Some Thing Cheesy:: Eggplant Parmesan

Ah, the last supper (you'll forgive the term) of the Nine Days, and what better way to get ready for the fast than a classic Eggplant dish. Of course the REAL last supper before the fast is simply a hard-boiled egg and some bread (traditionally dipped in ashes, but I don't have a good recipe for ashes).

My choice - Eggplant Parmesan, with a definitely Jewish twist.

For starters I slice the eggplant, salt it liberally, and let it sit for an hour. I've been told its an old wive's tale that you have to do that ... well, guess I'm an old husband.

Now for the Jewish magic - the breading. Matzoh meal! And in fact not just any old matzoh meal this time. I still have some 18 minute and Shumrah Matzoh meal left over from Passover, just begging to be used.

Added to the Matzoh meal - a pile of wheat germ (for a delicious nuttier flavor and some obscure health reasons), a bunch of sweet Hungarian Paprika, and if I have any around some garlic powder (usually I only have 'real' garlic on hand). The eggplant is then washed off, coated with the matzoh meal mixture, dipped in beaten egg, and then coated again in the matzoh meal.

Next we brown it in hot oil - Canola is my suggestion (Wesson brand today).

To put it all together we need some sauce and cheese. I use about a quart of tomato sauce per eggplant, and the choice of sauce is endless. Tonight its Marinara, another time it might be garlic and mushroom, etc. First a little sauce in the bottom of the pan, then a layer of the fried eggplant, then more sauce to cover. Next comes a layer of sliced mozzarella cheese. Now a second layer of fried eggplant, sauce to cover it all, a final layer of sliced cheese. Finally, at my wife's suggestion, a sprinkled of mixed shredded mozzarella and cheddar. In all two eggplants, two quarts of tomato sauce, about 12 ounces of cheese (six slices of packaged sliced mozarella, since in this burg I can't get fresh sliced), a handful of shredded cheese, to fill a half steam table tray.

About 45 minutes in a 325F oven (I use a toaster oven for dairy) ... and perfect eggplant parmesan. Well, I hope its perfect.

For sides ... choose a veggie, a salad, perhaps some pasta ('m partial to green noodles in garlic butter sauce). Ah...and some Merlot to wash it down.

Soylent Brown Balls

As promised, it being the Nine Days (see an earlier post of mine for a brief discussion of the culinary constraints of the Nine Days), it is time for meatLESS balls. Or, as I call them, Soylent Brown Balls.

Plus, of course, pasghetti (as my nine year old grandson calls those long stringy pieces of pasta).

Now I have nothing against soy, mind you. I do eat lots of it. Soylent Brown, Soylent White, you name it. But while I don't object to a soyburger or, you'll pardon the description, kosher fake "bacon," there almost something sacrilegious about SoyBalls. Especially on pasta, as opposed to perhaps a SoyBall hero.

Still, what's a guy to do during the Nine Days - so here we go.

My choice of brand of Soylent Brown for this meal was LightLife's Gimme Lean. And indeed it is "lean," containing zero fat. But we'll change that in a little bit - after all, it is fat that gives real meat a bunch of its flavor.

For the record, what is in GimmeLean is: water, soy protein concentrate, tapioca starch, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), soy protein isolate, dried onion, wheat gluten, malt extract, beet powder, natural flavors (from vegetable sources), spices, and vegetable gum.

All of which adds up to 7 grams of protein for what they call a serving (2 oz), so a real serving is even more. And the maybe 500 mg of sodium in the size serving I dish out isn't all that bad either. Not great, but I've seen worse.

The folks at Lightlife imagine you can take their product and roll it into little balls, brown them, and eat them. I guess some folk might like that, but not to my taste. I add roughly the same stuff that I add to chopped meat when I make meatballs: 1 egg per pound of meat (er soylent), enough wheat germ (Mother's) to maintain a nice texture, chopped garlic (yep, I cheat a bit and use Christopher Ranch pre-minced garlic) for some great flavor, and a bunch of Hungarian sweet paprika both for more flavor and color. One could add any of a variety of other spices as well, based on taste.

Now its time to make the Soylent Brown Balls - I get about 20 out of a 14 ounce package of LightLife's Soylent Brown (which they claims is equivalent to a pound of beef before its cooked).

The rest is child's play - brown the balls in hot oil (Olive for flavor or Canola if you wish). Drop browned balls into your choice of tomato sauce.

Serve on Pasghetti - my choice for this meal a whole wheat linguine made in Italy. A nice green salad on the side, perhaps a choice of steamed veggies.

Ah, and Chianti, if you can find kosher Chianti in your neighborhood. I settled for a beer, though.

Some Things Fishy

Well, here it is the Nine Days and a bunch of meatless meals to craft. (For my non-Jewish readers, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av is the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, and for the nines days preceding it is traditional not to eat meat, except on Shabbat) Adding to the culinary challenges, our grandchild is here and he is a very, very picky eater (he has Down Syndrome, but I know lots of little kids who don't who are just as picky).

So what do you serve a nine-year-old who thinks the height of culinary art is meatballs and pasghetti (er, spaghetti). Well for starters I did make meatless balls and pasghetti a couple of nights ago - I call that soylent brown balls - and I'll be making them again (and probably writing about it).

But today's menu was more creative ... fish. Okay, in the end its wasn't creative at all. It was prepackaged frozen fish sticks.


I would have liked to make "real" fish, if there weren't two problems. The first is a young man who would balk at eating anything that really resembled a fish - filet, steak, or heaven forbid a whole fish.

Then there is the issue of buying fresh fish here in the mountain region. To be very strictly kosher, the fillet should be under hechsher or you need to supervise the filleting, preferably with a kosher knife, of a fish you can identify. "Under hechsher" fresh fish here is $20 per pound at our only all kosher store. We do have a kosher fish place, but the last time I bought "fresh" fish there it came frozen - and they had the gall to insist that 'fresh frozen' is the same as 'fresh,' and should even be priced the same.

Meanwhile, there's a Korean market not far from us, and they have piles of different fresh fish, many of which are kosher (and some, including eels and squid, that are obviously not). These are whole fish that can be readily identified, so there is no issue in buying them. And the price is about $3.99 a pound for most types, some cost even less. So even after the weight loss irom filleting, $20 a pound is just outrageous.

Which gets us back to the fish sticks. There are, after all, worse things in the world than chopped up and machine shaped fish, breaded and baked or fried. Indeed they're quite palatable with a dousing of Tartar Sauce. (Enough said.)

And of course nothing goes better with fried fish (ah, beer battered fresh fillet, I can only dream) than chips - in this case french fried sweet potatoes (I cheated and bought a bag, rather than making my own). To balance the meal a blend of broccoli and cauliflower, and some salad.

To wash it all down ... some BridgePort Brewing Co. India Pale Ale.

A Dot Of Dash

One of my five kids is in town for a rare visit - so of course off comes the grill cover for a quick one, and off to SuperTarget, hopefully to find a little kosher London Broil and some chicken quarters.

It's mixed grill time! But it's got to be simple. No time to marinate for even an hour or two... or preferably longer ... as much as that makes for great chicken.

First, though, comes the question of planning out some side dishes. This time we're talking really time challenged and thus basic. So for starters, a simple spinach salad (baby spinach, aragula, carrots, sliced red onion and sliced mushrooms) topped with some croutons and a choice of dressings.

On the side, super simple but super yummy roasted onions. Nothing at all to do but make an X in the stem end, wrap in foil, and toss on the Coleman grill while its warming up. And then wait another quarter hour - or more - at up to 600F - until the onions get soft. Now just about any kind of onion will work, but the dish does become super-special with sweet onions such as Vidalia (my favorites).

Nothing intricate about the rest of the meal.

The only thing on the chicken was a powdering of one little secret ingredient. Okay, not a secret. I used Mrs. Dash. (A dot of dash, if you will.) Then on the already-hot grill the chicken goes, turn the heat way down, and cook. With luck there won't be enough chicken fat dripping to cause flames that immolate dinner.

As for the London Broil - I'd personally like to see the brand of glatt kosher meat that our Target sells slice its London Broil a bunch thicker than they do. What I did get was adequate, but when the meat is thinner one must be careful to rescue it from the grill before its overdone. Of course my wife and I disagree on what done means - she likes it more done, I like it so rare that a good vet could almost bring it back to life.

But there it is - a really basic, but really nice, mixed grill.

Ah, and to wash it down, some brewski. This time a really tasty light ale (I'm not into most American beers, rather preferring something with more body such as ale - and puh-lease don't ever suggest to me a "light beer" -- that's dishwater). We're drinking 5 Barrel Pale Ale from the O'Dell Brewing Co. in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The simplest mixed grill - easy and delicious

Organic Outrage

It's erev Shabbat and I'm not cooking! We've been invited out by friends for both dinner and lunch!

So there's time for me to comment briefly on an ad brochure that came in the mail from our local supermarket, King Soopers, which is part of the Kroger family of stores. We shop there quite often for a series of reasons, starting with the store being the closest to our house. Added to that, most recently, they opened a nice sized kosher section, although it does have its warts - not an ounce of fresh meat to be found, and outrageously high prices for the frozen. Only one brand of Borscht to choose from (ah, what do American goyim know from Borscht) but a whole aisle of Gefilte Fish that I can't afford to buy any more at current prices. But on the good side, when the store remodeled they put in a new bakery which is kosher, under the local Va'ad, even producing some items that are Pat Yisrael, for those who hold by that chumra (of which I am not one).

Perhaps most laudable, the store employs a significant number of handicapped folks. I'm sure it costs them a bit extra, but I don't mind paying a bit extra for that particular reason. What they're doing is important and indeed demanded by Jewish Law. After all, enabling someone to earn a living is the highest form of charity -Tzedakah.

Anyway, back to the ad - it was a "magazine" entitled "Exploring Your Organic Options," and including, of course, a bunch of coupons for various high-priced organic offerings.

Now don't get me wrong, I agree that in some cases organic choices are better, sometimes much better. But what King Soopers sent is in part outrageous, and in part amusing, and very typical of the health food scams sweeping America.

As is very often the case, the difference between what's organic, whats "healthy" and what's seen as "health food" is carefully blurred. And the pitches for mascara and pet food that include some organic ingredients would be laughable, if it weren't sad that some people may actually spend extra money on those - rather than perhaps donating the extra gelt to help feed less fortunate human beings ... an Organic Outrage, if you ask me.

To continue, the idea of food without pesticides is highly appealing. After all, mankind evolved eating food without pesticides. On the other hand, the issue of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) leaves me a bit cold. After all, evolution is based on genetic modification - that's the way Hashem created the universe to eventually lead to the emergence of man.

And as for fertilizers, no distinction is made between different fertilizers, but even organic food has to be and is fertilized. Otherwise the soil will rather quickly be depleted of its nutrients.

Finally, there is the issue of the recipes in the organic book.

Some of the ingredients are available organic, but not kosher. At least not in these parts. Others I'm not sure where to find them organically, kosher or not.

For instance organic yogurt (our local "organic" yogurt is made with gelatin derived from animals). Although I suppose that such yogurt is made with organic milk from organic cows (ever see a non-organic cow? Made of plastic, metal, nuts and bolts, no doubt.) Okay, okay all you organic fans - I know that if a cow eats feed with pesticide residue, maybe that residue will show up in the milk. But I also know that if you take gelatin made from perhaps a pig, or a cow that was diseased enough not be be kosher, and mix it with milk ... well that's just not the best way to keep kosher (please, I'll delve into all those intricacies some other year, just let it be said that we don't).

And organic canned pumpkin ... I know there is such a thing, but not here with kosher certification that I can find. Organic sweetened coconut flakes? Not likely here in the Rocky Mountains, far from the nearest palm tree.

And how about organic confectioner's sugar. I've never seen that. Or organic "whipped topping." Gee Mr. Sooper, if you're writing an "organic" recipe didn't it occur to you that the whipped topping in the store has ingredients that come right out of a mad chemist's lab? Couldn't you have maybe suggested organic whipped cream? Or isn't that socially correct, since the butterfat content of real cream is high and thus less healthy than a blend of: Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Coconut and Palm Kernel Oils), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sodium Caseinate (from Milk) Natural and Artificial Flavor, Xanthan and Guar Gums, Polysorbate 60, Sorbitan Monostearate, Beta Carotene (Color). (That's what's in Kool Whip. Wonder if the mysterious secret 'Artificial Flavor' is organic.)

And my favorite in the organic recipes in the booklet ... a half cup of Kentucky Bourbon in the sweet potato crunch (um...there are no organic sweet potatoes at King Soopers either, or weren't this week). Is there an "organic" Kentucky Bourbon?. If so, please send a bottle for me to share at kiddush in shul.

No matter, the recipe calls for two organic eggs, which I can get - at $3.49 a dozen, compared to the 98 cents for regular eggs this week. Gosh, some of this organic stuff costs even more than keeping kosher (though organic milk, I note, is fresher and cheaper that the non-organic and often pre-soured so-called Chalav Yisrael we get in these parts.)

Anyway, time to go ...

SuperShishka on Regal Rice

Okay Kosher Kooking fans, its Wednesday. And on Wednesday, if we can, we make some kind of nice meat, preferably on the grill. In Israel that's "al ha aish," and practically a religious ritual. Yum.

The idea is that we make meat for Shabbat ... so that takes care of Friday night and Shabbat daytime (perhaps a Cholent or Hamin, which I'll talk about in some other post or seventeen), with most likely leftovers for Sunday and maybe even Monday (for those who wanna eat old Cholent, which I suggest you just put into the blender, call refried beans, and feed to the the cat, who probably won't eat it any more than I'm willing to eat refried beans. Can you believe they even sell KOSHER refried beans these days? Yucccch.).

All of which leaves Thursday ... when we don't really want to make meat, because Shabbat is coming in less than 24 hours ... and Tuesday. But since perhaps we just had meat on Monday (especially those who eat refried beans and risk GAS in the ...), the next day isn't our choice for another meat meal. So that leaves Wednesday for our weekly non-Shabbat meat bonus.

Perhaps some day when I earn a better living we'll have meat more often, but really we should be thankful for the twice a week we do cook dead cows and chickens (and we'd cook freshly deceased lamb too, if the butcher in our city knew anything about meat).

So for this week's meat I'm off to Target - the local SuperTarget, that wonderful emporium of all good things to buy, including in our neighborhood a small supply of Glatt Kosher meat (Solomon's) in vacuum packs. Generally, the meat is good - hormone free, it says, etc - and less expensive than our lone Kosher fresh meat store, by about 25% for the beef cubes I find on the shelf (although somehwat more pricey for rib steaks).

Please forget all the other yummy things that go into a REAL 'al ha aish,' ranging from exotic stuff like liver and kosher heart, to various types of lamb and what have you. We can't get most of them, since we really don't have a kosher butcher where we live who knows anything about meat, so that stuff is never even ordered. Not that its easy to find in the U.S. of A. at all these days (gee, chicken feet in chicken soup....anyone remember that?).

Anyway, the main dish is to be based on the beef cubes ... although I might note that Solomon's has packed a healthy amount of beef shreds and what have you into their stew pack. But no matter, I can thread them on a skewer.

The only big question is what to make - perhaps Shishlik, or maybe a ShishKabab. The big difference, if anyone isn't clear on the issue, being that Shishlik is all beef, marinated in a secret sauce. ShishKaBab includes veggies strung out on the skewer in between the pieces of meat - marinated in a secret sauce. (Okay, you could just buy a marinade in the super and forget the 'secret.' Lots of brands are kosher these days. But except for Mrs. Dash, every marinade I see on the shelf here has about half a daily dose of sodium in each tablespoon - and a tablespoon is hardly the amount of a REAL serving. My cardiologist simply would NOT approve.)

Thanks to the local supermarket having tiny tomatoes and green peppers on sale (at a far less than SuperTarget charges for veggies), the choice is ShishKaBab or, as I'd call it since I use a secret marinade, SuperShishka. (That's Shishka, mind you, not Shiksah. I do not dream of including gratuitous insults on this blog. Which, of course doesn't exclude snide comments about those who don't understand the beauty of lamb -- After all, Moshe was a shepherd, Yosef was a shepherd. They weren't cowboys.)

So, step one is marinating the meat in my secret marinade, for about two hours or so.

Okay, I just can't keep a secret. The marinade is made of some crushed garlic (LOTS of crushed garlic), paprika (sweet Hungarian, if you please, not the hot stuff), olive oil (did I mention Extra Virgin?), a bit of rice Vinegar (okay, you could use another type of vinegar, but the taste is a bit strong for some folk), some Tamari (i.e. fancy Soy Sauce), and some red wine. Ah, you ask, which red wine. Remember that bottle of red wine you bought (or your guests brought) for last Shabbat that you really didn't like all the much? Well, now is the time to use up some of what's left of it. (In some future post I'll talk about why NEVER to use the swag they sell as "cooking wine.")

Before getting to the rest of the meal ... which I work on while the meat is marinating ... once the meat is about ready, string it on skewers with your choice of veggies ... mine was the aforementioned little tomatoes, pieces of green pepper, and chunks of Vidalia Onion (my favorite). Eventually, the skewers will go on my oversized grill - a Coleman behemoth big enough for a crowd, which is certainly overkill for the two of us right now but great for when we have a crowd, such as on Hol Hamoed Succot, Yom Ha'atz Ma'Ut, July 4, Memorial Day, and any other Jewish and/or American holidays when we can justify a big BBQ (and if anyone in the Kosher Kommunity has any problems with celebrating both, I happen to be a U.S. Army combat veteran, and have kids in the Israeli Army, went to public school and college in the U.S., and hold dual citizenship, and so I have the right - and obligation - to celebrate both. With a BBQ.).

Anyway, as anybody can tell you, the ideal base for ShishKaBob is a bed of rice preferably, in my opinion, a rice pilaf. Here's how I made mine.

While my rice was cooking .... Uncle Ben's whole grain brown rice (OU certified) ... in our old decrepit rice cooker (we bought a nice new Aroma rice cooker, but it shorted out after less than a year, and the "warranty" required a receipt we didn't have and beside that mailing costs and fees were almost as high as we paid in the first place) ... I sauteed some veggies to blend in to create a pilaf.

The rice, by the way, was cooked with some pareve phony 'chicken' soup. Shame on me ... enough salt again in just one spoonful to raise my blood pressure, but the flavor was the goal and our rice cooker is pareve, so real chicken soup wasn't an option. As for the veggies, sauteed in olive oil, I chose chopped up carrots, chopped up Vidalia Onion (did I say it was my favorite?), chopped green pepper, and a generous dollop of garlic. In the end, the sauteed veggies were simply mixed with the rice after it was finished cooking, creating my Regal Rice Pilaf.

With the ShishKaBob ready to go on the rice, all that was missing for a really nice meal was a salad. So I cheated, and bought some packaged greens (with a hechsher, I might add) to serve as the salad base. The result was: Baby spinach, shredded carrots, raddichio, sliced red onion, sliced white mushrooms, and some fresh thyme. At the table, some croutons for those who want them, and a choice of dressings.

And might I suggest a soft semi-dry red to go with the meal?

The Kosher Kook Prepares To Serve His SuperShishka

Eggplant Enrapture

There’s a tradition among some Arabs that the value of a bride is based on how many recipes she knows that use eggplant. Anything under 100 is considered substandard, and just doesn't bring a good price.

While I’m certainly not an Arab bride, there’s a lot to be said for the custom. Our family is somewhat addicted to eggplant ... and I’m working on my hundred. Or perhaps its my second hundred.

It has nothing to do with the role of eggplant in Middle Eastern cuisine, however. Rather it’s because, when we lived in Florida, we could get gorgeous eggplants at farmer’s markets for just one thin dime. Even today they’re often less than a buck --- at which price we grab them.

As it turns out, the very nicest thing in the fridge tonight was indeed an eggplant. Also lying around was a bag of firm Roma tomatoes I bought yesterday, plus a few Vidalia onions - my favorites.

A Google search quickly turned up a few recipes where just those ingredients would work, although the results got somewhat mixed comments – it seemed to depend in part on just how into veggies the person commenting was (this is definitely not a dish for the meat and potatoes set). So, synthesizing the recipes, and the comments, this is what I came up with:

First, the eggplant was sliced (about a quarter inch thick), salted (coarse 'Kosher salt' of course), and left to stand. Usually I let it stand for an hour, but I was in a rush, so a bit over ten minutes did the trick. While they were standing I sliced the Vidalia onion, fairly thin, and sliced about four tomatoes (one could, of course, use any type of onion at hand, and any type of tomato for that matter … but my choice is a great tasting combo). At the same time a few tablespoons of olive oil were getting quite hot in a heavy frying pan (don't let it start to smoke! Oy!). Of course you could use standard cooking oil ... if you don't care how your food tastes.

Next the luscious slices of eggplant were washed (can’t be eating all that salt, after all) and dried on some paper towel.

In the pan goes the eggplant, to brown quickly on each side. Remove the eggplant and add a little more olive oil, and in go the sliced onions, along with a dollop of chopped garlic (how much garlic is up to your taste, and I like a lot). The goal is for the onions to soften, but not get carmelized. And ignore any recipes you see that say to use uncooked onion - it doesn’t work as well. But one could leave out the garlic and choose other spices - that's a matter of personal taste and creativity.

The rest is child’s play … into a relatively small baking dish goes a layer of eggplant, a layer of the uncooked sliced tomatoes and a layer of sautéed onion. Then another of eggplant, another of tomatoes, and finally the rest of the onions. Next comes three or four tablespoons of vinegar (recipes I saw called for Balsamic vinegar, but comments I saw complained of too vinegary a taste, so I used rice vinegar – which proved to be a great choice).

Finally a dusting of freshly ground pepper – of course to taste – and then the topping. Now there are lots of recipes I saw suggesting things such as a cup of bread crumbs, mixed with olive oil. Yuck. Too much breading. I used a few tablespoons of wheat germ – much healthier and far tastier, if you ask me, giving it a bit of a nutty flavor. Then I dribbled a couple of spoons of olive oil (did I suggest Extra Virgin, by the way?) over the top.

Finally 30 minutes at 350 degrees and Voila – dinner for two. Possibly served with a green salad, maybe a little pasta if you must, or perhaps some rice or even Quinoa pilaf. And a glass of slightly chilled white wine, if you please.

P.S. - I'm already thinking about how I could make this dish without the wheat germ, for use as a Passover dish (hmm, perhaps some matzoh meal on top, unless you're gebrocht-averse), or with some other topping to meet the needs of a friend who's a Kosher vegetarian suffering from celiac disease, so anything with gluten is prohibited.

The Kosher Kook Komes To Blogger

And now for the event the entire Kosher Kulinary world has been anxiously awaiting.

The Kosher Kook Komes to Blogger, with Kosher Kommentary and ... most important ... my favorite recipes and food stories !!!

Who, you ask, is the Kosher Kook ... the Kosher Kook is the husband of that famous Jewish blogger, Lady-Light, and the father of Rambo, Toodles, Nathaniel Blooomenstein, Mister Arnold My Eggie (well, not exactly, but this IS a food blob...er, blog), and BabyKtan. Not to mention the grandfather of a growing slew of young 'uns, plus TinkerToy (the one with four legs and an attitude).

And why, you ask, is it the Kosher Kook who is writing about cooking, and not the lady of the house. Well, because my motto is simple: If you like to eat good food, learn to cook!

And now ... on with the shew. Er, stew .... um, make that Cholent. Well, let's say Hamin.

Some friends take off the cover, as the Kosher Kook
prepares to assault the BBQ grill
at a recent L'ag B'Omer shul picnic.