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Recipes

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Plated Spaghetti Squash

Rosh Hashanah Spaghetti Squash

Lisa Yelsey

It’s been a tough year, and 5777 perhaps didn’t bring with it all the promise and renewal we thought it would. I hope that, in this new year, we all have opportunities for positive change and growth. May we also have the strength and opportunity to create change in the world at large.

Final Sabich Salad Plating Photo (dressed)

Sabich-Style Summer Salad

Lisa Yelsey

I am not that into hot weather but love taking the summer as a time to hike without having to worry about ice, leave the house without having to strategically layer, and wear Tevas.

Summer is a great time to eat a lot of light, cooler meals. Here is a recipe that incorporates roasted vegetables and a tahini-based dressing.

Topics: Recipes
Vegetarian Matzoh Ball Soup Final

Vegetarian Matzoh Ball Soup

Lisa Yelsey

I have been a vegetarian for about seven years now, and one of the only foods I regret giving up is good matzoh ball soup. My mom has made it for holidays my whole life, and I miss it. Nothing’s better than eating matzoh ball soup, loaded with chicken and vegetables, and sitting with your family during the holidays.

Topics: Recipes, Passover

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson’s numerous cookbooks and cooking shows have earned her the (often fraught) title of domestic goddess.
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Challah Roles, Plated photo

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Challah Rolls

Lisa Yelsey

Recently, instead of lying on the floor feeling impending doom, I’ve been trying to do positive things, one of which is baking challah. Here’s a recipe that has cheered me up, and I hope will cheer you, too––or at least give you something to do while you watch the horrible/amazing new CW drama Riverdale and wonder when Betty and Veronica will get together.

Topics: Recipes
Main Image: Sufganiyot Powdered Donuts

Sufganiyot (Jelly-Filled Donuts)

Lisa Yelsey

Many American Jews are surprised to discover that donuts—specifically, jelly donuts—are a traditional Hanukkah food. Eating donuts at Hanukkah dates back several centuries in Europe, and is associated with the holiday for the same reason latkes are—foods fried in oil are symbolic of the Hanukkah miracle of a small amount of oil lasting for eight days. Jelly donuts, or sufganiyot, as they’re called in Hebrew, are known today as an Israeli treat (the Labor Federation in then-Palestine declared them the “official” food of Hanukkah in the 1920s), and Americans have happily adopted the custom. Below, JWA food writer Lisa Yelsey shares her own recipe for sufganiyot:

Topics: Recipes
Main Plating: Sweet and Savory Pull-Apart Challah

Sweet and Savory Challah Rolls

Lisa Yelsey

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you are able to enjoy the holiday, but if Thanksgiving is a stressful holiday for you, I hope you are at least able to enjoy some good food. In pursuit of that goal––I present Sweet and Savory Challah Pull-Apart Rolls!

Topics: Recipes
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Great-Grandma’s Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Genna Bromley

In the spirit of Tikun Olam, here is simple recipe my great-grandma used to make the world a better place, one delicious morsel at a time.

Topics: Recipes

Jewish Diversity and Innovation: The View from the Kitchen

Discover how recipes can tell stories about Jewish history and its ever-changing rich cultural diversity.

Lena Horne in the kitchen, cropped

This Shavuot, I’m Ditching the Cheesy Recipes

Tara Metal

I feel a certain amount of discomfort in posting on JWA’s blog the glowing, cheerful recipes so common this time of year. As a Jewish organization that focuses on women’s history and feminism, what does it mean to fill our blog with recipes for baked goods and brisket? Though we boast an increasingly robust number of male readers, JWA reaches mainly women. Do I want to bombard them with tips for cooking for a large family during the holidays? No, not really.

Topics: Recipes, Shavuot
Latke Waffles

Latke Waffles

Tara Metal

Looking forward to Hanukkah, I asked Deb Perelman for a tasty recipe to share with our readers. She instantly suggested Latke Waffles, and who can blame her?

Topics: Recipes

Alice B. Toklas Moves In Permanently with Gertrude Stein

September 9, 1910
Alice Babette Toklas heard distinct chiming when she met Gertrude Stein.

Linda Eastman marries Paul McCartney.

March 12, 1969

Photographer and animal rights activist Linda Eastman marries Paul McCartney.

Louise Azose

Born into a rabbinic Sephardic family in Bursa, Turkey, Louise Maimon followed her parents and siblings to Seattle in 1927 after her father was called to serve as a rabbi for Sehpardic Bikur Holim congregation. Married in 1929 to Jack Azose, they raised four sons and one daughter. Long active in Seattle’s Sephardic community, Louise was a living treasure of the traditions, history, recipes, faith, and folksongs of the Sephardic people she loved. Louise’s conversation and memories were filled with Ladino [Judeo-Spanish] words and phrases spoken within Spanish-Sephardic Jewish cultures.

"Jerusalem" by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Review of Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Katherine Romanow

Prolific is the word that comes to mind when I think about cookbooks these days. There are hundreds lining the shelves of bookstores or on your computer screen--depending on how you choose to do your shopping. Either way there are a lot of cookbooks to be had, and with new ones published on a regular basis, it can be hard to know which are actually worth purchasing.

There have been many excellent cookbooks published this past year, and Jerusalem is without a doubt at the top of that list. I remember my excitement when I read the news about its publication, and when I finally received my copy, I wasn’t disappointed. It’s one of those cookbooks that elicits exclamations of “I have to make this!” with almost every turn of the page.

Olive Oil Cake

Keep the Spirit of Hanukkah Burning with Olive Oil Cake

Katherine Romanow

Although Hanukkah is known as the festival of lights, I think a more fitting name would be the festival of fried foods. It’s the time of year during which people expect and want to find deep fried food on their plates and I’m more than happy to oblige. Although, as much as I love eating latkes and sufganiyot, there are moments where I need a break from all the fried foods. Yet in the spirit of the holiday I still want to eat a dish in which oil is a central component.

Topics: Recipes, Hanukkah
Loose Tea

Gorging Yourself on Cheap, Coin-Shaped Candy? You Are SO Better Than That

Erica Zelfand, ND

Chanukkah (or however the heck you spell it) is a time of lighting the menorah, recounting yet another story of the resilience of the Jewish people, and celebrating miracles both great and small. It’s also a time of eating things you wouldn’t dare touch the rest of the year, letting your standards slide, and finding yourself hung over on January 1st, loathing yourself as you struggle to button your jeans.

Don’t be that person.

Topics: Recipes, Hanukkah
Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman

Tasty Treat: Talking Shop with Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman

Etta King Heisler

Just before my favorite holiday last week, I sat down with the prolific food-blogger-turned-cookbook-author Deb Perelman. The founder of the Smitten Kitchen was recently given a spot on the Forward 50 and is currently touring the U.S. to promote her new book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook. Next week, I will post more of the story about how her recipes have inspired my own culinary pursuits. But first, here is your chance to be a fly on the wall in our conversation about how she came to write and publish her delicious new book.

Pomegranate and Vanilla-Honey Parfait

Katherine Romanow

Food is never simply food on a Jewish table. Rather, it’s symbolic and carries meaning that goes beyond the sum of its parts.

Honey Cake

Honey Cake: Succulent Slice of Rosh Hashanah Heaven

Deborah Fineblum Raub

There’s a spot in the morning Shacharis service that reminds us that honey can’t be added to any offering.

Wine-stewed Prunes with Mascarpone Cheese

Eating Jewish: Not your bubbe’s compote

Katherine Romanow

You're probably thinking that prunes don’t belong in the same sentence as dessert, let alone anywhere near the sweet finish of a meal.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Passover
Quajado for Passover

Eating Jewish: Quajado for Passover

Katherine Romanow

Passover cooking is certainly defined by the dietary restriction of abstaining from chametz, or leavened grain.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Passover
Espinacas con Garbanzos (Spinach and Chickpeas)

Eating Jewish: Espinacas con Garbanzos (Spinach and Chickpeas)

Katherine Romanow

Hamantaschen are the signature food of Purim, and I definitely look forward to this time of year knowing that I’ll get to eat my fill of those delicious cookies.

Topics: Food, Recipes, Purim
Chocolate

Eating Jewish: The Jewish story of chocolate

Katherine Romanow

Valentine's Day is not a Jewish holiday. These days it's a secular holiday associated with flowers, candy hearts, and, best of all, chocolate.

Topics: Food, Recipes

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