Want to indulge in a meaty Jewish staple, but, well, without the meat? Have a vegetarian or vegan friend coming to your Rosh HaShanah meal? Fear not! You can have this tasty brisket-substitute with no animal products.

This recipe is adopted from the Meet the Shannons food blog.

You will need:

3 Small Leeks, sliced
6-8 Red Potatoes, quartered
1 Cup Baby Carrots
2 Packages Gardein Beef-less Tips (defrosted)
1/4 Cup Olive Oil, plus an extra 2 tablespoons to brush over your “beef”
1/4 Cup Kosher Red Wine (Manischewitz or similar)
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
1 Can Tomato Paste (6oz)
1/2 Cup Strong Brewed Black Coffee
3 Tablespoons Light Brown Sugar
2 Tablespoons Vegan Worcestershire Sauce (optional)
Kosher Salt and Black Pepper (to taste)

Directions:

1. In your slow cooker, mix leeks, potatoes, carrots, 1/4 cup olive oil, red wine, and soy sauce and cook on high for 2 hours.
2. In a small bowl, mix coffee, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar with a whisk until sugar has dissolved.
3. Brush the defrosted gardein with 2 Tablespoons of olive oil. Put the gardein in your slow cooker on top of the vegetables (don’t mix them in).
4. Pour the coffee sauce over the top and cook for another hour.
5. Pre-heat oven to 400.
6. With a ladle, move your gardein and vegetables from your slow cooker into a glass baking dish. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the top begins to brown. Turn your oven down to 200 and cook for another 20 to 30 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven once your sauce has reduced to saucy gravy. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Go forth, and enjoy!

Molly Moses is a music therapist practicing in Central Florida, working primarily with children with special needs. She enjoys cooking and discovering new vegetarian recipes, especially for the holidays, and sharing them with family and friends.

Image via Wikimedia

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Recipe: Beef-less Brisket with Vegetables appeared first on Jewcy.

• Documentary nominees for the Directors Guild of America include Allison Klayman, the filmmaker behind the award-winning documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (who was Beijing’s most popular bat mitzvah tutor during filming) and Lauren Greenfield, whose film The Queen of Versailles offers a revealing look into the astronomical excess of the wacky Siegel family. [THR]

• Larry David watches Degrassi. Someone tell Drake. [Huffington Post]

• This is pretty much what Shoshanna’s Emoji-ridden texts look like [Vulture]

• Brisket, so trendy right now. [NYMag]

• Etsy’s Jewish stuff (see: this and this). [Forward]

• A scene from the ill-fated James Deen/Lindsay Lohan flick, The Canyons:

The post Daily Jewce: Larry David Watches ‘Degrassi,’ Everyone Loves Brisket Again appeared first on Jewcy.

Kosher Salt is Jewcy’s monthly comic about life as a blonde-haired, green-eyed, tattooed Jew.

Get your Kosher Salt fix:
I Don’t Eat Pork
On Forgiveness

Elizabeth Simins is a compulsive doodler living in New York. She splits her time between making paintings, being a production designer, and playing pretentious indie video games. She tweets here.

The post Kosher Salt: A Very Jewish Christmas appeared first on Jewcy.

While today has been filled with the news that Taylor Swift and summer fling Conor Kennedy might, in fact, never ever ever get back together, that’s not the only thing brewing in the Swift-iverse.

The singer opened up to Bon Appetit about what’s in her fridge (“Diet Coke 4 ever”) and how summer is so much better when you know how to grill. Then she referenced that most hallowed Jewish culinary institution, brisket:

What about home? What’s the favorite dish your mom makes?

TS: Her brisket and pot roast are out of this world. She also makes toffee with brown sugar, chocolate chips, butter, and Saltines. Those are high-calorie days for me.

Taylor Swift—she’s just like us!

What’s in Taylor Swift’s Fridge? [Bon Appetit]

The post Taylor Swift’s Mom Makes a Mean Brisket appeared first on Jewcy.

• An Estonian newspaper ran a mock advertisement for a weight loss pill with images of prisoners in a concentration camp. Fail.

• Google glasses, coming at you from…the DVF fashion show?

• Aly Raisman fell during a gymnastics tour, but she’s okay!

THANK YOU so much for all the kind words & support. I’m so thankful that I am OK, just some bruising on my knees and the rest of my legs!

— Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) September 10, 2012

• The Red Hot Chili Peppers rocked Tel Aviv, with a shout out to the band’s original guitarist, the Haifa-born Hillel Slovak.

• Joan Nathan wants you to make better brisket.

• Lea Michele, aka Glee’s Rachel Berry, does not like being compared to Screech:

The post Daily Jewce: Lea Michele is No Screech, Red Hot Chili Peppers Jam in Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewcy.

• Introducing the Arcade Fire song for the Hunger Games soundtrack, Abraham’s Daughter: “There’s something in the story of Abraham and Isaac that I think resonates with the themes in the film, like sacrificing children.”

• Jake Gyllenhaal: total brisket.

• Knicks forward and Stanford grad Landry Fields really wants to win a championship.

• Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan discuss your closet.

• Tupac the Musical is happening.

The post Daily Jewce: Dr. Seuss’ Birthday, Arcade Fire’s “Abraham’s Daughter,” Jake Gyllenhaal as Brisket, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

Pelliscadas A dear friend and collaborator on the smash hit ballet, Nutcracker: Rated R, recently introduced me to Cafe el Portal a delightful Mexican eatery in Manhattan’s Nolita district. El Portal has become her number one choice for a delicious, laid back meal between performances as a showgirl at celeb magnet cabaret/restaurant The Box. Cafe el Portal serves pelliscadas, which the menu describes as “boat shape corn masa filled with chorizo, fried beans topped with chicken, tinga, salsa greens, cheese and sour cream.” Here’s how you can make these at home:

1. Make the “boat shaped corn masa”: You can do this from scratch fairly easily with masa harina a.k.a. masa flour and water. Here‘s a recipe that uses vegetable shortening or lard. Here‘s a recipe that uses potato. If you’re lazy you can just use Tostitos Scoops. I’m not usually a fan of mass-produced snacks, but these are very convenient little cup-shaped tortilla chips.
2. Load up boats or Scoops with brisket.
3. Top ’em off with some salsa (chipotle-flavored if you’ve got it), sour cream and cheese, and prepare yourself for a culinary trip to sunny Oaxaca, by way of cloudy Khelm.

Suggested Brew: If you must imbibe a Mexican beer, I suggest Negra Modelo. Unlike many of its brethren, it actually tastes like something other than the lime desperately squeezed into it. Suggested Spirit: Lt. Blender makes a surprisingly acceptable frozen margarita that comes in squeeze bags like Capri Sun.

2. JEW ‘CUE
Though we’re catching up to other parts of the country, it’s hard to find proper BBQ in New York City (unless Grandma Flossie happened to cook up this year’s brisket in her backyard smoker, that is). So you may as well play make-believe at home with this recipe for makeshift BBQ.

Pop some of that brisket in the oven with either:

A healthy dose of smoky barbecue sauce orA vinegar-based sauce and some smoked salt.

Suggested Brew: I suggest a smoked beer with this one to highlight the newly-infused smokiness of the meat. If you want to celebrate the holidays by rejoicing in how much better behaved the Germans are these days than a few decades ago, then Schlenkerla produces a full range of delicious rauchbier. If you prefer domestic, Stone Brewing Co. makes a widely available Smoked Porter that I can’t get enough of.

Suggested Tune: Nothing sounds better while chowing down on your Jew ‘Cue than Socalled‘s You Are Never Alone, off of his recent JDub Records release, Ghettoblaster.

3. THE “MONTE SINAI” SANDWICH
This is my Jewish take on a Monte Cristo, a European sandwich made with French toast instead of bread. We all know challah is -the- bread for French toast, so you can knock out two leftovers in this one. To make:

Mix about a cup of milk (or water, if you’re kosher or thrifty) with an egg. Briefly soak a couple slices of stale challah in the mixture. Place some leftover brisket between the slices, with some cheese of your choice. Recommended: Sharp cheddar and grill or fry the whole shebang until the exterior shows golden-brown lacing. Serve it with some honey-mustard, or just good, old-fashioned deli mustard.

Suggested Brew: I wouldn’t drink beer with this. This baby deserves a Concord grape wine spritzer. And a big, foolish grin :)

4. Tzimmes
You might already have a recipe for tzimmes (a.k.a. honey carrots) with brisket. If you don’t have one, Arthur Schwartz offers The Sonkin Family Tsimmes on his site. Just remember: You’ve already cooked the meat, so only add it during the last fiftten to thirty minutes in the oven. Of course, if you made non-meat tzimmes for the holiday dinner, and you’ve got leftovers, then the recipe becomes easy: Add brisket, heat it up (or don’t) and dig in.

5. Cold, on the kitchen counter, with beer
Admit it: You eat cold leftovers in the kitchen when no one’s looking. It’s ok, we all do. And nine times out of ten, this is how I’m going to eat my leftover brisket. Maybe, after going to shul and eating a big holiday meal, I mustered enough energy to catch The Sway Machinery churn out global-Judaeo-Americana tunes at the Angel Orensanz Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Then I stumble home, drunk exhausted, open the fridge, grab the brisket, place it on the counter and dive in.

Suggested Wine: I need a drink that can cut through the now-gelled juices and solidified fat. A relatively dry Alsatian wine might do the trick, but I have neither the patience not the hand-eye coordination to deal with a cork right now.

Suggested Brew: I want beer, either with the clean bitterness of a Pilsner like Urquell, or with the roastiness of a porter like Anchor Porter. I take a bite and a swig, and stop to thank G-d for this moment of stillness, with nothing to think about but meat and beer.

The post The List: Top Five Ways to Eat Leftover Brisket appeared first on Jewcy.