Enjoy Every Bite

Despite my best efforts — and believe me, I have tried — Lilli basically lives on yogurt, cereal, plain starch (rice, rice cakes, barley, farro, pasta), grilled cheese, fish sticks and granola bars. As someone who prides themselves on serving whole foods made from scratch, meal times can be… well, is “despair” too dramatic a word?

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, she’ll enjoy a few pieces of avocado and maybe a few blueberries. We’re a far cry from where she was before she turned two, when she would gobble up mushrooms, roasted broccoli, and all sorts of fruits.

On the other hand, there’s Beatrix, who is like old school Lilli taken to another level. She seriously enjoys food. Daycare has remarked on it. My mother would watch with wonder all summer long as Beatrix would dig into the fresh asparagus, enjoy every kernel on her corn cob, and delight in basically everything that was put in front of her. “It’s a pleasure to watch her eat,” Mom would say.

Being a toddler, she’s also incredibly impatient. So if we weren’t fast enough, she would shriek and slam her little fists down on the table. My mother actually started calling her “Elizabeth,” as in Elizabeth Taylor, because she was a beautiful drama queen who couldn’t get the food in her face fast enough. “Calm down, Elizabeth, the {brisket, chicken, pasta, meatballs, fish, rice, eggs, fresh vegetables} has to cool down first.” (This was inspired by a particularly mean Joan Rivers joke in which she called Ms. Taylor the only woman in the world who would scream “faster!” at a microwave. Z”l, Joan.) Someone started calling her “the little piglet,” although I want to be very careful about this, because the last thing I want to do is give my daughter an eating complex. Enjoy every bite, little one, I say. Food is delicious.

The biggest threat to Bea’s appetite is her older sister’s influence. Every few days, when Lilli will do her evening ritual of completely rejecting a meal (and ask for a bowl of yogurt or cereal two hours later) Bea will catch on and abandon her plate as well. So when I saw this recipe for homemade fish sticks in Taste of Home’s 100 Family Meals I was sent, I crossed my fingers and went to the kitchen.

The idea behind this cookbook is to get families to sit down together a few nights a week for dinner. If you do it twice a week, you’ll end up with 100 meals at the end of the year. This recipe was marked as “Eat Smart” and “Fast Fix”, looked super simple to make, and much healthier than the frozen fish sticks I’m loathe to serve the girls. I had everything in the kitchen, including some frozen tilapia from Costco, which I set to defrost in the fridge on a plate covered with Stretch-Tite the night before.

I actually skipped the two tablespoons of garlic herb seasoning blend the recipe called for, first because I had no such thing in the house, and second because I could almost hear Lilli’s stock protest (“It’s too spicy!”) in my head as I was reading the recipe. I don’t have cooking spray in the house, so I put my finger over the olive oil and drizzled that on top of the fish sticks.

And how were they? They were great! Rich and I enjoyed every bite, with homemade tartar sauce (at his insistence), and a side of red cabbage slaw with dried cranberries and fresh slices of mandarin oranges. But alas, Lilli flat out rejected them, and Bea took a bite, and then followed her big sister into the living room to join her in watching some Youtube garbage.

Regardless, these are going into the rotation and will be served instead of the frozen ones from the store. I will not be deterred! They really are a great weeknight meal. I think if I serve these to Bea without her sister being there, she will devour them all, then slam her tiny hands into the table demanding more!

Parmesan Fish Sticks from Taste of Home’s 100 Family Meals: Bring the Family Back to the Dinner Table

Ingredients

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp. salt

1/8 to ¼ tsp. pepper

2 large eggs

1 cup panko bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp. garlic-herb seasoning blend (Optional)

 1 lb. tilapia fillets

Cooking spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 450F.

In a shallow bowl, mix flour, salt and pepper. In another bowl, whisk eggs. In a third bowl, toss bread crumbs with cheese and seasoning blend.

Cut filets into 1-inch-wide strips. Dip fish in flour mixture to coat both sides; shake off excess. Dip in eggs, then in crumb mixture, patting to help coating adhere.

Place on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Spritz tops with the spray until crumbs appear moistened; or, drizzle with olive oil for the same effect.

Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and fish begins to flake easily with a fork.

 

 

 

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Making New Friends

Choosing what dish to bring to a potluck is tricky, especially when it’s a new community. So last week, when I narrowed down my choices to three for the Tot Shabbat vegetarian potluck (no nuts, please), I held a lunchtime poll topic on Facebook for my community’s input. (Rich is not the only pollster in this house.)

The choices were thus: Vegan chocolate pudding, mushroom and farro salad, and brie and a nice baguette from one of the great bread bakeries in town. The clear winner was the chocolate pudding. You don’t win friends with salad.

This recipe is a good reminder that just because something is vegan does not automatically make it healthy. Case in point: my Cousin Mark eating a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips dipped in horseradish hummus for lunch. Sure, this pudding is made with silken tofu, so it has protein going for it. But it also calls for a ton of sugar.

A recent Facebook “memory” popped up in which I shared something I’d overheard Rich say to Lilli: “Finish up your dinner, because Mommy is cutting up some fruit for dessert. But that’s not real dessert. Real dessert is cake and cookies. Fruit is what Jewish people call dessert when they have a meat meal.”

But now, you can have this chocolate pudding, and it’s way simpler than cutting up a pineapple.

Ingredients

1 pound silken tofu

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Pinch salt

Directions

In a blender, combine tofu, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Process until completely smooth, scraping down sides with flexible spatula as needed.

Pour into a small bowl and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours before serving.

 

 

 

Trust In Me, Baby

You guys, I’ve been holding out on you. I’ve had one recipe for years, truly one of the most delicious things I’ve served, but I haven’t shared it here. Why? Firstly, because I lost the recipe years ago. Secondly, when I found it, I was reminded of how, well, icky, the ingredients are. To wit, when I called Sylvie to tell her I’d found the recipe for the broccoli kugel last year, her response was very telling: “Don’t tell me what’s in it.” When I talked to my mom about the recipe last week, she said it sounded “disgusting.” This despite the fact that I am convinced I got the recipe from her. She has no recollection of this, or the time I called her from Jerusalem and made her recite the entire recipe over the phone. (In 1999, when a long-distance call meant something.)

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to share the recipe here, but then #kugelgate happened, and I saw my opening. First, I want to be clear that there are many different types of kugels – roughly translates as “baked puddings” – out there. You’re probably most familiar with dairy lokshen kugel. Lokshen means noodle, and it’s usually sweet and creamy. But that can’t be served at a meat meal. For those meals, you might see a potato kugel as a side, or a yerushalmi kugel, full of black pepper and caramelized sugar (it’s really a magnificent dish). Or you might see a broccoli kugel similar to this one.

The recipe has a few more ingredients than Ivanka’s – er, I mean Jamie Geller’s, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say mine is far tastier. One of the secret, and essential, ingredients in this dish is… drumroll…French onion soup mix. In my defense, back in the day when I was working on a master’s in Gastronomy and Food Studies, I happened upon a book about Jewish American Cuisine. I can’t remember what project I was working on, but I do remember the authors clearly stating that French Onion Soup mix is essential to American Jewish cuisine. Still don’t believe me? Go ask your mom or your grandmother what’s in their brisket.

Because this is a parve kugel, there’s mayo to make the kugel fluffy, and non-dairy creamer and margarine to finish it off. Like my mom said, disgusting. I actually made this recipe last year with heavy cream and butter, and while that might be “better”, I found both versions equally delicious. When I served it to a Shabbat dinner guest, she and I spent a good chunk of the evening cutting sliver after sliver of it, in that way you do to just “straighten the edges” in the pan.

Opposite Twins

The crust is made with Corn Flakes. Please use Kellogg’s if you can; it’s time to speak with our wallets. While you’re at it, please consider making a donation to publications like The Forward because it looks like there will be some First Amendment issues coming to a head in the next couple of years. They need all the help they can get.

Update: I’ve checked online and perused my Jewish cookbooks, and this recipe looks like it’s the creamy broccoli kugel in The Spice and Spirit Cookbook, a truly outstanding cookbook I wholeheartedly recommend.

And now, the broccoli kugel:

Ingredients

1 large bunch broccoli, or one frozen bag of florets

1 cube vegetable bouillon

1 1/2 Tbps. margarine

1 1/2 Tbps. flour

1/2 cup nondairy creamer

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 Tbsp. onion soup mix

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup corn flake crumbs

Thoroughly wash broccoli and trim off tough ends.

Cook broccoli in 3-quart saucepan with water to cover until tender but not too soft.  Add vegetable bouillon to water and continue to cook.  Drain water and mash broccoli.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine margarine, flour, and nondairy creamer in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan.  Simmer over a low flame until thickened. Remove from flame and allow to cool 5 minutes.

Add mayonnaise, onion soup mix, and eggs and mix well. Add cooled mixture to broccoli and mix until well combined.

Grease 8-inch square pan.  Pour 1/4 cup crumbs on the bottom of the pan and pour broccoli mixture on top.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup corn flake crumbs.  Bake for 30 minutes.