Recipe Category Archives: 30 Minutes or Less

Chilled Pea Soup with Mint Recipe

By on July 31, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks using Garden Vegetable Levana Nourishments

Chilled Pea Soup is a delightful summer soup:

Bright green, vibrant and deeply flavored.

We are not paying enough attention to the possibilities of Fresh-Pea Soup, or to fresh peas for that matter. Often, fresh peas are demurely located on one side of our plate and generically called a side dish. In my chilled Pea Soup, the Fresh Peas are front and center, and responsible for the vibrant color and sweet and fresh flavor of this soup. Now, my Fresh Pea Soup vindicates the humble pea. I guarantee it!

Don’t get me wrong: I do love split pea soup: Take a look at my Moroccan Split Pea Soup! But my Chilled Pea Soup uses fresh peas, so you end up with a much less starchy soup. It’s ideal when you are looking, as I always am, for lower carb options. Also, it is totally natural and vegetarian.

I love to use frozen peas:

They are always there for you and every bit as delicious and nutritious as fresh peas.

Sometimes fresh loose (shelled) fresh peas are available and affordable, so go for them.

Although what I originally had in mind when I developed my fresh pea soup was a chilled soup, I can see no reason not to serve it hot as well. In this case, add the yogurt in each bowl as a garnish (do not cook it).

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Herb Cauliflower Salad

By on July 31, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks using Garden Vegetable Levana Nourishments

herb cauliflower

Cauliflower salad makes regular appearances at our table!

There seems to be nothing you can’t do with it: Grind it with the right seasonings, and you get a Pizza crust; Throw in a handful frozen cauliflower with your other smoothie ingredients and it’s a leaner and no delicious smoothie; Throw it in a frittata; make a fantastic soup; make roasted cauliflower pasta. OK, there’s a lot more but you get the idea!

Is Cauliflower the new grain?

It seems perfectly suited to play the role of the grain in many dishes where we would rather not have too much starch.

Cauliflower is the “new” foodie darling:

Ideally nutritious, delicious and lean, and no carbs. Once considered boring but somewhat compulsory food, now it finds its way in no end of exciting dishes!

My herb cauliflower salad here is inspired from its cousin: Tabouleh.

But instead of starring wheat or quinoa, it stars the humble cauliflower.

You will be amazed at how many delicious ways to serve it you will enjoy: Scroll down for variations!

Give your Food Processor all your chopping and mincing!

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Muffins. All Variations Including Cake

By on July 28, 2017 in

Muffins! You say cupcakes, I say muffins!

Gosh, I would hate to lose my popularity with the junior cupcake crowd, but many years of catering kids’ parties and watching their delighted faces as their lick their fingers put my fears at rest. This Muffin recipe is going to be your best friend. Your children will love me!

As if that was not enough, my granddaughter Musia recently described to me a birthday party she went to and said to me “The only thing I didn’t like is I had to wipe off all those blue and green and red creams off the tops of the cupcakes. Bubbie, why do they need it?” Yes, why indeed?

I make muffins, and make them festive in countless ways!

The festive part is not expressed in extra sugar or fat, or added  colorings. To name just a few examples: I make mini muffins; I use multicolored muffin liners; I sprinkle them with miniature chocolate chips, grated coconut, grated apple, blueberries or chopped nuts; I stick cute flags and candles into them at display time. However, if you absolutely must, top the muffins (excuse me, the cupcakes) with icing or frosting or whatever, I trust you will find recipes for that everywhere. But I sincerely hope you don’t…..

As always, I am starting with the simplest preparations.

This is my master muffin recipe, complete with all variations. You will be amazed at all the possibilities, all equally easy, delicious and nutritious. Mix and match, and get different results each time. You will never ever eat a store-bought muffin again, let alone a muffin mix: I am not even going there! This recipe makes a dozen and a half medium muffins, in less than ten minutes’ preparation time.

All these muffin batters are mixed by hand, no need for a mixer.

My muffins are all gluten-free-friendly.

Just one useful piece of advice: When adapting these recipes to gluten-free, always make muffins out of them, not larger cakes because the smaller the gluten-free item, the more manageable, and the less room for flopping and crumbling.

Scroll down for all my muffins variations, including cake!

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Cauliflower Leek Soup Recipe

By on July 19, 2017 in

Cauliflower gets another permutation in this nutrient dense soup!

It seems to be popping up everywhere today. What was once a humble vegetable avoided on vegetable platters is now showing up on every trendy menu! When combined with leeks, a milder, sweeter tasting member of the onion family, cauliflower thickens this light yet creamy soup.

There is nothing I don’t do with cauliflower:

Try rubbing the florets with oil, sprinkling them with smoked salt and maybe some nutritional yeast, and roasting them. Didn’t make it to the dinner table? Oy, thought so! I know, it happens to me all the time.
I make a grain-free tabouleh with it.
I throw it in smoothies. Yes, smoothies. Love how it adds bulk and texture and loads of nutrition, at no extra caloric cost.
I make curries, pizza crusts, kugel, pasta, you name it!

 

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Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

By on March 19, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Vanilla Bean Levana Nourishments

chocolate chip cookies

My chocolate chip cookies recipe is in all my cookbooks.

I can never make enough of these; and apparently, neither can thousands and thousands of people. You would think I would get tired of them. Absolutely not!

Besides high-quality ingredients, the secret of good chocolate chip cookies is a soft and chewy texture, achieved by baking them only until they are just cooked, not a second longer: Remember, they continue to cook for a minute or two even as they cool.

No problem making chocolate chip cookies with gluten-free flour.

A good cookie sheet makes a difference too: The heavier the better, as a heavy sheet will distribute the heat evenly and gradually.

These chocolate chip cookies have recently won Best Recipe award in a health and nutrition site called Health Castle. Upon reading this, my friend Eve wrote me: “May your delicious cookies—we can attest to how delicious they are—melt in the mouths of millions with nary a hint on the hips!” Amen!

Recently, the Jewish Book Council invited me to write a few stories on their blog: one of them was on my CCC: You might enjoy reading it!

I have recently made a major tweak in chocolate chip cookies: reduced sugar. And it works!

Chocolate chip cookies often err on the sweet side, and even though I love them, I almost never got near them, and was reticent about tempering with the sugar. But now I see it works perfectly, and I (and you) can finally enjoy them more often without too much guilt.

Just one added very easy step you must take with reduced-sugar cookies: Flatten them before baking!

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