Challah Baking Video

Homemade Challah with Honey

Challah is the quintessential Jewish Sabbath and holiday bread.  Bread baked from the staff of life has a spiritual essence that affirms our connection to the earth’s harvest and sustains us.  This Challah is sweet and moist.  It has a long stranded texture,

Folares for Purim

Purim 2010 will begin with the Megillah reading on Saturday night February 27.  Every year at the first signs of spring, I get a tickle up the back of my neck telling me

Fabulous Hamantashen

 These delightful triangle shaped filled goodies are cookie-like with a filling of jam or prune or even chocolate.  We eat hamantashen traditionally for the festival of Purim in March, which recounts the story of the heroic Queen Esther

Cheese and Potato Borekas

   

Consumed in great quantities, loved by all, the flaky dough and flavorful fillings beckon you to eat yet another one, the irresistible Boreka.  Borekas are usually a savory but occasionally sweet filled turnover.  There are many kinds of dough and infinite variety of fillings.  Various versions can be found in Turkey, in Israel and throughout the Middle East.Sephardic Jews or broadly speaking those with Spanish origins, from Turkey and the Greek Island of Rhodes traditionally eat

Seattle Blackberry Crisp

 While growing up in Seattle, I developed a passion for blackberries and raspberries.  Blackberries grew plentifully on every vacant lot and on every little untended strip of soil all over the city.  On late summer afternoons, we would put on old clothes

Yummy Banana Bread

 

I like bananas.  Is our compulsion to eat bananas an acquired taste that our mothers nurture in us from birth?  Do they truly taste good, eaten straight?  This is a topic for debate.  No matter which side of the issue you come down on, bananas are a little compact package of nutrition

Hazelnut Biscotti with Chocolate Chips and Currents

 I love biscotti, as I sit at my desk working I crave one.  For many years, I struggled to make them taste good and be able to slice them into thin enough pieces.  The dilemma was

Biscotios de Huevo, Sephardic Tea Biscuit

The first generation of my family to come from Turkey, my grandmothers and my aunties, used to sit and rest a bit in the afternoon.  After preparing dinner and finishing their housework, they traded bits of gossip about the community and themselves (char lashon) with a cup of Turkish coffee and a biscotio in hand.  These circular biscuits topped with sesame seeds

Pink Lady Apple Pie

Soft delicately spiced pieces of apple, packed together in a tiny bit of loose clear pink jelly, encased in crisp, flaky pie crust is the way I like apple pie.  Over the years, I have used many varieties of apples and I prefer the Pink Lady variety.  Pink Ladies