Category Archives: Recipes

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Red Lentil Soup for Rosh Hashanah

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Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tonight at sundown. High Holiday foods tend toward the sweet and the circular: sweet to represent our wishes for a sweet new year, and circular to symbolize the seasons that run one into the next, round and round, year after year.

So it is traditional to eat many different kinds of fruits, especially apples, prunes, pomegranates, dates and apricots; and sweet vegetables such as beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, and leeks (sliced into rounds, of course), as well as black-eyed peas and lentils. And lots of honey, especially for dipping bread and apples. Continue reading →

Grandma Rosie Hits a Home Run (the holidays are coming!)

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Today I want to share a recipe that is a wellspring of memories. The women, the teamwork, the heavenly aromas, the busy kitchen, the arriving family, the great big table, the special dishes, the silver. And the food. Simple recipes with amazing flavor. Here is my Grandma Rosie’s recipe for vegetarian chopped liver, which she made the way her own grandma did, with a wooden bowl and mezzaluna. If you’ll be using a food processor instead, which is probably the case, read to the very end for those instructions.

I have exceptionally fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table with the grownups while they worked to prepare the food, listening wide-eyed as they debated the relative merits of various ingredients and their provenance, chattered about errant siblings, and bragged about their above-average children and grandchildren. I remember feeling very grown up when I was finally old enough to take a place in the lineup. When my chopping arm got too tired to continue, I would pass the bowl, usually to my mother, an aunt, or one of my grandmothers. Continue reading →

Commercial Salad Dressings Are Not What You Think

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Many, if not most, commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious, nourishing vegetables in water and corn syrup. These products are not food, and they do not nourish you. Instead, they waste your money, and they markedly reduce the nutritional value of your salad. A while back I decided to stop at the supermarket to check the ingredient lists on four popular salad dressing brands. I think you will be very interested in what I discovered. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Pesto

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I am a diehard waste-not-want-not kind of girl from way back. In the past, I tended to make a lot of surprises from whatever was left in the kitchen, and they could either be great or they could turn out as what my kids used to call “refrigerator soup.”

But every once in a while, I hit the jackpot.  Continue reading →

Korean Barbecue Love

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Korean Barbecue Love
from Joe Gardewin

Over the past months, as you probably know, our family has been the recipient of an extraordinary amount of generosity and support of all kinds. Today, I am sharing the gift of a post from a friend, Joe, sent to me two weeks ago in hopes that it might lighten my load. It has achieved its intended purpose and for that, and more, I am very grateful. Thank you very, very much, Joe, for your kindness. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Buddha Bowl

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Here’s a really delicious, really simple, really elegant way to be kind to yourself when you’ve had a long day and there are little bits of this and that in the fridge. Seems like there are a lot of days like this lately — which makes it extra important to find easy ways to nourish yourself. The important things to remember here are, first, that you can make this a hundred times and you will never get tired of it because it will never be the same twice, and, second, that steps 5 and 6 are as important as the earlier steps for satisfying both your brain and your appetite. Continue reading →

Grand Celebration

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Our brand new grandson was born into our family this past week, after which my son-in-law named it “Birthday Week,” not only for the fact of his own birthday and that of his newborn son, but also because we celebrated the first birthday of the infant’s newly promoted big sister! Birthday week!! In celebration of this newly expanded family, the week basically consisted of one wonderful meal after the next, all of which reminded me of a post that I wrote once upon a time about the meals at my parents’ small farm in the Watchung Mountains of New Jersey. The years have passed, and my own parents are gone now, but all our beautiful babies have been named in memory of my mother and father, and that has been a gift of its own. Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Rainbow Peanut Noodles

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This is one of my all-time favorite recipes, and I thought you might like to know how to make it. It makes a fantastic dinner, and superb leftovers for lunch the next day, or even breakfast!. A forkful twirl from the fridge for a yummy snack is also a reasonable option. If you want, you can get the cabbage, peppers, and carrots ready the night (or weekend) before to cut down on worknight evening prep time. This recipe is perfect with any kind of noodles, including gluten-free ones. The reason it is so filling is because it is full of all kinds of different phytonutrients, which you can tell by how many colors it contains, as well as all the super-nourishing fats in the form of peanut butter, sesame oil, and fresh soybeans. Continue reading →

Making Special Meals Even More So (plus a recipe)

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The other day my son-in-law and I were talking about my upcoming plans to pass along some of our dishes (the ones we use for meat meals), and instead start using my mother’s beautiful china. Those dishes, which lived happily and visibly in my parents’ house for sixty-plus years, have not been used at all for the past 10 or 15 years, and it seems a waste for us not to be using them now. So it will be out with the new, and in with the old. And also, since we don’t eat meat very much anymore, chicken and turkey not more than once or twice a month, and beef no more than once or twice a year, I had the idea to move the meat dishes out of the kitchen itself, and into a little pantry off the kitchen. That way, they will be nearby when we need them, but the rest of the time we will be able to fill the kitchen cabinets with items we use a lot more often.  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Channah’s Whitefish Soup from Jerusalem

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I am back! Inboxes, circadian rhythms, unpacking, and laundry are all emptied, adjusted, and done! It was nothing less than thrilling to meet our new grandson, and to feel the joy of seeing our son and daughter-in-law become parents to their beautiful new baby boy. Our daughter-in-law is a great cook, and I brought home a special recipe of hers. She emphasized that this recipe works with any whitefish available, and you should not feel the need to purchase anything too expensive or special. These are her instructions below, and I’ve underlined the ingredients to make it easier to get organized: Continue reading →