All the Sweet Stuff: Cinnamon Babka

When I think of babka, I think of two things: the way my Dad's face lights up at any mention of the yeasty, sugary pastry and the classic Seinfeld episode, below. Babka is like a hybrid of challah and gooey cinnamon rolls. It typically comes in two flavors: chocolate and cinnamon. Though some people feel very strongly about their preferences (my dad doesn't understand why anyone would waste their time with a babka that isn't cinnamon) I personally love both flavors so much, I can't choose.

Seinfeld -) The Babka - The best video clips are right here

A few weeks ago, I was obsessed with another classic NYC/Jewish treat: rugelach. I just couldn't get the recipe right. One night I decided to play with a basic rugelach recipe by adding yeast. After doing lots of online research and kitchen experiments, I came up with a dough that's a hybrid between a buttery biscuit and a croissant. I found myself with some extra dough and decided to roll it in chocolate chips and braid it like a challah. Though it didn't taste a thing like challah, it was incredible and reminded me and Doni of babka. I told myself that as soon as I had the opportunity, babka I would make.

I mentioned a pot-luck picnic in my last post. I thought saying goodbye to J, A, and cutie-pie N would be the perfect time to try out my recipe. It was such a crowd-pleaser! Soft, gooey, sweet and full of cinnamon goodness. Next time, I plan on doubling the fillings (which I did in the recipe you'll find below) because the dough absorbs some of it while baking. The recipe makes 1 extra large babka or 2 small babkas. I plan on making this again and again and bringing it to all sorts of holidays and family events.

Cinnamon Babka
dairy, parve or vegan

3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
dash tsp salt
2 sticks butter
2 packets yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick cold butter
1 Tbs melted butter
dash cinnamon

Directions. Pour the water over both packets of yeast and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes, or until the yeast is frothy, bubbly, and twice its size. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. The following can be done by hand or in a food processor: Add the butter in small pieces (or margarine) and knead together until the entire mixture is crumbly.

In a small bowl, beat together the vanilla and both eggs. Pour into the flour mixture and combine. Next, mix in the sour cream (or parve alternative). Lastly, knead in the yeast until the dough is firm. Place in a greased bowl and let rise, covered with a towel, for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 340 degrees. Roll out the dough in a large rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut the cold butter (or margarine) into small pieces. In a small bowl, coat the pieces of butter (or margarine) in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Evenly cover the rectangle of dough with the cinnamon mixture, including the edges. Roll dough like a cinnamon roll--from one long side of the rectangle to the other. Close the seam by brushing melted butter on top and pinching together the dough. Form the tube of dough into a large circle, closing the ends together just as above.

Twist the circle of dough into a double helix and place in a loaf pan, prepared with parchment paper. Brush the remaining melted butter over the top of the babka and sprinkle with a dash of cinnamon, if desired. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden and, when wiggled, the babka no longer jiggles in its pan.

Vegan Note: I was actually out of eggs when I made this at home, so I used Ener-G egg replacer and it turned out beautifully. If you also use margarine, as I did, this becomes an easy, delicious VEGAN treat! Who knew?

Shabbat This Week: Picnic Zucchini

This week, three close friends of ours--A, J, and adorable little N--are moving away into the great beyond: New Jersey. To celebrate their awesome new house and stifle our tears, a bunch of us had a lovely pot-luck Shabbat lunch picnic in Central Park this afternoon in their honor. As the resident vegetarian, it was my job to bring a vegetable and I chose summer squash.

Zucchini and yellow squash looked amazing at the farmer's market and I was craving something on the juicy side. I also happened to purchase some purslane, a mild, sweet and almost citrusy leafy green veggie that is high in omega 3. I thought it would work nicely as a herb with the squash. In my opinion, the trickiest part of working with summer squash is that they can end up on the soggy side and I wasn't in the mood for an accidental soup. I remembered how my friend Tracy once made some excellent roasted tomatoes with garlic and breadcrumbs and I decided to use the same model with the zucchini.

The recipe worked very well--the zucchini held up in texture and only the few slices at the bottom were soggy. The garlic was nice and mild, while the purslane was sweet and simple. The best part of this dish is that is works well both warm and cool. I served it lukewarm at the picnic, which I think was just perfect. All in all, this is an excellent picnic dish and it serves a lot of hungry adults and children.


Picnic Zucchini
Parve & Vegan

7 large zucchini and/or yellow squash, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp margarine
salt and black pepper, as desired
Purslane, as a garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour the olive oil, minced garlic, salt and black pepper in the bottom of a large baking dish. Add in the squash and toss to coat. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top and dot with margarine. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the squash is tender and the breadcrumbs are golden. Sprinkle with purslane and enjoy with 10 of your closest friends!

Kosher note: Check your breadcrumbs! I usually use Panko Italian, but it turned out that they were dairy. I toasted bread to make my own crumbs, but they ended up soggier than expected after reheating. After I returned home from the picnic, I transferred the dish from a parve tin to our dairy corningware and re-baked it with the panko crumbs. Store bought bread crumbs made all the difference! Maybe I'll revisit the breadcrumb issue in the near future and experiment on how I might make them better myself.

All the Sweet Stuff: Root Beer's Birthday!

It turns out that yesterday was the birthday of the modern root beer float! I hate to admit how long it's been since I've indulged in one. Granny--my mom's mom--used to make them for us on long, hot summer days in Dallas when I was a child. The frothy, sweet and cold beverage (or is it a dessert?) has such a unique flavor--it's like Proustian madeleine transporting me back to Granny's table.

With great respect for the classic soda shop treat, Doni and I had a taste test tonight. We used diet root beer, hoping it would cancel out the ice cream calories. That was a bad idea--it tasted like a root beer float, sure, but it wasn't rich enough and it didn't invoke the magic memories that the right flavor should. So I highly recommend ditching the diet and doing it right.

We also sampled plain vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip vanilla, both Edys Slow Churned. Doni preferred vanilla, but I loved the chocolate chip. I like the texture that it added to the ice cream and the way it just barely dissolved into the soda and left a slight chocolate after-taste. Here's a photo of my chocolate chip root beer float:


Any other interesting root beer float flavors out there?

All the Sweet Stuff: Snow Cone Showdown

In our apartment, we take snow cones very seriously and this summer we've been having mini-snow cones every night. Because I've been good today, I'm treating myself to a snow cone showdown.

On the roster tonight:

Root Beer

+
Sour Cherry
with Maraschino Cherries

Vs

Bahama Mama
+
Honeydew
with Fresh Blackberries

While the root beer and cherry worked well together, it had a slightly bitter aftertaste. Bahama Mama, however, stayed sweet, coconutty, and for some strange reason (it's non-alocholic), it has a very calming effect. I feel relaxed after a Bahama Mama snow cone, as if I'm surrounded by aromatherapy. The honeydew flavor blended nicely and the blackberries provided a tiny bit of tang and a nice texture. The results?

Bahama Mama FTW!

And next time, I'm not wearing a white tshirt...

Family Dinner: Veggie Chili with Roasted Okra and Polenta

I met up with my close friend, Tracy, today for some computer help--thanks, T! We ended up using free wifi at one of the Starbuckses (Starbucksi?) bordering Union Square. Because Wednesdays are one of the four days a week that Greenmarket hits the square, I thought it'd be a shame to head home without some fresh produce--and maybe a cookie or two.

After my initial walk-through, one thing was clear: this week is all about okra. Now, I haven't been to Greenmarket in a few weeks, so maybe last week and the one before that were all about okra too. All I knew was that I had to bring some home to play with. After my subway ride home, I Googled "okra" to get some recipe ideas. I love it fried--who doesn't--but I just didn't want the calories or cholesterol. I also love it pickled, but I needed some okra in my belly tonight, so we'll have to revisit that idea later. The biggest challenge most cooks have with okra is its natural slime. Doni loves excellent texture as much as I love a good flavor and slime just won't make for a good family dinner.

I searched online to find a less gooey recipe ("okra without goo" doesn't show up any results, in case you were wondering). I found a post on All Recipes that had 1,291 excellent reviews. The method? Roasting! Roasting is actually my favorite way to eat veggies (asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, edamame, you name it, I've roasted it), so I knew I had a winner. Because the farmer's market also had some incredible fresh garlic, I thinly sliced two cloves and added them to the mix.


The results? I think that it could have been roasted a bit longer. The okra took a while to brown--about 25 minutes--and even then, it wasn't quite enough. On the bright side: no slime at all--but Doni still wasn't so enthused and I ended up inhaling the whole bowl myself. (What? I like okra.) I think we'll have to try again soon with pickled okra and see if I can bring D around.


Roasted Okra with Garlic
Parve & Vegan

1/2 lb fresh okra
2 cloves garlic
salt & pepper, as desired
olive oil

Directions. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut okra into 1/2 inch slices. Thinly slice garlic and mix with okra. Drizzle or spray olive oil to lightly coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Serves 2.

Because you can't eat a whole meal of okra (unless it's pickled! mmmm...), I put up an easy veggie chili, loosely based on Jessica Seinfeld's awesome book, Deceptively Delicious. I recently picked one up for $5 at Kohls as part of Kohls Cares for Kids (score!) and you'll definitely be reading a lot more about it on this blog in the future. Her recipe centers around ground turkey. I used ground seitan. She uses chicken broth and I'm all about the vegetable broth. I also added a wide array of beans: black, cannelli, pinto, soy, some bacon bits for a bit of smoke, and because I like to use what I already have accessible: a whole brick of pureed, frozen winter squash. I also thinly sliced up some pre-made polenta (the stuff in a tube) and roasted it along with the okra to use in place of tortilla chips. I made a large portion so that I can freeze half of it for another family dinner in the future.


Four Bean Veggie Chili
Parve & Vegan

3 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can pinto beans, rinsed
1 can white beans, rinsed
1 can of corn
1 8oz can tomato sauce
12 oz pureed winter squash
8 oz vegetable broth
1 cup shelled edamame
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp chipotle powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili pepper
salt, as desired
black pepper, as desired
1 Tbsp olive oil
8 oz ground seitan
1/4 c bacon bits

Directions. Put a large pot on medium heat. When warm, add olive oil, celery, onion, and red pepper. Stir occasionally. When onions are transluscent, add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add seitan and bacon bits. Cook for 2 -3 minutes. Add spices and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Add beans, corn and edamame, stirring to combine. Pour in the vegetable broth and stir with a wooden or silicon spoon, scraping the bottom of the pot. Mix in the tomato sauce and squash puree until smooth and well-incorporated. Bring the chili to a boil on high heat. Serve with tortilla chips or polenta. Serves 8 - 10.

Dairy options: Garnish with cheddar cheese or sour cream and chives, if desired.


The resulting chili is great--smokey, spicy and "meat"y. Very very hearty. My only edit for the future is pre-cooking some of the firmer ingredients like edamame. It just didn't melt into the chili as nicely as we would have liked. The best part of it all was the salted polenta chips. D and I have a tendency to stuff ourselves with delicious food like there's no tomorrow. The polenta chips provided a nice stopping point for us. "No more polenta? Well I am a little full now that you mention it..." So 1 tube is just perfect for 2 people. It also had a fun, hors d'oevre kind of look that could work well for a party. Next time I might use my mandoline (not the musical instrument, people!) to make the slices even thinner and crisper.

Overall, I'd say the Greenmarket trip was well worth my while, even if I did eat up all the okra myself. I stayed strong and magically avoided their cookies, so it looks like this little chef gets an extra big snow cone tonight. More on that later...

Low Cal Cheesy Popcorn

If you love to eat as much as I do, you probably--like me--want to eat as much as possible without gaining weight. Because of this, I'll readily admit that I loosely count calories. What does that mean? I have a vague understanding of how many calories I should eat in order to stay the same size and a rough idea of which foods offer the best bang for my caloric buck. Just like with money, a good deal is a high volume of delicious foods for fewer calories. This doesn't mean that I'm on a diet--not even close. I'm just on a loose budget.


More than anything else, this affects snack time. I LOVE my snacks, so I try to be smart about them. One of my absolute favorites is popcorn. If you buy the 100-calorie bags like I do (I prefer Orville Redenbacher) you know that you can eat a lot of popcorn for 100 calories. Today, I thought it would be fun to spruce it up a bit. Thanks to my trusty kitchen scale, I added 1/4oz of shredded Parmesan (a lot more than it sounds) and a sprinkle of garlic powder to my hot, popped butter-flavored corn. Just like this morning's coffee, I was pleasantly surprised. For 125(ish) calories, I had a really hearty, delicious snack. Now, I've tried this before with the more powdery Parm and been less enthused, so I think that it's the real stuff that made all the difference. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Happy Noshing!

Part of a Complete Breakfast

When I woke up this (late) morning, I was looking at the world through blurry eyes. I don't have coffee every day, but some mornings I crave it. It's not that I love the taste of coffee, but I love the idea of it. Steamy and black, aromatic and nostalgic--when I think about a cup of coffee, I imagine all the generations before me of avid coffee drinkers. I think of myself as a little kid sitting around my grandparents breakfast table with Ritz crackers and cream cheese (my late grandfather, Sol's, favorite 10am snack), smelling the aroma and breathing in the magic of morning. Sometimes I imagine 50s housewives, like Lucy and Ethel, spending the morning gossiping and scheming.


Now, I won't deny that there's all sorts of evil out there in coffee industry, but that's not something I'm dwelling on this morning--or is it actually afternoon by now? A couple years ago, for Hanukkah, Doni and I gave my parents a new, fancy coffee maker as a gift. It's one of those cup-at-a-time wonders with fancy single servings of various flavors. My dad, Evan, loves playing with it and even began to create his own flavor: plain coffee with a light sprinkle of cinnamon and a scant dash of vanilla extract.


I've never tried his creation--mostly because he likes very weak coffee and I like it on the stronger side--but I woke up this morning nostalgic for the smell of roasting coffee and intrigued by his recipe. I'll be honest here--I assumed it would be terrible! I planned to call this post "Don't Try This at Home". But just as your parents prove to be right more often the older you get, my dad knows what he's doing. It's delicious! Who knew? I always need sugar/stevia in my coffee and this morning I have no desire to tinker with the taste. It's just great the way it is and wonderful combined with my breakfast of the day: toast with fat free cream cheese, a sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar, and fresh blueberries. Try it out for yourself!

Adaptations: Lauren's Bachelorette Weekend

Back in June, one of my close friends, Lauren, got married. It was a gorgeous and fun wedding. As a bridesmaid, one of my most important duties was organizing her bachelorette weekend extravaganza. I'll give you three guesses as to what I spent my time on.

Okay, so I designed the invitations...but I'm talking about food. Two dishes were my favorite of the weekend and real crowd-pleasers. Below you'll find the recipes and lots of comments for Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas and Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles. You might notice a heart-shaped theme here. That was one of a few themes we played with over the course of the weekend, but we won't go there...


Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas
Dairy

Inspiration for this recipe came from an art therapy conference I attended last November in Dallas. I stayed at the Fairmont Hotel and because the conference took place entirely there, I didn't have much time for food options. Because it was in Dallas (my home state, mind you), the veggie options were few and far between--except for the hotel bar. The Pyramid offered an amazing pizza. It was a thin crust, crispy and warm delight. Instead of tomato sauce, they used a fig jam. Layered on top of the jam were leaves of baby spinach and baby arugula. In addition to shredded mozzarella, the restaurant used Feta and shredded Parmesan. I'm not ashamed to say that I had at least one pizza a day during my stay.

When I make this at home, I follow the above description pretty closely. Because this time I was cooking at Lauren's family beach house, though, I had to make a few adjustments. The grocery store didn't have fig jam or fresh figs, so I improvised with standard white pizza base and dried figs. It was also too time consuming to make the pizza crust dough from scratch and I didn't have access to Whole Foods for my trusted frozen dough, so I used Pillsbury's refrigerated dough instead. I happened to end up with some extra pizza crust dough, so Stephanie R--my handy co-bridesmaid sous chef--and I braided it to make three loaves of challah, as you'll see in the photo below.


Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas

1 pkg Pillsbury refrigerated pizza crust dough
8 Tbsp Ricotta cheese
8 oz shredded Mozzarella
4 oz Feta
4 oz Parmesan
fresh baby spinach & arugula, torn in pieces
1 cup of sliced dry figs
olive oil
salt and black pepper, to taste

Directions. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough into a large circle. Use a pastry cutter or a pizza slicer to create 8 slices of pizza dough. Shape each triangle into a heart shape and stretch to make it longer and thinner. Brush each heart with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle half of the desired amount of Mozzarella on each heart. Layer with spinach and arugula, followed with the other half of Mozzarella. Sprinkle some Feta on top of that and add two dollops of Ricotta per heart. Add the sliced figs and top off each heart with a small sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a scant pinch of black pepper. Bake for 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and slightly golden.


Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles
Dairy

I've been making variations of this recipe for years. It's so easy and a great make-ahead dish for breakfast or brunch. It could also work as dessert. If you'd like to make the dish a little more complex, you could add raisins, bananas, apples, or peaches to the batter or use day old challah or cinnamon/raisin bread.


Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles

1 loaf of day old bread, cubed
6 eggs
2 cups of milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
maple syrup, as desired
powdered sugar, as desired
butter or margarine

Directions. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Combine with bread cubes until fully coated. Scoop into individual heart-shaped tins or a 9x13 baking dish and chill overnight, if possible. Remove from the refrigerator and dot with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until puffy and golden. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm maple syrup, if desired.

It's about time!

Hi. My name is Stephanie and I'm a procrastinator. I've been talking about creating this blog for well over a year and I am so happy that it's finally here! Because I cook and bake so often, usually adapting recipes on the spot, I've never been able to accurately record my best and worst efforts. I needed a place to keep track of myself--record my experiments right alongside my thoughts, memories and photos. I think that blogs are becoming the modern recipe box and I'm excited to finally join the bandwagon.

About me: I'm a vegetarian--so the closest thing to meat you'll see on this site is facon (fake bacon--love the stuff!). Also, I keep a kosher kitchen. So while I may post about a wonderful vegetarian meal I had at a regular restaurant, the recipes that I make at home are always kosher. I may designate recipes as "dairy" or non-dairy "parve". I may also label some recipes as "vegan"--which means meatless, dairy-free, egg-free and honey-free.

Though I live in NYC with my husband, Doni, I'm originally from Texas and that definitely affects my palate. I have a penchant for spicy foods, anything Tex-Mex, and love (LOVE) snowcones. In fact, I'm eating one right now--Bahama Mama flavor! I also like to take photos. So you'll see a lot of those. Here's one of a cupcake fight with Doni:


I plan to write about food in five different tracks. Something like:
Family Dinner: The stuff I scrounge together for dinner with Doni.
Shabbat This Week: Dishes I make for bigger meals, usually involving friends and family.
All the Sweet Stuff: No explanation needed here!
Adaptations: My take on recipes.
Out and About: My favorite vegetarian finds in restaurants.

I'm sure I'll come up with a few more ideas along the way, procrastination notwithstanding. Thanks for reading and Enjoy!