Checkout the new Whiteboard up top (at the top of the website). I plan to use that to post our daily soups, specials, and updates.

Also, Chanukah is just around the corner! Will post an order form for that too. We'll be doing  Kalduni soon! (AKA Meat-stuffed Latke's) Something you may not find anywhere else outside of Belarus!

Rosh Hashanah 2012! Taking Orders

The first night of Rosh Hashanah is Sunday September 16th! We will be open that Sunday for order pickups and we will be closed on Monday the 17th. We are now taking orders and the deadline to order is September 10th. Here is a link to the order form: 

Download the Rosh Hashanah Order Form

 This is our second Rosh Hashanah so we are very excited about taking way more orders than we were able to last year. That was our first major holiday so it was a major learning experience. Since then we have expanded our production capacity with more work space and we have another larger walk-in refrigerator. This should allow us to make pick-up much smoother as we will be able to put orders together ahead of time. The fact that it's on a Sunday also helps since we will only be open for order pick-ups.

We also simplified our menu. We are making Kreplach again so this is a rare opportunity to try ours. Gefilte Fish is huge as well since we make it the traditional way from whole fish (see pic below). We added apples to our noodle kugel, though if people request kugels without apples or raisins we can do that too. Of course making honey loaf cakes and teiglach too!

We are also trying to get ALL of our vegetables and apples from local farms. That includes the cabbage for the stuffed cabbage, the collards for the stuffed collard greens, squash, apples, cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes... maybe onions too.

Before it becomes gefilte fish.

Teiglach!

Putting in our new worktop refrigerator after hours. Doubling our worktop capacity in the kitchen!

Finished Gefilte with our very potent homemade horseradish.

Passover Menu and Kosher Meat

Our Passover Menu is Available Here
 

It is very exciting going through holidays for the first time as a business. Each one is a huge learning experience, especially figuring out what the most popular items in the community are. We are taking good notes so everything will go smoother next time around (especially so as not to run out of food). So... passover starts in just one month from today!

We tried to keep the menu simple but filled with traditional items (From Scratch Gefilte Fish!)-- Kalduni are a very traditional dish in our family too, can you imagine giant meat-stuffed-latkes?

Our Kosher Style and Kosher Meat

As of today all the meat products are made with Glatt Kosher Certified Meat (with a couple exceptions such as the meat knishes). There is now an "Our Kosher Style" link in the menu above where I have briefly outlined some of our kashrut related items. This switch has been in the works for about a month and as word has spread we have seen more excitement about it. Today we cooked our first kosher roast beef (using shoulder instead of top-round)... just sliced into it and it's great. We will kasher our slicer as well as our roasting pans soon (since we previously used them with non-kosher meat). Let us know if you have questions!

Hamantaschen and Israeli Pita!

Hamantaschen time!

With homemade Poppy-Seed filling as well as an Apricot-Date one. These are dairy-free and not too sweet. I love the honey flavored dough, nice and on the soft-and-flaky side rather than like hard cookies.

Price is 4 for $5.95, or $1.75 each

* If you want to make sure to get some call ahead, they are going quick. *

I am making Gluten-Free Hamantaschen Today too!

Israeli Pita!

We have been trying to find Israeli Pita since we opened. Problem was that they companies wouldn't deliver to us because we are too small. But since we switched to using kosher meat our supplier can get us these pita too! It is so good! Now it really feels like Israeli Falafel and Shawarma.

Right now we only have white but with the next order we will get wholewheat as well. We will still have the Syrian bread for a while and may well keep it, even if only to make our addictive pita chips.

9 Months Today!

Even though it feels like we have already been in business forever, we are still just a baby! It really is just the beginning. We have gone through many changes since we opened and many more are to come. A couple things happening right now:

1) Our weekly meals menu will be posted online this weekend. It will be a way for individuals and families to order meals ahead of time. We've had this idea since before opening and are finally trying it. First time orders will get 10% off too, we really appreciate peoples' feedback!

2) We are transitioning to using all glatt kosher meats and poultry. Right now all the chicken except for shawarma is kosher, as is our roast turkey, and sweet and sour brisket. By end of next week all the meat will be glatt kosher except for our top round roast beef...
... more information about this to come.

Much has been going on since Thanksgiving too!

Our first musical event:

Klezmer and Knishes and Other Fine Dishes

 

Chanukah, our busiest week thus far. We were making latkes nonstop, made over 2000 of them. Customers love our homemade apple sauce that we include with our latkes too.

Chanukah

New Years

Canapes

 Specially ordered mini cupcakes (gluten-free). (Don't have a picture of them frosted and decorated)

Also making gluten-free chocolate-chip cookies and buckwheat cheese blintzes!

Thanksgiving Order Form Available

We are making some special items for Thanksgiving such as Sweet Potato Casserole and Stuffed Turkey Breast. Our Order form is available here: http://blog.innaskitchen.com/p/catering.html
We have a complete dinner option as well! Below is a picture of the stuffed turkey breast.

Happy Rosh Hashanah and We're On Television!

Rosh Hashanah is over and we look forward to this year being very sweet indeed! We had a bunch of orders, from a pound of liver to 50 gefilte fish, and a bunch of new customers too. We didn't expect quite such a jump in traffic so we were overwhelmed the entire day trying to cook more of everything to meet demand. We can't wait for the next holiday to be better prepared!

  

Channel 7 News came to film how to make traditional honey cake for Rosh Hashanah.

The video is online here: http://www1.whdh.com/features/articles/dish/BO146576/honey-cake/

They cut a lot but it's still pretty nice and I think Inna is a total natural for cooking shows!

Now we need to make a bunch more honey cakes since we're sold out from Rosh Hashanah! Will have plenty for the week I hope.

Other things we learned from this holiday experience:

•   We can make amazing egg-free and gluten-free gefilte fish! We did a dozen egg-free upon request and they came out way better than expected.
  
•   Gluten-free gefilte fish are a bit too soft, maybe we will make them all egg-free too because those came out denser.
•   Matzo-balls won't be oversized. Our deli standard size is perfect and the giant ones, while fluffy, aren't as manageable.
  
•    Must prepare a lot further in advance! We should have had a lot more of everything; we tried to have a lot extra this time too but it just wasn't enough! Especially baked goods, those we should start preparing months in advance because we ran out of teiglach-- a customer bought one then came back to buy a dozen more. Gluten-free items too! I should have cakes already made and there was a demand for way more cupcakes, cookies, and challah than I had (sold everything I had in the freezer too).
•   We need a bigger walk-in refrigerator... that way we can prepackage orders instead of packaging them as people came in. Sorry to those who had to wait for their orders!
•   And along those lines... we need to ask people what time they will come-in-- we only started doing that with later orders. Thank you to those who called ahead, that let us prepare for your arrival!

This list could go on... but overall I think our first holiday was a success.

Have to include a picture of the fish again (and will need to share a video of some of the process too, some FUN was had!)