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!

YUM - Best Kugel Ever!

So, I'd say, write that recipe in pen! Yes, it is high calorie, high cholesterol, high carbs - but SO delicious. We ate 2/3 of the pan.
You could taste the orange juice, and the kugel was not so sweet that you got sick of it. The raisins were plump and the corn flake/cinnamon crunchy stuff was like memories of great kid foods. So this is the official sweet new year family kugel recipe - in the style of Craig's grandmother Goldie.

The rest of last night's menu included -
Brisket Barbecue - ala Rhoda - the Heinz Chili Sauce recipe
Roasted potato wedges. I bought some fingerling potatoes at the Wednesday farmers' market from Nichols Farm and Orchard - they had purple streaks in them and they roasted up nicely.
Broccoli with soy and garlic - even Mack liked that.
Goldie's Kugel
A round challah and honey
Slices of Gala apples from Nichols Orchard
Green Salad with fresh mozzarella, pear tomatoes, spicy olives, and cucumber

Our centerpiece had pears, apples, and Niagara grapes that I got at the farmers' market. They looked plastic, but they were delicious!

Ellen, Mark and the kids came bringing a Labat Haut-Medoc and a lovely Pinot.
Liz also celebrated with us. She and I made tons of pesto on Saturday, but that is another post entirely as is the apple pie that I'm planning on making with those Wolf River apples that I bought yesterday.

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.

The first seder - Taj the dog batting clean up

I remember the first Passover, long before any of us were married or thinking of kids. We had seder at the boys apartment on Simpson street - so that would have been Craig and Sam and John. The attendant girlfriends would have been Melinda, why do I think Daryl was there, and me. So two blonde non-jews, two Jewish boys. Craig called his grandmother for her noodle kugel recipe which she reminded him that he couldn't make for Passover because the noodles were flour. He lied and told her that he just wanted to know how to make it. It was delicious - like a bread pudding with noodles insead of day old bread. Yum.

I always think of this as the training seder. From here it was seders at Claire and Bob's (Schiksas come to seder aka the all blonde seder; the seder where Marjorie made it clear where her sexual preferences were), seder with Craig and Melinda after they were married with Craig's mother and father ("Did you count the silver? You should always count the silver.") seders at our home, the sorta seders where Sam was the lone Jew - to last year's Seder in Orlando - the Mickey Mouse Seder.

The menu that first night was turkey, asparagus, some kind of potato I am sure. Craig povided the hagaddah, and we avoided gefilte fish though we had deviled eggs and chicken soup with matzoh balls.

I'm going to promise to put the noodle kugel recipe here. I need to test out my bread pudding theory. The recipe included orange juice and the whole deal was topped off with crushed corn flakes tossed with butter and cinnamon and suger. What's not to like?

Craig's Bubbe's Sweet Kugle Recipe - recreated:

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)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Oil a 13" X 9" baking dish.

Cook egg noodles according to package directions.

While they are cooking, pour hot water over the raisins to plump them up.

Mix the oil, brown sugar, orange juice, cinnamon, vanilla, eggs and egg whites together. Mix well.

Drain the noodles, put them in the baking dish. Drain the raisins. Add them, too. Stir in the sugar/egg/oj mixture.

Topping:
2 C crushed corn flakes
1/4 C sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3 TBS melted butter

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Srpinkle on top of noodle mixture.

Bake for 40 minutes or until nicely browned and cooked in the center.

Now - this is a recreation and I have not tried it yet, but it seems like all the right ingredients in the right order, with the one cholesteral lowering nod of substituting 3 egg whites for 2 whole eggs although in a big pan like this, a serving of kugel will have about 1/4 of an egg in it anyway if you made it with 4 whole eggs. I'll try it out and update the post if it doesn't seem right.