Food Friday - a little healthier than intended

I had planned on making my usual white flour challah enriched with some gluten. I realized as I began kneading the dough that my flour bag was nearly empty. I am still replenishing my grains after Passover. Actually to say that more correctly I still haven’t bought any grains after Passover. I usually have a bunch of whole grains in my pantry and had I had some around I would have ground them up in the coffee mill.

I had reached the point of no return in my challah kneading. I did have a bag of wheat germ. My husband eats oatmeal every morning. I added lots of both. The challah dough texture got a little heavy, a little extra muscular…
The folks eating at the table are welcome to complain.
It’s a little warm today and the loaves over rose a bit. I like a challah with a defined braid. So I fixed the problem.

Here is the undefined challah.

Here is the fix.

Actually, that is a simulation of the fix, I am a righty. But simulation or not, you just slice where you think the braid needs a bit more definition.

The finished challot are a different color than normal. I blame the influx of wheat germ and oats. We can just pretend that we are eating in a 1970’s era health food store.

My older son made meatballs and

spiced roasted sweet potatoes.

I am making a salad and I made ginger /apricot parev ice cream.

Here it is simmering away to extract all of the yummy ginger flavor from the chopped ginger.

And here it is, done.

Getting the flavor balance right on this one was tricky. Having my in house flavor consultant by my side made a huge difference. There are many layers of flavors in this ice cream. Ingredients included cardamom, vanilla, orange juice, orange essence, black pepper,salt and honey. The dried apricots I used were pallid in flavor so I had to fake a flavor profile for them.


It is so nice to tag team with my son. When we work together in the kitchen it feels less like a parent and child and more like colleagues.


I wanted to end this pre Shabbat post with something beautiful. Every morning I go to services at little chapel in my synagogue. It’s far less grand than the big sanctuary we use on Shabbat. There are three narrow stained glass windows on one wall. This morning the sun shone though so perfectly just as services ended.

Shabbat Shalom!!!