I hope you are all having a delightful Hanukkah. I was trying to find some family recipes for doughnuts, and came across two recipes: the traditional ones with yeast and a quicker recipe, without yeast.

The traditional doughnuts with yeast require a long baking process, but it is definitely worth the extra time and effort.

Ingredients
2.2 lb all purpose flour
2.5 oz dry yeast
1 ¾ cups of room temperature water
3.5 oz unsalted margarine
3 egg yolk
2 tablespoons brandy or and sweet wine
Zest from one lemon
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
• Mix all ingredients in an extra large bowl to allow sufficient room for the dough to rise.
• Sprinkle flour on the top of the mixture and cover with plastic wrap and towels to keep warm.
• Let it sit for two hours to rise.
• Expect the dough to be soft (not firm) at the end of the two hours.
• Remove the dough and add flour until easy to work with (not too sticky, slightly more firm).
• Roll out the dough to about three quarters of an inch thick and cut out circles. Then cover and allow the dough to rise for another hour.
• Fry in deep oil on low heat until brown on both sides.
• To fill the doughnuts, make a small opening and spoon in filling of choice (jelly, jam, chocolate, etc). Powdered sugar can also be sprinkled on top.



The quicker recipe for doughnuts is good for last-minute events.

Ingredients
2.5 cups self rising flour
12 oz yogurt
2 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
• Mix all ingredients.
• Expect the dough to be very soft (almost liquid)
• Drop spoonfuls into deep oil on low heat.
• Fry it until light brown.
• Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and enjoy…..


Happy Hanukkah,
Hava & Dorit

Since we moved to the U.S., Hanukkah has been my favorite holiday, mostly because of the festive feeling at this time of year. During the last weekend, my son and I decorated the house for Hanukkah. We put menorah and dreidel stickers on the windows and hung some home-made artwork that has accumulated over the years. Even though Hanukkah is still about two weeks away, it’s time to get into the spirit.

Hanukkah won’t be complete without a latke or two or maybe more….. .

Ingredients
6 eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ medium red onion, diced (about ½ a cup)
1 lb potatoes, peeled and shredded (use a food processor)
½ cup Matzo Meal
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil


1. Preheat oven to 350̊ F
2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, add baking powder and whisk until well blended.
3. Combine onion, potatoes, and Matzo Meal in a second bowl. Add the egg mixture and stir to blend well. Season with the salt and pepper.
4. Add olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high.
5. Scoop potato mixture by rounded half-cup measures onto skillet, flatten with spatula.
6. Cook the latkes for 3 minutes until each side is brown.
7. Transfer the cooked latkes to baking sheet and bake on center rack for 10 minutes.
8. Transfer to a paper towel to absorb excess fat.

Enjoy it while it warm!


Happy Hanukkah,

Hava & Dorit

We have a lot of things to be thankful for, family, friends and all the rest.
While we host family for Thanksgiving holiday; here is tasteful dessert for morning coffee (it’s a dairy one). This is a recipe I got from a friend of mine several years ago.

Ingredients
2 packs butter biscuits (5.3 oz each)
1 cup unsalted butter
½ lb dark brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa

Directions
1. Crush the biscuits and then add an egg, the sugar the butter (melted to lukewarm) and the cocoa; stir together.
2. Roll it to baguette shape and cover with clear plastic wrap (or in Aluminum Foil Bread Loaf Pans)
3. Put the mix in the freezer.
4. take it out few hours before serving


You won’t believe how easy it is!

Be thankful,
Hava & Dorit

Next time something for Hanukkah…….

We are now before holiday season with Thanksgiving and Hanukkah around the corner. We all look for some new things to share with our guests. In the next weeks I’ll share with you some recipes for the holidays.


Sweet Potato Casserole

14 cups (1 inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 5 pounds)
½ cup half and half (for dairy) or non dairy creamer (for parve)
½ cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup chilled butter (for dairy) parve margarine for baking (for parve)
½ cup chopped pecans


1. Preheat the oven to 375̊.
2. Place potatoes in a pot, cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 12 minutes or until tender. Then drain.
3. In a large bowl put the half and half, maple syrup, vanilla extract, salt and the egg and stir with a whisk. Add the potatoes and mash or purée in mixer at medium speed until smooth.
4. Spoon potato mixture into a 13 X 9 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
5. Combine flour sugar and chilled butter in food processor, pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in pecans and sprinkle over the potato mixture.
6. Cover and bake at 375̊ for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake for additional 25 minutes or until topping is brown and the potatoes are thoroughly heated.

BON APPÉTIT
Hava & Dorit

Thank you all followers and readers. We heard some of you tried the recipes posted on our blog. We would like to make this blog more interactive. Please take a moment and post your comments and experience on the blog so other readers can share it.

The colder days are here, and a hot cup of soup is a great way to warm up your body.
I would like to share with you a recipe that would be great as a snack for kids who are coming home from school and looking for something to warm them up (my kids love it). It’s easy to make and the taste is……… yummy.

Ingredients
1 butternut squash (medium size)
1-2 sweet potatoes (yams)
3 table spoon instant soup & seasoning mix (chicken style) – I use the parve one.

Directions
In a large pot, put all ingredients; add water until all vegetables are covered. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 20-25 minutes or until done – a fork can easily be pocked through them.

Drain water from the vegetables, save the water on the side. Put all vegetables in a food processor or in a bawl and purée them.
Add water from the pot until you get the thickness desire.

Ladle into bowls and… here comes the fun part……
You can put a scoop of sour cream in the middle and sprinkle pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds/ croutons/ soup mandels.

Stay warm,
Hava & Dorit

Sometimes, we are in need of simple recipes which allow kids to help us in the kitchen.
I thought that I would dedicate the following recipe to the kids who like to be in the kitchen. I’m sure that if you share this recipe with your child he or she will be glad to help. These chocolate balls are fun to make and do not involve any baking.

Ingredients:
½ lb tea biscuits
10 tablespoon sugar
5 tablespoons hot cocoa powder
7 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3.5 oz unsalted margarine

Directions:
Put the tea biscuits in a Ziploc bag and crumble by pounding with a roller
Put the crumbs in a bowl; add the sugar and cocoa and mix.
Add the milk the vanilla extract and the margarine. Stir well; you can use your hands and make sure all the ingredients blend.

Shape small spheres with your hands.
You can roll the spheres in coconut shavings, sprinkles, minced nuts or any other topping.

Enjoy,

Hava & Dorit

With the closing of the Jewish Holiday season, the cool weather, the apple and cinnamon smells everywhere, I thought it would be nice to share recipe that involves apples:

Chicken with apple cider and mushrooms.

Ingredients:
8- 10 drumsticks or
4 oz unsalted margarine
2 Liquid oz, apple brandy
2 shallots onions (diced)
16 liquid oz, apple cider
6 oz sliced mushrooms
8 liquid oz, non dairy creamer
½ lb apples (gold delicious)
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Oil

Directions:
1. In deep pan heat 2 oz unsalted margarine, season the drumsticks with salt and pepper and fry them until they are golden brown, and add the apple brandy. Cook on low flame for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add the diced onion, the apple cider cover and cook for 15 minutes. Make sure to turn the drumsticks so they won’t burn.

3. On another pan stir the mushrooms in the rest of the unsalted margarine for 4 minutes (cover the pan).

4. Add the mushrooms, non dairy creamer, and the apple cider to the chicken and cook for 5 minutes.

5. Take the chicken out and continue to cook the sauce for 10 minutes until it thickens

6. You taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Add the chicken for 2 minutes.

7. Slice the apples and add to the chicken; sprinkle the parsley and serve.

Until the next time,
Hava & Dorit

I hope you all had an exciting beginning of the year. Here we are couple of days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. As a preparation for the holiest day we have to keep in mind that eating the day before the Yom Kippur fast is different from any other day. It should be done slowly and joyfully.

Here are some tips:
• We should stay away from caffeine a few days before the fast to prevent withdrawal headaches and irritability.
• Throughout the day before the fast, we should plan to have small meals every couple of hours. This is in order to prevent your stomach from being empty before the feast (which can lead to overeating).
• Plan to serve an hour and a half before sunset so you can enjoy it. On our meal, in the Yom Kippur Eve Feast, we should use only small amounts of salt and spices.

My suggestion for Yom Kippur before and after the fast is Matzo Ball soup.

Ingredients for the vegetable broth
3 tablespoons instant soup & seasoning mix
3 carrots cut into chunks
2 medium onions cut into chunks
3 potatoes cut into chunks
2 zucchinis cut into chunks
1-2 tomatoes cut into chunks (optional)
Pepper to taste
Handful chopped dill
Water

Directions
In a large stockpot, add all ingredients and water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours. Taste and adjust seasoning.


Ingredients for the Matzo balls
5 eggs
2 cups of water (room temperature)
Salt and pepper to taste (or instant soup & seasoning mix)
2 cups Matzo meal




Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil; add 2 teaspoons oil and salt.
Mix all of the ingredients together until evenly distributed.
Roll dough into balls about the size of a golf ball.
To keep batter from sticking to your hands, rub them with oil or water as needed.
Drop balls immediately into boiling water and cook for 15 minutes.

Wishing for you and your family,
Gmar Hatima Tova
גמר חתימה טובה
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.
Dorit & Hava

Hope you all had a nice relaxing summer. On Friday we are going celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Like every Jewish holiday it involves lots of food. Dessert is always the fun part of the meal especially in Rosh Hashanah, where the tradition is full of sweet treats. Honey cake is one of the most popular desserts for this holiday season.

I’d like to share with you a family recipe for honey cake from Israel.


Ingredients

6 eggs (separated)
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of water (room temperature)
2 teaspoons instant coffee
¾ cup of oil
¾ cup of honey
3 cups of flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a mixing bowl beat the egg whites while gradually adding the sugar until stiff and fold into the batter.

In a second mixing bowl whisk the water, instant coffee, oil, honey and the egg yolks.

In a third bowl mix the flour and the cinnamon.

Mix the wet ingredients (bowl 2) with the dry one (bowl 3). Add the new mix to the egg whites and stir slowly.

You may add almonds or pecans or any kind of nuts.
Place mixture in the oven for 1-1 ½.

Le’Shana Tova Umetuka
שנה טובה ומתוקה
Hava & Dorit

It’d been so much fun to spend the last four weeks in Israel with family and friends. We were busy preparing and celebrating our daughter’s Bat Mitzvah party, but still had enough time to enjoy the hot weather on the beach, the company of family and friends and the great food.

Family time is always an excuse for food. Every time you get together with family it’s all about food, lunch, dinner, Shabbat Dinner, and in between. I couldn't resist tasting all my favorite dishes that I miss throughout the year. Especially the fish dishes; those are my favorite, since they are light and make you feel good.

I’d like to share with you a Moroccan fish recipe. It’s colorful and full of flavor. Personally, I like to use more vegetable than the original recipe. It adds color and makes the dish richer in taste.

The ingredients:

Salt
Juice from 1 lemon
6 fillet/steak cuts fish -Sea Bream (DENIS דניס) - or any white fish.
1 bunch cilantro (fine chopped)
1 tomato (sliced)
3 carrots (thinly sliced)
4-5 hot green/red peppers (whole pepper – if you wish to have spicier dish slice one or two of them)
1 garlic peel and thinly sliced
¾ cup vegetable oil
½ cup water
¾ tablespoon paprika
½ tablespoon turmeric

First, sprinkle salt on the fish cuts and pour juice from one lemon (let it sit until you finish preparing the vegetables)

In a deep pan put the fine chopped the cilantro, tomato, carrots, garlic, and the hot peppers.

Pour the oil into a bowl and add the paprika and the turmeric. Deep the fish in the mix and put it over the vegetables. After you done, pour the rest of the oil that left in the bowl into the pan add salt and ½ cup of water. On high flame cover the pan and cook for half an hour. Take the lid off and cook for another 30-40 minutes on medium flame.

Until next time,
Hava & Dorit

Turkish Coffee

The tradition of cooked coffee in a Finjan (a brass Turkish kettle) began indeed in Turkey, but today people in Turkey drink mainly tea. It is hard to find a high quality Turkish coffee and even harder to find an authentic Turkish coffee.

Although the tradition of Turkish coffee started in Turkey, the country grows tea, not coffee. 70 million Turks drink between one and twenty cups of tea per day. Early last century, Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, promoted the local harvesting of tea and outlawed importation of coffee. Even so, Turkish coffee has an important cultural and social meaning to the people of Turkey today. Coffee arrived in Turkey from the Arabian Peninsula in the sixteenth century. The beverage was considered to have a strange flavor and was forbidden by the sultan. With time it became the favorite drink of the people including the sultan. Cafés opened up all over Istanbul and people from all different backgrounds gathered together to drink coffee and smoke Nargila (hookah) while discussing important matters of the day. The sultan felt threatened and forbid drinking coffee in cafés. The prohibition didn’t last long and drinking coffee became a signature of the Ottoman Empire. The culture around the cafés grew to include reading books and newspapers, playing games of chess and heated discussions with live music. Further, the Ottomans spread the custom of drinking Turkish coffee to every nation they conquered.

Even though black coffee originated in the Arab world, it received the name “Turkish” due to the unique way the Ottomans cooked it. In Turkey, preparation of coffee is a symbol of femininity and to this day, women are judged by the way they prepare the coffee. When a groom’s family come to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage, the bride-to-be prepares and serves them coffee. Preparing and serving coffee was an inseparable part of hospitality and demonstrated respect for guests.

Drinking coffee started conversations and led to the custom of reading coffee which started in Turkey as well.

Turkish coffee Preparation:

· Fill a finjan with proportional amounts of coffee, sugar and water. The ratio is one teaspoon of coffee per cup of water and one teaspoon of sugar.

· Heat on low heat while stirring. Take your time

· Do not boil the coffee.

· When the liquid starts to boil it is time to remove from the stove

· Serve in small porcelain or glass cups.

One important detail that I would like to share with you is the fact that the Israeli company, Elite, is the largest seller of Turkish coffee in the world.

L’haim!

Dorit & Hava

My favorite dessert item when I entertain in the summer is sorbet. It is refreshing, parve, and comes in a variety of fruit flavors and beautiful, natural colors. The flavors of sorbet are so pure and intense that it exposes perfectly summer fruit. In Israel, sorbet is a very popular dessert on the beach, on the Mediterranean; oh I miss it so much…

Here is the recipe for blood orange sorbet, one of my favorites. Although it is not easy to find blood oranges but I did find some last week. You can make an amazing, colorful sorbet without artificial ingredients. Okay, so here we go…

Recipe for a ½ pound of sorbet

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup water

3 cups of fresh squeezed juice from blood oranges

3 tablespoons of vodka

On a stove warm the sugar and the water in a small pot until the sugar melts and forms syrup. Place the syrup in the freezer until it is very cold. Then mix the syrup with the juice and the vodka. Freeze in an ice cream maker. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, like me, place the mix in the freezer and take it our every hour and puree it with a fork until it becomes firm.

Bete’Avon (Hebrew for Bon Appetite)

Dorit and Hava

Summer Tov

Dairy Meals - Not only for Shavuot

Three weeks ago, we observed the holiday of Shavuot, the celebration of the grain harvest season in Israel and festival of the first fruits. During Shavuot, the unofficial beginning of the summer in Israel, it is customary to eat a meal consisting of dairy products at least once for several reasons (http://www.aish.com/shavuotfeatures/shavuotfeaturesdefault/Why_Dairy_on_Shavuot$.asp).

But why should we limit this culinary experience to Shavuot only?

The body and the brain perform better with lighter foods in summer. Dairy food can be light or heavy, very bad or beneficial for you depending on the ingredients used. We have been improving recipes by using low fat and low cholesterol cheeses, and fresh and organic vegetables, which make these light summer dinners healthier. We discovered that this practice also improves the taste of the dishes.

In Israel, light dairy dinners are very common during the hot summer months. Why can’t we do the same in Northern Virginia?

We would like to share with you one of our favorite recipes for a light quiche, you should serve it warm with fresh vegetables or salad on the side.

Broccoli and Cheese Quiche
Ingredients:
28 oz. fresh (organic)/frozen broccoli
If frozen, then thaw and drain before use
1 oz. low fat melted butter
8 oz. low fat cottage cheese
3.5 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
6 oz. low fat sour cream
4 eggs
3 tablespoons self-rising flour
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2) In a separate bowl, mix the melted butter, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, sour cream, beaten eggs, flour and nutmeg
3) Add the cut broccoli and stir
4) Spread 1 tablespoon oil on casserole dish
5) Pour the batter into the casserole dish and bake for 50 minutes

Enjoy your summer.

Until next time,
Hava & Dorit