Comfort Foods & Cash: Carrot Tzimmes for #FBS4Sandy

Food Bloggers Support Sandy Recovery #FBS4Sandy 

I am proud as ever to be a New Yorker and Brooklynite. I live just a few blocks away from flooded Red Hook and Gowanus and just a few miles away from some of the worst of Hurricane Sandy's devastation in the Rockaways and Coney Island. I can report from the field that the outpouring of support--goods, money and hands-on help--has been truly inspiring and almost overwhelming in this time of great need for our city.

One of the most pressing needs has been to help deliver hot foods to serve to flood-stricken survivors, to the elderly that are without electricity, to evacuees that are in shelters around the city and to the many volunteers who have been on hand to dig out, bail out or help out in any way they can. Something as fleeting and precious as a warm cooked meal has served to both feed hungry bellies and to show that people, strangers no less, really care.

I love #FBS4Sandy idea from Barbara at Creative Culinary's and Jenn from Jenn Cuisine  to build food blogger support to raise money and awareness for Sandy Recovery efforts. I believe in the power of our online community. We can help with thoughts, prayers and dollars so that the "real-life" communities of New York, New Jersey and all the affected areas on the East Coast have the tools and support they need to rebuild.

Give to the Red Cross, or considering giving to one of the local on-the-ground sources I list below. Our local Brooklyn communities have doing tremendous work and have been in many ways more nimble and earlier on the scene that FEMA and the Red Cross.

Today I present my family recipe for Carrot Tzimmes; it is a wonderful, healthy comfort food that is a staple at our Thanksgiving and Passover dinners. I wanted to use a vegetable dish because unfortunately vegetables have been sorely lacking from the hot-food donations. If you are making or giving food locally, consider a vegetable dish like this or a healthy soup.

Carrot Tzimmes
Tzimmes means "with a lot of fuss" but this recipe is actually very easy. You can also use sweet potatoes or a mixture.

1-2 lbs of sliced carrots (depending on how many people you are serving)
2 Tbs of each Butter and Olive Oil
1/2-1 cup Orange Juice, enough to fill pan by 1/3.
2 Tbsps. Honey or brown sugar
1/2 cup Raisins or currants, more or less to taste
1 tsp Cinnamon, more or less to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Parboil carrots. Melt butter in microwave, add equal amount of olive oil. Then mix in orange juice, honey, and cinnamon. Drain carrots and arrange in 9x12 baking dish. Pour in orange juice mixture, adding more liquid if needed. Toss in raisins and cover with foil. Whenever the oven is free, place pan in oven for about 30 minutes or until hot. If you like the carrots to be more golden brown, remove foil and heat for another 15 minutes or more, until desired color.

(Oven Temperature can vary, though 350 degrees is ideal. If oven is hotter than 350, decrease time and check more regularly so that it does not burn.)

Check out Creative Culinary's List of #FBS4Sandy contributors here. Remember these virtual posts of comfort foods for #FBS4Sandy will only help actually feed people if you give generously. Below I've listed links of local organizations as well as national ones. More details on the local resources are in my post from earlier this week.


Local Resources:
Occupy Sandy Wedding Registry on Amazon

Red Hook Initiative 

Brooklyn Recovery Fund 

Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City

National Resources:

American Red Cross 

Salvation Army 

United Way Sandy Recovery Fund 

Feeding America

Comfort Food en cocotte

Well, the whole house--2 adults, 3 kids, and probably the dog too--were hit hard with the flu or an exceptionally bad cold this weekend. The meals were geared to sustain only-- many bowls of soup, toast, and cup after cup of hot tea. On Saturday night, though, my husband managed to make the perfect chicken dish, chicken en cocotte. It is a relatively quick and easy whole chicken dish that he's made before, so he was able to stumble through the steps. The usual complaint is that it is rather bland. Not a problem in the sick house. He threw in a few cloves of garlic and some herbs that livened it up a bit and added some homeopathic health points. The chicken was amazingly delicious and just the right thing for all of us poor, sick people. It was the definition of comfort food, the convalescent chicken, and we lapped it up. Leftovers went into a homemade chicken soup the next day. So it truly helped sustain us through the weekend.

Chicken en cocotte, a classic French recipe, is a casserole-braised chicken. You brown the whole bird, trussed, in a little butter or oil and then transfer it to the oven (400 degrees), where it steams in its own juices. The result is a very tender chicken, done in about 35 minutes with very little attention. You can add more flavor and interest to the rich sauce that develops in the pan. You can also an add lemon juice, sauteed mushrooms, or lightly cooked asparagus to the final dish. For best results, use a heavy, round or oval, deep casserole made of enameled cast-iron. It must be able to take stove-top cooking for the browning step and it must also be oven-proof.

Home Sick

My daughter is home sick today; she had a high fever and feverish dreams through the night. She was sent home from school yesterday and had passed out on the couch under many blankets. Still, she knew we had made one of her favorite dinners (chicken breasts with mushrooms, basmati rice, French baguette) and she couldn't bear to miss it. She bravely propped herself up at the table and ate a few bites, which was amazing given her state. I couldn't help but think of it as a prime example of comfort food.

The maxim should be "feed a fever, feed a cold" because if the sick one can eat and keep down the food, they probably should. Food gives comfort and energy; it gives warmth if it's a hot bowl of soup and it can quench a thirst when you are parched.

So, I may go digging in the freezer today to see if I have enough leftover chicken bones to make a decent soup for my dear daughter. Chicken soup has been considered curative since ancient times and modern scientific research has recently backed the folklore claim. Whether its placebo or some actual benefit of the ingredients, I find that just the aroma of boiling chicken stock can have salutary effect. It certainly can't hurt.

In my cohort, there's a lot of sickness going around--stomach flus, fevers, run-of-the-mill colds. It's just the season, especially if you have kids, who are unwitting vectors. Take care of yourself, and take care of your loved ones if they are felled. Think comfort food and make some chicken soup to get you through it.