Kosher TF Mamas - Page 3

[Magelet]

chicken fat(schmaltz.) ok truthfully, its a little too scare to use regularly for that, that would be only as a treat. We do very few veggies just steamed and served, but coconut oil is good, and aoili is great. (haven't managed to make good mayo for it though. contemplating buying some coconut oil or olive oil good egg mayo online to make it with.)

re the pate, I don't like pate, or liver at all, but I am learning to like chopped chicken liver, because I try it regularly (just a half spoonful.) its starting to taste not so bad and I think soon it may actually taste good.

[Ruthla]

I generally cook veggies with some kind of vegetable oil or blend of veggie oils. Often I'll add olive or grapeseed oil and salt before baking the veggies. Sometimes I'll use toasted sesame oil (including a drop of hot pepper toasted sesame oil) and tamari.

[Faliciagayle]

I've done the schmaltz thing before but it made our veggies taste like chicken soup I like the tamari idea...

[Magelet]

true, olive oil and coarse salt is GREAT on cooking veggies. for some reason I was thinking to put on top of steamed veggies. I love roasting all sorts of veggies (broccoli) with olive oil and coarse salt. Same with sauteing them, olive oil is my go to.

[mombh]

hi mamas


i have'nt been around here in while and just noticed this thread, great!!

I strive for tf and sometimes we are more and sometimes less....

recently ,due to a family crisis ( sick daughter, extended hospital stay, stress etc the only tf food we have been having a lot of is bone broth.

I would come home from the hospital for a break and put up a "pot of bone"....
it was the first real food my dd ate and she had 6 cups on that day!

I find keeping kosher and tf can be a challenge, over time I have just adapted to what we can and cannot do. For a while dh was able to buy free range chickens by the case for a good price, but it's been a while. sometimes I get free range / organic or black angus ground meat or marrow bones etc; at our local kosher store but it is very $$$$$. I kosher the chicken livers on our grill outside since it is stainless steel and it is super easy. We keep chalav and there are no cows close by so raw dairy is a tough one. We still use the kosher butter and buy whole milk which is relatively local, about 3 hours away and hormone and antibiotic free and when I spoke to them they did try to explain about some grazing and feeding the cows alfalfa etc; but it is still pasturized....
My dd's make great pareve deserts with coconut milk and we use coconut oil or palm shortening. We are also gluten free.

btw, my kids really like their pickles a little sweet, bubbies makes a sweet one. do any of you have a recipe for a slightly sweet one?
I also find raising 8 kids and homeschooling, doesn't leave a lot of time to always do/make what I planned to
my dh and I love kimchee which I plan to make some tomorrow.

btw, I think that our cholent is kinda tf
I use bones (my kids love marrow bones) and add meat, brown rice, (soaked) potatoes, yams, sometimes some pumkin or butternut squash, loads of garlic , stock/broth, sea salt, cayenne, and some ground cumin and coriander and let it all cook on low in the crock pot. I don't cook any of it beforehand so it is really slow cooked!!

[Magelet]

tell me more about your cholent? I'm just learning about what cholent is, and looking to find/make a recipe to make mine.

A friend brought me some AMAZING bread and butter pickles (and I hate bread and butter pickles) maybe not LF though, but I can get the recipe. only a little sweet.

[mombh]

yeah, I'd like the recipe

[Faliciagayle]

okay so about cholent which to me pretty much just means a stew (I did a lentil cholent when kosher meat was nigh on impossible and cost prohibitive for us to find in WI) and I know none of us are Rabbi's (to my knowledge) but if the cholent cooks over night, isn't that non-kosher???

We were at Chabad the other week and the Rav asked me if I'd ever had cholent (yes) and I said "as a matter of fact, we had stew last night and that's what we'll eat later today" and he said "yes, but the secret real cholent is to have it on the fire all night" which I took me mean cooking the entire time.

Eh?


Keeping chalav must be difficult. I could use some help with dairy substitutions! At the moment I'm trying to prefect my non dairy non soy no HFCS or PHSBO "cream topping" and failing miserably.

I got some AMAZING LF dilly beans from a kosher, organic farm in CT (ADAMAH) and I can't bring myself to throw away the brine. I've long since eaten every piece of bean, garlic, and onion in the gar. I can't quite bring my pregnant self to drink the brine, so I wonder what I can start with it. It's pretty sour and I don't imagine carrots would taste good.

Oh my carrots. How sad that I have been through three failed batches thus far.

[Magelet]

You could use the pickle brine instead of whey for LF ketchup, chutneys, etc. You can also use it like acid in salad dressing. re: the cholent, I have no clue.

[Ruthla]

What do you mean by "non kosher" if the cholent cooks overnight? Do you mean not "kosher" in terms of Shabbos Laws, or dietary laws? There's nothing in the dietary laws about length of cooking time.

From a Shabbos perspective, it HAS to cook all night. You're allowed to cook things before Shabbos and keep them hot, but you're not allowed to reheat wet foods- it's considered "cooking" them (even if you're just reheating the food- although you are allowed to warm up previously cooked dry foods. When water gets warmed up, it's considered "cooking" it again. Something like kugel could be warmed up on Saturday afternoon, but not cholent.)

I make my cholent in the crock pot. What goes in that week varies. It NEEDS some bones in there, or it just tastes "over cooked" by Saturday afternoon (unless you add something with MSG in it- which isn't TF or even healthy.) I usually use beef bones and some cubes of beef and some veggies. In the summertime, I make it more broth-based, and I make it heavier in the wintertime. I've found that it often burns (and becomes hard to clean) if I put raw grains in to cook, plus it's hard to figure out how much grains, how much water, etc. I prefer to put in precooked (usually leftover) grains instead. Ditto on the beans- I like to soak them overnight, then cook on the stove, then combine everything in the crock pot, season it, and set it on "low". If I cook the beans in the crock pot, I can't add vinegar or salt right away, and I have to start it on "high". That leaves the possibility of forgetting to add the salt and vinegar and turn it to low before Shabbos. The apple cider vinegar adds flavor and gets more nutrition out of the bones. I use about 1/4 cup in the whole cholent.

[mombh]

From what I know and I am probably not going to explain it well here so you really should ask a rabbi.
anyway, you are supposed to start cooking the cholent quite a while before shabbos so that technically it is already cooked, meaning it has already been simmering and while it won't have that cholent taste till it has been simmering overnight it is still considered cooked before Shabbos. And, because you started this before shabbos, you are not initiating the cooking on shabbos, it's o.k.
ykwim??
I hope I haven't confused you more

btw, ita with ruth about the bones.....
I try use marrow bones and they just add yummmm

your'e right about cholent actually being stew or chili just that it is slow cooked for much longer......and has the taste of shabbos

[Faliciagayle]

yes, that's what I meant. I usually start mine at least an hour before candles so it will be "cooked" before shabbat starts. It's a good thing I have an appointment w/ MLOR to discuss some kashrut issues. I'll bring this up

You know, no wonder my lentil cholent never tasted very good and was always practically dry come kiddush. No bones about it.

[sunshinestarr]

Lentil cholent? Detail, please!!

[Faliciagayle]

so all this cholent talk got me to make cholent this Shabbat. I used marrow bones for the first time... so, uh, what are you supposed to do with the marrow? Plop it out into the cholent? I took the bones out before we ate and unapologetically threw then away, but I was looking at the quivering marrow and thinking "we should probably be eating that" I dunno. Bone innards are new for me. As a side note, I used cinnamon for the first time and it was splendid.

Sunshinestarr - lentil cholent is just green lentils, any vegetables I have laying around the house, and copious (though never enough) amounts of broth, all put into the crock prior to sundown and enjoyed on Saturday. If/when I use veggie broth, I top with feta and it's divine.

[mombh]

hmmmm,yum lentils with feta..... I could have some right now.
do you add the feta after or let it cook in?

re; marrow bones,
the inside is actually really yummy, my younger kids love them.
you could spread it on bread or toast too.
and, very nutritious

[Magelet]

so marrow is kosher? I wasn't sure. seeing as its your marrow that makes your blood cells, I didn't know if it counted as blood. I'm thrilled to hear that. Even though marrow scares me and I've never had it. But I hear its delicious and super healthy.

[Magelet]

bump...

More of a kosher question than TF, but.... examining veggies like cabbage and broccoli for bugs.... how?

I found some bugs in the broccolli I was cutting up at work the other day, and pulled them off when I could. But how do you examine the broccolli thouroughly? grains and beans, I imagine is time consuming but not that hard. but how on earth do you examine cruciferous veggies?

[Otto]

Originally Posted by Magelet

But how do you examine the broccolli thouroughly? grains and beans, I imagine is time consuming but not that hard. but how on earth do you examine cruciferous veggies?

The Star-K specification is up to three rinses until no insects are detected. OU is more persnickety on broccoli.

[Magelet]

hey mamas, I don't remember if I was originally asking about cholent here or in the jewish mamas thread, but I found something fascinating.

remember how I had that idea that cholent was like, dishes inside of dishes inside of dishes or something amazingly complicated? that I had read that somewhere? I found it, and it looks amazing.

I was readingh the book of jewish food by claudia roden, which looks amazing btw, haven't tried anything, but it is SO interesting. anyways, in her section of sephardic versions of cholent, dafina, hamin, skhena, and lots of other names.

A lot of the recipes have your stew/meat in sauce (usually with a knuckle) at the bottom. and then rice in a bag (apparently keeping the rice in a cloth bag about 3/4 full keeps it from falling into mush over the long cooking). and meatloaf or sausages in either kosher casings, or cloth. and eggs that boil for that amount of time. things wrapped in foil, little metal containers and plates holding other dishes.

It sounds perfect to me, and I'm definitely going to take these recipes and use them to create my own cholent. what can I say, I like complicated stuff sometimes. (and I love serving multiple courses lol. though its hard, when we only have three bowls and three plates atm.)

(they also had some amazing meat or cheese pies and pasties and stuff. definitely going to try to find a way to make those TF (some of the yeasted bread ones might work ww sourdough? and maybe I can get sprouted white wheat flour for the unyeasted ones?), because my entire life I've had crazy longings for meat pasties, any time I read about them. I've never had them though.

It's a very interesting book, even if she does say to put vinegar in the pickled stuff as well as salt. (interestingly, she says to use a different combination of vinegar and brine depending on how long you are storing it. I'm curious how traditional this is. it sounded like some of the family recipes she got were brine and vinegar, and I'm wondering if it will still LF if there is vinegar.