Keeping It Kosher

I’m not going to say that after making this, you won’t bury your food under a pyramid of charoset, but it certainly gives redundant a new tune, sort of like Green Day.

The look you will receive if you ask if to make this for your Seder or not – Duh!

I personally love charoset, and could eat it by the bowlful all year round. I’ve made salads and apple pies in the past with a similar flavor profile, because of my obsession with my Savta’s charoset.

My Savta traditionally is generous with the apples, adds some dates, and even more importantly, heavy on the red wine. All these things match meat perfectly. My Savta’s recipe also calls for a lot of cinnamon. For whatever reason I have found that Israelis are not big on cinnamon, but I personally love it.

I find that a lot of meat recipes have sugar listed in the ingredients. For me, I want to save my sugar intake for the end of the meal, dessert, when it’s worth it. Sugar coated meat doesn’t even sound appealing.

That’s why cinnamon is perfect, it makes the dish sweet but without leaving you with this nasty shag rug on your tongue like white sugar does; and allows you to eat your meat (and dessert!) guilt free!

This recipe is really impressive looking and delicious, which makes it perfect for your Seder.

I’m not going to lie, when I made this recipe, it was the first time I rolled and stuffed something. I won’t say that I didn’t make a mess or stumble along the way but I will say that when you make it you may want to listen to your favorite music real loud, so no one can hear your muttering.

After a bit of searching I found this recipe from the LA Times which is not kosher but features some great instructions which should help my fellow rookies

Honestly, once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty simple. Until then, you can eat the delicious mess!

Charoset Stuffed Leg of Lamb

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients:

3 lb leg of lamb

3 Tbsp olive oil

Filling

3 green apples (grated)

1\4 cup of dates (diced)

1\2 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1\2 lb walnuts (crushed)

1\2 lb ground beef

1 cup of red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Spice rub

1 tsp of cinnamon

1\4 tsp ginger

Salt and pepper to taste (generous)

1 Tbsp of red wine

1\2 – 1 cup of red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Debone the leg of lamb or preferably have your butcher do it.

2. Place your leg of lamb on a flat surface for later use.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

4. Combine the fillings’ ingredients in a large bowl.

5. Mix in half a cup of red wine and reserve the rest for later use.

6. Lay the filling in a line in the center of your leg of lamb. Fold the two sides over the filling in the center, creating a stuffed meat ‘log.’ Secure your meat by tying it tightly.

7. Place your stuffed leg of lamb in the center of a large baking dish.

8. Generously, spread the spice rub across your leg of lamb.

9. Loosely cover your baking dish withsilver foil.

10.        Bake your stuffed leg of lamb for 40 minutes to an hour depending on its thickness, while basting it with a 1\4 cup of the reserved wine every fifteen minutes or so.

   I’ve been known to make a cupcake here and there. When I decided to launch this blog, and introduce the fifty plus parve baking tips, I figured that there wasn’t a better way than with a cupcake recipe. Parve, and delicious, these cupcakes pack quite the punch!  

  The idea to make these cupcakes came from my sister. We are currently both obsessing over the TV show “Franklin and Bash.” On the show, they have Margarita Mondays, and my sister joked that we should start that tradition. The fact that we don’t live in the same home dampened the effect of this genius idea, but we agreed to start a Sangrias Shabbat tradition; but after one week, we forgot about it. Anyway, these cupcakes were quite the surprise when she got home! After we tried them, we both agreed that this recipe was a keeper. Neither of us had a margarita before but we both thought that if they don’t taste like the cupcakes, then they should because the cupcakes were beyond delicious!

Margarita Cupcakes

24 cupcakes - parve

Ingredients

Cake:

3 cups of all purpose flour

3 tbsp of baking powder

1\2 tsp of salt

1 cup of unsalted margarine (at room temperature)

1 1\2 cup of sugar

1\2 cup of brown sugar

4 large eggs (at room temperature)

1\4 of a cup of lime juice

1\4 of a cup of tequila

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1 cup of soymilk

Butter cream:

2 cups of unsalted margarine (at room temperature)

4-5 cups of confectioners’ sugar

3 tbsp of lime juice

1\4 of a cup of tequila

1\4 of a cup of brown sugar

Coarse salt (for garnish)

Lime peel (for garnish)

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 
• Combine your flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Set the bowl aside. 
• Beat your butter and sugars together, on a medium-high speed, until they start to look light and fluffy. This should take between 4-6 minutes. 
• Mix in your eggs, one at a time. Make sure the previous egg is blended in properly before adding the next one. 
• Lower your mixer’s speed to medium and add the lime juice, tequila, and vanilla extract. 
• Once everything is combined, add the flour mixture you made earlier into your wet mixture in batches. You want to pour in your flour creation in three batches and your soy milk in two. You should start and end withhe flour. 
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVERMIX. ONCE EVERYTHING IS COMBINED, LEAVE YOUR BATTER ALONE! 
• Pour your delicious batter into your cupcake tins. 
• Bake for about 22 minutes. When the cupcakes are ready they should be a light, golden color on the top. 
• To make buttercream, cream the margarine on a medium high speed for about five minutes.
• Once your margarine is light and fluffy pour three cups of confectioners’ sugar on top of your margarine. Don’t’ start mixing
• On the side, in a small bowl dissolve your brown sugar in the liquid ingredients for your butter cream. Mix them together a few times with a fork until the sugar has mostly melted in the liquid.
• Pour the small bowl’s contents on top of the confectioners’ sugar and margarine.
• Mix the ingredients together on a medium speed. Be sure to use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides.
• Gradually add the rest of the confectioners’ sugar to your butter cream.
• Once the cupcakes are completely cool, frost them, and garnish them with coarse salt and or lime peel.

    Every once  in while (or every Friday) we discover that we forgot to buy some neccessary ingredient for one of our recipes, while we are preparing it.

Hopefully this chart will prevent you from looking like this guy!

Baking powder - 1\4 tsp of baking soda per tsp of baking powdefr

Baking Soda - 1 tsp of baking powder per 1\4 tsp of baking soda

Unsalted butter - Equal amount of unsalted margarine

Butter (melted) - 3\4 of canola oil per cup of butter

Buttermilk -1 cup of Soymilk with 1\2 TBSP of vinegar mixed into it per cup of buttermilk

Brown sugar - 1 cup of white sugar with ¼ cup molasses per cup of brown sugar

 Corn syrup - 1\4 cup of white sugar with mixed with 1 tbsp of warm water or 1\4 of honey per 1\4 of cup of corn syrup

 Half and half - 7\8 of a cup of soymilk with 2 tbsp of melted unsalted margarine mixed into it

Heavy cream - Parve heavy cream or 1\2 cup of soymilk mixed with 3 tbsp of melted unsalted margarine in.

Sour Cream - 1\2 of soy yogurt per 1\2 of sour cream

Whipped cream - Thawed parve whipped topping