Happy New Year! We hope you had fun last night...we definitely did! But before we partied the night away, we cooked up a storm for a New Year's Day brunch. There were two varieties of frittatta: Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Cheese and Sweet Corn and Muenster Cheese, Banana Bread Pudding, French Toast Bread Pudding with Maple-Granola Streusel, Vegetarian Corn and Bean Chili, Salmon Salad, Cheesecake Bars, Strawberry Crumb Bars, Cookies, Brownie Bites, Mini Quiches, Lox, Bagels, cereal and fruit. Plus, the bar was open. The party was a great way to bring in the new year, and everyone started off the year being well fed by some J2 deliciousness!

 Think we only cater Shabbat and Jewish holidays? Think again! J2Food is a full-service catering company and we cook for all kinds of events. A member of the reunion committee for Stuyvesant High School Class of 1972 contacted us about catering a brunch buffet for them at Stuyvesant's old location. It sounded pretty cool, so we said yes and prepared a big spread. Oven-Baked Frittatta with Roasted Red Peppers, Onions and Feta Cheese, Home Fries, Mini Quiches, Bagels and a variety of breads, Lox Platters, Tuna Salad, Harvest Salad, Brownies and more. We served the food in the cafeteria and for these Baby Boomers, it was like a blast from the past--but with better food!

It's that time of year again...post-Labor Day Pop Up Foodie Shabbat at BZBI! We were back at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Philly to do another Marom Shabbat and Pop Up Foodie Shabbat dinner. Last year was a huge success, so we're doing it again with a new menu. this year's theme? BBQ. Can you say "yum"?

We thought a good, Southern style barbecue menu would be great for a celebration of the end of summer, plus feed lots of hungry foodies! The most important part of the menu was the sauce. How can you cook bbq without a good bbq sauce? We cooked up a big batch of a sweet and spicy peach bbq sauce. What could be bad about that? That same bbq sauce was used go baste and glaze the main dish of the night: BBQ Chicken. Now, no bbq dinner is complete without some side dishes. We also cooked up some BBQ Baked Beans with smoked turkey hocks to flavor them, tangy and creamy Southern Style Potato Salad, cool and sweet Cucumber Salad, freshly-baked Cornbread, and warm Peach Cobbler for dessert. The food was so good we had to take some home for leftovers! But first, we feast. Nomnom!

As we continued to celebrate J2Food's 1st anniversary, we hosted another event in NYC. Shabbat Under The Stars ended up being a rousing success, especially thanks to the support of OneTable and Moishe House Without Walls, and we had over 100 people come for delicious Mediterranean food and an awesome rooftop Shabbat experience. We had young Jews from a variety of backgrounds, and it was wonderful to see so many new faces and bring the Pop Up Foodie Shabbat experience to the masses. Moroccan Spiced Grilled Chicken, Grilled Corn and Black Bean Salad, Roasted Vegetable and Pesto Pasta, Mediterranean Citrus Rice as well as a Spicy Chickpea and Eggplant Stew were on the menu, followed by decadent, homemade Peach Cobbler. Yum! We can't wait for the next event. Stay tuned!

In honor of J2Food's one year anniversary, we returned to Philadelphia--the City of Brotherly Love--where it all began last year, and partnered up with Hillel's Jewish Graduate Student Network for a Summer In The City Shabbat. We decided to go with an old school theme, and what's more old school than Italian? We got 40 people to come out for a delicious and homemade Italian buffet made up of some our signature dishes. Freshly baked garlic bread challah, tangy Caesar salad, pasta with slow cooked veal and beef bolognese, roasted chicken thighs with sun-dried tomato aioli, spinach and caramelized onions as well as a moist vanilla cake with macerated strawberries with balsamic. Mangia!

We had a blast last night at Tribe12 Fellowships's 2017 Launch Night at NMAJH! We're proud to have started our J2Food journey through Tribe12 and to be part of the Fellows' alumni. 

We would not have been able to host these two very different dinners without the partnership of OneTable and Moishe House Without Walls :)

Exciting news: J2Food  was live on Empire Radio on February 24, 2017. Listen to us talk all about J2Food, our foodie mission, our Pop Up Foodie Shabbat program, and the future for J2Food's culinary journey.

Chanukah is a wonderful holiday. Is it because of the eight days of presents? Nope. The shiny gelt (chocolate coins) that you can win from playing dreidel? That's good, but still not the best. It's because everyone loves latkes. I mean, they're basically fried potatoes, and on Chanukah we're commanded to eat fried things. How awesome is that? But there's always the great latke debate: sour cream or applesauce? I've seen families and friendships torn apart over the answer...very sad. In our house, we are very diplomatic and serve both with out latkes (though personally I'm a bit more #TeamSourCream. #SorryNotSorry.

For this year's Chanukah, we teamed up with the Moishe House in Murray Hill, NYC. They provided the space, we made the food, and the people came and had an awesome time. On the menu was Baked Ziti wth Roasted Tomato Sauce and Ricotta, Homemade Pesto Pasta with Fresh Mozzarella, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Parmesan, and, of course, latkes. To make it extra special, we came up with a new latke recipe we like to call Spanilatkas, made with spinach and feta cheese. They were super delicious and perfect with some sour cream tzatziki sauce. Thanks for having us Moishe House, and Happy Chanukah everyone!

Not to brag, but we pretty much rocked the house at this year's Hazon Philadelphia Jewish Food Festival. J2Food had its own table in the Community Marketplace and, of course, we had to bring something delicious for everyone to taste. We made over 300 Stuffed Mushrooms that people seemed to love--they were vegetarian and stuffed with a mixture of cheeses, textured vegetable protein, bread crumbs, and spices. By the end of the day all the mushrooms were gone, which I guess means we did our jobs. It was great connecting with other Jewish foodies from Philly as well as the surrounding areas, and it was great to feed the masses :)

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