buy a number of foods for Pesach at the price I pay year round, and I thought I’d share that with you.  (However, it’s always good to ask your questions yourself.)

    Quinoa – some people don’t use this because of the suspicion of it being kitniyos.  Here in my city it’s accepted across the board that it’s not; I believe it was the local kashrus agency that did the research about if quinoa was kosher for Passover and brought it to public attention.  My previous understanding was that it had to be purchased from one of two sources, both of which were much more expensive than what I can buy it for.  My question was if I could use quinoa from any company or not.  I called the OU (Orthodox Union) Hotline yesterday and was told that as long as it’s purchased in a sealed bag and is checked before Pesach (in case of accidental cross contamination), I can buy from whatever company I want.  That means that I can buy from my usual bulk source and get a 25 lb for under $4 lb instead of paying between $5 – 6 for a 12 oz box.   I had already decided I wasn’t going to use much quinoa if it meant paying over $7 lb – I’d rather buy meat for that price! I use quinoa year round so buying a 25 lb bag isn’t a waste for me, and this means I can use as much as I want for Pesach.

    Nuts – any shelled nuts (ie without shells) that are whole and have no additives or preservatives can be used for Pesach even without certification.  Be sure that there’s no BHA or BHT in the nuts you get.  This is also something I use and buy in bulk year round – since I don’t have any unopened packages I’ll buy new ones for Pesach.  I usually space the expenses of bulk nut purchases so that I don’t buy more than two a month, and since there are four kinds of nuts I’d like to get, this will be a big expense in the coming month for me.  But it will all even out since I won’t have to buy nuts for a long time.  I was told sliced almonds also have this classification, but nut flours don’t.

    Dried fruit – all dried fruit needs to have a special certification for Passover.  The exception to this is raisins that are grown in the US and are certified kosher for year round use.  Since last month I bought a 25 (or 30?) lb box of raisins that meet this criteria and haven’t yet used them, this was good news to me.

    Milk – last year dh asked about this and was told that we needed to use milk certified kosher for Passover.  So I didn’t use any raw milk.  This year I decided to ask for myself since after speaking to dh, I realized the answer was applicable to both pasteurized and raw milk – I thought the answer had been given expressly about raw milk.  I was told that as long as it’s purchased before Pesach, it doesn’t need any Pesach certification. That means that this year we’ll be able to enjoy raw milk on Pesach.

    edited to add – I just called again and was told that organic sucanat is okay (called back a second time and was told it’s not, so won’t be using this after all), as is extra virgin coconut oil (which was also mentioned in the comments section before I made this call).  I asked about unsweetened coconut products but all of those will need Passover certification.  It didn’t hurt to ask, though!

    There are other foods that don’t require certification that I was already aware of – this is by no means an exhaustive list!  These are all new to me, though.

    I’m very pleased with all of this information.  I thought I had no choice but to pay extra for Passover certification on the above items, and am glad to know that I can eat these foods just as affordably for Pesach as I do year round.  And just as nutritiously, too!

    Avivah

  • My basic Pesach cleaning schedule

    This week I’m officially getting started on my Pesach (Passover) cleaning! I generally don’t do more than two hours of cleaning on any given day except when we turn over the kitchen.  It’s too easy to get worn down by all the work; I find breaking it into manageable pieces makes it possible to enjoy this time of year and all the attendant preparations as much as any other time of year!  The kids do a lot to help, and I don’t want them to get burnt out, either.  Some people like to start way in advance, but I’ve never found it beneficial to start too much in advance, since then you have to keep it in Pesach ready condition.  Our house isn’t large enough that I can easily limit areas for a long time in advance!

    I feel that each holiday is best enjoyed when the focus is on that holiday.  That means that I don’t do any planning for Pesach until Purim has passed – I focus on Purim when it’s Purim and don’t think about Pesach until it’s over, and all the Purim stuff has been cleaned up and put away.  I try not to drag out Pesach cleaning, but I also don’t like the pressure of having too much to do, too close to Pesach, so this schedule works well for me.    I clean mostly in the afternoons on Monday through Weds (sometimes Thursday, but I prefer to keep that time available for Shabbos preparations), so we can continue our regular homeschooling schedule until the week before Pesach.  I also use part of Sundays.

    Here’s my basic schedule:

    Week 1 (March 2 – 4):  I inventoried chametz (leavened foods) and clothing/shoes, and made sure everyone has what they need for the upcoming holiday and spring season.  It was the week of shopping, lol!   I still have a couple of things I need to get (including my personal big purchase that I’ll get today), but I’m waiting for a good sale to come along for the couple of other items. 🙂

    Week 1: The week after Purim I do my planning – along with things like I mentioned above.  It’s preliminary kind of stuff that allows me to focus on Pesach cleaning without having to stop and start knowing it’s done.

    Week 2 (March 8 – 11):  We’ll clean the top two floors. That includes all the bedrooms, the attic, linen closet, and two bathrooms.  We have a homeschool gathering on Weds. as well as an eye doctor appointment to take ds16 to, so I’ve scheduled that as an off-day so we can all enjoy hanging out without feeling like we should be cleaning.

    Yesterday I bought our matzas and some other Pesach staples – I don’t like shopping when it’s crowded and I avoid the rush by doing it now.  It also spaces out the cost – six cases of grape juice, meats, and matza were all paid for with my Feb. budget.  My March budget will cover everything else.  My food budget is the same at this time of year as any other month – $600.   If I have to, I’ll stop in at the kosher supermarket a few days before Pesach when everything else is done to pick up any small items I don’t yet have.  Unlike the vast majority of people in the very long lines at that time, I’m relaxed and cheerful; I consider it almost a public service to share some positive energy when everyone is dripping with tension.  🙂

    Week 3 (March 14 – 18): At this point I do the basement and laundry room.  This year I’m slightly adjusting our schedule to accommodate the home repairs the  kids want to do.  They want to  some spackle a little, paint a little, fix some things that don’t look so nice (like the hole in the bathroom door created when ds2 used a screwdriver to screw into it!).  So on Sunday and Monday, we’ll do the basement and laundry room, and then will have the following three days to do the desired visual improvements. 🙂

    Week 4 (March 21 – 25):  I’ll do the living room, dining room, and kitchen (we have an open layout so it’s easiest to do them all about the same time).  This is the most intensive time, since it’s a lot of work in just three days.  I like to finish cleaning about a week before Pesach so there’s plenty of time to cook in advance, do all the laundry, etc, without a feeling of pressure.  I plan to turn over the kitchen on the 23rd, and that day we’ll shift out of hectic mode and can all relax – I plan to take the family to the duck pond for his birthday – we did that last year and he requested to do it again, with the same refreshments as last year.  Then on the March 24, I’ll do my monthly shopping, and Thurs. I’ll unpack, plan my Pesach menu (to be determined after I see what I buy), and cook for Shabbos.  At that time the house is entirely ready – the only thing left to do the following week is cook for Pesach.

    So far the challenge this week is that the best time to clean is when the littles are napping, but they each nap in a differentbedroom, so not much can be done on the top two floors since it will wake them up!  That means cleaning with them awake and involved.  The biggest challenge is the attic, since I keep all the clothes storage there.  Since everyone is going through all of their drawers, I have a lot of clothes that need to be cleaned and then packed in the appropriate boxes.  Once I get past this area of the house, it will get easier since I can use the time the kids are sleeping to work.

    I also want to find some time to plan my garden.  I don’t know if I’m going to get myself together enough to plant fruit trees – this is such a hectic time of year!  I need to go through all the seeds I have, see what else I need, but the most time consuming thing of all is to make a plan for where everything will be planted.  I have a feeling that I’m going to have to accept that I can’t make the more involved garden that I would like.  Oh, well.  At times like this I remind myself that I can only do so much, and to look at what I do accomplish instead of what is left undone.

    Do you have any tips that help you stay relaxed and enjoy this time of year?

    Avivah

  • Twice Baked Potatoes

    I’ve made these a number of times, always varying the recipe according to what I have on hand.  It’s very inexpensive, easy to adapt, and it always tastes great!  We make double this amount for a lunch meal, but a smaller family would probably do better to halve it.  🙂

    Twice Baked Potatoes

  • 8 medium potatoes
  • 1/4 – 1/2  c. butter or coconut oil
  • 1 c. chopped onion (any kind – white, green, or red)
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • optional – 2 c. shredded vegetables (carrots, broccoli, spinach, napa, cauliflower, zucchini or whatever you have on hand)
  • 1/2 c. milk/cream/sour cream
  • 2 c. cheese (hard cheese or cottage/ricotta, or combination of )
  • salt and pepper to taste

    • Wash the potatoes well, prick them with a fork, and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until tender.

    While the potatoes are baking, saute the chopped onions and garlic in butter.  When they are soft and translucent, add the finely chopped/shredded vegetables of your choice.  Cover them and continue cooking on low until they are soft.

    When the potatoes are done, scoop out the insides, and mash them with milk, cream, or sour cream.  Mix in the sauteed vegetables, then the cheese.  (If you’re using hard cheese, reserve some to sprinkle on top at the end.)  Add salt and pepper to taste, mix well.  Then add the mixture to the empty potato shells – it will be overflowing, especially if you add the optional vegetables.

    Sprinkle some hard cheese on top, then pop them back into the oven for another 10 or so.  Serve warm.

    (This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and Pennywise Platter Thursday.)

    Avivah

  • Delicious Cabbage Soup

    Cabbage is a wonderful winter vegetable – it’s inexpensive, stores well in a cool room, and can be made into a huge variety of tasty dishes.  I created this soup a couple of days ago, and though I thought the twelve quarts I made would be enough for two lunch meals, it got gobbled up at one sitting!  The amounts below should work well for a smaller family than ours  – I made about three times this amount.

    Delicious Cabbage Soup

    • 2 medium onions, chopped
    • 2 – 3 cloves of garlic, diced
    • 2 – 4 T. oil (I used rendered chicken fat)
    • 1 – 2 lb leftover turkey or whatever meat you have from making broth (you can use ground meat instead if you don’t have any leftover meat to use up)
    • 1 large head of cabbage (purple or white)
    • 1 T. sweet paprika
    • 2 t. thyme
    • 8 c. broth
    • salt to taste

    Heat the oil in a pot, and add the chopped onions; cook until translucent.  Add the soup chicken and saute it until it’s warmed through.  Then add the cabbage, spices, and broth.  Cover the pot and cook on medium until the cabbage is so soft it’s almost melting.  Taste it and add salt according to your personal taste – I’d estimate I used about 3 T. sea salt for my large pot full (12 quarts).

    This recipe is super inexpensive and it’s a great way to use up your leftover chicken from making broth.  The cost for me to make 12 quarts was under $5: the onions were .29 lb (I used approximately two pounds – .60), the cabbage was .39 lb (I used about 8 – 10 lb/3.90), and since I got the turkey carcasses for free, the broth and turkey were free.  It’s packed with flavor and nutrients, and is very digestible.  Perfect to warm you up on a cold winter day!

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday and Ultimate Recipe Swap.)

    Avivah

  • How to render animal fat

    >>How do you render animal fat?<<

    Sometimes I forget that many things I do that have become second nature to me need explanation!   Rendering fat is very, very easy, and it’s a frugal thing to do since most people tend to throw away the skin and fat; you can save money while simultaneously benefiting your health.

    Take the fat of your choice (chicken, duck, beef), and cut it into chunks if it’s large.  It doesn’t need to be ground or minced, but if you have big pieces from beef, cutting it into 2 inch chunks will help it melt faster.  I don’t usually have any pieces big enough to cut.  You can separate any flesh from it, but I don’t bother since that’s more easily done at the end.  Put the chunks of fat into a pot on the very lowest flame/heat setting on your stovetop so that it will very slowly melt – if you put it too high, it will burn.  As the fat melts, it becomes clear.  Keep the pot covered to keep the heat in, and after a few hours (sometimes significantly less) on low, the fat will be totally liquified.  Be sure to take a look at it every once in a while to be sure it’s not cooking too fast.

    Once it’s fully melted, you can do one of three things, depending on how you’re planning to use and store the fat once it’s rendered.  1) Carefully pour the liquified fat through a fine mesh strainer/cheesecloth to catch the little drippings.  This will give you the best result in terms of asthetics; additionally, by straining out all of the protein sediment, it will stay good for a very long time.  2) Use a slotted spoon to take the cracklings out, saving them to use in a savory dish.  3) Don’t bother straining it because you’ll be using the rendered fat in cooking (vs baking) and you don’t care about if there are a few little pieces. Whatever you choose, store it in a container with a tight fitting lid.

    I tend to go with option 2 or 3, since I only use animal fat for sauteeing, not baking (coconut oil is my ‘go to’ fat for baking).  And I use it so quickly that it doesn’t matter to me if it will only stay good for a few weeks vs a few months.  If I’m doing a huge batch, though, I’ll take the extra few minutes to strain it out.

    I also reserve the liquid that is left at the bottom of the pan after roasting poultry or meat.  When it’s refrigerated, it naturally separates, with the fat rising to the top and the gravy sinking to the bottom.  I scrape off the fat layer to saute with and add the congealed broth that is left to  a stew or casserole – it packs in a lot of flavor.  When I make broth and refrigerate it overnight, the fat will congeal on top.  If it’s a very concentrated pot of broth (ie large amount of bones to water), then I skim the fat or the broth tastes too greasy.  This is particularly important when I do lamb broth, since it tastes like drinking oil if you don’t skim it first.

    Is anyone familiar with gribenes? My mother used to make these on Pesach (Passover).  Gribenes are a traditional Jewish food, the kind of things people now consider a heart attack waiting to happen, but if you know about saturated fats and why they’re so important to your body, you can enjoy them with a clear mind.  🙂

    Gribenes are basically just crispy fried chicken skins.  To make them, you take some unrendered fat and chicken skin (cut it in strips).  Chop up an onion, and put it together in the pot with the fat and chicken skins.  Keep the flame on low until the fat has melted, then turn it up to medium and keep cooking until the onions and skins are golden. Sprinkle with a little salt, and enjoy!  My kids like these hot from the pan as is, but it’s a nice addition to chopped liver or any mashed potato dish (on Pesach, you know that means you can put it into everything :lol:).

    Note: kosher supermarkets sell chicken fat around Pesach (Passover) time, not so much the rest of the year.  Our local store sells schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) throughout the year, but it’s way more expensive than making your own (I haven’t checked for a long time, but I think it was over $5 lb).

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday.)

    Avivah

    (My apologies for mentioning Pesach when Purim is still over two weeks away; everyone who felt anxious at the mention can now stop hyperventilating. :))

  • Nutty Pizza Crust (grain-free)

    In our family everyone enjoys pizza; for the last few months we’ve been serving two versions on pizza night to accomodate those who prefer grain-free/GAPS.   This crust has a nice flavor – and though it doesn’t taste like your typical pizza dough, it’s very tasty.

    I made some very slight adaptations to the recipes of Sierra and SOG , and this is what we use now when we want a gluten-free pizza crust.

    Nutty Pizza Crust

    • 2 c. nut flour (I prefer hazelnut, but have used almond meal successfully)
    • 2 eggs
    • 2 t. coconut oil (I use expeller pressed)
    • 1 t. salt

    Melt the coconut oil, let cool slightly.  Beat the eggs, add in the coconut oil and salt. (You don’t want it to be boiling hot or it will curdle the eggs; if you don’t melt it, it’s hard to mix in evenly.)  Then stir in the nut flour; mix thoroughly.

    Form it into a ball, and then pat it out on a greased pan or cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about twenty minutes until browned.  Then add the toppings – sauce, vegetables, and cheese.  Bake another 10 – 15 minutes until it looks ready.

    Enjoy!

    (This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesday.)

    Avivah