cooking from scratch

purplegirl

Sun, Nov 19 2006, 2:27 am

I am living in a place far away from anything kosher. I need to know how to cook from scratch, but reeeeaaaal scratch, as in, using only vegetables and grains. Is there a cookbook out there that includes recipes for mayonaise, pastry dough, pie dough, bread, pizza sauce etc. Mostly I'm interested in the doughy things - to make kreplach, pierogies, pies and knishes.

The ingredients I can use are - flour, eggs, sugar, salt, yeast, spices. Occassionally margarine (expensive to import).

On the bright side, I can buy spaghetti. G-d is good. Mr. Green

Any recommendations? Thank you!

challi

Sun, Nov 19 2006, 2:59 am

I usually only cook from scratch (though not because I can't get kosher food, actually far from it.)

Its not as difficult as it seems it just takes extra planning. Its really good to amkje these things in advance and then freeze them till they are needed. For instance make a big batch of pie dough and put it in an aluminum pan and freeze it. If you need bread often, bake a huge batch and freze it in loaves or rolls and use as needed... Make you freezer as if it was the stores freezer all stocked up and ready whenever you need something, just take it out and defrost or cook. Also if you use something, replace it, this will make your life a lot easier.

That said, you seeem like you have all the ingredients to make absolutely ANYTHING. Anything with a flaky crust is hard to make without margerine, though not impossible. Also find recipes on the internet but if the look really long and complicated move on and find one more realstic. There's a hard way and an easy way to do everything.

A substitution chart will help too, I found this one to be good:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/Ing......html

If you have something particular you want to make you can pm me and I'll see if if I have what you're looking for.... nno time to post everyhting right now

mumof1

Sun, Nov 19 2006, 4:16 am

I also cook from scratch, not becouse of lack of kosher products but I like things more dietetic, prepared usually has shortening, msg etc.
spice and spirit is great they have everyhhing also try the balabustas choice, and the heimeshe kitchen which has a few and they all have easy recipes all the basics.

withhumor

Sun, Nov 19 2006, 7:45 am

There are the real old cookbooks for the very beginners to the from-scratch society, and they are published by the “Nitra ladies auxiliary”. If you don’t live near NY and you PM me, I’ll be more than glad to mail them to you. You will be delighted that they teach you tricks and hints and tips for real dumb things that you would be too embarrassed to ask anyone (how to cook pasta, how to defrost chicken) you name it!

purplegirl

Mon, Nov 20 2006, 5:15 am

Thanks for all the replies!

challi, I love your idea of stocking your freezer like the store! I will definitely work on that!

Spice and Spirit sounds good - I will check it out when I'm near civilization.

No, Kmelion, I can't tell you where I live because that'll be paramount to throwing away my anonymity, which I have to preserve if you don't want me to post as amother Very Happy

shoy, I do google recipes sometimes, but I never know if they're good or not. Books are supposed to have tried and true recipes. That said, I did find the BEST banana bread recipe online.

withhumor, I googled the nitra books and found four - the haimishe kitchen 1, 2, 3 and the Pesach cookbook. Are those the ones? Eichlers.com doesn't carry them. Do you know who does?

withhumor

Mon, Nov 20 2006, 6:10 am

I found it on Froogle http://froogle.google.com/froo.....ab=wf you will love the green one (volume 2) but the pink one (pesach) is great because in addition to Pesach it has the whole shabbos / yom tov shebang.. happy cooking!

Believe it or not it tells you EXATLY how much salt and pepper and all that, you can’t be fooled.

girliesmommy

Mon, Nov 20 2006, 9:08 pm

From experience, I second what everyone else has said: GET THE SPICE & SPIRIT!!

I use it for everything. It has all the basic dough recipes for pies, knishes, pizza, etc.

It's definitely a MUST if you're not able to buy kosher stuff easily.

If you need any help with specific recipes, you can PM me.