Don’t get me wrong. I adore dairy foods, more than what’s good for me.  But it seems that the great dairy festival that’s Shavuot is as hard to take as the Purim’s junk food orgy. The day after Shavuot, the entire country loses productive time dealing with dairy overload.

Listening to a few friends’ menus, I notice lots of dishes loaded with cheese, and lots of starchy foods – most of them stuffed with cheese. Bourekas, blintzes, and lasagna, all at one meal. Even salads must have cubes of feta on Shavuot, apparently. I mean – I often fix a big salad dotted with feta. But lasagna followed by eggplant parmesan followed by cheesy baked potatoes followed by…a big stomach ache. Where’s the balance here?

The Israeli dairy industry depends on everyone buying lots of soft and hard cheeses for Shavuot. They push dairy as hard as they can in their advertising. And I must say that many of the recipes they provide look divine. I love dairy, darn it. And carbs, I love carbs too.

Darn it.

Three factors keep my Shavuot menu cheese-moderate. One is, my son-in-law’s custom is to eat two meat meals on Shavuot and keep the dairy only for the third meal, at the evening of Shavuot day. Since my married daughter and her family spend every Shavuot with us,  I honor his custom.

Another is that my husband, who also loves cheese, can tolerate only small amounts of dairy.

And then, there’s my own feeling, as explained above.

But don’t get me wrong – there will be dairy on the table.  I bought an irresistible chunk of sheep’s milk Tomme for holiday cooking and post-holiday eating. The grownups look forward to my New York cheesecake, so I’m baking one. I made a strawberry ice cream to indulge my little grandsons, who I know will ignore the cheesecake. That’s it.

The menu for the one dairy meal (subject to change at my whim):

• Challah
• Choumous
• Stuffed vine leaves (hand-made but bought at the shuk)
• Sliced tomatoes with an herb vinaigrette, and plenty of sliced cucumbers for the little ones
• Orange-glazed salmon
• Eggplant casserole, which nobody but Husband and I will eat
• Spinach quiche for the eggplant haters
• New York Cheesecake - strawberry ice cream

Here are more suggestions for Shavuot. Enjoy, and eat in good health!

Soup:

Potato-Leek Soup

Mushroom Soup

Artichoke and Mushroom Soup

Baked Dishes:

Spinach Gratin

Qeijadinhas, Brazilian Cheese Tartlets

Cheese-Stuffed Tomatoes

Rice:

Risotto with Nettles and Carrots (substitute spinach for nettles)

Fish and Eggs:

Fish Baked in a Walnut Crust

Grilled Fish in a Spicy Lemon Marinade

Shakshouka, Mimi’s Way

Bread:

Herbed Cheese-Swirl Bread

Desserts

Rice Pudding With Drunken Raisins

Flim-Flam Flan

Malabi, Middle-Eastern Milk Pudding

and the very best for last…

Wicked, Wicked Cheesecake with Dulce de Leche and Whisky Glaze

[polldaddy poll=1656251]

Got back from the supermarket in one piece, for which I do render thanks. Milchig Madness has descended upon the population of Israel, and only the lactose-intolerant will be spared. Be warned…

If you like your cheesecake creamy and rich, this one’s for you. The shot of booze lightens the ensemble and adds a touch of luxury.

Cheesecake with Dulce de Leche and Whiskey Glaze

serves 8.  You can use rum instead of whiskey.

Ingredients for crust:

150-grams of granola cookies or cookie of choice

50 grams butter

1/2  tsp. cinnamon

2 Tblsp. sugar, more or less to taste

Ingredients for Filling:

Cheese:

For Israelis,  500 grams 5% white cheese that has sat in a sieve for at least one hour, to rid it of excess water.

Or use the specialty “gvina le-afiyah” that appears in markets at this time of year.

For readers outside of Israel: 500 grams – 2 cups – of any soft, creamy white cheese.

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla essence

1/2 cup dulce de leche

Ingredients for Topping:

1 container of 15% sour cream

1 Tblsp. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla essence

1/4 cup dulce de leche, minus 2 Tblsp.

Glaze:

The 2 Tblsp. dulce de leche reserved from above

2 Tblsp. whiskey

I. Make the Crust

1. Melt the butter.

2. Crush the cookies in a food processor with the cinnamon.

3. Combine the butter and cookie crumbs and add sugar if your taste so dictates. Mix well.

4. Spread the crumb mixture in a 9″ round cake pan and level it out with your fingers. Put the pan aside.

II. Make the Filling

1. Combine the cheese, eggs, sugar,  and vanilla. Mix well.

2. Pour the filling onto the crust.

3. Take spoonfuls of the dulce de leche and plop it down in pieces all over the filling.

Draw a knife through the filling a few times to distribute the dulce and marble the cake.

4. Bake for 35 minutes as 170° C – 32° F. It will be firm but still tender, maybe a bit wobbly in the middle. Sort of like a Jewish grandmother.

III. Make the Topping

1. Mix the sour cream, vanilla essence, and sugar. Add the larger part of the dulce and mix again.

2. Spread this topping over the cake as soon as the cake is ready.

3. Mix the reserved 2 Tblsp. of dulce with the 2 Tblsp. whiskey – it will blend, just keep mixing.

4. Drizzle it over the surface of the topping.

5. Either leave it like that or draw a knife gently over the topping/glaze to marble it  (you’ll feel the firmness of the cake underneath – try not to cut it).

6. Bake the cake a further 10 minutes.

All the cake to cool, then refrigerate it 6-8 hours before serving.

All you need with this is a cup of espresso followed by an hour of healthy exercise.

This is our family recipe for cheesecake. It’s more elaborate than the cookie-crust, easy-bake varieties, but so worth the few minutes extra work.  Not too sweet,  light and creamy at the same time, with just that hint of lemon and vanilla that makes you feel like you need another slice now, before someone else lays hands on it.  The recipe is easily doubled. I often do that, because there won’t be enough for everyone otherwise.

You’ll need something for beating egg whites: I used to whip them by hand but considering middle age and carpal shmarpal, I now plug in a hand mixer to do it. Have three bowls at hand, 1 large, 1 medium, 1 small. Prepare a baking pan either with baking paper or by greasing it with sweet butter and coating it with flour.  And do not preheat the oven: you want to start baking cold.

New York Cheesecake

6 servings

Ingredients:

6 eggs

3 Tblsp. sugar, plus 6 Tblsp. later

500 grams – 1 lb. – 2 cups -  soft, creamy white cheese – here in Israel I use 9% white cheese

1 tsp. vanilla essence

Juice of 1 lemon

6 Tblsp. sifted flour

Method:

1. Separate the eggs.

Keep the whites in the large bowl.

Put 3 of the yolks in the medium bowl; in the small bowl, the other 3 yolks.

2. In the medium bowl, beat the 3 yolks with the 3 Tblsp. sugar and all of the cheese. Mix well till smooth.

3. Whip all the egg whites till stiff.

4. To the whites, add the 6 Tblsp. sugar and whip till the whites make smooth peaks.

5. Add:

the flour

the lemon juice

the 3 yolks from the small bowl and

the vanilla.

Mix very well. This is the batter.

6. Pour 2/3 of the batter into the baking pan.

7. Mix the remaining third of the batter into the cheese mixture. Mix well.

8. Pour this new mixture straight into the center of the batter in the pan.

Bake at  300°F – 150° C for one hour.  Turn the oven off, but don’t remove the cake: just open the oven door a crack and let the cake cool inside. Once cooled down, store the cake in the fridge.

My cake overbaked a bit – ideally it’s not so dark on top. But it was light and toothsome all the same. Hope you like it!

That good old dairy holiday is creeping up on us.  In just over a week, we celebrate Shavuot (on Thursday, the 28th of this month). The holiday runs into Shabbat. Lots of cooking in store, and many of us are also working out a dairy-based menu for one holiday meal. This link explains the custom of eating dairy on Shavuot.

The supermarket explodes with every variety of cheese, ready-made cheesecake, quiches and pasta dishes. The whole country goes into a lactose frenzy. I kind of like it. So here is the first of my Shavuot suggestions: the light  spinach gratin. It’s a  good alternative to the delicious but heavy blintzes of tradition. Cheescake recipe comes next week. Can’t give up the cheescake!

Gratin of Spinach and Rice

serves 3 as a main dish, 4 as a first course or side dish

Ingredients:

4 Tblsp. rice

2 1/2 cups frozen spinach (265 grams)

1 medium onion

A little olive oil

1/3 cup slivered, blanched almonds or other nut – or 1/4 cup cooked chickpeas

3 Tblsp. – 50 grams -  butter

2 Tblsp. flour

2 1/4 cups – 1/2 liter – milk

1 bay leaf

a smidgeon of dried thyme

1 tsp. salt

pepper to taste – I like a few flakes of cayenne plus a shake of white pepper

3 Tblsp. ground Parmesan cheese

1 Tblsp. more butter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F – 17° C.

2. Prepare your gratin dish – either cover it with parchment paper or butter and flour it very well.

3. Boil the rice till cooked through but still firm, in salted water. Drain it and put it aside.

4. Chop the onion. Sauté it in a little olive oil till the pieces are golden.

5. Add the spinach and let the vegetables cook through together over medium heat, stirring often.

Take the spinach mixture off the flame, cover it, and put it aside. Optimally, you’ll be uniting the ingredients while they’re all still warm.

6. Heat the milk but don’t let it boil. You want it quite warm but not simmering. Turn off the flame and cover the milk pan.

7. Make a bechamel sauce, using a large pan. A large pan will save washing up, as later you’ll be blending the rest of the ingredients into the sauce.

To make the sauce: over a low flame, melt the butter. Throw the bay leaf and the little bit of dried thyme in with the butter and let them heat up with it. Add the flour slowly, stirring the while. When the flour and butter have almalgamated and the mixture starts to froth, slowly pour in the warm milk. Add the salt and pepper. Stir, stir, stir. 5 minutes or less will do it. You should have a thick, cooked-through sauce. Don’t allow the bottom to burn: stir, stir stir!

Remove the bay leaf.  Normally spinach is paired with nutmeg, and if that’s your preference, go ahead and use it instead of the bay leaf and thyme. I happen to like this dish without nutmeg.

8. Add the spinach to the sauce; blend.

9. Add the rice to the pot; blend again.

Now taste for seasoning and if necessary, add more salt and pepper, a little at a time. Blend.

10. Add the almonds or chickpeas; mix it all up well.

11. Pour the mixture into your prepared gratin dish. Sprinkle the Parmesan over the surface and dot it with butter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until it’s light and the top has a golden, slightly blistered crust.

Serve the gratin in bowls, it’s a little soupy.

We enjoyed it for lunch, with sliced salad vegetables and some corn.

The drink in the glass is some of my Raspberry Shrub.