Real Food for Real (Kosher) People

Before I got married, I ate crap. There's no other way to describe it. My only vegetable intake was bag lettuce and frozen green beans. Enter my husband. His mother worked in a health-food store and I believe he ate mostly nuts and seeds growing up. Since we've been married, I eat way more vegetables in greater variety. We strive to eat seasonally, as well, so that our kids are less likely to be turned off fruit by eating a sour orange or mealy apple.

Here's the first meal of many I hope to post that are delicious, easy, and nutritious.

Spinach-Feta Pie

*10 sheets phyllo dough
*melted butter enough to brush each sheet (olive oil would be a likely substitute) and more for sauteing the garlic and onion
*1 bag Europe's Best Chef Style spinach (prob. equiv. to 2 frozen blocks or 2 large bunches of fresh)
*2 cloves crushed garlic
*1 onion, chopped
*1 Tbsp dill
*8 oz feta
*salt to taste

1. Thaw phyllo dough a few hours ahead.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Saute garlic and onion in butter over low heat. Add spinach. I threw the frozen mini-blocks right in and covered the pan with a lid for several minutes, but thaw ahead if you'd like. Add dill, feta, and salt.
4. Brush 10 sheets of phyllo with melted butter and arrange 5 in a pie pan or 9x9 pyrex dish. Pour in spinach mixture. Add remaining 5 sheets of phyllo on top of spinach and roll the overlapping edges to form a "rope" of crust (see photo).
5. Bake at 350 for 30ish minutes. You could also cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and freeze at the point and thaw/bake later.

Saddened, shaken

A few things have happened in the past several weeks: my husband went to the Kinus haShluchim in Crown Heights for 6 days with our rabbi, my husband came back from the kinus at a new level in his yiddishkeit, and the tragedy in Mumbai took place.

It was HARD having Soulmate gone for 6 days. We haven't been apart for more than 2 days since our wedding. It's hard being the only adult with small children. I have NO idea how single parents cope.

I was thrilled to have him return on a new level in his commitment to Torah and mitzvos (though I confess I was a little afraid he'd "frum out" and want to take things on that I'm not yet ready for - think hassidishe minhagim). I let his enthusiasm infect me and stepped up some mitzvos I had been slacking on as well like washing for bread every time, washing negel vasser, and bentching (yeah, I'm a slacker).

Then came the terror attack in Mumbai. We joined the world in saying tehillim and praying. I've never prayed so hard for anything. I made enough challah dough to take challah with a bracha. I prayed while I was kneading the dough by hand.

I know there are people out there who did much, much more.

But it wasn't enough.

I'm dumbfounded and shocked and bewildered...why? Plenty of great people have written on how we should respond to the murders in Mumbai. I can't go there yet. I'm still angry. I'm trying to channel that anger into taking on one new thing, but I'm not even there yet.

Having kids changes your whole outlook on life. You view tragedy in context and you feel the pain of the mother or father of the victim. But children also distract you. I haven't thought too much about the Holtzbergs because I've been blissfully distracted by my own two sons, baruch H-shem.

And here we are. I have nothing profound to say and no words of comfort for me or you. The world is just a little colder today.

Blue Jean Baby

I bought a pair of real blue jeans today. Yes, they came from Walmart, but they are definitely jeans. I've missed them. I gave up wearing pants before I got married (I had really given them up when I became frum but I secretly wore jeans to work on Fridays occasionally...shh...).

For the past year, skirts have been driving me up the wall. Ever since Hippo got old enough to clutch at them I find myself stopped short whenever I'm scurrying about trying to make supper or do another chore. It stresses me out and makes me short with the kids.

Enter Walmart. They called to me from their jumbled rack and I took them home. All afternoon I flitted around the house. One minute I was climbing the basement stairs without stepping on a skirt, the next I was squatting down easily to help Hippo put on his shoes without revealing my undergarments. Bliss.

What about tea-length skirts, you ask? Feh. Ugly. I'm a domestic goddess in denim and I'll enjoy every minute of it. Just call before you come over. :)

Food, food, and more food

The Frum Family spends a lot of time thinking about food. We are self-professed foodies and are always on the lookout for delicious, healthy, and easy recipes.

Obviously we are strictly kosher. There are currently no kosher restaurants in our small city. We used to spend a lot of time lamenting this fact until I finally managed to convince Soulmate that kosher restaurants by-and-large are poor step-cousins to their treif counterparts. Perhaps this isn't true in NYC, but it's true in Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver, New Jersey, Detroit, Cleveland and many other places I've eaten in kosher establishments. Our rabbi once described the fleishig restaurant in the nearest city of any size as "where you get hospital food at French restaurant prices. Too true.

So, we've come to terms with the fact that we are responsible for creating our own fabulous food and I'll be pleased to share our successes (and maybe some of our failures, if they are spectacular enough).

I'll start with our Hungarian cholent. We aren't big cholent fans around here and generally consider it a waste of good meat. As such, we tend to use leftover meat. Our Hungarian cholent is the exception to this rule. Not only do we use fresh meat, but we even keep the leftovers, if there are any. Last night I made biscuits and dropped them into the bubbling leftover cholent I had reheated. We also added the chicory and mei qing choi that came in our organic veg box last week. Voila - a healthy, easy, and yummy Sunday night supper.


Here's the recipe - adjust to your tastes:

Hungarian Cholent

1 lb of stew meat, browned
1 onion, chopped
carrots (2? 3?)
1 parsnip (I used a turnip last week and liked it better.)
1 sm can tomato paste
1 large can tomatoes
3-4 large potatoes
1 tsp carraway seed
1-2 Tbsp paprika - the hot Hungarian Szeged stuff
salt and pepper to taste

Toss in crock pot on 'Low' and cover with water - cook overnight.

Squash pancakes

I've been collecting squashes lately and decided I'd better starting cooking some. Yesterday I made squash pancakes. Here are the approx proportions:

1.5 c. winter squash
1 c. oatmeal
3 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar

Mix and fry on hot griddle. Great with butter or a little molasses. I tried adding a little molasses to the last bit of the batter and it didn't add much - much better as a topping.

Sick kiddo, TV, and Consumerism

Hippo is sick today with a fever and diarrhea :( The three of us (me, Hippo, and Baby
Fish) have spent pretty much all day in bed.

We don't have cable or antenna reception. Until about two weeks ago we didn't even own a TV. Alas, Soulmate likes to watch movies, so we bought a used TV for $20 and a cheapo DVD player. Now he has a little movie den set up in the kids' room. The kids don't actually sleep there, they sleep with us. It's more a room to store their clothes.

Anyway, getting back on topic, we don't watch TV generally. Today I brought the laptop into the bedroom and we spent the morning watching TV online. Hippo has seen more TV today than he has cumulatively his entire life (he's 21 mos). I guess a little "Yo Gabba Gabba" won't hurt too much...

Everytime I watch TV, though, I'm reaffirmed in my decision to excise it from our lives. The shows are mostly dumb and don't hold my attention for more than a few minutes in most cases. What really gets to me are the commercials. This morning we saw commercials for a "machine" that makes aliens, a machine that you use to create pictures made from beads, a toy puppy that "grows" and talks, and a toy lion that will love you just like a realy lion cub would (!). WTF? I guess I've been out of it too long. I wouldn't buy any of these for my children, but the ads sure make them enticing.

The other day I was waxing nostalgic for my old Lite Brite.



I didn't take this - I found it online and, yes, I have a juvenile sense of humor. I also found that there's an updated version of the Lite Brite called the Lite Brite Cube or something. I don't really care. I'd pay $5 for the old-fashioned version if I could find one at Value Village. I suppose Lite Brite was considered hi-tech in its day, but I fondly recall playing with it.

Back to our TV watching today: I also found appalling the amount of ads for sugar/carb-laden/processed-beyond-all-recognition food. Who buys this shit and do they still live under a rock where no one talks about pesticides, the price of gas and the obesity/diabetes epidemic?!?!

W.T.F?

We ain't perfect out here and mama still enjoys her chocolate ice cream (Haagen-Dazs, please), but give me a break. Maybe the people who buy these products are the same people who are enthralled with Sarah Palin ("An Alaska hillbilly with porn-star looks who's on the ticket to sew up the white trash vote" Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail columnist)...but that's another post altogether.

Baby is here

Our second son, Fish, was born in the birth pool in our living room at 7:40 pm on Sept. 3. It was a beautiful experience especially since Hippo (our first son) was born via a cesarean section that I consider to have been unnecessary in hindsight. I have no idea how people give birth in hospitals. Being in my own space while laboring was a gift. Getting up to get a drink of water from my own kitchen a few hours after the birth was a wonderful feeling. Baruch H-shem.

First Cholent

I made our first cholent of the fall this past Shabbos. Quiche has been our Shabbos lunch staple for most of the summer. I just can't stand to have the crock pot on in the heat and neither of us particularly like cholent.

Fall has arrived in our little corner of the world, however, and cholent actually sounded good this week. Here's the brew I used (I practice free-form cholent making, so quantities may not be exact or even very important):

Cassoulet Cholent
* approx 1/5 c. dry beans - I used a mix of what we had on hand - speed soaked in boiling water
* fake bacon - one half-pound package - we get something here called "beef fry" - it's beef made to look and taste like bacon. Yummerific.
* 1 pkg Eppie's hotdogs
* a few golden nugget potatoes
* one onion, chopped
* splash of vinegar
* a few squirts of ketchup
* a few tablespoons organic molasses?
* about a tablespoon dry mustard powder
* a generous amount of Montreal Steak Spice (THE spice-of-choice in our house)
* water - I filled the crockpot about 3/4 of the way to the top of the ingredients

It was lovely. I'm not a bean person, but even I enjoyed this. There was enough water that the hotdogs plumped instead of shriveling. The fake bacon melted and gave a wonderful flavor. It was pretty runny, but we're low-carbing it these days. Adding a bit of barley would've made it creamier and thicker.

Will I make cholent next week? Who knows. We were watching the Food Network at my inlaws yesterday and saw a program on Hungarian comfort food. My husband's bio dad came from Hungary and DH grew up with that cuisine. We may try a goulash-y cholent next week. Or we may have Broccoli-Cheese Quiche!

Pregnant

As I mentioned in my first post, I am 9 months pregnant (K"H) with our 2nd child. I'm planning a home birth some time in the next 4 weeks, Gd willing. Stay tuned for updates.

Who are we and what the heck are we doing?

I've started dozens of blogs over the past few years. I keep one for updates on my family - aimed mostly at relatives who live far away. However, my family is not Jewish and we are, well, Orthodox Jewish, so the details of our religious lives get left out...

I have another blog about my journey towards a HBAC - a home birth after cesarean. Haven't let my parents in on the whole homebirth aspect, yet I felt compelled to chronicle the voyage (mostly for myself).

Yet another blog was started and abandoned on our life as a frum family here on the edge of the continent in a city with only a handful of other frum families. I felt constrained by this as I was reluctant to bring myself into the blog - in it I existed only as a frum woman, not as a citizen of the larger world.

Other blogs have started and failed. We recently decided that our children will be unschooled and I wondered if I should start a blog about my thinking on this topic.

Then, while loading the dishwasher at 5:30 this morning (one of my fun late-pregnancy side-effects is waking up absurdly early - 4:00 today), I had an epiphany (without the religious connotations). Why not combine all these topics into a single blog?

We are unique - frum, unschooling, birth activist, bucking the system, living on the edge...

So here I am. I'm sure I'll write most of the posts with my darling husband contributing occasionally. Come along with us. I'm enjoying this adventure so far and I'd love to share it with you.