A festive and crowd-pleasing appetizer for Rosh Hashanah or your Yom Kippur breakfast: an apples and honey themed cheese board! And in keeping with the Jewish tradition of not mixing meat and dairy, this cheese board is completely vegetarian. Thanks to Cabot Creamery Co-operative for sponsoring this High Holiday recipe. Rosh Hashanah begins ...
Perfect All-Butter Pie Dough
With Thanksgiving just a few days away, here is a refresher on how to make flaky, flavorful pie dough using butter and only butter. I expect there are some people out there who are making pie for the very first time this Thanksgiving. And that prospect may be intimidating. You can, of course, make something else for dessert. Or buy a premade ...
Horseradish Cheddar Leek Patties
A gooey, cheesy version of traditional Sephardic leek patties with the bite of horseradish. Thanks to Cabot Creamery Co-operative for sponsoring this Rosh Hashanah recipe. A few years ago, I published a recipe for keftes de prasa or leek fritters. These latke-like vegetable pancakes are beloved throughout the Sephardic world - in places like ...
Savory Cheddar Herb Scones
For a savory breakfast treat or to accompany a hearty soup at dinner, it is hard to beat these flaky, buttery cheddar herb scones! I've been a little obsessed with baking scones lately. I suspect that the origin of my obsession is the closing of a favorite neighborhood cafe that made the best scones I have ever tasted. Huge, flaky and ...
Apple and Honey Cupcakes for Rosh Hashanah
A family-friendly dessert idea for Rosh Hashanah: apple cupcakes with honey cream cheese frosting and shards of honeycomb candy. Remember when I said I was over cake for Rosh Hashanah and I was going to make a pie this year? Lies. All lies. As soon as I finished making that amazing Fig and Honey Custard Pie that blew up on Instagram - thanks ...
Fig & Honey Custard Pie
Fig and Honey Custard Pie is a a seasonal Rosh Hashanah dessert that takes tradition in a new direction. Why do we always serve cake for dessert on Rosh Hashanah? Apple cake, honey cake. I get it - cake is delicious. But there something so...European about cake. We are Americans! You know what Americans like? Pie. We like pie. That's why, ...
Award-Winning Apple Blackberry Pie
This is the perfect time of year to make my apple-blackberry pie. I won second place in a pie bake-off with this recipe, so you know it's good! This fall I tried something new: I entered a pie-baking contest. The contest was at my local farmers' market and was designed to showcase the bounty of the market. Pies were judged on looks, taste ...
Great British Baking Show Cornish Pasties
This post is sponsored by the Certified Angus Beef® brand in conjunction with a social media campaign through Sunday Supper LLC. All opinions are my own. Enjoy this recipe for Cornish pasties made with Certified Angus Beef®. I am so excited that "The Great British Baking Show" is returning to Netflix on August 30. I've mentioned before that ...
Cranberry Curd Tart
Give cranberries a starring role in your holiday celebration with this stunning dessert: an elegant tart filled with luscious cranberry curd! A few years ago, I won a national food blogger recipe contest with this recipe for Cranberry Lime Curd. I was pretty chuffed about it, in part because the contest came with a generous cash prize, but ...
Pear Tart with Pecan Streusel
Not feeling pie for Thanksgiving dinner? This Pear Tart with Pecan Streusel is elegant, easy-to-make and a fresh twist on dessert for the biggest meal of the year. I think pears are overlooked as a fruit for Thanksgiving. Everyone, including me, automatically thinks about apples and pumpkins and perhaps sweet potatoes. But pears are just as ...
Roasted Turkey Breast with Gravy
Calling all white meat lovers! The perfect roast turkey breast with gravy made from pan drippings. Just in time for Thanksgiving. There are many reasons to roast a turkey breast. Perhaps you are hosting a small group for Thanksgiving. Perhaps you are hosting a large group but with a disproportionate number of guests who prefer white meat. ...
Savory Baked Pumpkin Pastries (Pumpkin Bishak)
Get global inspiration for pumpkin season with these savory baked pumpkin pastries, known as pumpkin bishak -- a specialty of Jews from Central Asia! This fall, I want to introduce you all to some new ways to use pumpkin -- particularly in savory dishes because I think it is easy to use pumpkin in sweets. First, I shared a recipe for ...
Parmigiano Reggiano Snack Mix
Today's post for an irresistible parmesan snack mix, perfect for fall parties and tailgates, is sponsored by Parmigiano Reggiano. I am proud to be a 2017 Parmigiano Reggiano Brand Ambassador. Real Parmigiano Reggiano, imported from Italy, is the only parmesan for me! Fall sports season has arrived! Whether you are hosting super-fans to ...
Chershi Kara’a (Libyan Pumpkin Spread)
Shake up your pumpkin with chershi kara'a, a tangy, spicy pumpkin spread that comes from Libyan Jews and is now a favorite among Israelis. So easy to make! After making pumpkin pie last week, I had approximately three cups of pumpkin purée left over. I debated about what to do with it. Pumpkin bread? Pumpkin pancakes? Pumpkin whoopie pies? ...
How to Make Pumpkin Pie with Fresh Pumpkin
Curious about making pumpkin pie, a fall favorite, with fresh pumpkin instead of canned? It's easy and worth the extra effort! It's October, so we can talk about pumpkin pie, right? I didn't want to jump the gun, but once October hits, I think that all things fall are fair game. Thankfully, the unseasonal heat wave Chicago experienced at the ...
Leek Patties for Rosh Hashanah
Leek patties, or keftes de prasa, are a classic Sephardic holiday dish. This vegetarian version is a perfect appetizer for your Rosh Hashanah table. Keftes de prasa, or leek fritters is one of those dishes that is beloved throughout the Sephardic world, especially Turkey, Greece and Romania, but little known in America, where most Jews are ...
Honey-Glazed Chicken Thighs for Rosh Hashanah
Quick-cooking chicken thighs in a sweet-tart honey and lime juice glaze. Easy enough for a weeknight but special enough for Rosh Hashanah. When planning the menu for your Jewish holiday meal, it's easy just to say "brisket" for the main course and be done with it. My family certainly expects me to serve brisket for Hanukkah...and ...
Roasted Beets and Carrots with Burrata
A striking fall salad of roasted carrots and beets with creamy burrata and hazelnuts. Perfect for entertaining, a light lunch or as part of your Rosh Hashanah celebration. The combination of roasted beets and burrata has got a hold on me and it won't let go. A few days ago, I posted a recipe for roasted beets, blackberries and burrata over ...
Fig Honey Galette
Fresh figs are such a gift! Here I place black and green figs atop a honey-sweetened mascarpone filling and fold them into a flaky galette. Perfect for early fall parties or Rosh Hashanah dinner! Every year, I feel a little giddy when I spy fresh figs in the grocery store because they are such a short-lived, seasonal treat. Did you know that ...
Thanksgiving Menu: Apple, Fennel and Bleu Cheese Salad
Thanksgiving is only a few days away. It is time to finalize that holiday menu, or, if you are not hosting, to decide on the perfect dish to bring as your contribution to the feast. Let me take this opportunity to remind hosts and guests alike that every Thanksgiving table needs something fresh and crunchy to contrast with all that stuffing and ...
Butternut Squash and Kale Quiche for Fall
There can be no doubt that fall has arrived and my weekly visit to the farmers market is tinged with bitterness as I count the weeks until the market closes for another year. This weekend, I made sure to stock up on green tomatoes -- and expect an unusual green tomato recipe later this week -- apples, pears and other seasonal produce. Around ...
Pumpkin Apple Bread with Garam Masala
October means two things to me: pumpkin and apple. Luckily, those ingredients actually go together! Like in this Pumpkin Apple Bread. You use canned pumpkin in the batter -- although have you seen those articles that say that canned pumpkin is really squash? The horror! -- and then fold in chunks of delicious, diced apple right before baking. I ...
Autumn Farro Salad with Poached Pears
The other night my family went out to dinner, intended to hit up the local Vietnamese place for some pho and banh mi. Yet somehow we ended up at the restaurant next door, a new place, that describes itself using every possible restaurant cliché of the moment. Chef-driven, locally sourced, seasonally inspired, blah, blah, blah. Between the ...
Apple Streusel Tart
Rosh Hashanah may be over, but it is still apple season. Whether you visit an apple orchard to pick your own or stock up on heirloom varieties at a local farmers market, now is the time to enjoy the tremendous variety of cooking, baking and eating apples. Goodness knows I love a trip to the apple orchard, but when busy schedules do not allow for ...
The Best (and Easiest) Thanksgiving Turkey Ever
In 2006, I arrived at my parents' house for Thanksgiving brandishing an article from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine. The article claimed that the editors had tried every conceivable way to roast a Thanksgiving turkey: brined, basted, slow-cooked, high heat, low heat, everything. The conclusion? It turned out that the easiest way to roast a ...