A Surplus of Salads

I think I went a little bit overboard on the salads last Shabbat - I made six or seven different salads for just one meal!

To explain: Three families were getting together, for a grand total of 10 hungry people, for lunch, with everyone contributing something. I drew the salad(s).

Family One contributed all of the meat: Lamb and beef. And not just any old lamb, mind you. Lamb they had watched being slaughtered (okay, just the husband watched). We have a member of our community who is a shochet, and if asked he'll kill a lamb or chicken or two for friends every now and then. Hey, it's the only way to get fresh lamb in our community, since the only two sources of fresh kosher meat we have - a Target and a kosher market - don't stock fresh lamb (well the market does get in fresh lamb, but it freezes it immediately and refuses to even call you when it comes in if you want to go get a pound or two - nor will they grind it for you).

Unfortunately our friend had also frozen the lamb. Bummer.

Bigger bummer - he has this wonderful lamb, and his wife won't eat lamb. It's almost like she's a vegetablearian or something. Thus the contribution of six pounds of pot roast, to complement the three racks of lamb ribs.

Family Two got the job of cooking the meat (plus they made fish and provided the drinks, both hard and soft).

So, as I said, we got the salads ... and the Challah (which my wife baked).

Let's see: there was broccoli cole slaw, pasta/bean salad, marinated asparagus salad, spinach salad, a spectacular eggplant/pepper salad and, for desert .... what else? ... a fruit salad.

Now I've got to admit I bought a bag of already-shredded brocolli stems and carrot, so the broccoli slaw really wasn't all my doing. But I did dice the apples that went into it. But the walnuts I used weren't in the shell, they were bought already chopped (you got me!). And hey, I didn't dry the grapes to make the raisins either, I must confess.

Toss with a dressing - mayo, rice vinegar (I've been using that a lot these days, in place of either wine vinegar or cider vinegar - the rice is a LOT milder and has a less vinegary taste), sugar, a little salt if you must. Simplicity itself.

Next the pasta/bean salad. The recipe came right off the can of the Westbrae salad beans that I used (thank you Westbrae for all the certified kosher beans). Well, almost right off the label. I've made a few changes over time. In fact enough changes so that one of these days I'll do a post just discussing the bean salad.

Hmm...In that case, maybe I won't even bother to go through the ingredients: Just click on the picture tand you can see them all:

And here's the finished product:
Next up, the asparagus.

Now this is real simplicity. Cook (being careful not to overcook ... I simply nuked the poor things for a few minutes), cool, and pour on some marinade (I used plain old bottled Italian dressing if I'm lazy or in a hurry).

Chill overnight. Wonderful!

The spinach salad is almost as easy, the way I make it. Simply slice up a red onion (thin slices), and toss in a bunch of sliced mushrooms. I used the brown baby bellas, but white would work just as well. Of course all sorts of other yummy things could be added to the salad - peppers, various greens, maybe some chopped hard boiled eggs. But remember, this is a half dozen salads I'm making, and I still needed time to make our own Friday night Shabbat dinner (a modest affair of Tuna salad with deviled eggs on red leaf letttuce, chicken noodle soup with matzoh balls, a chicken with mushroom stuffing and a salad).

When it's time to eat, toss the spinach salad with dressing (If you put it on in advance, say the night before, it will marinate. Yuck.) - I prefer Italian (indeed the same as the dressing I used for the asparagus), or perhaps some vinegar, oil and spices - and maybe a handful or two of your favorite croutons.

And now, the real tour de force, and eggplant and pepper salad. This one is a bit more work than any of the others, but worth every minute. AND it counts toward my 100 eggplant dishes.

First the eggplant is sliced (perhaps three slices to the inch), salted, and left to sit for an hour or so. Next it's rinsed off and dried. The slices are then fried in hot olive oil. Not too hot, mind you, or the eggplant will burn before cooking through. And don't be trying to cheat and use some other oil. We're talking FLAVOR here, not just something to fry with. Then drain the fried eggplant slices and arrange on a platter in a single layer (well, you can overlap a little bit if you have to in order to fit all the slices).

Next, the eggplant is sprinkled with some vinegar (did I mention I'm using rice vinegar a lot these days? Well, for this too, although I guess no self-respecting Middle East cooking traditionalist would agree.) Perhaps two or three tablespoons of vinegar for two eggplants that weigh a little less than a pound each.

Now comes a fun part ... sautee sliced garlic in the left over olive oil. For the aforementioned two eggplants I used eight or ten cloves of garlic, which is almost twice what some folk do. But I'm a garlic freak. Careful, don't let them burn, just get a nice golden brown. Then sprinkle them on the eggplant.

Finally, we fry WHOLE peppers in the olive oil. They could be all green, or some green and red, or yellow, or whatever color you like. Just fry them until they're browned nicely and soft. Then drain, cool a bit, cut open, and get rid of the seeds and stem. Finally, cut the pepper into the strips, which go on top of the eggplant and garlic. Pure salad artistry, if I do say so myself.

And for desert, as I said before, what else could there be but another salad? A fruit salad.

By now, worn out, it had to be something simple. So I simply cut a couple of pineapples in half, took out the core, sliced up the fruit, and put it back in the shell. The wife pitched in and made some canteloupe melon balls. Oh and then we threw in handfuls of grapes. Ah, and sliced up some strawberries. As I said ... something simple.

The Kosher Kook shows off his simple fruit salad.

Thanksgiving in July

Who says Thanksgiving comes in the Fall?

Why not celebrate Thanksgiving in July

- and write about it in August, to boot?

To explain: Our youngest child is home for her first visit in several years - the military gave her a month off and a round trip ticket from Israel. And high on her want list was a "real" Thanksgiving dinner, an American treat that its tough (though not absolutely impossible) to duplicate anywhere else in the world, Israel included.

So ... the menu is Thanksgiving in July. And as a Friday night Shabbat dinner, no less ... and yes, I know that traditionally Thanksgiving is on Thursday. But many years ago we switched to Pizza on Thursday, and Turkey on Friday night, combining the celebration and sanctity of the Sabbath with American tradition -- and as a Jewish U.S. Army combat veteran, I think I'm more than entitled to do that. (Okay, this past Thanksgiving we were invited to friends for Thursday night, so we actually had TWO Thanksgiving dinners. And with the one we just did in July, that makes THREE this year.)

What we had was an almost traditional Thanksgiving menu... with just a few caveats. The first is that Kosher turkey in this part of the country now runs $60-$80, up from $15-$20 for the exact same bird, on sale, just three or four years ago, which is a bit pricey So for this dinner we went with just Turkey breast (bought on sale frozen some months ago) ... actually two of them ... which turned out to be not such a bad choice at all.

But on with the meal:

It being Shabbat Kiddush comes first - for this meal we used a nice Merlot as our kiddush wine.

Next, of course, comes HaMotzi - wonderful home made Challah. I must admit that I didn't make the Challah. That was my wife's doing, with my grandson's happy hands helping (he was in town visiting too!). But at least the recipe was my doing, a classic Challah recipe I modified both to work a bit better given the high altitude at which we live, and to cheat a bit by using a bread machine for the initial steps. But more on that recipe in some future post.

So far, you might complain, there's been no sign of "Thanksgiving," nor is there for our next course - Gefilte Fish, which is definitely not a dish I would imagine that the Pilgrims made. But what the heck, it is Friday night, and maybe the Pilgrims DID eat some kind of fish at their meal. (And I bet it was fresh, not the pre-chopped frozen stuff we made.)

Oh, well. Perhaps some of the Chamutzim we had on the side - Pickles, Olives and Roasted Sweet Red Peppers - were on the "real" Thanksgiving menu.

But wait, now we finally come to our first sign of Thanksgiving - the L'Chaim, made over a drink called a "Turkeyball." For those who have never heard of the Turkeyball - which I suspect is just about everybody - it's a cocktail based on Wild Turkey bourbon. You take an ounce of Wild Turkey, 3/4 of an ounce of Amaretto, and a "splash" of Pineapple juice (1/4ounce to be strict, as much as you'd like is perfectly fine). Shake them all with ice, and then either strain into a little glass, or pour over crushed ice and garnish with a mint leaf or two (fresh from our weed patch out back).

Next - the soup. I'll discuss my classic Chicken Soup recipe some time in the future, but let it be said that the Pilgrims may well have had some type of soup made with fowl. Of course I doubt they had matzoh balls in it, as we did. But hey, it WAS a Shabbat dinner.


Finally ... after a tossed green salad ... the main attraction: Turkey.

The trick is to keep the Turkey breast moist and juicy while cooking it thoroughly. The secret these days is to use an oven roasting bag. Indeed with the bag you can even let the Turkey sit keeping warm for an hour or more without it drying out.

The recipe I used: Rub the Turkey breast with a blend of spices (I used one tablespoon each of garlic powder, poultry seasoning, sage, and thyme) mixed with two tablespoons of Olive Oil (did I mention Extra Virgin?). Put a tablespoon of flour into the cooking bag (they claim this keeps it from exploding), then the Turkey breast. Finally, for obvious reasons holding the bag opening up, pour in a cup of chicken broth (okay, I used powdered mix to make it, shame on me, and kind of dumb to boot considering the fact that I had a big pot of fresh chicken soup simmering right there in the kitchen) to which you have added a quarter cup each of chopped celery, onion and carrots.

Now, tie up the bag, make a few slits in the top, and roast at 325F. It will probably take at least 2-2 1/2 hours, depending on the size of the Turkey breast.

As for the rest of our meal, that was indeed "pure" Thanksgiving.

On the side a cranberry-orange sauce: One bag of cranberries (craftily bought cheaply after the "real" Thanksgiving and frozen for just such a critical time of need such as this), a cup of sugar, and a cup of liquid. The liquid is the juice of an orange, and enough water to make up a cup. Before juicing the orange wash it, zest it, and throw the zest into the cranberry pot. Bring to a boil, cook 10 minutes, and refrigerate overnight. Pure Cranberry delight, far better than your basic sauce, which is made without the orange.

Also on the side: a sweet potato-pineapple casserole with marshmallow fluff. A friend with whom we traditionally share Thanksgiving is the specialist in this dish, so I won't (well, I can't) detail how it was made.


For desert, our friend brought Pumpkin pie. After all, what's a Thanksgiving dinner without Pumpkin Pie?

But, not wanting to be outdone, I finished off with a chocolate pie - using a marvelous non-dairy (Pareve) recipe I found years ago and which has become a family tradition. Next time I make it, I'll reveal the recipe, which is so simple its almost criminal that the pie is so good.

The Kosher Kook's Inkredible Pareve Chocolate Silk Pie