summary: SAVEUR magazine’s Hamantaschen; a rant about recipe instructions; (click on image to see larger views and more photos)

Apparently, Purim is next weekend. How fitting that we will be able to give Hamantaschen to our friends! But we just have one question. Isn’t Ham disallowed in the Jewish diet? (eeeheheeeeheeeeeeeeee)

I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: I love SAVEUR magazine!

In this year’s SAVEUR 100 issue, there is a recipe for a cookie we’d never heard of. It looked great.

[W]e children were served cookies — jam and poppy seed-filled triangles representing, we were told, Haman’s three-cornered hat. Now, the cookies I knew. They were hamantaschen. My grandmother made delectable jewel-like versions year-round; they blew the Youth Center’s dry, cakey ones away. Grandma Syl’s flaky cream cheese pastry was shaped into tiny triangles framing sweet dollops of her homemade raspberry and apricot-pineapple jams.

-Betsy Andrews, Hamantaschen, SAVEUR 100, no.153 (December 2012)

We just happened to have some cream cheese in the fridge. And of course, we always have butter and flour on hand.

We didn’t have any raspberry jam but we do have a jar of our apricot jam in the basement. However, after a brief discussion, we decided it was too precious to use it on anything but bagels or croissants. (Remind me to make bagels and croissants soon!)

So we used plum jam instead. And next time, if there’s no more plum jam left, we’ll use grape jam. If this is wrong wrong wrong, please don’t send the Hamantaschen Police after us. (continue reading…)

summary: recipe for Assyrian Spinach Pie; plum jam is a great alternate filling; a Bread Baking Babes project; the BBBabes are celebrating 5 years of baking; submission for YeastSpotting and Bake Your Own Bread; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

Bread Baking Babes (BBB) February 2013

Wow! The BBBabes have been baking bread together for five years!! Many BBBabes have been here since the beginning. To some BBBabes we’ve had to say goodbye, to some au-revoir and to others hello and welcome! We’re very pleased to welcome Heather, the newest BBBabe!

This month, Tanna (My Kitchen in Half Cups) chose the BBBabes’ challenge. I loved the choice. This is something I’ve been meaning to make for ages but just haven’t gotten around to doing.

I’ve had Aida Karaoglan’s recipe for spinach pies in “Food for the Vegetarian” bookmarked for eons – maybe since 1985 or so… shows how much I need a kick in the pants to get going, doesn’t it?

The BBB dough calls for mahlab (aka mahlep, mahalab, mahleb, mahaleb, mahalep, mahlepi, machlepi or makhlepi). We just happen to have some in the freezer. (Thank you again, N!)

Mahleb: Mahleb is the kernal – looking like a miniature almond – inside the pit of a species of black cherry that growns in the Eastern Mediterranean.

-Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid, Flatbreads and Flavors, p.416

Did you find your mittens?

You did? Me too!

Excellent!! Shall we have some pie?

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ss s s i g h

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summary: recipe for Indian-style cabbage with ginger and coconut; embracing vegetarian food; (click on image to see larger view)

Like so many others, we are trying to reduce our meat intake. And we often choose to make vegetarian dinners.

But our vegetarian dishes are not watery and bland. Or trying to mimic meat. Or tasteless and grey. They’re vibrant with many different flavours and textures.

The other night, as we were indulging ourselves with the most spectacular feast of rice, dahl, fried eggplant, aloo posta with green beans, and stir-fried cabbage, we couldn’t help but admit that if we decided to become exclusively vegetarian, we would probably be making just about everything Indian-style. (continue reading…)

summary: revisiting Brunkans Långa – Brunkeberg’s Bakery Long Brown Bread; bread rises slowly when it’s cold; it snowed! submission for YeastSpotting and Bake Your Own Bread; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

It doesn’t feel like it has been over two years since the BBBabes made Brunkans Långa! And the other day, when fellow BBBabe Ilva suggested revisiting it with anyone else in the Google+ Bread Bakers’ Group, I jumped at the chance. Sure, it looks a bit like a giant caterpillar. But I remembered that it was fabulous. And not very hard to make.

But how memory plays tricks on us! Right up until just after mixing the final dough, I was convinced it was going to be rye bread.

Why?? I think it might be because of the Graham flour I used last time. It had some rye flour in it.

Then, right up until I thought it should be time to turn the oven on, I remembered that had miraculously risen perfectly in the fridge and that it was easy easy easy to plop out of the container. (continue reading…)

summary: review of Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer; brief comparison to The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum;

When I was writing about bialys, I didn’t mention that the whole time I was making them, directly beside Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Bread Bible book open to the Bialys pages, I had Maggie Glezer’s “Artisan Baking Across America” open to her recipe for Kossar’s bialys. I was consulting both recipes every time I needed instruction. (continue reading…)