For the love of kosher...

My family is from the former soviet union so I wasn't raised observant and have only recently begun to keep kosher at home. For those you of you don't know know what keeping kosher entails you can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_foods
To briefly summarize:
-I don't eat meat and dairy together
-No shellfish, unkosher meat/fish
-all food much contain a hechsher (kosher certification)


I didn't have that hard of a time starting to keep kosher since I've been keeping ingredient kosher for a long time and never ate any shellfish/pork or meat and dairy together to begin with. I think the hardest part has been not being able to eat out like I used to since finding kosher places to eat at around here isn't as easy as in some places, like NYC. It definitely makes you actually have to prepare your own meals more.

Anyways I got a new book because I was in a food rut and wanted some new recipes to add some variety. One of my friends recommend the kosher by design cookbooks so I ended up getting Kosher by Design Lightens Up. I was expecting some trimmed down versions of the usual stuff like kugels and brisket, but this book is so much more than that!! Susie Fishbein is awesome... and her book totally rocks. I went out and got one of her other books too.

I love Indian food! Of course I haven't actually eaten any in a long time since there aren't any kosher Indian places where I live. I made the chicken tikka masala from Fishbein's book, and it was so delicious!  I didn't use the spices she listed, I just used a garam masala mix that's hechshered that I found at my local Korean grocery store (I love hmart!!). The sauce for this obviously doesn't have yogurt like traditional Indian dishes, but instead uses that tofutti soy sour cream. Now normally I don't go near that soy stuff because I think it all tastes weird, but for some reason it works in this dish. The dish came out tasting authentic, and just as good as from any Indian fast food place.

Of course I had all that tofutti left in the fridge so I had to try another recipe using it later in the week. I

made the chicken piccata, also from Fishbein's book. Delicious of course!

 I also made come carrot cake to take to my parents based on one of the recipes from Fisbein's book. I'm normally not a huge fan of carrot cake, but this was really good, moist and with perfect texture. I decreased the amount of sugar by a lot since, my parents being from Eastern Europe, they tend  to like less sugar in desserts than most Americans are used to.

 Carrot Cake:
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 egg white
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 10 inch bundt pan. Grate the carrots by hand or put then in a food processor and finely grate. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl beat oil and sugar until smooth and then add applesauce and vanilla. Add the eggs and beat.

Using two spoons add alternating drops of the grated carrots and dry ingredients until both are completely added. Beat in walnuts and chocolate chips. Pour into prepared pan and bake 55-60 minutes.

You can check out the Kosher by Design books here:
http://kosherbydesign.com/