Tilapia and potatoes in tomato sauce

New Pesach, new recipe. Few ingredients and can use frozen fish.

1lb frozen tilapia
1 medium can tomato sauce
2~3 large potatoes
Salt and whole black pepper to taste

Into a saucepan, dump tomato sauce (can be diluted with water), add salt and pepper, add frozen tilapia and bring to a boil. Simmer until fish is fully cooked. Remove fish and add potatoes, cut into triangles. Simmer until potatoes are tender and meanwhile, break up the tilapia fillets into small pieces. After potatoes are cooked, mix in the fish and serve.

The right of the people to weaponize their kitchen, shall not be infringed.

Though these may be illegal in United States' public schools, they're not yet banned by Obama. And best of all, amazon will ship them to New York City.

First we have this 12 round AK-47 magazine from Southern Homewares.  A single-sided entry level choice for those on a budget. Personally, I wouldn't get this. It's more than 10 rounds and will soon be banned and is made of flimsy material.

My preferred choice is this 10 round AK-47 magazine. Still legal even with Obama's plans for world domination. Though if you live in New York, courtesy of Comrade Cuomo and Joseph Lentol Stalin, you may need to permanently block three holes. Now, while this is a bit expensive, it's made of quality material and is double sided ensuring proper bullet retention. Get two or three of these to ensure you don't run out of bullets at a critical time.

Need to send a message? These 12 gauge shot glasses will deliver it for you. Plastic, with a metal base, these come in a pack of four. Need more, buy two, just remember that using more than 5+1 at once is illegal.

Bringing friends? This Fred & Friends Freeze Handgun-Shaped Ice-Cube Tray will make sure you and two to five of your friends are armed and ready for action. Comes with a handy carrying handle.

All this talk of gun control bringing you down? Stick it to the man and leave him shitfaced with this Obama toilet paper from Big Mouth Toys. If you can't personally impeach him, at least you can flush him down the toilet.

The many things you can do with your $3.99/lb ground meat on Pesach

If you bought a 5lb family pack of ground meat and are not planning on using it right away, do not stick it in the freezer.  Break the pack into 2 or 5 pieces, put them into plastic bags and make them as flat as possible and only then freeze them.
All of the following recipes are for a slow cooker/crock pot, for people like me who are too lazy to kasher their oven and are using it for storage of their non-Pesach pots and pans.

Shepherd's Pie
If you're Ashkenaz, Pesach time your house is full of potatoes, carrots and onions.
Layer chopped onions, ground meat and chopped potatoes.  If you want, add carrots, spices or even dump a couple turkey pieces on top of everything.
For liquid, use chicken broth and remember that this is not cholent with beans or rice or barley and the water will not get absorbed.
Splashing in some brandy adds to the taste and smell.

Meatloaf
You can make meatloaf in a crock pot as long as you add liquid like water or chicken broth so that it doesn't become dry or burn.
Mix seasoned matza crumbs, chopped garlic, spices and eggs and leave it on low for a couple hours.

Pesach Cholent
Last time I checked, if you use quinoa, you to check it for foreign matter and I'm just too lazy for that.
Garlic on the bottom, then some lamb breast and roasted chestnuts, spices, ground meat and/or chicken gizzards, cut yams and/or potatoes.
On top, you can add raisins, honey, eggs and turkey pieces.
Since beer is chometz, can splash some brandy or slivovits.
Again, remember that you're not using anything that will absorb most of the water so don't add too much.

Ground meat with crushed tomatoes, garlic and brussel sprouts
Invented this this year and that's exactly what it's made from.
Layer ground beef and a lot of minced garlic.  Pour a large, at least 28oz, can of crushed tomatoes on top.
Add brussel sprouts in the last 1~2 hours so that they don't turn into mush.

Not ground meat related, but another favorite Passover recipe of mine is to dump 9oz of chicken sauce into a small wok and boil chicken pieces in it, turning them until done.

Fish with pasta

Being very lazy and too lazy to cut potatoes, I created a variation on my shawarma fish. The name is due to the color and taste from the Israeli fish spices. Besides involving less work, this version can feed more people and is very much enjoyed by kids.

Cook half a box of elbow macaroni and set aside.
Take 2 bags of frozen tilapia or flounder and cut each piece into 4 parts.
In a large wok, fry the fish in toasted sesame oil.
When the fish doesn't look raw anymore, mix in the pasta and let it stand on a low flame for 2~3minutes.

Turn off the flame and add pasta sauce, preferably thick and preferably with mushrooms.
Let stand to allow the pasta to absorb flavor from the fish and pasta sauce.

Whole Wheat Raisin Nut Bread - Zojirushi BBCCX20

After going to a friend's party and seeing his Zojirushi BBCC-X20 Home Bakery Supreme Bread Machine, monkey see, monkey do, I bought one also.

The bread maker comes with a recipe book, except the recipes are not very Jewish Orthodox friendly. All of the recipes contain milk. I asked my friend what substitutes he uses and then modified the recipe some more.

1. 1^7/8 cups of room temperature, not cold, water.
2. 2 tbsp olive oil.
3. 3 tbsp uncooked black buckwheat honey.
4. 3 cups whole wheat flower.
5. 2 cups high gluten regular flower.
6. 1/2 tbsp salt.
7. 3/4 cup mix of sunflower seeds, chopped walnuts or almond slivers, and caraway seeds.
8. 1 envelope of active dry yeast (3/4 oz).
9. 1/2 cup of raisins.

First add water, olive oil and honey. Then flower. Then salt and nuts and seeds. Make a depression in the middle and add yeast. Select whole wheat course and press start.

To insure that the majority of the raisins end up inside, I like to add them not when the machine beeps, but rather when it's still doing the initial mixing. Add the raisins when the display says 2:55.

Flounder and Pasta salad

Ingredients:

Flounder, pasta, shoyu soy sauce, mirin, semi-dry white wine.

Directions:

Cut flounder into half inch thick pieces.

Fry on on both sides using sesame seed oil.

Add pasta.

Add shoyu soy sauce and mirin.

Cook on medium and add more mirin to taste.

Deglaze using semi-dry white wine and mix into the salad.

Dafina 2/6/10

Thank y'all for coming. Was fun.
Here's what y'all were eating:

Dafina
Layer 1: 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
Layer 2: Lamb stew, package of roasted chestnuts, ginger
Layer 3: Dark buckwheat honey, cinnamon, hot paprika, sweet paprika, salt, curry powder, ground ginger, cumin
Layer 4: Vitarroz Fiesta Rice (long grain & wild rice), Sadaf #3 bulgur
Layer 5: In the middle, ground meat; on the outside, 1 yam, cut into circles and then in half
Layer 6: 1 Italian Spicy sausage, 1 Meal Mart Garlic sausage; in the middle, 3 organic brown eggs

Neverdry turkey

I made a whole turkey a couple times and it came out great. But, it takes a lot of time and work. One year we ate out. Another time, I baked skinless and boneless turkey breast, which didn't come out exactly like I wanted. This year, I decided to try something different. I baked two legs and turkey breast with wing.

I like stuffing and this year I used microwavable Mexican rice, which I partially cooked, mixed with duck sauce and bread. Since I couldn't stuff the turkey, I stuffed the skin, which I pulled almost off, and the rest of the stuffing I put underneath. I baked the turkey at 325 degrees, 30 minutes uncovered, 3.5 hours covered with an aluminum tent, basting every half an hour. The stuffing kept the meat from overcooking and losing moisture while keeping the skin separated and stretched, which gave it a nice brown color and made it thin and quite tasty.

I recommend always mixing the duck sauce into the stuffing. As for the turkey itself, smear the duck sauce inside and out, including under the skin. Add some water to pan to use for basting. Apples, quartered and placed around the turkey are also a good addition.

Pesach Cooking 2009

Fish

Take 2 packs of frozen tilapia, preferably not Dagim.

Cut each fillet in half and then each half into 1" wide pieces.

Sprinkle with fish spices.

Take 2 potatoes and cut into similar size pieces.

Start frying the potatoes in a frying pan.

After all of the potatoes have changed color, add the fish and some more fish spices.

Stir, lower the flame and cover.

Cook, stirring occasionally until done.

Chicken

Take 2 chickens, dump them into a crock pot 8 hours in advance and cover with your favorite sauce.

Done.

Cholent

Layer 1: chopped garlic.

Layer 2: meat, chestnuts and walnuts.

Layer 3: salt, pepper, red hot paprika, honey, ground nutmeg.

Layer 4: yams, squash, ground meat, 2-3 hot dogs, 3 eggs.

Use a cup of coke or some slivovits for flavor.  Unfortunately no beer.

Dafina: Revision n+1

Revision n

Layer 1 - Chopped onion and 3 cloves of garlic.

Layer 2 - Lamb breast or lamb stew and a bag of roasted and shelled chestnuts.

Layer 3 - Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, hot red paprika, cinnamon, cumin, curry powder, at least 1 tbsp of honey.

Layer 4 - Bulgur and rice and/or barley.

Layer 5 - Yams, eggs and either hotdogs, salami or veal tongue.

With water add either a can of beer or a cup of coke.

Stir-Fry Beef

This is a pretty fast and simple recipe and hard to screw up. The cooking time is under 10 minutes, though the preparation can be somewhat annoying. You'll need beef, fresh or frozen, shelled edamame edamame, bamboo shoots, teriyaki sauce and cooking ramen. For cooking, you'll need a wok and wooden, unpainted, chopsticks.

Take partially defrosted meat and using a sharp knife cut from it 1 inch squares, 1/8 inch thick. Marinade for 30 minutes in teriyaki sauce. Add the bamboo shoots to the marinade. Defrost some shelled edamame. Cook and drain the ramen.

Place the wok on medium to high heat. Add the beef without the sauce and stir-fry for 2 minutes making sure that both sides are cooked. Add bamboo shoots and edamame beans and stir-fry for a minute or 2. Lower the flame a little and add the ramen and teriaki sauce. Stir-fry for 2 more minutes, making sure that the ramen doesn't burn. Enjoy.

Cured Salmon

Here's a quick, fun recipe for making your own lox.

You'll need fresh salmon, make sure it looks nice and red and not spoiled when you buy it. Kosher salt and sugar for salting and for spices, I'm currently using dill and dry mint.

Remove skin from the salmon pieces. Mix together 3 parts salt and 1 part sugar and sprinkle on both sides making sure there's a nice even layer. Very sparsely sprinkle dill on both sides. For each side, crumble 1 dry mint leaf with your fingers and sprinkle on top of the dill. Cover with another plate and refrigerate for 24 hours. Check the salmon occasionally and remove any liquid from the plate.

To make the cure salmon resemble lox, place a 1lb metal can, for example, of tomato sauce, on top. The sugar to salt ratio can be varied as long as there's at least 2 parts salt to 1 part sugar. For flavoring you can also use parsley, crushed black pepper or any other spices you like.

Better Cooking

Recently I bought a new frying pan from Amazon. Today I finally went to toivel it and decided to use it to cook dinner. I made stir-fry with BBQ sauce. The frying pan is hard-anodized aluminum and this thing rocks! Cooking and cleaning is a pleasure. One thing I like about it is that instead of one long handle it has 2 steel ones, comes with a lid and is oven-safe up to 450 degrees! You can start cooking on the stove and move the whole thing into the oven, or the other way around.
I seriously recommend this to anyone who likes stir-frying.

Pesach Stir-Fry

Wok + chicken cut into small cubes + bag of frozen California style vegetables + BBQ sauce = Pesach Stir-Fry.

Chicken thighs for Pesach

I use a small wok for most of my Pesach cooking. One great way to use it is for chicken cut in 8 or chicken thighs. The wok is just the right size for 4 chicken thighs. I like to use apricot or cranberry based chicken sauce, half a bottle or about 9 oz. To shorten the cooking time, cover with a narrow, tight fitting lid that should rest about half an inch above the chicken.

Chag Kasher V'Sameach!

Japanese Hamantashen

As I said before, I make my own shalach manot. This year, some people are getting what you see on the left.

This is an onigiri, which, incidentally looks like hamantashen, especially with the Season black caviar in the middle. Onigiri comes from the word nigiri which means grip. Most of you should be familiar with sushi-nigiri or as it's incorrectly called in America, sushi. What Americans call rolls, is sushi-maki, sushi is sushi-nigiri and sashimi is sashimi.

I'm not going to explain how to make sushi rice. I bought a Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker, expensive but worth it. To make onigiri, you need sushi rice, nori and stuffing. I use either black or red caviar or rolled anchovies with capers. I like to use cling wrap when shaping the rice.

Take a sheet of nori. Nori sheets are not square but rectangular. Fold and tear or cut it in half so that the halves are wide. Separate each of those into three more pieces. Spread out a piece of cling wrap on a plate. Sprinkle some salt. Place rice in the middle. The amount of rice will depend on how big you want the onigiri to come out. Form the rice into a triangular shape. Make a deep indentation in the middle with your index finger and fill it with a stuffing of your choice. Fold the piece of nori around the onigiri with the shiny side out. Wrap the onigiri in cling wrap, add a drink and your shalach manot is done.

Onigiri can also be made into a ball or any shape you like. An interesting idea is to shred some chicken breast or turkey, mix it with rice and make an onigiri out of that. This way you don't even need to add stuffing.

Welcome to my meat factory

Everyone knows that hot dogs are only partially cooked and that you have to finish cooking them yourself. What most people don't know is the same is true for salami. I would go so far as to say that sticks of salami sold in stores are disgusting if you didn't properly "cook" them.

When you buy a salami, it has a string attached at one end, it's there for a reason. After you buy a salami, you first need to take off the outer plastic casing and wash and dry the salami. Next, find a place to hang it. The temperature doesn't really matter, the only important thing to remember is that no part of the salami should be touching anything.

The minimum aging time is three weeks. There is no maximum, I had salami hanging as long as two and a half months. I prefer to age the salami for five weeks. I have a meat slicer for cutting the salami, if you don't have one, don't hang it longer than three weeks. Even after only three weeks, taking the inner casing off can be a problem. It comes off perfectly on Aaron's pepperoni, but with Aaron's regular salami, it's a nightmare. The best way to get the inner casing off is with boiling water. Boiling water has to be poured over the whole length and circumference of the salami. Immediately after, cut off one end and start peeling. I like to use a napkin to get a better hold and instead of peeling the casing off in one winding strip, try to slide the whole thing off like a sheath.

What you see in the picture is five Aaron's beef salami, one Glatt Mart garlic salami, one Glatt Mart hot Italian salami and one Glatt Mart Polish style salami hanging enticingly on two light fixtures. Glatt mart has a sale now, everything except buffalo, $4.99/lb.

Dafina: Revision n

Most of my recipes are not static, they evolve. Just because I like the way something came out, doesn't mean it can't be better or different. The recipe that changes the most, probably because it's used weekly, is the one for dafina (sephardic cholent).
I don't remember where I got the original recipe. Maybe it was online. Maybe it was by talking to people. Probably a mix of the two. Whatever the case, the recipe has been changing over time as I added or removed ingredients based both on my seeing what my friends put into cholent and my personal experimentation. This week's dafina consisted of the following, the order is layer based:

1. Chopped onion and garlic
2. Cholent meat
3. Bottle of beer
4. Hot paprika, cumin, salt, cinnamon, shawarma spices, black pepper, honey, cayenne pepper and whole black pepper
5. 2lb bag of frozen spinach
6. Rice and barley
7. Veal tongue (or jachnun)
8. Sweet potatoes
9. Whole eggs in shells
10. Dates
11. 1 fresh ginger root
    

The last five ingredients should be arranged as the top layer unless your crock pot is small and if it is, use your own discretion. Add water until it at least covers the rice and barley, though you can add as much as the top of the eggs or even more.
There you have it, my current dafina recipe. The taste is sweet and the consistency will be based on the amount of water added.