This week I received dozens of messages about these national news that are causing a total uproar: Trader Joe’s delicious chocolate chips are going to be made in dairy equipment from now on To name just one example, here’s an alarmed message  from Rachel:

Worst news ever!  Please take action. Spread the word – according to OK Kosher, Trader Joe’s chocolate chips are going dairy! TJs is usually pretty responsive to comments, so write in and tell them you don’t want them to make this change. Maybe it’ll help!!

http://www.traderjoes.com/about/product-information-form.asp

Another one wrote with alarm “How will I make your Chocolate Chip Cookies for Shabbos? Or your Chocolate Truffles recipe”? Dearest friends, Let’s start by getting this out of the way: Is this really the worst news? I wish all of us terrible news like these every day!
It seems quite counter-intuitive of a giant like Trader Joe’s to take this step, not only for the sake of Ksoher-observant diners who would like to serve the cookies at a meat meal, but for that of the large community of Dairy-Intolerant people who would like their cookie and eat it too.

I have a simple solution, and I clamor for it constantly: Let me see you act on it:

Ask all your kosher stores to carry a good brand chocolate product line: It’s all here!

You are welcome! PS let me try again: Dear Trader Joe’s: On behalf of Kosher Customers and Dairy-intolerant customers: Will you please go back to producing your delicious chocolate chips 100% dairy-free? We would all be very grateful! thank you in advance!

I’ll be demonstrating:

• French onion soup
• Salmon with fennel and olives
• Artichoke and fava bean casserole
• Endive pear parmesan salad
• Ricotta lemon babka

My gorgeous Hardcover Cookbook is on sale at my demos, for $30.00, a $25.00 discount! By a case of 6 books for $150.00, make a few friends happy, and get a 33% discount!

Click Here to Register!

What a pity we can’t find this treat in Kosher Sushi Restaurants! they are so much fun: Turnip Cakes are a Chinese Dim Sum dish made of shredded turnip and radish  and rice flour. It is steamed, then chilled and cut into cubes. It starts by being just a bland gelatinous cube, but wait till you dip it in sauce and drizzle it with wasabi oil. This falls right into my favorite subject: Cooking with serious ingredients, and ending up with a delicious and fun dish! I have streamlined the recipe to make it ideally easy.
This is the kind of recipe where you will be glad you have a bamboo steamer: Easy to find and very inexpensive!
You can dress them up all you want, by including some of the optional ingredients I have listed: Add something different each time, and enjoy a variation each time!
Please don’t tell my guests: I am making it for Shabbos!

Ingredients:
A large piece daikon (about 1 pound)

2 large turnips (about 1 pound total)

2 cups rice flour

1 cup tapioca flour

21/2 cups water

Salt to taste

All optional: minced scallions, shitaki, flaked mocked crab, minced nappa cabbage, even minced smoked turkey. In any combination. 2-3 cups total

Instructions:
Grate the daikon and turnip very fine in a food processor. You will get about 4 cups packed. Mixed with the remaining ingredients. Pack the mixture into a round mold that will fit inside one of the tiers of a bamboo steamer.

Select a wok or skillet you can stand a bamboo steamer in. Bring water to boil in the skillet, to reach the bottom part of the skillet. Place the mold on the upper part of the steamer. Cover and cook about 45 minutes. It will look like a firm cake. Alternatively, bake the mold at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Refrigerate until firm, then cut in chunks. Eat as is, or sauté in a little oil 1 minute on each side. Serve with a very simple dipping sauce (a little soy sauce, grated ginger, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil), and wasabi oil (recipe follows)

Wasabi oil

You will love to drizzle some on smoked salmon, hand rolls, seared tuna, and of course the above turnip cakes.

Ingredients:
1 cup wasabi powder
1/4 cup mirin or sake
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup warm water
1 cup vegetable or olive oil

Instructions:
Blend all but last ingredient in a food processor until smooth. With the motor running, add the oil in a thin stream, using it all up. Store in a glass jar. Drizzle on sliced seared tuna, turnip cakes, grilled tofu etc…..

This past week we went to three BBQs, including last night’s Lag Baomer gig, with our Rabbi, his lovely wife and his delightful children-sous chefs. I wasn’t sure  what was harder to resist: The kids or the delicious goodies they were flipping. In one short week I ate as much meat as I usually would in about a month. AND: We are invited to a BBQ this Mother’s day. I am so maxed out, but can’t pass up a chance for togetherness and good cheer. So my mostly-salad days will have to wait a drop longer. Meanwhile, here is what I made last year mother’s day, and I think you’ll love it as much as our guests did!

• Cauliflower Potato Frittata

• Baby Spinach Salad with Avocado, Tomatoes and Endives

• Sliced Scotch Salmon with Sliced Lemon and Caper Berries

• Babaghanoush

• Cheddar Dill Scones

• Blueberry Scones

• Fruit Salad

• Semolina Almond Cake with Lemon Syrup

• Ricotta Berry Parfait

• Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Raspberry Lemonade

I think you can tell: These are nothing but trouble! A snap to make, dairy-free, luxurious, luscious. I am including all variations. I would walk miles for the Sea Salt Caramel Truffles, my favorite. But trust me: All of them are worth making.

Reinventing Cream: For a richer texture, I use a simple trick which you will often encounter throughout my books, to augment the “milk” fats in many dishes: I add soy or rice milk powder (easy to find in health food stores or online) to my dairy-free milk and obtain the rich and dense texture of cream, or quite close. It is also much less caloric than the dishes containing dairy cream.
As always, use very good quality chocolate: why bother with anything else?
If you would rather omit the egg yolk (which gives the dough a nice gloss and malleable texture) and keep them vegan, you will still get a wonderful truffle, so go for it!

So, here comes! Told you they were trouble!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy or rice milk powder
1/4 cup soy or other non-dairy milk (oat, rice, grain, almond)
1/2 cup natural non-hydrogenated margarine (health-food stores)
2 cups semisweet real chocolate chips, very good quality
1/4 cup pure cocoa powder
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup brandy, rum or bourbon

Instructions:
Whisk the milk powder and the milk in a small saucepan until smooth. Turn on the heat, set at a low flame, and add the margarine, chocolate chips, cocoa powder and sugar. Whisk until the mixture is just melted. Turn off the heat, add the egg yolk and brandy and mix until incorporated. Refrigerate the mixture until set, a couple hours. Handling minimally, shape into little balls (do not smooth: leave them a little bumpy, that is the trademark of truffles), and roll into cocoa powder. Keep refrigerated and tightly covered in plastic wrap until serving time.

Variations:

• Sea Salt and Caramel: My great favorite.  A fancy sea salt will not be a waste here. No liquor. Add 1 tablespoon sea salt and 1 tablespoon pure caramel extract (health food stores, or online. In a pinch, settle for Starbucks caramel syrup)
• Espresso truffles: Add 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder, decaf OK
• Peppermint truffles: Omit the rum, and add a few drops peppermint extract (health food stores).
• Nut truffles: Add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts or pecans to the mixture. Or place a toasted hazelnut in the center of each truffle.
• Raspberry truffles: Omit the rum, and add 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam and 3 tablespoons Creme de Cassis to the mixture.
• Peanut butter truffles: Replace the margarine with 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter.
• Spicy truffles: Get racy!  Omit the rum. Add one (just one!) of the following:  all ground: 1 tablespoon wasabi, 1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne, 2 tablespoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons ginger, 1 tablespoon cardamom, 2 tablespoons orange zest.
• Roll the truffles in chocolate sauce (1 cup chocolate chips melted with 1 tablespoon oil), grated coconut or coarsely ground toasted nuts instead of cocoa powder.

I’ll be demonstrating:

• Nori rolls
• Sea bass poached in dashi sake broth
• Sashimi salad
• Mock crab spring rolls
• Turnip cakes with dipping sauce and wasabi oil
• Vegetable dumplings

We are selling The Whole Foods Kosher Kitchen at the demo at $30.00 a copy, a 25% discount from the $40.00 list price

Click here to register

This salad dressing is delightful not only over greens, but also with  fish or chicken, grilled or poached. The pungent curry is a wonderful foil for the fruity and tart mango. Use only as much dressing as will lightly coat your greens, and include with your greens some diced fresh fruit such as apple, pear or grapefruit, diced dried fruit and toasted nuts or seeds: Short and sweet selection, please!

 Ingredients:

1 ripe mango, peeled and cut in chunks (if all you find is frozen mango chunks, that will be perfect too: Use 1 cup)

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons mustard oil (settle for Dijon-style mustard)

1∕3 cup orange juice

1∕3 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon curry, or a little more  to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the mango chunks in the food processor. With the motor running, add the oils in a slow stream, then the juices and spices. Makes about 2 cups. Use on your favorite greens, and include a firm-ripe fruit and some seeds or nuts.

Here’s one salad selection I like to use with this dressing: Baby spinach, sliced mushrooms, avocados, diced pears, sliced fennel, toasted pecans, and when I have it on hand, diced cooked chicken or fish.

This shabbos looked like it was going to be another unseasonably chilly day, soup weather. And I had several non-meat eaters coming for lunch. So I made fish for main course, but decided I would make a soup for first course. The result was out of this world, and is hardly a recipe, just thinking out of the box. The idea was to make something exciting without any meat product, and to use a short selection of grains and veggies that will stand up to the long cooking time. There’s plenty of room for you to improvise as well. Just as long as you don’t ruin it with onion or garlic powder, or all those powders mysteriously, euphemistically and deceivingly called broth, bouillon, consommé and whatnot. Here’s what I threw in my crock pot, which I plugged minutes before candle lighting. Medium-low temperature. It was honestly one of the best soups I ever tasted, so you might even want to do what I did on any old night dinner as well: throw everything in the crock pot in the morning, plug it and forget it, then enjoy a fabulous soup at dinner time.

1 1/2 cups black barley

3 bags (1 pound total) vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts, crumbled

3 leeks, sliced

1 1/2 pounds shitaki mushrooms, caps only, sliced

3 large potatoes, diced

1 dozen pitted dates, sliced

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cups sake

salt to taste

1 tablespoon turmeric

2 good pinches saffron

1 sprig rosemary

1 sprig tarragon

4-5 bay leaves, or 1 teaspoon ground

12 cups (3 quarts) water

Just before serving, adjust the texture if necessary with a little hot water, and add a little salt and pepper if the soup needs it

I’ll be demonstrating:

• Tuna casserole
• Blueberry scones
• Pancakes with assorted toppings
• Mixed salad greens
• Ice cream cake

Click here to register

Zuppa Inglese is not a soup at all, but an affectionate take on what the Italians see as a favorite British dessert, closely related to trifle.
As always with desserts known as containing too many eggs and too much cream, I cheat and tinker endlessly, as I did here, using only natural ingredients, and expect the world. And, as you will see when you make it, I succeed, if I say so myself! This is so fabulous, with the great added advantage of being vegan. Just wait till you try it! It doesn’t hurt that it is so easy to make!
It is perfectly OK to use store-bought sponge cake, only please buy it unflavored (no orange or other extract except for vanilla) so it does not compete with the flavors you select.
You might want to make the cream with nuts, or coffee, or rum, etc…. But in my dessert here, I wanted to star lavender: Cheap and easy to use, and delicious, and a great match for chocolate.
I can’t say it enough: Only very good chocolate please! Who needs the junky kind? I have a whole blurb on chocolate products which might find very helpful when shopping for chocolate.

Ingredients:

Syrup mixture:

1/4 cup lavender leaves

2 green tea bags, decaf OK

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup brandy or rum

½ cup agave syrup

Cream mixture:

1 pound silken tofu, thoroughly drained

2 tablespoons oil

1 cup dairy-free cream cheese

2 cups very good quality semi-sweet chocolate, melted (on very low flame, or 2 minutes in a microwave)

1 ½ pounds sponge cake, store bought o.k.

Grated chocolate for garnish

 Instructions:
Bring the syrup ingredients to boil in a small sauce pan, then lower the flame and cook 5 minutes, until syrupy. Strain the mixture and set aside.
Process the cream mixture in a food processor until perfectly smooth.
Cut the sponge cake into ½ slices. Line the bottom of a trifle bowl with slices of the cake, pressing them tight so as to leave no gaps. Pour a third of the syrup mixture slowly and evenly over the cake (pace yourself: use a measuring cup with a pout). Pour a third of the cream mixture evenly over the cake. Repeat twice: Cake, syrup, cream. Cake, syrup, cream. Garnish the top with grated chocolate. If time allows, refrigerate a few hours to set. Serve at room temperature

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