18 minutes Broiled Beef Short Ribs

Preheat broiler at 500F.  Spray baking pan with the oil spray, such as PAM.  Layout ribs on the pan and sprinkle evenly with shawarma spice mix.  Broil for 10 minutes.  Take the pan out of the oven and flip the ribs, sprinkle shawarma spice on the other side, broil for another 8 min.  Optionally, cut pieces between the bones and enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Beef Stew

Preheat broiler at 500F.  Spray baking pan with the oil spray, such as PAM.  Place beef on the pan and sprinkle evenly with Peleg shawarma spice mix (sold at Garden Fresh, kosher spices section).  It could be a brisket or any kind of pot roast, such as Scotty roast or shoulder tip.  Broil for about 6 minutes on each side.  Broiling the beef creates a yummy crust and seals the moisture within. 

In the large dutch oven type of pot saute a sliced onion, sprinkled with salt and pepper.  Add  2 – 3 sliced carrots sprinked with paprika, saute for about 5 min.  Add a few pieces of crushed garlic, saute only 1-2 min.  Add a 48-oz can of tomato puree or plain tomato sauce, cook while the beef is broiling. 

Take out the beef, switch oven to convection bake at 300F or regular bake at 350F.  Add beef to the tomato sauce, pour over it ketchup and sweet-and-sour duck sauce (important ingredient, usually found in kosher isle of Jewel or Garden Fresh).

Bake for about 1hr 30min.  Cut up about 10oz white mushrooms and a green pepper.  Take the stew out of the over, pour top with more sauce and add mushrooms and pepper on top, don’t mix in, so it remains relatively firm.  Bake for another 1 ½ to 2 hours. 

Let the stew cool down, take out and slice the beef, then add back to the sauce. 

Enjoy!    

 

 

Vegetarian borscht.

I used to make a borscht with the soup bones meat, but since two of our close friends became vegetarian I’ve been making it as a vegetarian dish that can be eaten by carnivores and vegetarians alike. 

In a large pot cook broth out of root vegetables: 2 onions, 3 carrots, a parsley or celery root, one leak.  Leak is an expensive frenchy vegetable, but it really adds flavor to any soup, including a traditional chicken soup.   Cook for about an hour or longer.

Place 3 – 4 un-peeled beets in a 3-qt pot with cold water, cook for an hour.  When done, place beets under cold water and slip skin off the beets. 

Take the root vegetables out of the soup, squeeze the juice out of them with the slotted spoon and pour the juice back into the pot, throw away the used vegetables. 

Finely chop 2 smaller onions and 2 – 3 carrots and add to the soup.  Lighly sautee chopped onions and carrots, don’t overfry them.  When sauteeing onions, sprinkle them with salt and pepper to add flavor, and sprinkle carrots with paprika. 

Shred ½ cabbage head, 3 small or 2 medium potatoes and add to the soup.  Add 32 – 48 oz tomato juice into the soup.  Manually shred the cooked beets (too soft for electric shredder) and add to the soup.  Add 1 cup frozen peas.  Cook another 10 min.  Then add fresh minced cilantro and dill, add paprika, cumin, black pepper.  Taste the soup, add more salt and brown sugar if needed. 

 

Russian borscht

Classic Russian borscht.

The meat used for the borscht is usually the beef soup bones – a large slice of bone surrounded by some meat.  Place in the large 8-qt pot, sprinkle with coarse salt and add cold water up to the 4-qt mark.  Boil it and remove the scum / foam with the slotted spoon. 

Add root vegetables: 2 onions, 3 parsley roots or a celery root, 3 carrots, 2 leaks.  Add green parts of the leaks on top to absorb the remaining foam.  Cook on low flame for about 3 hours.

Place 3 – 4 un-peeled beets in a 3-qt pot with cold water, cook for 1 ½ hour.  When done, place beets under cold water and slip with skin off the beets. 

Take the root vegetables out of the soup, squeezed the juice out of them with the slotted spoon and pour the juice back into the pot, throw away the used vegetables.  Finely chop 2 smaller onions or a few shallots and 2 – 3 carrots and add to the soup.  Shred ½ cabbage head, 3 small or 2 medium potatoes and add to the soup.  Add 32 oz tomato juice and squeeze ½ lemon into the soup.  Shred the cooked beets and add to the soup.  Add 1 cup frozen peas.  Cook another 15 min.  Then add fresh minced cilantro and dill, add paprika, cumin, black pepper.  Taste the soup, add more salt and 1 or 2 teaspoons of brown sugar if needed. 

 

broiled wings

Quick Broiled Chicken Wings

Preheat broiler at 500F.  Spray baking pan with the oil spray, such as PAM.  Layout chicken wings on the pan and sprinkle evenly with shawarma spice mix.  Broil for 10 minutes.  In the meanwhile, slice an onion.  Take the pan out of the oven and flip the wings, sprinkle shawarma spice on the other side.  Place onion slices between the wings, broil for another 10 min.  Serve with rice or vegetables. 

on feeling loved

I have a dear friend, who tries to teach me Buddhist mindfulness, without much success.  Embracing nothingness and detachment is not my forte, I am too much in love with everything and everyone, an unrecoverable friendship addict.  Last time we met the topic of discussion was “have you ever felt loved?” – of course, I feel loved by God whenever it’s warm and sunny.  I feel loved by my family and friends, whenever they do or say something sweet and special.  "No, I mean have you truly felt loved by a man, romantically loved?" 

praying for geula

When your mind is open you notice things right in front of your eyes.  This is what happened one night Chol Hamoed Pesach when I pushed my head out of the water of the mikveh pool for the third time, rubbed open my eyes and was about to recite the blessing on its wall “yihi razon milfanecha … sheibane beit hamikdash bimheira b’yameinu…” (let it be Your will … that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily, in our days).  I stopped momentarily before reciting the ancient prayer.  This is the moment when one feels so close to Hashem, like a newborn child, and you can ask for anything, you are that close, you can ask Hashem to bring geula, soon, in our days, while we are still alive!   We’ll be actually able to ascend the steps of the Temple, and this won’t be a dream, it will be for real, this will be the reality that already happened many years ago and that we gave up following foolish fantasies, chasing elusive dreams, arguing and bickering with each other.  The reality where Kohanim will again serve in the Holy Temple, including my husband who patiently waited for me for more than two weeks, and our son, working so hard on his Bar Mitzvah training.

My son is fiercely egalitarian.  He believes that women should have equal rights to serve Hashem as the men.  He does not know how close women are to Hashem at the moments like this.  The closest moment is during the birth of a child.  Regardless the advanced medical care, and the best doctors in the world, this is the moment when we are completely at God’s mercy.  When it is only by His will that the new life emerges into the world from the dark corridors of our flesh and blood, as a beautiful gift, with a curly head full of his own thoughts.  Sheasani kir’zono. 

Sunrise

In the times of the holy Temple Jews brought animals in the sacrificial offering, karbanos, that had different purposes and were treated in a different manner.  The animal brought as a sin offering was brought as a means of attonement and had to be slaughtered and burnt on the altar completely, leaving only the ashes.  The animal brought as a voluntary peace offering was intended to bring its owner closer to God, it had to be slaughtered and divided into parts, and only fat and internal organs of the animal were burnt on the altar, while the actual meat was roasted and consumed by the ministering Kohanim, in the Holy of Holies. 

Allegorically the animal offerings were compared by the rabbis to the animal soul present inside each human being.  The allegory of the sin and peace offering teaches that atonement for sin burns the animal soul to complete destruction, while balancing the fragile peace preserves the goodness of the physical being burning off only the fat and impurities. I came to view the sports, especially running, as a form of peace offering, where a mind is free from its labor and at peace with the animal soul.

The overwhelming beauty of the sunrise,

Green buds adorning treetops in the haze,

The narcissistic pleasure of the running body,
Strange emptiness under the rib cage.

I brought my animal soul

To Your palace of glory,

As a peace offering, free from sin,

I burned all my fat on Your altar.

Free from fat and from blood,

From tyranny of the moon,

Uninterrupted purity -

On the other side.

Until the next time

When the heart stops,

And the tongue clings frozen to the palate

And the animal soul invades the dreams.

Lately I was surprised to find out that after a certain age the feminine nature follows the cycle of the sun rather than the moon, hybernating through the entire winter and resuming the fertility cycle in spring - the body/soul connection is mysterious and fascinating.

Shoes and Perfume

Sunday, March 11, 2012

International Womens Day

It is a brilliant Sunday morning, March 11th, I just came home from jogging and rushed to my laptop, to write. It is spring, the start of the jogging season, the morning is beautiful, awesome, outrageously gorgeous! The sky is hazy blue, shining through the still naked lace of branches, that are not black anymore, but have the subtle shades of pink, golden, green, the foretelling of coming flowers and leaves.

Last Thursday was March 8^th, the International Women’s Day and the day of Purim. I took a day off work and spent it in the most productive manner: writing blog in the morning, working out at noon, shopping in the afternoon. The purpose of shopping was to buy pretty bags and tissue paper for Mishloach Manot, but I also bought a present for myself - a pair of new running shoes and French perfume. I am planning to approach my Jubilee year fit and sexy!

  

The year is coming soon, sooner, maybe too soon – the year of the release of all debts and bonds, spiritual liberation. Life without hormones must be liberating - no dreams, no desires, only beautiful reality of the brilliant blue sky and pink tree tops, letting sun shine in your eyes without worry, not trying to please, no need for attention, no fear of displeasure, of abandonment.