Difficult Days Easy Meals

 Fall is one of the craziest seasons. After the lazy day of summer it;'s getting back into a whirlwind of school activities and at times increased office work. Add to that cooking along with other chores.At least there are recipes that make life easier.

Cheif editor Emily Weinstein gives some interesting and varied recipes for easy week night and even weekend cooking in today's New York Times Food section. Keep in mind that they could be doubled  and served two days of the week too. All the recipes are straightforward and can be made in thirty minutes or less. She created these recipes with kids in mind but they're perfect for adult families or just busy couples looking for a good and easy meal. One is the simplest. Kay CHun lent her recipe for meatballs which follows the classic Italian recipe.It's mixing ground beef and pork(or strictly beef if you prefer. ) and mixing it with egg and panko crumbs. Italian seasonings such as dried oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme or oregano can be added.Keep in mind you can do the same with Impossible Meat too for a vegan option. A vegetarian option is red curry lentils with sweet potatoes and spinach . This is a perfect dish for a cool autumn night because of th eheat from, serrano chiles, and red curry paste being added to a wonderful array of veggies. Another meatless dinner is chile fettucini with baby spinach. Chili crisp is what gives it it's zing.

There are meat and fishes dishes here too. Think crispy gnocchi with sausage and peas for an easy midweek supper. This is an easy mix of store bought sausage and gnocchi cooked with frozen peas. Another snap dinner is lemony shrimp and bean stew made with leeks and white or cannellini beans.  You could serve this over pasta or just dip Italian bread into it.Instread of take out make Grace Lee's kimchi fried rice which you can use leftover rice and Spam  along woth a vaoriety of spices and soy sauce. Chicken katsu  is another choice . This is like a Japanese schnitxel, with breaded chicken breasts  , first coated in eggs, flour and then bread crumbs and ten fried in oil. The sauce is tonkatsu a mix of kethcup, Worcester sauce sauce and molasses, Sugar, soy sauce and cloves are also added to this along with fresh ginger for bite. baked cod with Ritz cracker topping is another chocie and it's comfort food one. The Ritz crackers are mixed with melted butter, chive ,parsley, lemon zest and a mix of onion and garlic powders. The fish can be any white fish  from cod , haddock or halibut. The crackers are put on top of the roasted fish and baked for an extra ten to sixteen minutes. It's served with asqueeze of lemon.

Weekday meals don't have to be a hassle. Use any of these for worry free cooking. They can be the easiest thing to make during a hard and difficult week. 

Jewish Cooking Redefined

Mention Jewish cooking and images of chicken fat - schmaltz and oily latkes come to mind along with a heavy Eastern European influence. Healthy and international dishes never enter the picture. Until now. A new cookbook sets kosher cooking in a hipper, more worldly light.

Paula Shoyer, creator of the famed Kosher Baker blog along with being named as A Woman To Watch in 2015  has written The Healthy Jewish Cookbook ( Sterling Epicure Publishers 2017). This is a great book, a mix of traditional Jewish cooking with  modern and international twists. This is a must have in any kitchen, regardless of religion. The books starts off with a page one meal planning and introducing kids to preservative free foods. It's written in a straightforward style that many novice home chefs will appreciate.Other pluses is that she recommends using whole wheat pasta and and mixing whole wheat into recipes calling for refined white flour.She is a stalwart advocate of always  cooking with  fresh ingredients.The cookbook is also sprinkled with tips from  feeding the elderly to serving buffet style at a Thanksgiving dinner. There is extra advice on how to clean leeks and dealing with yeast. The book is divided into such sections as Appetizers and Salads, Soups and Sides. I like the fact that she puts vegetarian with fish and dairy main dishes. She also keeps kosher by separating the meat recipes in a chapter all their own

What is also striking is the globalization of her kitchen. Yes, she has a healthy and modern takes on brisket (treating it like bouef bourguignon) baked latkes and tsimme but there are recipes influenced by every corner of the globe.Home chefs will love her Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, a kosher take on pho .Dark miso paste and tamari soy sauce lend color and flavor to a home made chicken soup. There's also a recipe for coq au vin, the traditional French that has Chef Shoyer's spin. She makes this dish lighter by subbing in a white wine for a red. Lamb lovers will enjoy her Japanese lamb chop recipe fiery with jalapeno peppers and ginger.  Italian cooking is sort of similar to Jewish and she has many recipes. A cold winter warmer is her Pasta Siciliano , rich with eggplant and pasta, along with her Ribollata, bread soup. Indian and Moroccan  dal and lemtil  soup recipes also figure greatly in the book..Chef Shoyer is well known for her baking. Her dessert recipes don't disappoint. The  picture of chocolate rugelach looks heavenly as does the one featuring  her carmelized apple strudel. There are also bread recipes such as a gluten free challah and whole wheat onion one. Home bakers will flip for her rosemary focaccia which would be great dipped in peppery olive oil or marinara sauce.

The Healthy Jewish Cookbook  is the book to have for the New Year. It is full of good for you recipes that any home chef or home baker can make. Best of all it marries Jewish  tradition with international dishes.

Gluten Free Slow Cooking

Gluten free cooking can be a bit labor intensive however there's a brand new cookbook that can help. It's chock full of delicious and fun slow cooker recipes that range from breakfasts to dinners, from snacks to desserts. Even those without celiac disease would enjoy the many dishes that can be made.

Hope Comerford, author of A Busy Mom's Slow Cooker Adventure blog, decided to put all her recipes into one fantastic cookbook, The Gluten Free Slow Cooker (Fair Winds Publishers).It is a great book for those with gluten allergies who not only want variety but also freedom from the kitchen. Ms. Comerford starts off with advice about what kind of slow cooker to have.There are also tips for novices such as buying cheaper cuts of meat because slow cooking tenderizes out the toughness along with no peeking which can affect cooking. She also recommends buying crock pot liners because these keep the crock pot form becoming messy,If those can;t be found then use non cooking spray which makes cleaning up afterwards a dream. Ms. Comerford has written an extensive list for a gluten free pantry. It is a practical one  with name brand ingredients such as Mrs. Dash Seasonings along with fresh fruit and produce. She is also one for using short cuts such as frozen vegetables and gluten free cake mixes to make prepping just that much simpler.

The recipes are fun as well as being tasty. Breakfasts start with frittatas rich with tomatoes and avocados,and onions, spiked with hot sauce. There are fun oatmeals such as banana bread oatmeal made with bananas and  brown sugar and cinnamon roll oatmeal which is Cinnabon in a bowl. I love the chapter called Starters And Snacks They'll Want To Attack, especially the recipes for pizza dip and the ones for   Buffalo Chicken Meatballs and Chili Lime Wings. Soups are hearty and healthy, with recipes for cabbage and lentil soups.There are main meals such as apple and onion pork loin and cranberry glazed turkey breast that  can be made at lunchtime and forgotten until dinnertime.There is a yummy and easy eggplant  Parmesan casserole, chock full of eggplant, Parmesan cheese  and a jar of instant sauce.Sides are also included such as brown sugar mashed sweet potatoes, redolent with butter and brown sugar and white wine mushrooms , slow cooked with wine, chicken stock and a variety of herbs. Desserts are amazing, and Ms. Comerford includes sauces such as caramel and strawberry orange, perfect on ice creams or custards. There are also easy to make pumpkin  and Irish cream brownies made with gluten free chocolate cake mix which also goes into the slow cooked chocolate lava cake.

Gluten free cooking doesn't have to be a chore. Thanks to The Gluten Free Slow Cooker  celiac sufferers can have tasty meals and treats without any work at all. It ' all down to a slow cooker and this great cookbook.

Nepali Cuisine Spice And Mountains

Many only know Nepal for Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain top, yet it's also a fascinating, ancient country/It lies between China and India, and there's no doubt of their influence on the cuisine. It is tradition mixed with the exotic, two cultures fused as one in an interesting blend of spices.

Nepal sits on the top of India so it's no surprise to see certain Indian dishes in the cuisine..Dal, a staple of New Dehli and Bombay is made here as well.It's a spicy but easily replicable soup of lentils and spices.It's served with bhat or cooked grains along with rice. Sometimes vegetable curry is also served with it for a more  satisfying meal. A more Nepalese dish is dhindo.This is a kind of polenta being cooking with clarified butter or ghee and water. Buckwheat can also be added to the mix for more nutrition, Aachar or a tomato pickle is often served . This is a  kind of ketchup , but with zesty zing of cumin and mustard. Timur, or Szechuan pepper is also added to give the sauce more kick. There is  the chutney, made super hot by adding chili peppers and ginger to a sweet mango and tamarind mix. Most of the people are vegetarian , due to Hinduism and Buddhaism so most meals have yogurt as the main dish.Those of Pahari background enjoy yak meat.

The Chinese influence is felt very strongly here. There are momo, Tibetan style dumplings with Nepali spices. They were originally filled with buffalo meat but now have chicken and vegetarian fillings.Fermented soy and bamboo shots are also used.The janajati or indigenous people are big on buffalo and pork while another group, the Magars eat nothing but pork. Along with different ethnic groups different locations have different dishes Thakali cuisine, located between the Himalayas and the lowlands are big on sheep. Their meat is air dried and then eaten. The Thakali also make a kind of blood sausage rhat is also dried. These are added to curries  or sautéed in ghee and sometimes dipped into timur-ko-chop, Szechuan pepper, salt and local herbs.Newars, the urbanized people of Katmandu have huge feasts  that feature fried tofu or even cottage cheese. Their festival foods would not be out of place in a restaurant featuring nose to tail cuisine either. They are big on fried liver and tongue as well as stuffed lungs. Tea and beer usually round out any Nepali lunch or dinner.

Nepal is known for beautiful and exotic scenery.It is also know for interesting foods that reflects the cultures around it. It is full of variety and spice as it has been for centruies.

A Rainbow Of Spices

Indian food is a variety of so many different colors and tastes.It reflects this mysterious, ancient country with it's exotics recipes and amazing ingredients.It is also a fun cuisine to cook,from it's" appetizers to desserts. There's a new cookbook put there showcasing these, and they are the perfect dishes to welcome in the summer. The cookbook is Spices And Seasons,Simple Sustainable Indian Flavors (Hippocrene Books,New York)written by Rinku Bhattacharya.This is her second book and she has written for newspapers and appeared on television.I love this book, not just because I love Indian food but because Ms. Bhattacharya also explains and show how to make your own arsenal of Indian spices.These are vital in creating the right flavor and can be made for a few pennies.Not only that she lists the health benefits of them as well. Another plus is that she uses farm fresh vegetables from the far den.With spices, such as turmeric and cardamon ,mixed with tomatoes, peppers and eggplants she creates dishes that are not only flavorful but also better than any tonic or medicine.These recipes are also the direct opposite of Indian take out which is usually sodden with cream and butter.Most of her recipes don't have these, opting for a tiny bit of ghee or clarified butter.Even the dessert recipes such as the Ginger and cardamon cookies and the frozen treat, raspberry mufti are far from being rich. The other recipes are drool worthy.This is not all curry, although there are recipes for it.There is also chutney ones and many focus on dal, the creamy lentil dish that's made a variety of ways.You could try lentils with cabbage or slow simmered for a tasty dinner.Ms. Bhattacharya includes some great recipes for these warm days.Tofu is put on skewers with tomatoes and onions.There's a long list of salads to choose from ,such as a black ,bean corn and stone fruit one and an essential Indian one that have cucumbers and tomatoes drenched in spices and dusted with crushed peanuts.Eggplants and potatoes are curried with tomatoes to create a light summer dinner.There recipes for winter too,fiery pilafs that contain chickpeas and mushrooms.Another is a chicken orzo spiced one ,fragrant with cinnamon, cardamon and saffron.A different kind of holiday dish is the Surprise The Guests Pink Chicken Biryani, chicken cooked with a tomato rich tika sauce. Breads are a must at an Indian table and there are several recipes to choose from naan to parathas.There's even a version of crostini which is perfect for dipping into the curries or dal's. Spices And Seasons, Simple , Sustainable Indian Flavors, is a great cookbook for any Indian food lover like myself. it also is a great book for a home chef wanting to try cooking of the Subcontinent too. The recipes are flavorful and healthy, a perfect combination for modern eating.