Simply Brisket

I have been looking at the Passover recipes on various blogs and the brisket recipes are really complicated.  Here is my version of Passover Brisket which has 5 ingredients.  It is better made the day before the Seder and allowed to steep in the cooking juices overnight.  Also doing this makes it easier to skim off the excess fat.

When you buy the brisket get pieces that are not much bigger than 2 1/2 pounds each.  I have found that using 5 or 6 pound briskets produces tough results.  For this Passover I have purchased 2 2 3/4 pound briskets.  Use a shallow roasting pan that is only large enough to hold the meat.  Line the roasting pan with aluminum foil.  Wash and pat the meat dry and put into the pan.  In a small bowl, for each brisket,  mix together 1 entire package of onion soup mix 1 tablespoon mustard powder, 1 teaspoon garlic powder and 2 tablespoons of olive oil (gotta keep this as healthy as possible) so that it forms a thick paste.  Spread the paste over the first brisket, prepare a second batch the same way and spread it over the second brisket.  Tightly cover the briskets with a second piece of aluminum foil. If you have prepared this a day or two before the Seder put the pan into the refrigerator overnight.  For this year I am hosting the second night.  I will prepare the meat mixture on Sunday night, refrigerate and cook the brisket on Monday.  I'm not sure if the onion soup mixture acts as a marinade, but I have found that the brisket is tastier when I do it this way.  When you are ready to cook the brisket, place it in a 325 degree oven for 2 1/2 to three hours.  Let the brisket cool before slicing. Skim the excess fat off the sauce and serve.  Enjoy!

Miriam's Fluffy Matzo Balls

Passover is coming and there are probably as many versions of matzo balls as there are Seders.  I will share the one that I have been making for years because it results in really fluffy matzo balls.  I start with the basic Manischewitz matzo ball recipe that I cut off an orange Manischewitz Matzo Meal box many, many years ago. I am linking to this recipe so that you can see how food preparation has changed in the last twenty years.  The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of melted fat.  Now in Jewish terminology, that means liquid chicken fat, better  known as schmaltz.  Schmaltz is the most flavorful fat there is, but it is a definite no-no.  Instead of schmaltz, I use olive oil, not as exciting but better for you.  To get the matzo balls fluffy, substitute three tablespoons of plain seltzer (yes plain seltzer) for the water or chicken stock.  While you are waiting for the water to boil, place the matzo meal mixture into the freezer, not the refrigerator, to chill (I never bother to cover the mixing bowl) for about fifteen minutes.  When the water has come to a boil, take the mixture out of the freezer.  There may be some ice crystals on the side, but just incorporate them into the one inch balls you are forming from the mixture.  I am not sure if the freezing makes the matzo balls extra fluffy but I have always done this.  

To cook the matzo balls, fill a two or three-quart pot with 1 1/2 quarts of slightly salted water (if desired) and bring to a brisk boil.  Reduce flame and into the slightly boiling water, drop balls approximately 1 inch in diameter formed from the mixture. Cover pot and cook 30 to 40 minutes.  

Have soup at room temperature or warmer and remove matzo balls from water and place in soup pot.

When ready to serve, allow soup to simmer for about 5 minutes.

You, my readers, will have to tell me what you think after you make your own matzo balls.

In case you are wondering about the calorie count, this recipe makes about eight matzo balls with approximately 150 calories per serving of  2 matzo balls.

Manischewitz Matzo Balls Recipe by Western Foods

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons melted fat or oil - use olive oil instead
• 2 large eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/2 cup Manischewitz® Matzo Meal
• 2 tablespoons soup stock or water - substitute 3 tablespoons of plain seltzer
• 1 teaspoon salt, if desired    

                    

                                                                                                                      

How Low Can You Go - Limbo Low Limbo High

Sometimes when I am working on these recipes I feel that I am dancing the Limbo.  For example, I read Clean Eating Magazine which has very interesting recipes, but they are not always low in calories.  My daughter recently made Moroccan Chickpea Salad from the March 2011 issue of Clean Eating Magazine which has 254 calories in a 1 cup serving.  Well I don't know about you but a 1 cup serving would not even begin to fill me up, so I decided to see "How Low I Can Go" revamping this one.

As you look over the ingredients, you will notice that I am chopping the vegetables. Chopping softer vegetables like these is an easy job if you own an onion chopper like the one below.  It not only chops onions, it does a great job on garlic, cucumbers, radishes and baby carrots.  Just don't use it on tomatoes or lettuce. 

Ingredients for about 3 large servings:
Salad
2- 3 green leaf lettuce leaves chopped
1/2 cup baby carrots chopped
3 green onions, thinly sliced
3 radishes chopped
1 kirby cucumber chopped
2 handfuls grape tomatoes
1/2 cup canned chick peas
Sprinkling of fat free feta cheese
For the Dressing mix together the following
1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp lite salt
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
pinch cayenne pepper

Assemble the salad ingredients in a large bowl and pour the dressing over.

                              

Calories per serving about 125 based on the following calorie count:   
1/2 cup chick peas 100
1 1/2 tbsp oil 150 calories
4oz grape tomatoes 30
4 oz baby carrots 40
1 oz fat free feta cheese 60

Eat Your Greens

We have been all told to "Eat Our Greens", but frankly eating them is ugh.  Finding a good recipe is difficult.  My son, the Vegetarian, loves Swiss Chard.  He told me he sautees the Swiss Chard in garlic and oil and then drizzles some lemon juice on it.  I followed his directions and well frankly - yuk!  I did not like it.  Then, I found this recipe in the March 19 Wall Street Journal and decided to give eating exotic greens another try.  But there were some obstacles, I did not have Wild Halibut,  I could not find Sorrel in the stores and I don't like steamed fish.  But that did not stop me from trying to make a healthy adaptation of this recipe.  My recipe serves 2, and since I like alot of sauce on my foods, I did not halve the sauce recipe.

I started with 2 six-ounce Haddock fillets.  I soaked the fish in an egg white bath.  Meanwhile, I poured 1/3 cup of cornmeal (I prefer yellow) into a plastic bag with a few shakes of Lemon Pepper seasoning and dredged the fish fillets in the cornmeal.  I heated up my skillet and sprayed it with Pam cooking spray.   I added the 2 fillets to the hot pan and then drizzled 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and let it run under the fillets to give them a bit of a crunch.  I turned once and then added the second 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan following the same procedure.  This way I sauteed the fish without using alot of oil.  I turned the oven on to 350 degrees and while the fillets were cooking lined a small aluminum baking dish with foil and sprayed it.  I transferred the fillets to the baking dish and placed them in the oven while I prepared the sauce.

For the sauce I decided to be brave and bought about 3/4 pound of Swiss Chard.  I cleaned it and cut it into 3/4-inch strips.  Since I have started this blog, I have been treating myself to some new cooking utensils.  So I pulled out my brand new Calphalon  21/2 quart saute pan (Bed Bath and Beyond had a $39.95 special - plus I used my 20% off coupon).  I sprayed the pan with Pam spray and about 10 sprays of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray for the buttery flavor.  I added the garlic, thyme (dried of course) and Swiss Chard, let it cook until the garlic was translucent.  Next I added the wine and covered the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes.  After that I added 1/2 cup of bottled clam juice (available in Shop-Rite and other local supermarkets) and let the it cook for another 4-5 minutes.  At this point I turned off the oven so that the fish would not over cook.  Instead of 1/2 cup of heavy cream (100 calories and  40 mg of cholesterol per serving), I used 1/2 cup of Fat Free Half and Half (20 calories 0 mg of cholesterol per serving) to turn the sauce into a something that my cardiologist would approve of.  I followed the remaining directions substituting I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoon of butter.  If you would rather use butter, then Land O' Lakes Light Whipped Butter has only 45 calories per tablespoon vs the 100 calories in every tablespoon of butter.  Whatever you decide to do, this recipe is a definite keeper and changed my mind about "Eating my Greens".

Matt Dillon's Steamed Wild Halibut With Sorrel Sauce | Slow Food Fast - WSJ.com

An Apple a Day

An apple a day keeps the doctor away is a very old saying and now we are finding out that it may be true.  There was a very interesting article in the March 6th edition of The Sunday New York Times Magazine.  It is called "Death Takes a Rain Check". It is about an 87 year old billionaire's quest to live until he is 125.  David Murdock, a self made billionaire, "saw the light" about twenty five years ago when his wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1983.  While he was seeking treatments that might save her life he started to research what the  impact of diet/food choices might have in surviving debilitating illnesses.  In the years since his wife's death, Murdock has set up a research facility and one of the projects is to study the extent to which quercetin, found in the skins of apples, can have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06murdock-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Here is a very  easy way to get your apple a day and use up all the fruit you have in your refrigerator that is past it's prime.

Into a large 6 quart pot add:
4 apples cored and cut into eighths (use any apple you prefer)
2  ripe pears cored and cut into eighths
1-2 cups of raisins
2 TB honey
8 cups of water (enough water to cover the fruit)
You can also add any other fruit that you choose such as red grapes or strawberries.
Cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.  Once it has cooled transfer to storage containers and refrigerate. 

Yields about 12 servings at 100 to 150 calories per serving (depending on how many raisins you add).

There's Gold in ThemThar Hills

Not sure how many of you saw this article in last Sunday's NY Times, but apparently the 21st Century  "Gold Rush" is in Blogs.  Heather Armstrong, the "Queen of the Mommy Bloggers", makes $30,000 to $50,000 a month on her blog and highly successful bloggers can gross $1 million according to the article.

That is really good money, but considering that I sometimes have problems navigating the NY Times Web site I don't think I will be one of the the high rollers in blogs.  Even though I am internet savvy,  I must admit I do get tangled up in web searches.

For example, I clicked on the article because I wanted to see the reader comments.  It took three tries before I found them.  Now I ask you, is it me or is the NY Times web site poorly designed?  Why are the comments on a separate web page, not right after the article?  Also, if I want to include a web link in this blog, I can't just copy and paste it into my blog.  I must first put the link into a Facebook private group I created and then copy and paste the link from Facebook to this blog.  Convoluted right?

Anyway, not to digress, after I read the article, I decided to go to my blog (which I admit is not as flashy as other blogs especially not as glitzy as http://dooce.com/about) and register for Google Ads to see how much money I can make.  Well since last week, I had 8 hits and made $0 dollars!  Great start. So my dear readers, enjoy the article and if you can figure out how to make $ from blogs, please feel free to add your comments on my blog.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27armstrong-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=mommy+blog&st=cse

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/queens-of-the-mom-blog-kingdom/?scp=2&sq=mommy+blog&st=cse

The Best Meatballs Ever

Last week was the last "Cooking With Dexter" column in the NY Times.  The recipe was for Spaghetti and Meatballs.  I decided to see if  I could take the challenge to make a lower calorie/lower fat version that still tasted good.  Well, not only did I succeed, but these were the best tasting meatballs I have ever made!  And better yet, the lower fat version cuts about 200 calories per serving. 

Here is what I did to make the meatballs.  In a bowl, I combined the fat free half and half, bread crumbs and egg white.  I added about a TB of dried onion flakes, a TB of dried parsley and a TB of dried basil and 1TB of Parmesan cheese.  I added the dried spices because the mixture of bread crumbs, egg white and fat free half and half looked watery, so I wanted to thicken it up before I worked in the ground beef.  I also added the same spices as the original recipe as follows - 1 tsp dried oregano, dash crushed red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp black pepper and 1/2 tsp lite salt.  After I kneaded in the beef, I sprayed my skillet with Pam and added in the small meatballs and started to fry them.  I added 1 TB of oil as needed.  After the meatballs were browned, I put them on an aluminum foil lined roasting pan that I also sprayed with Pam and put them into a 350 degree oven to bake while I cooked two ounces of whole wheat spaghetti per person.  I put about 1/2 jar of my favorite Mariana sauce in a small pot to heat.  I had about 1/4 cup of left over wine in the frig so I added that to the sauce. When I added my pasta to the boiling water, I transferred the meatballs to the hot Marinara sauce.  After the spaghetti was drained, I topped it with the meatball Mariana sauce. 

Mangi! Enjoy the great taste without the additional calories or fat!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/magazine/20Food-t-000.html?_r=1

Serves 6                                      Serves 2

Original Recipe Lower Fat Recipe 2 cups bread crumbs 800 1/3 cup unsalted seasoned bread crumbs 110 3 oz heavy cream 293 3 oz fat free half and half  50 3 slices bacon 138 no bacon 8 oz ground chuck 568 10 oz lean ground beef 380 8 oz ground veal 328 egg white 0 8 oz ground pork 600 1TB Parmesan cheese 20 4 tb oils  400 1 tb oil 100 calories per serving  521 330