Side Dishes

Beverly is my mother. My mother was a good cook, but didn’t have much patience for the process nor passion for the result, so there are very few recipes that I have that are distinctly hers. This recipe is one of the rare few, and my grandmother evidently kept a copy in her recipe box. The relish was always on the table for Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving, although I myself have not made it lately. It’s a nice alternative to the widely-available weird squiggly canned cranberry sauce, but I will admit that I have a strange affection for the canned stuff, too.

This excellent pareve dish has some things in common with Jennie Grossinger's truly inspired mock-liver recipe. (The Grossinger recipe uses sardines to outstanding and totally unidentifiable effect. It's the best mock-liver I've ever had.) In both cases using a food processor makes the recipe much easier with no sacrifice on the results.

I remember her making these on occasion, especially in the latter half of Pesach. They were simple but tasty. The instructions are a bit vague.

This recipe has just about the shortest ingredient list and instructions imaginable. And it's barely legible. But if you're into minimalism, here you go - and really, potato, eggs, salt and fat is always a winning combination.

Yes. Yes that is quite a lot of margarine. It tastes fantastic, if your arteries can handle it. This recipe has been retrieved from my grandmother's recipe boxes and the original paper (images below) was heavily spattered with food and almost illegible. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.

For my formative years we had this recipe every Rosh Hashana and Thanksgiving. I'd looked through my grandmother's recipe boxes a few times in search of it, but didn't find it until now, 10 years after her passing. I'm so happy that I found it that I am using it to inaugurate a new section of my site called "The Grandma Zone" which will consist of recipes I have of hers, or those I find in her recipe boxes, many of whom she attributes to various friends who have now also passed on. This recipe has been retrieved from my grandmother's recipe boxes and the original paper (images below) was heavily spattered with food and almost illegible. I have rephrased it without changing any ingredients or techniques into a more traditional recipe format.

My grandmother wrote down a lot of recipes from friends… especially from her hairdresser Marge. But she didn’t necessarily make the recipes in question. I’m pretty sure this one is an exception.

I use golden beets because my family and I prefer to have the beets peeled before cooking. This is much less of a hassle when the beets are yellow as they do not stain. But there is no reason you cannot use red beets or unpeeled beets of any color. Also, the beet greens can be saved and braised. There are many options, but I have included a second recipe below in the event that you don't have.

As I mention in the milchig farro recipe, this is a grain that nutritionists recommend. Like bulgur and the wheat used to make bread flour, farro is a species in the genus Triticum. They're siblings, as it were. The farro recipe I make most often is unabashedly milchig, as it calls for smoked cheese. But sometimes you want to make this to go with a fleishig meal. I have adapted the recipe to be pareve, getting the smoke and umami flavors from other sources. The dishes are not the same, but they can play similar roles on the plate.

I've marked this as great for Rosh Hashanah and Erev Yom Kippur, because as anyone who has been foolish enough to grow their own zucchini knows, by this time of year you're hip deep in zucchini and desperate for ways in which to cook them. I personally dislike sautéd zucchini as the texture is invariably mushy. These spears are very flavorful and you can really knock out a large zucchini excess at a holiday dinner!