New Year - Rosh Hashanah 2008

This is a confusing and emotional new year, with Sam's mom not doing well physically and considering an inpatient physical therapy program that will help (possibly) get her back on her and feet and Sam's dad in Cardiac care at Wyle Cornell hospital in NYC with a 6cm aortic aneurysm.

Liz went to SD to see how Mom is doing post cataract surgery (I guess, quite well with renewed vision like she hasn't had since elementary school) so she is on the road today.

Sam and I shopped this morning, and it was a zoo both at the Marketplace on Oakton and the Jewel on Howard (the one with the big Kosher section that puts the Jew in Jewel). I scored a 4+ lb brisket and the making of a serious kugel. I also pulled out every stale bit of cereal we had in the house and tossed it all together to make a salty, peppery cereal mix.

So, I'm using last year's kugel recipe. We shall see if lightning strikes twice!

Rosh Hashanah

So tomorrow night we celebrate the new year. I've got a delicious brisket ready for the last 30 minutes of baking. And there is a kugel in the oven. Big shift from the kugel recipe before. Here are the highlights. The recipe as it stood was like this:

12 ounces wide egg noodles
1/2 to 1 cup raisins (depending on how much you like them!)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
2 whole eggs
3 egg whites
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup oil (plus a bit for the pan)

Here is what is in the 9x13 pyrex baker.
12 oz package Manishevitz egg noodles - cooked
3/4 C raisins - that's all I had
1C brown sugar
1C OJ
8 whole eggs - yes - I can hear your arteries clogging
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla

The topping of 3 TBSP melted butter, 1/2 C white sugar, and 2 cups crushed corn flakes says the same. Will update tomorrow on what the flavor and texture are like. It's gotta be like bread pudding, I hope. Now if I can remember the prayers.

First Food

I think that the first dish that I learned to appreciate and make was the classic beef brisket. I figured out that there are two basic brisket recipies; the tomato - chili sauce - Jewish BBQ style and the Lipton onion soup mix, pot roast style. One of my daughters LOVES the chili sauce version. She wanted a brisket sandwich for lunch today. If you run out of conversation at a wedding, you can always ask the lady to your left about her brisket recipe. This is the recipe that I learned from my mother-in-law, who got it from her friend Rhoda.

2-4 lbs of brisket
1 large onion
1 12 oz bottle of chili sauce
a dutch oven or ovenproof roasting pan.

Chop the onion (as small as you would like)
Sautee the onion in a small amount of oil in a sauté pan or in the dutch oven until they begin to become translucent.
Trim as much of the fat off the brisket as you would like. Brown the beef. I brown fatty side up first, then turn it over so that it cooks with the fat side down.
Pour on the chili sauce and refill the bottle with water and add that to the pot.

Bake at 325º for two hours.
Take it out, slice off the rest of the fat, and slice the brisket against the grain of the meat.
Bake for two more hours, or store to finish later.

Jewish cooking equals cook for two hours. So my husband tells me was his experince of his bubbe's cooking.