Tag Archives: cookbook

A Cooking Journal With A Unique Interface- Not Connected to Smartphone

Here’s a cooking journal with a unique platform that helps you create signature recipes and becomes your personal cookbook. It’s a perfect booklet for all people who enjoy cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. The project first launched a couple of years ago on Kickstarter under the name Project Cookbook.

Project Cookbook 1If you want to get more creative with your cooking, but still make sure your ideas don’t melt away as fast as the food from your plates, Cookbook is the perfect fit for your kitchen.  Old SkoolThis cooking journal with a unique interface helps you develop signature recipes and create a culinary heritage. And what’s the best part? It’s not connected to your smartphone. It is a physical booklet that will become your trusted cooking companion and is destined to become your personal cookbook.

If other similar booklets are meant to simply copy and gather recipes of others, Cookbook’s idea and purpose is much different: after you equip the Cookbook with recipes of your choice, they simply serve as a starting point of your future cooking experiments. It features a development platform for every recipe where you can keep track of all the changes to the original recipe – whether it’s tinkering with your cooking process or changing the ingredients.

Project Cookbook Inside

After each try you can use the scoreboard to evaluate your dish, write down important notes for next time and keep a tab on who loves it the most.

The aim is to remind people that cooking is more than just following recipes. As the team puts it: ‘’We are hoping Cookbook will motivate people to develop their own recipes and create a culinary heritage, which they will be able to share with their friends, family and future generations.

Something like the notebooks our grandmothers used to have, but with a modern twist.

Cookbook also holds an encyclopedia which helps you with everyday pickles like finding the appropriate wine pairing or quickly converting cups into grams. A minimalist design of the book gives you a sense of coziness and at the same time allows you to personalize the final outlook of your Cookbook. For the Silo, Hana Gaber.

Millennial Kosher Cookbook Reinvents Meals Perfect For The High Holidays

The Jewish High Holidays are all about family and friends gathering together to share a delicious meal.  And while many people love to celebrate with favorite kosher foods there is no reason why traditional kosher and Jewish recipes can’t be different and unique.  What’s old can become new and fun again with fresh ingredients and unique twists.

Today’s kosher cooking is spicier and bolder than the food most of us grew up eating, with an emphasis on fresh and seasonal ingredients, less processed foods and healthier non-dairy alternatives.  From world-renowned kosher food blog, Busy in Brooklyn, Chanie Apfelbaum, has created a delicious collection of modern, cultural, trendy, and bold dishes that reflect her passion for reinventing traditional foods with a modern vibe with her debut cookbook, Millennial Kosher: Recipes Reinvented for the Modern Palate (Artscroll/Shaar; April 2018). 

“As a mother of five it’s so important to me to carry on family traditions, especially through food,” Chanie explains.  “Everything old can become new again, which is what I have strived for in my book, recreating cultural cuisine with new ingredients. It’s those tastes of home, the delicious aromas from my kitchen, and the memories made around the holiday table that my children will carry with them for generations.”

Millennial Kosher provides home cooks with over 150 innovative recipes for everyday and holiday meals and beautiful color photos for every dish.   For the Jewish High Holidays, home cooks can celebrate with recipes that are influenced by international cultural cuisine and not limited to, but inspired by, kosher guidelines. Yesterday’s margarine is today’s coconut oil, bone broth is the new chicken soup, and the onion soup mix of our youth is replaced with umami-rich porcini mushroom powder. Some of the delicious and unique recipes in the book include:

– Spiralized Beet Salad with Pomegranate Molasses Dressing
– Lokshin & Cabbage with Apples and Honey
– Kofta Stuffed Dates wrapped in Bacon
– Sticky Silan Short Ribs
– Gefilte Fish “Pizza”
– Mushroom Barley Risotto
– Mason Jar Honey Cakes
– Frangipane Fig Galette

“Kosher food is not what it used to be. Millennial kosher ingredients are healthier and more vibrant than ever before,” Chanie says.  “We live in a foodie culture—and the kosher world has followed suit. Kosher consumers are becoming more demanding, and restaurants, supermarkets and cookbooks have no choice but to up their game.”  

Chanie says that this development in kosher food culture has come about mainly from new exotic flavor combinations, bold spices, fresh seasonal flavors and progressive adaptations like kosher bacon and charcuterie.  These culinary ideas are what Chanie superbly showcases in Millennial Kosher.

She believes there is still a place for the kosher comfort foods of our youth but for now it’s time for Millennial Kosher.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Born and raised in a kosher home in Brooklyn, Chanie Apfelbaum grew up eating traditional Jewish foods such as gefilte fish, stuffed cabbage, and matzah ball soup. Today, living just a few blocks from her childhood home, she revisits family favorites and reinvents traditional holiday dishes. Chanie’s creative twists on old-time cuisine prove that kosher fare is anything but old-fashioned. With five little ones in tow, she celebrates her heritage one dish at a time, creating balanced recipes with a modern flair and Middle Eastern vibe.

Chanie works as a recipe developer and food photographer. She is a contributing writer to Mishpacha Magazine’s Family Table and kosher.com, as well as a guest writer for numerous publications and websites. She has been featured in many national publications and media, including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, News12 Brooklyn, The Meredith Vieira Show, Thrillist, and more.

Chanie also shares her love of food, family, and tradition through fun and educational cooking demonstrations to audiences worldwide.  For the Silo, Trina Kaye.

For the High Holidays, Chanie recommends this delicious recipe to celebrate the sweetness of life:

Honey Roasted Za’atar Chicken with Dried Fruit
When I finally decided to take the cookbook plunge, my biggest challenge was figuring out which “best of the blog” recipes to feature — there are just so many! I’m proud to say that this recipe hooked hundreds of people onto the Middle Eastern spice blend, za’atar. I use it on pita chips, roasted chickpeas, hummus, shakshuka, and garlic confit.
MEAT ▪ Yield 4-5 Servings ▪  Freezer Friendly

10 oz. dried apricots (scant 2 cups)
10 oz. pitted dried prunes (scant 2 cups)
3 Tbsp za’atar
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 chicken legs, skin-on
1⁄2 cup dry red wine
kosher salt, to taste
1⁄3 cup honey

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread apricots and prunes into a 9×13-inch pan.
2. In a bowl, combine za’atar and olive oil to create a paste. Rub the za’atar paste over chicken; place chicken on dried fruit. Pour wine around the chicken; sprinkle with salt.
3. Cover tightly with foil; bake for 1 hour.
4. Uncover the pan. Drizzle the chicken with honey. Bake, uncovered, for an additional 30-45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes with the pan juices.

Recipe/photo from Millennial Kosher by Chanie Apfelbaum. Artscroll/Shaar; April 2018         

ISBN #: 9781422620557

Featured image from Millennial Kosher- Raman Shakshuka 

Cookbook Provides Uncomplicated Yet Sophisticated Cooking for Everyday

Award-winning cookbook author, Lee Clayton Roper, shows home cooks how to explore their culinary creativity with her award-winning, delicious cookbook, Fresh Tastes.  This beautiful book delivers over 170 flavorful recipes, essential cooking tips and delightful stories to spark inspiration in your kitchen.

Lee takes the “complicated” out of timeless classics, simplifying the process while ramping up flavors, using fresh ingredients when and where possible.  She shares personal reflections on lessons she has learned in the kitchen from those who have inspired her, along with 65 beautiful food photos, along with process shots of key preparation steps.
Fresh Tastes CookbookFresh Tastes epitomizes Lee’s culinary tastes, balancing an innovative approach with uncomplicated preparation techniques. Sophisticated in flavor and beautiful to present, the recipes in Fresh Tastes are prepared with the best quality, readily available ingredients designed to maximize flavor. Some of Lee’s delicious recipes include:
Prosciutto, Fig and Goat Cheese Tarts
Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Soup
Tomato and Peach Salad with Lime-Balsamic Dressing
Layered Salmon Salad with Avocado-Lime Yogurt Dressing
Grilled Rosemary-Dijon Chicken Breasts
Spicy Pork Chops with Argentine Chimichurri Sauce
Halibut with Celery Root Puree and Tomato Garnish
Chipotle Lime Shrimp Tacos with Tomato Mango Salsa
Roasted Root Vegetable Pot Pie
Peruvian Artichoke Tart
Pear Kuchen
Fresh Fruit with Brandy Custard Sauce
Drawing from her decades of experience, Lee provides readers with helpful advice on what is best for the dish, the flavor and the cook, considering such essential variables as seasonality and availability. Recipes in Fresh Tastes were evaluated by a team of volunteer testers across the country. Only the best, most flavorful, eye catching dishes made the cut. Fresh, flavorful and inspired, this collection of hand selected recipes in Fresh Tastes transcends the kitchen, reminding us all that every meal can and should be a simple yet sophisticated celebration of life.
“My approach with this cookbook starts with the confidence that, with the right preparation and a pinch of creativity, every dish can be extraordinary,” Lee explains.  “I have intentionally kept recipes and ingredients easy to get, often providing alternative substitutions.”
Lee Clayton Roper is an award-winning cookbook author, cooking instructor, public speaker and TV personality.  Her first book, A Well-Seasoned Kitchen received numerous rave reviews and is often featured in local and national press.  In 2010, A Well-Seasoned Kitchen achieved national acclaim, winning the prestigious “Living Now” gold medal.  With Fresh Tastes Lee expands her recipe collection, serving up fresh, delicious and sophisticated dishes guaranteed to inspire creativity in kitchen everywhere.  Lee tours the country sharing recipes and cooking tips and techniques in sold-out classes, leading cooking demonstrations, and is a frequent guest on radio and television and in print. 
“Roper’s follow up to A Well-Seasoned Kitchen expands on the approachable favorites that made her first cookbook such a hit, this time with a ‘fresh’ take on classics that lend themselves to parties and get-togethers.  This is a solid effort with practical dishes readers will likely find themselves returning to.”
Publisher’s Weekly and Entertaining Inspiration
FRESH TASTES
From A Well-Seasoned Kitchen
By Lee Clayton Roper
Southwestern Publishing Group
Hardcover/$34.95 usd
ISBN-13: 978-0984116362
Try these fresh and delicious recipes ( reprinted with permission from Fresh Tastes by Lee Clayton Roper):
APPLE, WALNUT AND STILTON CHEESE SALAD
SERVES: 6
The British have known for years that apples and Stilton cheese are a wonderful combination. In this delicious salad, they’re mixed together with spinach, walnuts and a walnut-flavored vinaigrette.I like to serve this salad with any grilled meat or alone as a meal.
1/4 cup raspberry balsamic vinegar*
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup walnut oil*
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
10 ounces mixed baby greens (spinach, arugula, lettuce)
2 large Gala or other red apples, unpeeled, cored and chopped
1 cup (6 ounces) chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
1 1/2 to 2 cups (6 to 8 ounces) Stilton cheese, crumbled**
*If you can’t find raspberry balsamic vinegar, use regular raspberry vinegar and add 1 to 2 tablespoons of honey. If you can’t find walnut oil, substitute olive oil and add a few more walnuts.
**There are 2 types of Stilton cheese: blue and white. Either will work in this recipe. If you can’t find Stilton, you can substitute Gorgonzola or other forms of blue cheese.
In a medium glass jar with fitted lid (an empty Dijon mustard jar works well), whisk together the vinegar, lemon juice and oil until well blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.
In a large bowl, toss together mixed greens, chopped apple, walnuts and cheese. Just before serving, toss with just enough dressing to coat the lettuce (you may have some dressing left over). Season to taste with salt and pepper.
VARIATION IN PRESENTATION: If you want to have a more formal, individually plated salad, then instead of chopping the apples, core and slice them. Toss the greens with part of the dressing and divide among six individual salad plates. Arrange the apple slices in a circular pattern over the spinach. Sprinkle the walnuts and cheese crumbles over the top. Drizzle with remaining dressing.
SEA BASS WITH A PISTACHIO CRUST
SERVES: 6
This dish comes together quickly and is delicious paired with green beans and roasted potatoes. It’s a bit on the rich side, so I suggest using fillets no more than 5 ounces each. If using one large fillet, you may need to increase the cooking time by a few minutes.
While the general rule of thumb for cooking fish is 10 minutes per inch of thickness, I’ve included the option to cook these filets for 12 minutes per inch. I find that with the crust on top, it can take a bit longer. It’s really to your taste — just remember, it will continue cooking after you take it out of the oven and let it rest.
6 (4- to 5-ounce) skinless Chilean sea bass fillets
1 cup salted, dry roasted pistachio nuts, very finely chopped (can chop in a food processor)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 15- by 10- by 1-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
Place sea bass fillets in prepared pan. In a small bowl, combine the nuts, sugar, lemon juice, dill and pepper. Spoon the mixture evenly over each fillet, pressing down to adhere.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes per 1-inch of thickness of the fillet, or until fish reaches 140 to 145 degrees when measured with an instant-read thermometer. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.
MAKE AHEAD: Fish with topping can be prepared but not baked up to 4 hours in advance, covered and refrigerated.
For the Silo, Trina Kaye.