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This will bring tears to your eyes: Making the horseradish

For favorite Passover recipes from my kitchen, please see Essential Passover from Scratch: Recipes and Stories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Always store and serve in a covered container. I served ours in this covered sugar bowl.

The badge of honor for a Jewish cook goes to the person who makes the fresh horseradish for the holidays. I remember watching my grandmother making it, standing at the blender with tears pouring down her cheeks. Naturally, in any given year, it is stronger than it has ever been before. If it doesn’t hurt to make it, and hurt to eat it, it isn’t a good batch.

Horseradish (makes about 2 pints)

  • 1 horseradish root, about 8-10″ long
  • 3/4 can beets (nothing added), plus the liquid
  • 1/4-1/3 c. apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp. salt, or to taste
  • 2 Tbs. sugar

Peel the horseradish root and cut into pieces small enough for your blender or food processor to easily handle. Put the beets, beet juice, cut up horseradish root, 1/4 c. cider vinegar, salt and sugar into the blender. Process until very smooth. Taste and adjust vinegar, salt and sugar. Always store in a sealed or covered container, even when on the table, or it will loose its strength. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to a year (until you make some at the next holiday).

After you’ve used what you need for the gefilte fish, keep it in the refrigerator to use throughout the year.

To make cocktail sauce: mix 1 part ketchup with 1/4 part horseradish.

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Matzo Meal Pancakes

For favorite Passover recipes from my kitchen, please see Essential Passover from Scratch: Recipes and Stories from My Mother’s Kitchen

The most delicate and elegant pancakes you’ve ever tasted, these are like little balls of buttery fluff that melt in your mouth. With a preparation time of 30 minutes, we were lucky if my mother fixed these twice during the eight days of Passover, and then we would wait another full year before tasting them again. They are very small, so plan on 8-12 pancakes per person, and more if you have competitive teenage eaters in the house.

Matzo Meal Pancakes (serves 2-3)

Mix together:

  • 1/2 c. matzo meal
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Beat together and add to matzo meal mixture:

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 c. milk

Let sit for 30 minutes. Beat the 2 egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture. Spoon batter onto a hot, buttered griddle or pan. Serve plain or with eingie.

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Passover Rocks and Cherry-Almond Rocks

For favorite Passover recipes from my kitchen, please see Essential Passover from Scratch: Recipes and Stories from My Mother’s Kitchen

From Nanas recipe card box.

These were my dad’s favorite Passover cookie. I’m going to bake up a batch tonight.

Passover Rocks

Mix together:

  • 2 c. matzo cake meal
  • 2 c. matzo farfel
  • 1-1/2 c. sugar
  • 1 c. raisins
  • 1/2 c. chopped pecans

Add:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix in:

  • 2/3 c. butter, melted (and more as needed)

The “dough” is very crumbly. Drizzle in enough additional melted butter so that you are able to press together a small cookie and it will hold its shape.

Drop by teaspoon, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until nicely browned.

For Cherry-Almond: substitute dried cherries for the raisins, omit cinnamon, and add 1/2 tsp. almond extract with the butter.

Cherry almond rocks (back row), and traditional Passover rocks (front row).

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Passover Mandel Bread

My grandmother Mollye’s recipe card box is a family heirloom.

As my grandmother Mollye got older she would ask me to come over to help her bake. Her Passover favorites were mandel bread, rocks, teiglach and ingberlach. Instead of flour, the Passover mandel bread recipe calls for potato starch and matzo cake meal, which give the cookie an extremely fine texture.

 

Ingredients

  • ½ lb. butter
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 Tbs. grated orange rind
  • 1½ c. matzo cake meal
  • ½ c. potato starch
  • 1 c. chopped pecans

Directions

  1. Cream butter and sugar.
  2. Add the eggs and orange rind.
  3. Mix together the cake meal and potato starch and add to the wet ingredients.
  4. Stir in the nuts.
  5. Refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.
  6. Hand roll into eight 1″ rolls, placed about 4 inches apart onto greased cookie sheets, then flatten using the palm of your hand.
  7. Bake at 350° for 20–25 mins, or until very slightly browned.
  8. Remove from oven and cut into ¾” diagonal slices; turn each cookie 90° onto a cut edge and return to oven to bake for another 8–10 mins.
  9. Remove from oven and flip each cookie over onto the other cut edge; return to oven for another 8–10 mins.
  10. If you like, sprinkle the warm cookies with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

For favorite Passover recipes from my kitchen, please see Essential Passover from Scratch: Recipes and Stories from My Mother’s Kitchen

passover promo shot

 

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Hero Mother and Mothers of Invention: Mom’s Lasagna and Turkey Cobbler

My mother made good on her promise.

My mother was a hero.

In January of 1978 my brother Richard and his wife were flying home from their vacation, and would be stopping by my parent’s home to pick up Sam, their dog. Sam had been my dog, but since moving into their new home which was all decorated in white—white wool carpet, white sofa, white upholstered dining room chairs—and with me off at college, the dog had gone to live with Richard. I was six when my mother promised me that I could have a dog, but only if I could wait until I turned twelve. I didn’t mention the dog thing again until my twelfth birthday and then, surprisingly, my mother made good on her promise. I think she felt guilty that I would be home alone, with the last of my three older siblings heading off to college. The fact that my mother took me shopping for a puppy is the first example of my mom as a hero, since she was not a dog person (note the white carpet and white furniture). In addition to a lot of white, the new home had slick parquet floors, in a great open area which at its longest spanned 55 feet, and which sat atop 6″ of hollow-core concrete slabs. My dad was in the precast concrete business and there was a lot of structural concrete in the new home. After over 25 years (they had paid off the mortgage) in a 1920’s era home with the creakiest of floors, my father was proud of the solid floors in this new dream house. One could sneak from room to room in the new house without the slightest sound. There was no give to these floors.

Mom had prepared Richard’s favorite lasagna for dinner, and it sat on the counter waiting to go in the oven. A proficient multi-tasker long before they had a word for it, she phoned the airline to see when the plane would be arriving at O’Hare, and while on hold she took a minute to lay down the phone and run into the other room for a moment. Mom always had hot feet and instead of shoes or slippers she wore those nude-colored knee-high stockings. She had a drawer stuffed with hundreds of them in all shades of nudes and beige and taupe. As she ran into the other room, while the airline played hold-music, she slipped on the smooth parquet, and her hip landed right on that 6″ of immovable, hollow-core concrete, and broke.

Realizing that it was painful to walk, Mom crawled into the kitchen and somehow put the lasagna in the oven. She managed to get to the couch to wait until my brother arrived and called an ambulance. On her way out the door, on a stretcher, she told us when the lasagna would be ready and that we should be sure to check on it and sit down to eat it while it was hot. My hero.

An old recipe, with my regards to Dan Quayle.

–  –  –  –  –

I didn’t break anything, I only had a cold, and so I can’t claim to be anywhere in a league with Ruth Gordon. Yet even though I was feeling ill I felt compelled by that mysterious, maternal force to produce a meal.  The day before I had taken out the bag of frozen turkey scraps which had been in the freezer since Thanksgiving, and it was time to use them or toss them. As I lay in bed all day, feeling sorry for my pitiful virus, I contemplated the thawed turkey scraps and how I had planned on a lovely pot pie for dinner. Feeling the need to make dinner, and also feeling very lazy, I made a hurry-up version of a pot pie, making more of a cobbler than a pie. I made pot-pie filling as usual, poured it into a casserole dish, then mixed up a batch of biscuits in the food processor and glopped on bits of the biscuit dough on top of the filling,

Last night we had Turkey Cobbler for the third night in a row. Max asked me how much more of it there was and when I replied, sheepishly, that he must be sick of it, he said, “No, I could eat this every night for weeks! I love this!” I think I just invented Max’s favorite dinner, which I can make when he comes to visit me some day, when I’m watching his dog. I will endeavor to be a heroic mother. I will not, however, ever have a home that is decorated in all white.

With a father who loves biscuits and gravy, and a teenage boy's love of carbs, it makes sense that this is Max's new favorite meal.

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Counting down to Pesach: Matzo Granola and Matzo Pizza

This is an exceptionally delicious granola, and tastes great dry as a snack, or with milk as a breakfast cereal.

Ingredients

  • 4 c. matzo farfel
  • ½ c. nuts
  • ¾ c. shredded coconut
  • ½ c. honey
  • ½ c. oil
  • ½ c. raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, or a combination

Directions

  1. Mix together the matzo farfel, nuts and coconut.
  2. Mix together the honey and oil.
  3. Mix together the two mixtures.
  4. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet, bake at 350° for 15–20 minutes, stirring frequently.
  5. When cool add raisins or other dried fruit. Seal in airtight container.

Rae and I were at it again at temple this morning, showing the high-schoolers some Passover recipes. First we stirred up a batch of granola, and then, while the granola was in the oven, we made some matzo pizzas.

Matzo makes a pretty terrific pizza crust!

Its easy to customize these single-serving pizzas.

For favorite Passover recipes from my kitchen, please see Essential Passover from Scratch: Recipes and Stories from My Mother’s Kitchen

passover promo shot

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Maralee’s Spaghetti Lasagna

My sister Maralee’s dinner tonight sounded so wonderful that I asked her to take a picture of it and write about it for my blog. This is from Maralee.

Last week I was having the Crystal Lake Interfaith Clergy Group over to the synagogue for lunch, and I bought all the ingredients for lasagna.  Then it turned out we had some lasagna in the synagogue freezer, made by the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade boys in their social action group, and we had to use up before Passover.  So there I was—stuck with the ingredients, which I brought home.  Tonight I decided to use those ingredients to make lasagna at home, but there was one problem—we try to only use whole wheat pasta, and the leftover noodles were white!  This is how I came to invent a new dish:  Spaghetti Lasagna.  It’s a quick dish to make, and here is how I did it:

Spaghetti Lasagna

  • Barilla Italian Bake Pasta Sauce, 2 jars (or use your favorite)
  • Ricotta cheese, 32 oz.
  • Shredded Mozzarella, 16 oz.
  • Shredded parmesan, ½ cup
  • frozen chopped spinach, ten oz. package, thawed
  • sliced baby portabella mushrooms, half a pound, uncooked
  • spaghetti noodles, 1 lb., uncooked

In a 9×13 Pyrex dish pour a little of the sauce from each of the jars to cover the bottom.

Lay half the spaghetti length-wise to cover the entire dish—you might want to break some in half to fill in the ends.

Pour the rest of one jar of sauce over the spaghetti and place sliced mushrooms over the sauce to cover (some slices were too thick and I sliced them thinner).

Spread half the ricotta over the mushroomed sauce (I spread it by hand).

Sprinkle half the mozzarella over the ricotta, and ¼ cup of the Parmesan,

Lay the other half of the spaghetti over the cheese,

Mix the spinach with the rest of the sauce and spread over the spaghetti,

Finish off with the rest of the ricotta followed by the rest of the mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake for 50 minutes.

Here we are, happy together in my kitchen, last year at Pesach.

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Real food for real teens: Cupcakes

For more tasty bakes, see my collection of family specialties:

You Can’t Have Dry Coffee: Papa’s Excuse to Have a Nosh And Nana’s Perfect Pastries

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084WLZ1R7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

These have purple frosing with a light dusting of purple sparkly sugar. What’s not to love?

Cupcakes really aren’t in my cooking vocabulary, unless you consider Black Bottom Cupcakes, which are in a class by themselves. My 16 year-old son can’t ever remember me making regular cupcakes. Unlike me, my mother used to make cupcakes every other year to send to school for my birthday. (On the off year Karen Baskin’s mother would send in the cupcakes since Karen and I shared a birthday.) However, Molly was assigned purple cupcakes for a club meeting tomorrow, where a rainbow of sugary cakes will be displayed and sold to eager highschoolers. Molly suggested that using a baking mix would be okay because she heard that mixes made exactly 12 which is what she would need. “Mix?” Not in my kitchen, and not a surprise that making them from scratch was a) quick, and b) really, really, surprisingly GOOD! I liked them better before we glopped on the purple butter-cream frosting. They were light in texture and chocolaty in flavor, with a delicate crust.

Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 12 medium or 10 larger)

  • 3 Tbs. butter, softened
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1-1/2 c. flour
  • 3 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/3 c. cocoa
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and sugar, then add egg and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, then add the milk and vanilla, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix until evenly blended. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin trays, and bake at  375 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean. Frost, if you must, with a butter-cream frosting.

No recipe Butter Cream Frosting

  • 1/2 a stick or so of really soft butter
  • confectioner’s sugar
  • vanilla
  • milk

Cream together the butter with some sugar until it starts to get thick and creamy. Then thin with milk, just a trickle at a time, then add more sugar, and repeat until you have the quantity that you like. Whip it up really well until it’s very fluffy. At some point pour in a little vanilla. If you’re going to use food coloring then leave the frosting very thick before adding, since the liquid coloring will also thin the frosting.

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Curry

Serve this piping hot over rice.

My boys love curry, and since they’ve been pretty nice to me this week I decided to make it for them—from scratch. The last time I made curry, however,  was from a bar of curry which came in a small green box, purchased from the Japanese grocery store.  The bar came segmented into squares, and resembled a large, yellow bar of chocolate; the instructions were to melt a quantity of segments into a pan to instantly create a curry sauce. Since I have recently become morally opposed to instant anything, I decided to plunge ahead and recreate the dish that I’ve eaten countless times. My boys are very happy to report that I got it exactly right—rich, thick and spicy.

Curry

  • 4 T. olive oil
  • 3 large cloves garlic, pressed
  • 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 cups chicken stock*
  • 1-1/2 c. cubed chicken
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 1 large bay leaf
  • 3 carrots, chunked
  • 3 potatoes, chunked
  • 4 T. curry powder, or to taste
  • 2 T. ground cumin seed, or to taste (click here to see how to grind your own)
  • salt
  • 1 c. frozen peas

– other optional ingredients could include: cauliflower florets, pineapple chunks, peppers cut into 1/2″ squares

– to make this a vegetarian curry, simply omit the chicken, boost the quantity of vegies, and use a vegetable stock

In a large saucepan (one with a lid), saute the onion in the oil. Stir in 2 tablespoons curry powder, 1 tablespoon of the ground cumin seed, the garlic and the bay leaf. Stir until well mixed, then add the chicken and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked through. Add the carrots and potatoes and 1 cup of the chicken stock. Cover and simmer over a low heat for about 45 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through. Add more stock as needed, to maintain a sauce-like consistency. Taste and add more curry powder and cumin, and salt to taste.

*To make your own stock:

  • 6 chicken legs
  • 1 large bay leaf
  • salt

Before you begin the curry, trim off meat from the chicken legs, leaving a little meat on the bones. Place the 6 bones in a small sauce pan and cover with about 4 cups of water. Add the bay leaf and about a teaspoon of salt. Cover, bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer. By the time you have cut up the vegetables and meat for the curry, and sauteed the onions and chicken, your stock will be ready to use.