Kugel. It’s a Yiddish word. But the food dish is German in origin, as I discovered when I was reading up on kugel at Wikipedia. However, Wiki’s site does say that there is very little documentation about kugel (and they invite people to contribute sources, if known, other than word of mouth). Kugels come both savory and sweet and are Jewish side dishes or desserts. Originally they were only savory, but over the centuries they’ve evolved to sweet-ish side dishes (mine) and much more sweet ones that incorporate fruit, raisins, etc. eggs, custard, etc. which are desserts.

The first time I was served this kugel was in the 1960’s. I used to be in a women’s gourmet group way back then (yes, they DID have such things back in the cave age of the 1960’s). The group met monthly for a weekday lunch at someone’s home. One of the ladies that I didn’t know very well, Alberta, brought this and it was served as part of the buffet lunch (we all brought something, hence it was a gourmet potluck). Having never had it before, I was enchanted. Certainly I noticed how sweet it was, and wondered why it was part of the lunch. But oh well, Alberta brought it, said it was part of her family heritage, and she put it out with lunch, not with the row of the desserts.

Now, though, I know from reading about kugels, this one is actually a dessert type. Why Alberta served it as part of lunch, I don’t know. Consequently, I have served it a few times as a side dish, but I make it less sweet. It’s great with ham, for instance, or a pork roast. Pork seems to lend itself well to sweeter sides. I make it less fat laden too. I was astounded the first time I made this to discover how much butter is in it. A lot. So I’ve cut it down some.

It’s a pineapple kugel – with cottage cheese and a crispy topping of cornflake crumbs and brown sugar. However you serve it, it’s delicious as long as you’re not planning to eat low carb or low calorie, because it certainly is NOT. So splurge and enjoy it.
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A couple of days ago I was reading Coffee and Cornbread’s blog. You should go look at Sue’s photos of fresh Swiss chard – beautiful. She wrote up a post about making Swiss chard with dried cranberries as part of her Thanksgiving dinner. I’d have never – ever – thought of putting cranberries with chard. And yet, something about it intrigued me. Nothing for it except to try it out.

To say it’s delicious is giving it short shrift. We l-0-v-e-d it. I had to keep my DH out of the pan on the stove – he kept scooping spoons of it into his mouth before we sat down to dinner and I had to swiftly put them away afterwards, before he stood over the pan eating the remainder I wanted to serve for another dinner. (I will say, however, my DH really, really likes chard, or almost any greens.)

The recipe came from Rachel Ray at the Food Network. I made just a couple of changes to it – I used fewer cranberries and added a lot less chicken stock. I think this kind of briefly stewed vegetable is very forgiving, whatever you do with it. Try to have everything all ready to go when you start cooking as it takes no time at all to go from start to finish. That means washing and chopping all the chard (removing the ribs), etc. And slicing the onion, and the garlic. But make it you should. If you even remotely like greens, this one’s a real keeper. If you want the original, just click over to Rachel’s recipe. Sue at Coffee & Cornbread made a few changes to her version too. Here’s mine.
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So, what did WE do on Thanksgiving? We lazed around and watched the rain for a couple of hours. Once it cleared up outside, we took walks, watched some TV, cooked some (maybe only about 3 straight hours for me) and had a great day. We had six was all, for dinner. Fewer than anticipated, but no less enjoyable.


First off, I made an appetizer that I’ve blogged about before, but when I did I was laid up with my fractured foot and didn’t have a photograph of it. So I took some photos this time. It’s a toasted slice of baguette with a little creamy mixture of mascarpone cheese, herbs and blue cheese spread on it. Then it’s topped with a piece of fresh bright-green watercress, a little slice of crispy apple and then drizzled with a bit of honey. It’s sensational, that’s all I can tell you. If you’d like to learn more, click here.

For dinner we had a delicious Kosher (brined) turkey from Trader Joe’s, the same Italian sausage dressing I made last year, gravy, mashed potatoes made up ahead and kept hot in the crock pot for about 2 hours, my regular cranberry relish and garlic green beans. Those green beans are just SO delicious. Every time I make them I fall in l-o-v-e with them again and again. And they’re EASY. No kidding. I’ve blogged about the beans before (recipe from our friend Meredith), but didn’t have a very good photo of them, so here’s a nice big one so your salivary glands can work overtime. Click here to see the story about the green beans with the recipe.

Our daughter, Sara, brought 3 pumpkin pies. She was supposed to bring a salad (that I’ve blogged about) but she totally forget. To tell you the truth, nobody missed it. We had so darned much to eat, we certainly didn’t need the salad. The green beans were our side instead. And pumpkin pies made up for it. They were just Libby’s recipe, with whipped cream. Plain and simple. We had a great day; hope you did, too. 

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Interesting recipes just have a way of delivering themselves to me sometimes. I had a little more than half a head of cabbage (I halved this recipe). I wanted to try something new, so I did a Google search for “cabbage recipes” and up popped up Cherie Stihler’s cabbage website. Without too much scrolling I found this recipe that just sounded so unusual. Once you read this, you’ll discover what’s odd about it. I know, you’re asking, what’s so unusual about noodles and cabbage, for heaven’s sake? Well, according to the recipe, this dish isn’t supposed to be eaten until it’s dwelled in your refrigerator for at least three days. Maybe four. And you boil the heck out of the cabbage too. That’s unusual.

And, you ask . . . how was it? Well, it was scrumptious. And that was eating it on the FIRST night. But it got better and better, just like Cherie said it would, with each day. Next time I’m making this in a full-size recipe. I could even eat this as an entrée. But then, as you’ll see, it has a goodly amount of butter in it, and what’s there not to like about almost any vegetable or pasta dish with ample butter? I used less butter than indicated and it was still very good. So, you see, you need to try this. Thank you, Cherie, for maintaining this great website of cabbage recipes. She’s an author too, and in case you’d like to see the books she’s written, go to her home page.
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The other night we went to our friends, Cherrie & Bud’s house, for dinner. We used to have a more regular get-together where we both cooked the dinner together and our husbands got to enjoy the results. We always tried new things. Seems like we’ve both been busy; too busy to even plan it ahead. Cherrie made the entrée (a chicken Mediterranean dish – delicious), Israeli couscous (a Trader Joe’s box mix that was just really good), and a Sticky Toffee Bundt Cake with a rum sauce (more on that later in this post). I brought the ingredients to make salad (a fennel and orange one) and a vegetable side dish.

We enjoyed some champagne and appetizers on their back deck, then I started working on my part of the dinner. Let me start by saying that this dish is really very, very good. I’d make it again. BUT, to hand cut the zucchini and yellow crookneck into little, tiny linguine-like strips was tedious. Cherrie couldn’t find her mandoline (she has one hiding somewhere), but finally I needed to get started. She helped too, but still, it took us both about 20 or more minutes to carefully slice the squash. WAY too much trouble. If you want a very impressive looking dish, though, use your mandoline and make those little julienne slices. Much of it can be done ahead – there’s no reason it couldn’t be, although the recipe didn’t indicate it. The recipe came from the August issue of Food & Wine, from a Cleveland chef named Douglas Katz.

You blanch the squash in boiling water, remove to drain, then mop it with towels or paper towels to absorb the excess moisture. Meanwhile, you prepare some sliced shiitake mushrooms, shallot, garlic. Those things get sautéed, then you toss the “linguine” with a light oil dressing, toast up some pine nuts, combine things, sprinkle the pine nuts on top and put some little blobs of goat cheese on top too. I have some suggestions – I thought the flavors were wonderful – I’d make it again, but would probably just do it as a much quicker sauté and forget the linguine cutting, even if I do have a mandoline. It’s very colorful, and very tasty. It could even be a vegetarian entree as far as I’m concerned. I could have just had that for dinner.

So, the ending of the evening. . . Cherrie is the first to admit that she’s not the best baker out there. She says she has more failures than successes. Cookies she can do (and does almost every Christmas season with her sister Laurie), but just about anything else she’d rather buy than even try. This dinner we planned, however, Cherrie and I agreed we were going to use things from our pantry – that we had on hand. (Well, I couldn’t because everything I made was with fresh produce). But Cherrie did – chicken from the freezer, the couscous mix, and the dessert. The cooking school Cherrie and I used to visit with regularity, is no longer in business. We were so sad to see it go. The place sold some great boxed mixes, the Sticky Toffee Bundt cake was one of them. So, with trepidation, Cherrie decided to bake the cake. Even SHE was amazed that it turned out – looked beautiful on the elevated cake stand.

After we cleared all the dishes, Cherrie began slicing the cake and asked Bud to go out to the garage to get the special frozen yogurt they’d gone out to buy – from a new place called Juice? Or Juicy? Can’t recall the name. Bud returned to the kitchen as we were scooping the warm butter sauce over the cake slices. He had a rueful expression on his face. With long, drawn out words he explained . . . slowly . . . each word separated . . . “I … put … the … frozen yogurt … in … the … refrigerator.” Cherrie’s face fell. She said WHAT? She said “What ever were you thinking?” He just looked at her. No words from his mouth. No explanation. When they’d gotten home with the frozen yogurt it was his job to put it in the FREEZER. Nope, for whatever reason, he put it in the refrigerator. Needless to say, after several hours, the frozen yogurt was a kind of thickened sauce. Cherrie was more than a little bit upset – at first. But, we ventured on, just adding this “sauce” on top of the hot butter sauce. We returned to the dining room and began eating the cake and drinking good hot coffee. Cherrie was still niggling Bud about his mistake. But you know what? The yogurt “sauce” was really good on it – it was cold, liquidy, and a nice side note to the cake – which was sweet and rich. Eventually we all agreed it was almost BETTER than the frozen yogurt. Sometimes kitchen disasters turn out to be winners.

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The actors in this three-act play:
DH [Dear Husband] and Carolyn [his wife]

Scene One
[Couple talking together in the car.]
[DH] “What are we having for dinner tonight, honey?
[Carolyn] “The leftover pork tenderloin.
[DH] “Oh good, I loved that. With that good sauce? What else?
[Carolyn] “Cardoons.
[DH, with alarmed voice] “WHAT? Car what?
[Carolyn] “Car-DOONS. They’re also called Car-dohn too.
[Fade out.]

Scene Two
[A few hours later in the couple’s kitchen. Carolyn is standing by a cutting board with an odd looking green celery-like thing on the board and a big knife, along with a vegetable peeler. She moves to the sink to wash the big green thing.]
[DH] “What’s that?
[Carolyn] “Cardoon.
[DH] “Huh? Car-what? What’s that?
[Carolyn, with definite exasperation in her voice] “Honey, we had this conversation a few hours ago. I told you. It’s a vegetable.
[DH] “It looks like celery.
[Carolyn] “It does, but it’s actually a thistle, uhm, part of the thistle family like artichokes, but it looks like overgrown celery.
[DH] “So, what are you going to do with it?
[Carolyn] “I’m removing all the fibrous strings on it, cutting it up and putting it in acidulated water so it won’t turn brown, then I’m simmering it for awhile. Then I’m going to toss it with a vinaigrette dressing. Supposedly it tastes kind of like artichoke hearts, but it’s kind of tough so I have to cook it awhile.
[DH] “Okay. Like artichoke hearts? Hmm. That sounds good.
[Fade out.]

Scene Three
[It’s nightime now and DH is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and Carolyn brings the dishes from the dining room table to the sink to be washed. She also brings the bowl of green stuff that kind of looks like a gray celery salad to the sink.]
[Carolyn] “Do you want any more of the cardoons? [awkward pause] Will you eat any of these tomorrow as leftovers?
[DH after long pause] “Uh, no.
[Carolyn] “Me, either.
[Fade out as DH throws bowl full of gray cardoons down the garbage disposal.]
The end

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Although I don’t eat or prepare potato casseroles very often, when I do, I fall in lo-v-e with potatoes, again, every time. Not that I ever fell out of l-o-v-e with them, but because we now know they’re a high glycemic carb, and because I don’t work out vigorously enough or often enough, or have a svelte figure that can afford the carbs, when I do eat them they’re extraordinarily special. As with this casserole. And these, with a delicious Béchamel sauce to bind them together with the not-overwhelming goat cheese in between – well, what else can I tell you other than this dish is just sublime. The panko crumb topping was also a good texture foil – don’t eliminate that part to save time. Given the choice, I could easily have eaten this dish as an entire dinner. You’ll be tempted too, I guarantee!

The recipe (and the photo above that I snapped) came from a cooking class I went to last week. The first class I attened was taught by Carissa Giacalone, a TV Food Network Star finalist, and a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu. She obviously knows her French preparations, this being one. What I learned at the class was that the potatoes, as for any scalloped potato casserole, should be parboiled before assembling. I’ve never known any other way but layering raw potatoes and never knowing for sure when the potatoes are done. Now I know why. She peeled and sliced the potatoes first, then put them in a huge pot of water and cooked them until they were half cooked. Once drained, they were set aside while the rest of the prep occurred. A traditional Béchamel sauce, some goat cheese, some caramelized onions and a panko topping, and a dreamy dish you have made.

Every single solitary morsel and calorie is worth it. Try it you should, then plan to take a good healthy walk the next day!
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open MC – 14 contains photo)

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At the cooking class the other day, I glanced at the list of recipes and certainly didn’t think this one would be the standout of both classes, but it was. It isn’t all that unusual, there isn’t a long list of ingredients and it didn’t take all that long to make. Aren’t those the best kind of recipes to get and make? Easy, quick and yummy delicious to boot!

Although the recipe, by Phillis Carey, is made here for shrimp, it could also be made with scallops (with some bacon added, she suggested). I’ll be making this soon because the flavor was just melt-in-the-mouth. The orzo was smooth and slippery, there was just enough creaminess to make you think you were eating the rice-style risotto, and the broccolini was a perfect side. You can make the orzo ahead, and then it’s just a matter of roasting the veg and combining the rest and you’re done. Definitely make more than needed, as you’ll crave the leftovers.
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A few weeks ago I was watching Martha when she had several famous New York chefs on the show. Seems like they all made fish of some kind, and this particular recipe just sounded interesting. Since Fall is in the air, a more hearty meal piqued my curiosity. The recipe is from Chef Daniel Boulud, certainly one of the pre-eminent chefs out there today. His method is more French than anything else. This recipe isn’t for a night when you’re trying to get dinner on the table in a hurry. It would be more appropriate for guests or a special evening at home. I have changed the recipe just a little. Originally it served 6. I cut it down to serve 2 (shown below). I couldn’t find salsify at the market, so I substituted parsnips. I hadn’t fixed celery root in years, but most markets here in California carry it regularly. I love the subtle taste of celery in this root vegetable.

So, here’s the gist of the recipe. First you make the wine and port sauce. It boils down to next to nothing (I actually left the shallot in the sauce, and I forgot to add the peppercorns altogether). Meanwhile, you peel and cube the celery root. Be sure to use a sturdy peeler if you have one. A light-weight one probably couldn’t pull the heavy peel off. Dig out any eyes and remove most of the very dark swirly parts (the part that’s actually the peel) by just peeling an additional layer or two. Cut into cubes and then you poach the root in milk to which you’ve added some seasonings. That takes about 20 minutes. I pureed it in the food processor (the actual recipe has more steps) and didn’t use all the milk, but just about.

The fish is fairly straight forward – you place some fresh sage leaves (from my garden) on the salmon fillets, then top them with one or two slices of bacon. I wanted to use one slice rather than two, but use your own judgment. It will be harder to turn the salmon if you lay the bacon on top (as I did) rather than wrapping two slices around the middle (so the bacon will stick to itself where the ends meet). I actually baked my salmon in the oven, but the done-ness was much harder to judge (it was overcooked, even though I used a thermometer), so I recommend you stick to the recipe below pan sautéing it.

The results: Absolutely delicious. The celery root puree with its moderately subtle celery flavor was a great pairing with the hearty salmon. The SAUCE is what makes it, though. I wish I’d made more. You want to take each bite that includes a bit of the celery root, salmon, bacon and sauce.
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My DH went to a football game a week ago Sunday. The Chargers, in San Diego. He had a great time with the guys, all family. Initially, though, the group met in the parking lot for a lunchtime tailgate party. Dave didn’t have to bring a thing. There was food galore, of course. And early-on he spotted a big container of pickled carrots. His heart raced a little bit. Hmmm. Maybe carrots like the recipe we’ve been coveting but can’t get. It looked like them – with onions, garlic and jalapeno chiles swimming in the pickling liquid. We’ve wanted the recipe for the home made pickled carrots at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, Jalapeno’s. They won’t tell anybody anything about the prized family recipe. Even the local paper asked and was refused.

So, Dave tasted. Wow. They were great. He started asking around – who made these carrots? Finally found him – Doug – he’s made them himself for over 30 years. Didn’t remember where he got the recipe. But he gladly shared it with Dave.

The second thing Dave told me when he got home was, “I think I’ve got the recipe for Jalapeno’s carrots!” (The first thing was the abysmal score.) He knew I’d be delighted to hear about the carrots. Indeed. As Dave rattled off the brief recipe, I quickly jotted it down. Dave went out and got the ingredients earlier in the week, but I wanted him to help me make them – just in case he had forgotten anything about the recipe. Sure enough, he forgot the sugar, so that was added. And, salt wasn’t mentioned, so I added that in myself.

Are they good? Absolutely they are. I’m going to tweak the recipe a little bit next time we make them – less of the jalapeno pickling liquid (I like heat, but these were too hot for my taste) – probably more sugar. But the method will be identical. We did learn that slicing the carrots a consistent depth is important (we used the mandoline for most of them) – I’m only guessing at the ¼ inch thickness. Doug sliced them lengthwise in planks. Jalapeno’s slices them in coins. Take your pick!

Here’s how they’re made: you parboil the carrots and onions. Don’t overcook them, though. Then you combine them with some of the juice from a can of pickled jalapenos. Just the juice. And maybe one or two of the pickled jalapenos themselves. And garlic. And Mexican oregano. Now Doug told Dave that buying Mexican oregano was the secret to the brine. Nothing else will do. And not to EVER be tempted to try Greek or Italian or any other type of oregano. Mexican oregano has a different aroma, and it usually includes lots of the flower pods too. Dave had to try two or three stores to find it the other day. Nearly a quart of white vinegar is added, and some water. You refrigerate it overnight, then serve. Whoopee! You’ll find notes in the recipe below about the changes I’ll make the next time I make these. Doug’s recipe was rather loosely verbalized, so we’ll tweak it as we go. And yes, we’ll make them again! Doug did remind us that the jalapenos vary (just as they do when fresh) – sometimes they’re hotter than others – so naturally the pickling liquid can be hotter one time than another. So unless you really love heat, use less rather than more until you test your tongue!
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