Using the Cookbook
Some notes about the cookbook: the recipes are all kosher, though there may be obviously non-kosher alternatives noted because they appear in the original recipe. Many recipes are non-dairy that would otherwise be dairy; they have been altered for reasons of kashrut and/or lactose intolerance. If a recipe does involve milk, it has been tested with lactose-free milk and works that way.
No recipes have been altered to avoid salt, fat, trans fat, white flour, or sugar. I do have a tendency to omit or reduce black pepper, and to fail to peel tomatoes even when instructed to do so. (Or I comply and then eat the peels raw.) There are a few gluten-free recipes, only one of which had the gluten removed for a celiac friend. (It requires a pizzelle iron.) Someday there will be an index for that sort of thing, but there isn’t one yet.
Most of my recipes use olive oil instead of butter or other oils. When I say olive oil in a recipe, I mean extra virgin olive oil unless specified otherwise. (Some cookie recipes use pure olive oil; you can substitute another neutral vegetable oil for it if you like.) Finding real EVOO is a bigger challenge than you might think, especially now that my favorie EVOO watchdog site, Truth in Olive Oil has disappeared and my go-to American brand, California Olive Ranch, has started importing their oil. Fortunately Costco carries its own store-brand California olive oil, sometimes.
Dried spices are assumed unless fresh is specified; to substitute dry for fresh, use ⅓ of the fresh amount; triple the dry amount to use fresh. I have seen advice for substituting ground spice for dried leafy spice: use half the dried amount—but usually I have both around so I don’t know how well that goes. For cardamom, the equivalence I use is ⅙ tsp ground cardamom per cardamom pod.
Kosher salt is assumed unless specified otherwise. All yeast recipes use active dry yeast.
A few measurements are omitted, usually because of source recipes that just said to salt or pepper to taste. Directions for sautéing onions and garlic are often elided, since it happens in almost every recipe. The management apologizes for any inconvenience.
Measurements are in American (spoons and cups, all level) and temperatures are in Fahrenheit. Tablespoons are generally abbreviated T, teaspoons tsp, and cups c. Flour is fluffed (I shake up the jar), scooped, and leveled, but not sifted. Some baking recipes include weights of flour and butter, but not many.
If you read the cookbook online at my website (rather than in source control at GitHub, which includes a link to the website), there will be a Wikipedia-style arrow icon next to recipe links that lead to other sites, so you can tell which ones are more of my recipes. My website is very simple HTML with minimal JavaScript and no ads, so it will work better than most recipe sites on an old, slow iPad like the one I use in my kitchen. So take that arrow as a warning of what might happen if you navigate away.
