-
Roasted Rainbow Skewers
Rainbow vegetables are a side dish staple in our home. I prepare several trays of roasted vegetables just about every Friday. I leave some trays of roasted vegetables on the counter for an Erev Shabbos (Friday afternoon) treat and save the rest for the Shabbos meal. Most of the roasted vegetables are enjoyed before Shabbos even begins. I…
-
Purple Cupcakes for Avigail
Avigail’s favorite color is purple. Well, most of the time Avigail’s favorite color is purple. Except when she changes her mind and decides that her favorite color is pink. In Avigail’s family, a favorite color is very important. Her Bubby’s favorite color is blue. Aunt Sarina’s favorite color is purple, too. I had a hard…
-
Simply Reliable One Pan Roast Chicken Dinner
Everyone has their go-to favorite roast chicken recipe. It is that hearty meal that is simple, reliable and oh, so comforting. This recipe is practically one of our favorite and certainly one of our most undemanding Shabbos guests. Despite its simple preparation, it yields a delicious chicken dish with spicy flavored potato wedges on the…
-
Simple Crockpot Broccoli Soup
We returned home from our trip to Israel and found that Autumn has arrived in New Jersey. Gone are the eighty-degree sunny Fall days in Israel. Instead, we returned to crisp Fall days in the Northeast. These cold mornings have me preparing crockpot soups. This soup is so simple to prepare and makes for a delicious…
-
DIY Felt Hair Bows for Avigail
My 3 year old granddaughter, Avigail, has wispy blonde hair. My husband, her “Papa”, has been threatening to cut her bangs for as long as I can remember, because he just cannot tolerate seeing her hair in her eyes.. Avigail will wear bows as long as they meet her fashion criteria and are lightweight When she…
-
Mango, Pecan and Pomegranate Salad
Occasionally, I like to prepare a sweet and leafy salad. I usually use romaine lettuce or baby bok choy, since these greens are assertive enough to stand up to the sweet juiciness of the fruit and nuts. I choose whatever fruit is abundant and perfectly ripe. Over Sukkos in Israel, pomegranates and mangoes were exactly that:…
-
Salmon Terrarium Appetizer
We were fortunate to have spend the past Sukkos (Fall Jewish Holiday celebrated in temporary huts covered in natural materials) in Israel. We always marvel at how our Jerusalem sukka is so much larger than our doll-size apartment living space. Our sukka is tucked into one of those beautiful, dusty and wonderful corners of Jerusalem. It is surrounded…
-
A Nightstand Castoff: Simply Upgraded and Gilded
Kaitlyn has been wanting to find a new nightstand for quite a while. Everything that she has found has just been too short and too ordinary for her height and taste. She has been looking for something that has a retro feel with some originality in color and design. A while back, she brought…
-
Simple Baked Gefilte Fish Terrine
Gefilte fish is a traditional Jewish food served on Shabbos and the Jewish holidays. It is a loaf created with various types of ground fish and is usually boiled and served cold with sliced carrot and horseradish. There are a number of gefilte fish companies that prepare a frozen gefilte fish loaf ready for cooking.…
-
Kohlrabi Confetti Salad
We are in Israel for Sukkos and kohlrabi is plentiful here. It is sold in the Machane Yehuda shuk (market) and in fruit stands throughout the country. In the past, I have used kohlrabi in soups and have cooked it in a myriad of ways. Today, I prepared a shredded salad for dinner in the…
-
Low and Slow Oven Brisket: No Braising Necessary
This week, I prepared the most delicious brisket. I purchased a 3 pound top of the rib brisket that was extremely lean. I did not have time to marinate or braise the meat and because of its lean composition, I was nervous that it would be tough. I developed this simple and perfect low temperature recipe…
-
Colorful Confetti Cabbage
Cabbage is one of those under-rated ingredients. It is available year-round, is low-carb and can be delicious in a saute or salad. This recipe is one that I prepare often and one that my family really enjoys. It is a simple recipe that started out as a mistake… Before one of the holidays, I had…
-
The Virtue of Siblingly Love
The idea of love and devotion between siblings is at the core of our Torah. So much of the foundation of the Jewish religion begins in the home. We are taught that the place chosen for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was selected based upon the following incident. There were two brothers living in Jerusalem.…
-
Simplicity is not Simple
Baruch Dayan He’Emes (Blessed are You, G‑d, the Judge of the Truth). This morning, I lost a dear friend and great role model. Her name was Chaya Mindel bas Aryeh Leib. She was my husband’s first cousin and one of the greatest women I know. She had a very challenging life, but met every experience with…
-
..In the Honey: Rosh Hoshana Honeycomb Cupcakes
Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) is coming and our friend (and Davida’s superMom), Staci Segal, is sponsoring a pre-Rosh Hashana bake sale to benefit benefit Ohr Meir U’Bracha, The Terror Victims Support Center of Israel. Last year, Davida baked delicious muffins for this bake sale. This year Davida and Staci’s daughter, Chava, are studying in Israel,…
-
Dip the Apple… Rosh Hashana Cupcakes
Rosh Hashana is coming and our friend (and Davida’s superMom), Staci Segal, is sponsoring a pre-Rosh Hashana bake sale to benefit benefit Ohr Meir U’Bracha, The Terror Victims Support Center of Israel. Last year, Davida baked glazed carrot muffins for this bake sale. This year Davida and Staci’s daughter, Chava, are spending the year studying in…
-
When It’s Hard Not to Judge
I have always been taught not to judge others. Leave the judging to God. We just have to give others the benefit of the doubt. I internalized these ideas and I tried to transmit them to my children. I thought that I had succeeded and then something happened that taught us all an important…
-
Arugula Salad Wrapped and Upright
We recently attended a wedding and I was entranced by the appetizer. It was an upright mesclun salad wrapped in a long slice of cucumber. The dressing was poured into the tightly packed upright salad and the appetizer bowl where the salad was placed was garnished with gorgeous fruit. When the cucumber peel was uncurled, the…
-
You have the World at Hello
Growing up, we were taught to greet people in a friendly manner. A friendly greeting can really transform a person’s day. I remember vividly how special I felt as a child when I came to visit my mother’s best friend, my Tante Bashi. As I came through her door, she would exclaim. “Wow! What an important…
-
Simple and Creamy Lemon Vinaigrette
Our favorite dressing is Simple, Creamy and Perfect Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette. It has been our go-to homemade dressing for as long as I can remember. Most recently, though, I have been making a lemon vinaigrette that runs a close second in the race to become my favorite dressing. This vinaigrette may be made in a container and…
-
Saying Please and Thank You the Adult Way
Our parents and teachers taught us the “magic words”. Now that we are adults, have we lost the magic? In today’s fast paced world, we cannot tolerate someone else having a bad day. And, it is so easy to complain. We phone our kids’ school complaining. We leave negative reviews. We rate our doctors, our…
-
Elul: The Month our Nation Tries
The month of Elul has begun and with the end of summer arrives the perfect time for introspection. On Rosh Hashanah, we are each judged on the merit of our deeds. The judgment begins on Rosh Hashanah and is confirmed on Yom Kippur. We are given forty days, starting with the beginning of Elul and ending…
-
Bobby’s Homemade Bubbles and Wands
Avigail and Juju are attending “Bobby Camp” and one of the favorite morning activities is playing with the water table on my front porch. After breakfast and our morning walk, when the two of them are still in pajamas, we fill up the water table and have a good and messy time playing with all the…
-
Simple and Healthy Fruit Salad Ice Pops
Avigail and JuJu are here for “Bobby Camp” and we are having a ball. The weather has been hot and getting increasingly humid again. I wanted to prepare a healthy, beautiful and colorful ice pop as a refreshing treat for them on these last hot summer days. They love fruit and this recipe really hit…
-
DIY Nightstand Play Kitchen for JuJu
Seventeen month old Judah (or JuJu as he is sometimes called) loves to play in our play cupcake kitchen when he comes to visit us. He doesn’t have a play kitchen at home, so I decided to surprise him with his own one. My mother-in-law a’H was fond of repurposing cast-off items, so she would…
-
A Dozen Roses Stretched to Fill the Shabbos Table
Don brings home roses every Friday in honor of Shabbos. The roses are always of wonderful quality and it a surprise to discover what color roses will adorn our Shabbos table. Most Fridays, we enjoy all twelve roses in one traditional arrangement. This week, Don brought home peach color roses, one of my favorites. Our home…
-
Low-Carb Zucchini Pizza
Zucchini is one of those fresh ingredients that I almost always have on hand in my refrigerator. I use it in a myriad of ways: in my Simply the best chicken soup…ever!, in Warm Zucchini-Mushroom Salad with Almonds and Sunflower Seeds, in Simply the Best Low-Carb Zucchini Soup and a myriad of other recipes, many of which you will…
-
The Tenth of Av: The Day Our Family Cries
On the Hebrew lunar calendar, today is the tenth of Av. Since Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av) fell out on Shabbos this year and we do not mourn on Shabbos, we commemorate the mourning of the destruction of our Holy Temple today, the tenth of Av. It is a day of sadness, mourning and…
-
Tisha B’Av: The Day Our Nation Cries
This Shabbos is officially Tisha B’av (the Ninth of the Hebrew month of Av). It is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, a day of Jewish national tragedy throughout the ages. It is the day that both of our Holy Temples were destroyed and a day that is filled with mourning, trepidation and many…
-
Simple 4-Ingredient Homemade New Pickles
New pickles are my favorite. They still have the crispness of a raw kirby with just a hint of pickling. Kirby cucumbers are in season. They are plentiful, inexpensive and make wonderful pickles with just four simple ingredients and 1-2 days of refrigeration. INGREDIENTS 4-6 medium Kirby cucumbers 2 cups unchlorinated or bottled water 2 tablespoons Kosher…
-
Warm Zucchini-Mushroom Salad with Almonds and Sunflower Seeds
A warm salad can both accommodate our low-carb diet and satisfy our hearty side dish craving in a way that a cold salad never can. This salad starts with a cold base of chopped romaine lettuce and is topped with a warm saute of onions, zucchini, mushrooms, slivered almonds and sunflower seeds. The combination of salad…