Kosher and gluten-free recipes (that appeal to kids!) aren’t easy to find. Enter “Food You Want for the Life You Crave: 100+ Healthy, Indulgent, and Flexible Recipes,” a new cookbook with more than 100 kosher and gluten-free recipes from Nealy Fischer, a kosher chef, author and mom of four. She runs The Flexible Chef, specializing in cooking with limited time and resources, Instagram perfection be damned.
Stay tuned for our full interview; in the meantime, enjoy these two fun recipes (plus a bonus one here!).
Eitan’s Favorite Japanese Salad
From Fischer: “One night, when my son Eitan was just 4 years old, we found ourselves famished after a long ski day in Japan. The first thing we ordered was a Japanese salad, served dressed in a creamy onion vinaigrette. To our surprise, Eitan gobbled the tossed lettuce and asked for more. I figured either he was ravenous or that dressing was miraculous. To cover my bases, I began to feed my kids salads on empty, grumbly tummies to increase the chances that they’d eat fresh greens—and I make my version of Japan’s wonder dressing to this day, tossed with kid-friendly veggies: sweet butter lettuce, crunchy cucumber, jicama and carrot.”
Eitan’s Favorite Japanese Salad
Makes enough for four hungry kids. Tools: Blender, vegetable peeler or mandolin.
Ingredients
- CREAMY ONION DRESSING
- ¼ cup rice vinegar
- ¼ small yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons tamari
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup (or to taste)
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- SALAD
- 2 Persian cucumbers
- 1 large carrot
- Leaves from 2 heads butter lettuce
- 1 cup julienned (or matchstick-cut) jicama
Directions
- To make the dressing: Place the vinegar, onion, tamari, sesame seeds and maple syrup in a blender and blend until smooth. Continue blending, adding the oil in a slow stream to emulsify. Add black pepper to taste. Keeps for four days, refrigerated.
- Slice the cucumber and carrot into ribbons using a vegetable peeler or mandolin.
- In a large bowl, combine the lettuce, jicama, cucumbers and carrots.
- Toss the vegetables with the desired amount of dressing and serve.
Grainless Banana Pancakes
From Fischer: “Healthy and delicious pancakes, for real? These bad boys have nothing bad about them. They’re pretty much like eating bananas and eggs for breakfast, so it’s kind of sneaky of me to even sell them as pancakes, but, well, they are! So splurge and have a few.”
Grainless Banana Pancakes
Makes 18 3-inch pancakes. Tools: Nonstick frying pan. Note: The only important measurement is the banana-egg-almond flour ratio. The rest is for added flavoring and sweetness. If you prefer a thinner batter, add ¼ cup almond milk.
Ingredients
- 2 medium, ripe bananas
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 tablespoon flaxseeds, ground
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon raw honey
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- Coconut oil or oil spray, for frying
- Maple syrup or butter, for serving (optional)
- Optional: Stir into the batter nuts, chocolate chips, blueberries or extra chunks of banana. (I always peel, then freeze, extra-ripe bananas—if you have frozen ones, use them.)
Directions
- In a medium bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until smooth.
- Add the eggs, almond flour, flaxseed, vanilla, honey, cinnamon and salt and blend thoroughly. Allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes to thicken slightly.
- Heat a griddle or nonstick pan over low heat (to avoid burning) with a touch of coconut oil, or lightly spray the pan.
- Spoon the desired amount of batter onto the pan. (Because the batter is delicate, smaller pancakes tend to flip more easily without breaking.) Cook until the edges are firm, about 4 to 5 minutes, then flip the pancakes and cook on the other side until cooked through, 2 or 3 more minutes.
- Serve with maple syrup or butter, if desired.
- Note: Pressed for time? Bake them! Spoon the batter into greased mini muffin pans and bake at 350°F for 5 minutes, or until set.
Recipes and photo reprinted with permission from “Food You Want for the Life You Crave” by Nealy Fischer. Da Capo Lifelong Books/April 20, 2019.
