Mongolian Beef + Secret Restaurant Recipes Review and Giveaway!

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mongolian beef on OvertimeCook

 Mongolian Beef is an easy and delicious restaurant style dish that you can make at home thanks to a great new cookbook, Secret Restaurant Recipes. I'm so excited to bring you an in-depth review of this amazing new book: Secret Restaurant Recipes by Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek - and I'm giving one lucky reader a chance to win their own copy! Scroll down past the review and recipe for the giveaway.  Years ago, when Leah Schapira and I were just getting to know each other, one of our first conversations ever was about getting restaurant recipes. I told her that a local pizza shop makes a great techinah sauce - and she told me to beg for the recipe. And ever since then, I knew she has … [Read more...]

Barbecue Beef Ribs with Homemade Mole Barbecue Sauce

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bbq ribs with mole sauce

There's a secret ingredient in these barbecue beef ribs that makes them the most succulent and tasty ribs you'll ever eat! Allow me to introduce you to my family's favorite holiday dish. Dessert? Nope. It's meat. Ribs, to be precise. No jokes. Not only do I make the best ribs in the world, but my family would probably revolt if I would try not making them for a holiday. Many have you have probably tried my ribs with homemade bourbon barbecue sauce. Smart of you - those are amazing! But bourbon isn't kosher for Passover, so I decided I had to come up with a version that I could make on Pesach. Enter my secret ingredient: cocoa powder. Yes, I am totally serious. With all the Passover … [Read more...]

Red Wine London Broil Salad + A Taste of Pesach Review and Giveaway

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London Broil Salad on OvertimeCook.jpg

Red Wine London Broil Salad makes an elegant appetizer, a delightful side, or a lighter main - making it perfect for Passover or year-round. Adapted from the hottest new cookbook, A Taste of Pesach. The hottest new Passover cookbook is the newly released A Taste of Pesach, and I'm super excited to review it today. Plus, I'm sharing an awesome steak salad from the book, and one lucky person will win a copy! A Taste of Pesach started as a fundraising campaign for a local Yeshivah. A bunch of women gathered their favorite Passover recipes together and mailed them out in the form of a pamphlet. Six years and tens of thousands of fans later, they've compiled the best of their yearly … [Read more...]

Fill Your Freezer: 40 Freezer Friendly Starters, Soups and Sides

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40 freezer friendly starters soups and sides on overtimecook

So, my Jewish readers who are feverishly starting to prepare definitely know why this is coming. For the rest of you, bear with me for a bit, but the Jewish high holidays are rapidly approaching, followed almost immediately by the Holiday of Sukkot. For Jewish housewives all over the world, that means a whole ton of cooking to be done. And for those who like to prepare ahead, the freezer becomes your best friend. (Of course, there are many times when pre-made meals in your freezer will make life easier, so keep this list handy all year round!) I personally love to have my food ready in advance, in the freezer. Most of the cakes and cookies on the blog freeze really well, but I figured I … [Read more...]

Pastrami Stuffed Shells with Honey Mustard Onion Sauce

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pastrami shells 1

I feel like this dish should have been created ages before it was. Stuffed shells are a total staple of my cooking repertoire. I've done dairy stuffed shells, made with a cheesy filling. I've done meat stuffed shells with a ground meat filling. I've added vegetables to give it a healthy twist, and played around with spices. And suddenly when my sister and I were planning our recent holiday meals, another type of stuffed shells hit me. Why not stuff the shells with a delicious pastrami filling? And instead of the classic tomato sauce to bake it in, I knew I'd pare this with pastrami's friend honey mustard. And it worked so well! Not only did it serve up beautifully, but everyone licked … [Read more...]

Savory Meat Pie Hamantaschen

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savory meat pie hamantaschen on overtimecook

It's 1:30 am and I am sitting at my computer thinking about hamantashen. But it isn't my fault, really. Blame it on... Oh forget it. It's totally my fault. I can't help myself. Not only do I imagine myself to have hoards of anxious fans waiting for my brilliant purim ideas yeah right but I also need to impress people at my own purim seudah (feast/party). It's hard, let me tell you. No matter how much pressure you might feel at parties, think about what it's like when you are a food writer. Exactly. Well I kinda wish I could invite each and every one of you to my purim party, because I am serving these meat pie hamantaschen as the appetizer and they are seriously delicious. But sadly I … [Read more...]

Mushroom Beef Sliders and a Review and Giveaway of CHIC Made Simple

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mushroom beef sliders

Giveaway Closed! I'm super excited to be reviewing another fabulous and hot new kosher cookbook, CHIC Made Simple. The author, Esther Deutch, actually writes for the same magazine as me, Ami Living's Whisk magazine. Oddly enough, I didn't meet her until Kosher Fest, when we practically bumped into each-other. "You're Overtime Cook?!" She exclaimed. "I am such a fan." Well. After an introduction like that, I couldn't wait to see her beautiful cookbook and try some of the recipes. At a First Glance: CHIC Made Simple is beautiful. And I am not talking simply about the pictures (which are really nice!). This book is big, hard covered, and really nice all around. Every page has a recipe … [Read more...]

Yemenite Beef Soup and a Review and Giveaway of Kosher By Design Cooking Coach

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Yemenite Beef Soup 2

Giveaway Closed! I've been getting a lot of questions lately about my thoughts on the new cookbook by Susie Fishbein, Kosher By Design Cooking Coach, and I am excited to finally share my thoughts on this fabulous cookbook with you. I should start by mentioning that if you aren't a kosher cook, don't stop reading. Susie's ideas are amazing, and you don't have to keep kosher to appreciate them! At a first glance: As is the case with all of Susie's previous books, this is a visually beautiful book. I opened it up and marveled at the absolute wealth of information. The book promises to be more than just a list of recipes, and it certainly delivered. Each chapter starts with a "game … [Read more...]

Sukkos Recipe Roundup

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Here's what I was supposed to do yesterday. I was supposed to photograph this amazing appetizer recipe and post it for you folks. But then I got home from work at 7:30. You read that right. Work. On a Sunday. I don't recommend it. I got cooking right away, and at 2 in the morning I was wise enough to realize that posting the recipe at that point would have been a really bad idea. So I went to sleep for like, four whole hours. Anyhoo. Here's a handy dandy list of stuff you should totally be making for Sukkot. They are a sampling of recipes from the archives, so feel free to dig around for even more! New recipes are a'comin, I promise. Wait, I don't. I have so much left to do! But I really do … [Read more...]

Puff Pastry Pastrami Pockets

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Puff Pastry Pastrami Pockets

You know those foods that are so quintessentially Jewish that everybody associates them with New York and the Jews? I'm talking about foods like K'nishes (remember how I posted a recipe to make those at home?) and a big 'ol pastrami sandwich on rye bread. With a pickle. And sushi. Okay, that last one isn't necessarily a Jewish food, but we definitely support Japanese cuisine as much as we do Chinese cuisine, in recent years. Well, here's a food that is Jewish through and through: deli roll. Honestly, I'm often surprised that this hasn't made it out of the Jewish world much, because deli roll is just plain delicious. But it's also kinda boring. At least if you're a Jewish gal from New York … [Read more...]