Pumpkin and Olive Oil Challah – Thanksgivukkah Link up

thanksgivukkah challahThis year, Thanksgiving and Chanukah (or Hanukkah) fall at the same time. Everybody is really excited about Thanksgivukkuh, and we’re no different. Apparently, the two holidays won’t coincide for another 70,000 years or something! Of course Jewish Americans everywhere are eager to celebrate!  Continue reading

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Kale and Chick Peas

stuffed acorn squash with kale and chick peas {the kosher foodies}

It’s fall! And fall means winter squash! Wait… huh!? I guess it’s fall squash. Well, it’s not zucchini and yellow squash! It’s so much better.

Acorn squash is great, because it’s like a bowl! It’s nice and round, unlike its cousins delicata and butternut. So it’s often stuffed. Here, I stuffed the squash with kale and chick peas, along with a little bit of homemade tomato sauce. Continue reading

Inaugural Apple Pie

In case you have been missing pies this winter (like rhubarb, cherry or blueberry), or in case you didn’t know what to eat my sour cream ice cream with, I also made the apple pie from President Obama’s inaugural luncheon.

inaugural apple pie (with sour cream ice cream) from the kosher foodies

Believe it or not, when I saw these recipes, I called David and told him to invite his friends over for a dinner party, I wanted to make a dessert and needed to invite people over to serve it to so I wouldn’t have to eat it all myself. Do you ever do that?

Continue reading

Double Pumpkin Biscotti

Can you believe tomorrow is already Thanksgiving!? It snuck up on me really quickly this year. Though I guess Christmas is already in the air here in New York, and on TV where I can’t avoid holiday shopping commercials.
We already shared a seasonally-appropriate meat main dish and a hearty fall vegetable with you this week, here’s a nice, light dessert to go with it.
Anyway, when Oh! Nuts asked if they could send me some dried fruits, nuts or seeds, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make some Thanksgiving desserts. Thanksgiving = pumpkin, so I requested a pound of shelled pepitas (aka pumpkin seeds) and decided to bake some biscotti. Sometimes, especially after a day of eating heavy, starchy, meaty foods, it’s nice to have a light, crisp dessert.

German Apple Pancake

The smell of caramelized butter and sugar is definitely a great way to start your morning. Mix that with chopped apples and fluffy batter, and you have this apple pancake, which isn’t like any pancakes I’ve ever made before.

Continue reading

Spiced Apple Cider

I love apple cider, and especially love it from the farmer’s market. If I’m stuck at home, though, this will have to do. On a cold winter night, it’s sometimes better than hot chocolate. We can make this delicious stuff all through the winter. I know it’s not technically winter yet, but it’s cold enough here in New York now to call it winter!

No, I didn’t make the apple cider on my own. But I did add ingredients to it to make it extra special; the whipped cream is a must. Continue reading

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread + Chipless Pumpkin Muffins

I got a pumpkin from my CSA! It’s a baby bear pumpkin, how cute is that! I had all sorts of ideas of things to do with this pumpkin, but since it was so little I had to limit the pumpkin recipes. I ended up roasting the seeds to make bizir and then getting about two cups of puree. With one cup I made this pumpkin bread and I froze the other cup with intentions to turn it into ice cream soon.

This chocolate chip pumpkin bread recipe has been in our family for ages. We have been making it at least once a year for as long as I can remember, always from fresh pumpkin. Jessica has the original copy of the recipe, which I’m pretty sure is a photocopy of a recipe that my mom used to use in her nursery school class. After going apple and pumpkin picking with her class she would always bring us a pumpkin to bake with; don’t we have the best mom!

I have memories of freezing the extras and being happily surprised a few months later to find pumpkin bread hiding among the ice cream in the back of the freezer somewhere. I think I’ll freeze some of this and then try to forget about it so I can find it later.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the recipe is pareve? No need for adaptation here! Just make sure to use pareve chocolate chips (duh!). Because I thought I had in my freezer, but they ended up being dairy, which is why I made the muffins chipless (yeah, that’s a word).

Luckily, I just got another baby bear pumpkin from my csa! Maybe I will make pumpkin pie! And ravioli! Maybe some soup or risotto, too! I think I may be getting carried away, but for some reason the fresh stuff is so much better than the canned kind. I know it’s pure pumpkin, but why is it so orange?

Here’s a copy of our handwritten recipe for you: