Paula Shoyer Will be Our Guest This Evening…

This evening at 10:00pm (Eastern Time), The Kosher Scene’s Internet Radio Show on BlogTalkRadio.com will host Paula Shoyer. Paula has been our guest before (here) and has always been an audience favorite.

Ms. Shoyer is the author of The Kosher Baker and is coming out with a new pastry book, on holiday baking, due out in August this year. Tonight we will talk about baking on Pessach.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, why not listen to last week’s broadcast with  Leah Schapira – who’s been our guest before – and Victoria Dweck discuss their new book: Passover Made Easy: Favorite Tripple-Tested Recipes.

Please, listen in tonight at 10:00pm when we will be speaking with Paula Shoyer. We’ll be waiting for you!

CS

This Evening’s Radio Show, a Book Review & a Recipe

This evening – Wednesday, the 27th of February – at 10:00 pm (Eastern Time) we will be talking to Leah Schapira and Victoria Dweck, the co-authors of the cookbook: Passover Made Easy: Favorite Triple-Tested Recipes on our BlogTalkRadio.com/kosherscene segment.

Easy to prepare, delicious recipes. What more can you ask?

Leah and her first cookbook already appeared in this pages, and she also was our guest on BlogTalkRadio in 2011. Victoria Dweck is the Managing Director of AMI MAGAZINE‘s Whisk (the weekly food section – a magazine on its own!). Their backgrounds and customs may be very different BUT, their love of food makes them an unbeatable team.

Looking through their new cookbook with sections on:

• Food and Wine Pairing
• Seder Night
• Building Blocks
• Starters
• Soups and Salads
• Main Dishes
• Side Dishes
• Brunch and Dairy
• Desserts
• Replacement Index

…it is obvious this book will please the seasoned as well as the new bride who’s just starting to cook! The recipes from Meatballs in Blueberry Sauce to Brisket Eggrolls (my mouth is watering already!) and Antipasti Rolls, from Orange Soup to Butternut Squash Salad and Lime-Infused Pear Salad, from Eggplant-Wrapped Chicken to Veal Chops in White Wine Sauce and Braised Short Ribs in Homemade Duck Sauce are sure to enhance ANY Seder meal!

With side dishes like Stuffed Onions or Potato and Flanken Kugel, with breakfast goodies like Banana French Toast or Pineapple Pie; with desserts like Frozen Lemon Wafer Cake or Truffled Grapes this is the perfect gift to yourself, your family or Seder host (you can purchase this cookbook here).

With 60 easy to make, mouth watering recipes it was hard to choose just one to share with you, gentle reader, but as an incurable chocolate addict I think the following dessert is just perfect:

Chocolate Crackel  Sandwiches

(From page 112…)

Detail of photo by Daniel Lailah, on page 113

Yield: 9 sandwiches

Ingredients

• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (optional)
• 2/3 cup cocoa (scant)
• pinch salt
• 4 egg whites
• 3 cups walnuts halves, toasted

Chocolate Ice Cream Mousse

• 15 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 9 eggs, separated
• 2 1/4 cups sugar, divided
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a standard mixer (or using a hand mixer), combine confectioners’ sugar, vanilla sugar, and cocoa. Add the salt and egg whites. Beat well. Add the walnuts and mix until incorporated. Do not let the batter sit.
3. Immediately spoon full tablespoons of batter onto each baking sheet. There should be 6 cookies per sheet for a toal of 18 large cookies (the cookies spread). Bake for 12 – 15 minutes.
4. Prepare chocolate ice cream mousse: Line a 9×13 inch baking pan with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over low heat. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, oil, and melted chocolate. Process until well combined.
5. In a bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar. Add lemon juice. Lower speed and add chocolate mixture.
6. Pour ice cream into prepared pan. Freeze until firm,
7. Assemble the ice cream sandwiches: Pair the cookies that are the most even-sized. Using a deep cookie cutter the size of a cookie cut the ice cream. The ice cream should stick to the sides of the cutter; when you lift the cutter, the ice cream should come with it. Push it out onto a cookie. Sandwich it with the matching cookie. Freeze.

Hot Chocolate Sauce

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup cocoa, sifted
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons oil

1. In a medium saucepan over high heat, combine the sugars, cocoa, salt. water, and oil. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens to desired consistency.

TIDBIT – Coca-Cola makes a special batch of soda for Passover using real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, which is kitnyiot. A yellow cap identifies the special bottles.

These crackels are a simply delicious cookie that work well either on their own or paired with ice cream. There’s just one rule. Once you mix the batter, drop it into the cookie sheet immediately. If it sits in the bowl, the batter becomes thick and chunky and result in cookies that aren’t as appealing. I haven’t yet figured out a way to reverse that – so work quickly!

Confess! I can see you salivating as you read the recipe, so… enjoy.

Don’t forget to tune us in, this evening, at 10:00pm (Eastern Time) on BlogTalkRadio.com/kosherscene. Meanwhile, in case you missed, just listen to the archive of our last show with Esther Zafrani?

CS

The First Kosher Food Bloggers Conference

This week, started with a whole slew of important activities for the kosher food bloggers community. Monday opened up with Melinda Strauss and Shelley Serber‘s Kosher Food Bloggers Conference held in the Milleseme at the Carlton Hotel.

Melinda (from Kitchen-Tested.com) and Shelley ( from thekosherhome.com)hosted a superb 7 hour event, featuring recognized authorities on a variety of subjects of vital interest to the blogging community. The wildly successful Jamie Geller opened the procedures by defining the purpose and explaining the mechanics of becoming a brand.

Photographer Noah Fecks followed and told us what makes a photograph dramatic and relevant. A panel composed of Leah Schapira – Senior Food Editor for Ami Magazine, author of Fresh and Easy: Ordinary Ingredients – Extraordinary Foods – Dani Klein from YeahThat’sKosher.com, and Ely Rosenstock – Founder and CEO of BookofWin. This panel discussed the various approaches to making contents relevant and keeping it fresh.

The incomparable Lévana Kirschenbaum (who’s graced our pages countless times!!), then segued with her proven technique on making successful cooking demos, while Joe Applebaum, CEO of AjaxUnion Inc, spoke about Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Market

With over sixty bloggers and brands in attendance, this conference was ably produced by the team Melinda Strauss and Shelley Serber, with direction from event planner extraordinaire – Nelly Rosenking. A hearty lunch of deli meat wraps, salads, fruits and desserts was prepared by Fairway Market.

For a first event by a young team, this one showed a tremendous degree of dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism; I can’t wait to again be pleasantly surprised by whatever event they plan next!

CS

Fresh & Easy

A well known New York Chef once told me that when he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, he prided himself of making a pasta dish that required thirty ingredients. Sure, it was absolutely delicious, but it took a loooong time to prepare. Soon, however, he outgrew that urge as he realized you can still make delicious dishes with far fewer ingredients, less preparation time and those tasting them would still lick their fingers.

Leah Schapira‘s Fresh and Easy follows the latter philosophy, as the book makes food preparation fun, healthy, quick!

The book is divided into nine sections:

• Menus
• Soups
• Salads
• Dips & Sauces
• Side Dishes
• Brunch &Lunch
• Main Dishes
• Traditional
• Desserts

The Menus section is subdivided into five sections:

• Appetizer Ideas
• Pesach Menu
• Make-in Take-out
• Quick and Easy
• Freezes Well

Each of these subsections sports tempting thumbnail photos of various dishes and the page numbers where they can be found.

It wasn’t easy choosing just one favorite recipe, but I finally opted for a dessert:

Chocolate Mousse With Pear Chips

Ingredients

• 8 eggs separated
• 12 oz bittersweet chocolate (not baking)
• 1 teaspoon coffee granules (dissolved in 3 teaspoons boiling water)
• 1/4 cup red wine

         Pear Chips

• 2 firm pears
• 1 cup sugar

Directions

1. In a mixer, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
2. Over a double boiler, melt the chocolatre with the coffee. Beat the egg yolks with a fork and quickly add to double boiler, mixing well. Add the red wine. Remove from heat.
3. Fold in the egg whites until combined. Place in individual cups for serving refrigerate.
4. To prepare pear chips, preheat oven to 325F.
5. Thinly slice the pears and lighly coat each side with sugar. Place the pear slices in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Turn the pears over and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the pears in the oven to cool and dry.
6. Before serving, garnish mousse with chocolate shavings and caramelized pear chips.

With great photography, a nice – easy on the eyes – layout, this book is a delight to hold and salivate as you look at the featured recipes,  truly fresh and easy

Enjoy, gentle reader, enjoy!

CS

Kosherfest 2011 Highlights – Part 1

I spent this past Tuesday and Wednesday at the Meadowlands Exposittion Center together with my good friend, successful commercial photographer and former Chair of the Photo Department at Fashion Institute of Technology – Irving Schild. I’ve been to Kosherfest quite a few times and as good as they were this one leaves those before it far in the dust. Not only was it far bigger (more exhibitors), it had far more visitors who were more informed, more health conscious, than ever before.

There were many new and exciting products, that will be hitting the store shelves soon, as well as non-food items that  caught our attention:

Ner Mitzvah - A candlemaker in the shtetl.

This company used a very creative way to show us their line of products, no words were necessary… just good old fashioned candle making.

Argentina, a country right across the river from where I grew up, distinguished itself by having Marumatok snatch the Kosherfest’s Best New Wine of the Year (Fincas Marumatok Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec). Marumatok has a nice line of wines at very reasonable prices, they may be hard to find but are well worth the search!

One of Marumatok's executives talking about the company's wines...

Costa Rica had its own booth promoting kosher travel tours in that country.

Kosher Costa Rica Tours

To me one of the main highlights was a panel discussion with various cookbook authors where new and upcoming trends were discussed:

From left to right (seated) authors: Jeff Nathan, Levana Kirschenbaum, Susie Fishbein, Gil Marks, Jamie Geller (standing) moderators: Leah Schapira and Esti Berkowitz

Various bloggers were allowed to ask questions to the authors, making this an interesting information packed hour.

There were far too many interesting items and products for the scope of this brief post, but we’ll talk about a few more in the 2nd part of this series. Especially worthy of mention, however, is the Best Overall New Product winner: Tishbi Passion Fruit and Strawberry Champagne Preserves. Ora Tishbi truly outdid herself for the second year in a row. I’m not into preserves but these are truly delicious

Seyman once again had an incredible display of superb European cheeses… that Manchego, the Gruyère, the Halumi, the Parmegiano Reggiano… just remembering the taste makes my mouth water and I wasn’t even taking part in a Pavlovian experiment!

The Petrini Gelato Shoppe, introduced a new dimension of flavor. Both their milchig and parve lines were outstanding

The French chocolates from Michel Cluizel, were miniature works of art. Their taste incomparable, far above any other chocolates this chocaholic ever tasted before!

CS

Leah Schapira from CookKosher.com

Our guest this evening (at 8:00pm Eastern Daylight Time) on The Kosher Scene Radio Show, will be Leah Schapira. Not only is her site cookkosher.com a work in progress, but so is she.  Her site best describes her accomplishment concisely, thus:

She has co-authored the popular kosher Silver Spoon cookbook, acted as Food Editor for Mishpacha magazine from 2007-20010 and is currently Senior Food Editor for Ami magazine. Her new cookbook is due December 2011.

cookkosher.com is an attractive and informative with good food photography, that makes your mouth water in anticipation. Leah Shapira is a foodie who’s told other interviewers she’d rather have a new recipe than a new pair of shoes. Unusual lady, indeed!

Browsing through her site, reading her prior interviews, makes it very obvious that her love for creating new dishes and feeding others, are innate parts of her mental and emotional make up.

French Roast with Caramelized Sugar - Photo from: cookkosher.com

Leah will talk to us this evening about her upcoming cookbook, her website and what it offers, she will also share some anecdotes that will help us better understand the person behind the voice on on this BlogTalkRadio.com conversation.

Applesauce - Photo from cookkosher.com

If you missed last week’s great show with Shoshanna Raff from koshershopaholic.com you can hear it here

Please, don’t forget to tune us in this evening’s for our conversation with the charming, Leah Schapira, at 8:00pm (Eastern Time). I know you will enjoy this segment! We’ll be wait’n for ya…

CS