The 4th though food

Jul7

I know that I still need to finish my vacation recaps (I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet), but I took so many pictures of food this weekend that I wanted to share. I should warn you that most of the pictures are pretty crappy, but oh well.

Our festivities actually started out on Thursday night when we decided to grab dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Colicchio and Sons Tap Room. The food and atmosphere are fantastic, the service is flawless and since we’re regulars we always get hooked up with extras. You can’t really best that can you?

We sat at the bar to chat with our favorite bartender, Bennett. After we ordered, we were given an amuse bouche. Generally you only get an amuse bouche if you sit the more formal Main Dining Room in the back, but we often get them in the Tap Room as a perk of being a regular.

Chris was given a scallop crudo with peach. The picture that I took didn’t come out so you’ll have to use your imagination, but Chris reported that the dish was delicious. Since I’m allergic to peaches, I was given an amuse bouche of pickled vegetables which included radish, turnip, carrot and a celery leaf. It was so delish. The veggies were all so crunchy and fresh with the perfect sweet/sour/briny flavor.

For an appetizer Chris and I split the burrata with rhubarb lavender and pink peppercorns. This is a dish they’ve had all through rhubarb season in 3 different slightly different variations and it will be gone soon as rhubarb season comes to an end. We’ve actually had it in all 3 variations and it’s been delicious every time (though we both think the variation with chorizo was the best). The creamy, luscious burrata pairs perfectly with the tart/sweet rhubarb.

Next up Chris ordered the halibut with zucchini and tomato jam and I ordered the skate with Peekytoe crab, citrus and radish. Let me tell you, these people know how to cook fish. Skate is probably my favorite fish and I honestly don’t think anyone does as we’ll as Colicchio and Sons Tap Room. The skate is always perfectly cooked; firm, but never dry and I particularly love this preparation with the crunchy, slightly peppery radish and juicy sweet citrus.

Halibut

Skate

For dessert we decided to split the chocolate with graham cracker crumbs, toasted marshmallow ice cream and raspberries.

Confession: I am in love with a chocoholic. Chris loves chocolate like I love strawberries. Now, if you follow this blog at all you know that I’m “meh” on chocolate. I don’t dislike chocolate, I just don’t get what all the hype is about. To me chocolate is just ok. I like chocolate as an accompaniment to things, but I’m not a fan of chocolate desserts as I usually find them too chocolatey. I was intrigued by the toasted marshmallow ice cream though and I love graham crackers so I wanted to try this dessert. I figured Chris could have most of the chocolate semifreddo part.

O. M. F. G. First time ever that I have loved a chocolate dessert. The semifreddo was so smooth and lush and while it would normally be a tad too chocolatey for me, it was perfection when mixed with the ice cream, which really tasted like toasted marshmallow, and the graham cracker crumbs and raspberries. I’m still dreaming about this dessert days later.

As if all that wasn’t enough we were given a complimentary glass of dessert wine and then another complimentary cocktail when we got the check. They take good care of us!

On Friday, July 4th, we mostly took it easy as it was raining, but in the late afternoon the rain cleared and we hopped on a bus to my parents house in New Jersey. In the summertime my mom puts everything on the grill and what better way to celebrate America than with grilled food.

I had requested that she make a grilled caeser for a starter, but then I forgot to take a picture of it. Grrr. Have you ever had or made a grilled caeser? It’s amazing! You slice a romaine hearts in half lengthwise, brush them with a little olive oil and then grill them until they are just slightly charred. They get that great caramelized and their sweetness comes out paired with that chargrilled flavor. Serve them whole (this is a salad that you have to cut with a knife and fork) with caeser or another heavy dressing, a few croutons and a bit of grated parm.

My mom grilled a ton of veggies throughout the day so that we could pick what we wanted and bring leftovers home. She grilled peppers, asparagus, onions, eggplant and sweet potatoes which are my favorite grilled vegetable.

She also boiled up some Jersey sweet corn because, like all food Jersey people, we love our local sweet corn.

And she grilled steak and sautéed up some Hen of the Woods mushrooms. Phew.

Dessert was all me and I decided to make strawberry dumpling. This is a recipe I got a few years ago from Gourmet magazine and I’ve heard it’s a big thing in the South. Basically you slice strawberries and mix them with sugar, when they give off there juice you bring that to a boil. You mix up a basic dumpling dough of flour, baking powder salt and milk, drop it in to the boiling berries, stir, pop a lid on it and leave it alone for 15 minutes. The dumpling mixture rises to the top and becomes light and airy. You scoop it out and serve it warm with some cold cream poured over it. I love it and it’s the kind of dessert my family loves as it’s light and not very sweet.

After dinner we went to watch the fireworks.

Of course we left with a ton of leftovers which meant steak sandwiches for dinner last night! I sliced the steak and served it on a crusty baguette with honey-balsamic onions, sharp cheddar and horseradish sauce. They were quite delish. I’ll also be eating grilled veggies for the rest of the week. Yum!

I’m a huge fan of food, America and spending time with my boyfriend so it was a great weekend.

How was your weekend? Did you eat anything especially delicious?

Happy Chrismahanukwanzika!

Dec23

Aaaaaand just like that I’m behind on blogging again! I didn’t even blog about my actual birthday. Maybe someday I’ll get around to blogging about it, but the summary is that it was awesome and that I ate goose which was delicious!

For now let me tell you about Saturday, when Chris and I had our very own Chrismahanukwanzika celebration! We’ll be spending the actual holiday at his parents, but we wanted to do something to celebrate with just the two of us and, since I don’t celebrate Christmas, we wanted to have an awesome holiday mash-up celebration; which we did.

Even though it was just the two of us, I wore a red dress and he wore a tie to add to the festive celebratory mood! We popped on some holiday music as I prepared dinner, exchanged gifts and then watched Elf.

So what did I serve?

Well, at my very not Jewish boyfriend’s request, we started with latkes.

Why yes, I did forget to take a picture and just recycle a photo from last year.

For the main course I served this amazing Libyan dish that I first tried several years ago, Tajin Sfinari bil Zaytun. It’s a spicy lamb and carrot dish that I absolutely love and it also happens to be the dish the banner photo of this blog. I promise you I’ll share the recipe with American conversions (the actual recipe linked to above uses metric and Celsius) soon.

Yum!!

Finally, for dessert I made gingerbread ice cream sandwiches. I made a batch of my tried and true gingerbread bars, cut them is squares, added vanilla ice cream sprinkled with some more brown sugar and cinnamon and then put another square of gingerbread over the top. I think this might have been Chris’s favorite part of the meal and now that I know how much he loves ice cream sandwiches I think there may be more in his future…

Perfect holiday treat!

The next morning I woke up earlier than Chris and I had nothing to do so I decided to surprise him with Chrismahanukwanzika morning breakfast too!

I scrambled some creme fraiche in to the eggs so the were extra creamy.

Have you eaten any great meals yet this holiday season?

Noodle Kugel

Nov19

So I promised you a noodle kugel recipe, didn’t I?

First, for you non-Jews out there, what the heel is a kugel anyway? Well, according to Wikipedia; “Kugel is a baked Ashkenazi Jewish pudding or casserole, similar to a pie, most commonly made from egg noodles (Lokshen kugel) or potatoes, though at times made of zucchini, apples, spinach, broccoli, cranberry, or sweet potato.” I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description except for the thing about pie. Kugel is nothing like pie.

Though, as Wikipedia mentions, kugels can be made with a variety of things, most commonly kugel refers to the potato or noodle variety. The potato version, which everyone loves except me, is always a savory dish; whereas the noodle version straddles the line between sweet and savory. Though noodle kugel is a sweet dish, often making use of things like raisins and cinnamon, it’s commonly served at brunches alongside bagels and things.

The version my family makes is from a recipe given to my grandmother by a friend back in Brooklyn and as far as I’m concerned it is the best noodle kugel around. I’m not planning on making another one anytime soon so forgive that I’m recycling the photos I took when I made a noodle kugel for Mandy and her mom.

That’s Mandy’s kitchen, not mine.

Noodle Kugel

5-6 oz medium egg noodles (I usually eyeball this)
1 cup sour cream
16 oz pot cheese (or low fat cottage cheese)*
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter
1 sleeve of cinnamon graham crackers* crushed in to crumbs.

Hot out the oven.

Preheat the over to 350 and grease an 8×8 baking dish.

Cook noodles per package directions.

Meanwhile, mix together all other ingredients except for the butter and graham cracker crumbs.

When the noodles have finished cooking, drain them and then add to cheese mixture.

Pour the noodle in to your greased pan. Mixture will be quite loose.

Melt the butter in a small bowl and then mix with the graham cracker crumbs. Cover noodle mixture with buttered graham cracker crumbs.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Allow to cool to room temperature. Serve.

Yields 8-10 servings

Yum!

Cooks Notes:
* Pot cheese is often labeled pot style cottage cheese. If you can’t find that use a reduced fat (NOT non-fat) cottage cheese as it will be thicker.

*You guys get what I mean by “sleeve,” right? Like you buy a box of graham crackers and it comes with 3 separate plastic packaged sleeves inside of it. Use one of those.

This is a dish that reheats extremely well. For individual servings I suggest just cutting yourself a square and then microwaving it for 10-20 seconds just to bring it up to room temperature.

Enjoy!

Passover over

Apr3

Well last night was the official end of Passover. By far the hardest part of Passover for me is having to forgo beer (it’s fermented from grains after all!) for 8 days. So my tradition for the last few years is to break Passover with a slice of pizza and a beer so last night that’s just what I did. Yum.

I must say, it definitely hit the spot.

There is one thing in the world that I will fully admit I am a total New York snob about and that thing is pizza. One day I’ll have to write an entire post about how what the majority of the country eats is not actually pizza, but rather some bread, sauce and cheese concoction which, while sometimes delicious, is not actually pizza. Alas that’s a post (a real one- I promise) for another time.

I hope you had a lovely holiday whether it was Passover or Easter.

Cheesecake mousse with orange curd and raspberry sauce

Apr1

Last Monday night was the start of Passover and the first of the two Seders the festive meals and retelling of the Passover story. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but Passover is my favorite holiday for 3 major reasons, it involves lots of food, storytelling/singing and has a heavy emphasis on social justice. Yea, pretty much all of my favorite things rolled in to one holiday.

I celebrated the first Seder at the home of my friends Ruth and Adam with several other adults and one very cute 2.5 year old who happens to belong to Ruth and Adam. I volunteered to provide the desserts, since I’d already planned on bringing a chocolate covered matzah cake. For the second dessert I considered making a crust-less cheesecake because it’s Ruth’s favorite dessert, but I didn’t know if I could pull it off in my NYC apartment sized mini oven.

Since all traditional cakes and cookies would violate the dietary restrictions of Passover I was struggling and so I revisited the cheesecake idea, but somehow got it in my head to Google, “cheesecake mousse,” and bam! Victory! Such a thing actually does exist.

I used a recipe from Oprah Magazine which was said to serve 6. Since there were to be 8 of us I one-and-a-halved (is that English?) the recipe. That was my only mistake. It literally made enough for like 12 people! Luckily Ruth and Adam were happy to keep the leftovers.

Rather than make the gelee that the recipe suggests I decided to serve the mousse topped with Cara Cara orange curd because OMG I love curd and a raspberry sauce for add a bit of tartness to balance the dessert.

Cheesecake Mousse

Recipe adapted from Oprah magazine

3 cups heavy cream
24 oz whipped cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1.5 teaspoons lemon juice
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tsp salt

Place a metal bowl and the beater attachments from your handheld mixer in the freezer until very cold. I like to put them in the night before.

Remove from freezer, pour in cream and beat until stiff peaks form, then cover and refrigerate.

Meanwhile, clean off the beaters and in a separate bowl beat the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar until combined. Add the lemon juice, vanilla, and salt and continue to beat until light and fluffy.

Using a rubber spatula, mix in 1/3 of the whipped cream. Fold in the remaining whipped cream, making sure to keep the mixture light and fluffy.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours.

When ready to serve spoon in to individual ramekins and top with orange curd (I doubled this recipe) and then a dollop of raspberry sauce.

Yields enough to feed an army.

Separating fact from fiction

Dec26

Fact: All Jews really do go to the movies on Christmas. (What’s that, you know some Jews that don’t go to the movies on Christmas. Shut up, you’re ruining my post. Can you just go with it!?)

Fiction: Not all Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas (OK a lot of Jews do…), especially Jews like me with food allergies that make Chinese restaurants unsafe. Sesame, beans, nuts… it’s a mine field of food allergies.

So what did I eat on Christmas? Well, back before my mom retired she started the tradition of making a special fancy meal on Christmas for no other reason than she had plenty of time to cook. Unlike the Jewish holidays when my mom had to cook a festive meal, but also get ready for synagogue or prepare for guests we literally have nothing to do on Christmas but relax (and take in that obligatory movie). So our fancy Christmas meal tradition was born though now that my mom is retired and she has every day off, the meal has moved to Christmas Eve instead.

We started the meal with caviar, blinis and creme fraiche!

Then for the main attraction, filet mignon with horseradish sauce, roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potato!

And of course I had to contribute a delicious dessert, but as I plan posting the recipe later in the week I’m not telling you exactly what it was just yet 😉

All in all it was quite a delicious Christmas Eve followed by a very musical Christmas day because of course musical theater nerds like me and my mom had to see Les Mis the day it came out!

For those of you who were celebrating, how was your Christmas? What are your Christmas food traditions? For those of you who don’t celebrate, what movie did you see and how was the ~~Chinese~~ food?

Latke! I barely know ‘er…

Dec10

…thanks folks, I’ll be here all night. Try the veal.

Weak title, right? Well the title may be weak, but my latkes are strong. Strong like a Maccabee!

What’s a Maccabee you ask? The Maccabees were warriors who defeated the Greeks and kicked them out of Judea. However, during Greek rule the Temple, the holiest of places for Jews, was desecrated by the Greeks. After the Greeks were sent packing, the Jews took to cleaning the temple and rededicating it. After the clean up was done, the Jews wanted to light the Temple’s Ner Tamid, eternal light, which acts as “a symbol of God’s eternal and imminent presence in our communities and in our lives,” but found that they only had enough oil for one day. They lit the Ner Tamid and miraculously the oil lasted for 8 days. That’s why Chanukah is celebrated for 8 nights.

Chanukah is not a particularly big or important holiday and has really just been played up by the same marketers who’ve done so much to commercialize Christmas. Chanukah has little religious significance and is more of a kids holiday. We don’t go to synagogue on this holiday unless it’s for a party! We do light Menorahs at home and eat foods fried in oil.

Yup, a holiday that consists of going to parties, lighting candles and eating fried foods… a little bit you wish you were Jewish right now, no?

The eating of fried foods represents the ~~Jewish people’s love of food and lots of it~~ miraculous oil that burned for 8 days. In Israel they eat fried jelly donuts called sufganyiot, but in America it’s all about latkes, fried potato pancakes.

So in honor of the miracle of Chanukah here’s my latke recipe. Happy Chanukah!

Latkes

5-6 medium yukon gold potatoes; peeled
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs; lightly beaten
1 Tablespoon finely chopped chives
1/2 cup cornflakes; crushed by hand (I recommend Erewon brand)
A whole lot of olive oil

Cut half the potatoes and the onion in to rough chunks and puree in food processor.

Grate the other half of the potatoes on a box grater and mix in with the onion and potato mix.*

Working in batches places some of the potato mixture in to a tea towel and squeeze out as much water as possible (this step is very important!) and transfer to a mixing bowl.

Mix in salt, eggs and chives, then mix in crushed cornflakes and stir until just combined.

Heat about an inch of oil in a deep frying pan.

Scoop up some potato mixture by hand and form into a circle, maybe 3 inches in diameter. Working in batches carefully lay the latkes in the frying pan. Fry until golden brown, about 5 minutes and then flip and repeat on the other side.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve with sour cream on the side.**

Yields 12-14 latkes

Cooks Notes:

*Back in the day latkes were always made by grating the potatoes, but today they’re often done in blenders of food processors. You could definitely just do one or the other in this recipe, but I like the texture you get from combining the two.

**The other traditional accompaniment to latkes other than sour cream is applesauce. Since I’m allergic to apples I’ve never tried it that way, but if you can eat apples you may want to serve that alongside your latkes too.

***I made these last night to bring to a friends house so I don’t have a picture of them on a plate with a nice dollop of sour cream. Use your imagination.

This Is the Cake of Our Affliction (and it’s awesome)

Apr11

For being the “Bread of Our Affliction,” matzah sure is delicious! Here in the northeast (and probably in other areas with a large Jewish population), matzah is beloved by Jews and Gentile’s alike. Really.

Matzah, or ulevened bread is basically a giant delicious cracker that’s good on its own, but it also a great vehicle for almost anything else. I love matzah pizza, for dinner the other night I had matzah brei which is like a matzah and egg scramble and one of my favorite guilty pleasure snacks is honey drizzled on lightly buttered matzah.

This week, like almost every Passover of my life, I’m enjoying a different and unusual matzah treat; Chocolate Covered Matzah Cake.

My good friend Hans actually has a “favorite cakes” list. It’s one of the many things I love about him, but I’m not nearly as dedicated to cake as Hans so I possess no such list. If I had a favorite cakes list though, this would be on it (and probably that Brazilian carrot cake I made a few weeks ago too).

A dear friend of my mother’s, who sadly passed away, was an avid baker who came up with this recipe and it’s been a staple in my family ever since. The original recipe calls for margarine to keep this pareve for those who keep kosher so if that’s a concern for you feel free to substitute the butter. Also, the egg in this recipe doesn’t really get cooked so make sure you’re using fresh, organic, free range eggs.

Chocolate Covered Matzah Cake

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
7 to 8 oz chocolate chips
1 stick of butter softened
1 egg (or 1/4 cup egg beaters)
6 sheets of matzah
Manichewitz wine (or grape juice) for dipping

Using a shallow baking dish is the easiest way to dip the matzah in wine.

In small sauce pan on medium high heat or microwave melt together sugar, water and chocolate chips. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Add butter and egg and stir until smooth.

Dip one sheet of matzah in the wine for about 10 seconds, place on plate or cake platter and pour some of the chocolate mixture to coat.

Repeat with all remaining matzah until cake is completely covered with chocolate.

Refrigerate over night.

The next day the matzah will have softened and the chocolate should have a frosting like consistency.

Slice of Chocolate Covered Matzah Cake. Yum!

ENJOY!

My One and Only Family Recipe

Apr9

I do not come from a long line of cooks. My mom is an awesome cook. My grandmother is a pretty good cook which is amazing considering that both her mother and grandmother were terrible cooks with no love of the culinary arts which means we don’t really have family recipes except for our matzah balls. It is the only recipe that generations of Juettner/Bendit/Buchanan/Lander women share and it’s one of my all time favorite foods.

Traditionally matzah balls are made by using only matzah meal, matzah ground fine to mimic flour, but my family recipe is uniques because it also uses actual matzah. This recipe has been handed down by word of mouth so no actual recipe exists and few ingredients are actually measured. As I watch my mom making them, something I haven’t been brave enough to do myself yet, I’ll say things like, “So you add a tablespoon of sugar?” To which she responds, “Um I don’t know, that sounds like it’s probably right.”

I took pictures of my mom making them this year and I’m going to do my best to put an actual recipe together. It’s really hard to get an accurate measurement of the salt and sugar since my mom won’t be in your kitchen saying, “Yea that looks about right,” but start conservatively and give the mixture a taste as you go. The mixture should taste like a slightly sweeter version of the matzah itself.

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Buchanan* Family Matzah Balls

6 sheets of matzah broken in to pieces
Water to cover matzah pieces
3 eggs separated
1 Tablespoon sugar (give or take)
1 teaspoon salt (give or take)
2/3 cup matzah meal (we think)

Break up matzah sheets in a bowl and cover pieces with warm water for about 20 second.

Drain matzah and mush together softened pieces with your hands to break up.

Beat egg yolks with fork. Mix egg yolks, salt and sugar in to mushed up matzah.

With electric beater, beat egg whites to soft peaks.

Gently fold egg whites in to matzah mixture.

Stir in matzah meal until mix begins to bind together. Do not overmix.

Form in to balls (larger than golf, smaller than tennis) with wet hands.

Refrigerate for a few hours.

Boil for 20 minutes in salted water.

Serve in chicken soup.

Yield 12-14 matzah balls

*In case you’re wondering how the most Scottish name of all time “Buchanan” got in to a Jewish family’s history, after my grandfather got out of Germany he made his way to England and joined the army there where his name was changed from Buchbinder to Buchanan

Ancient Holidays, New Traditions

Apr6

Tonight is the start of Passover which just happens to be my favorite holiday. How could I not love a holiday that combines singing, food and emphasizes social justice.

I’m a big believer that rules are meant to be broken while traditions are meant to be kept. If this blog was about life and not food, I’d explain that further, but for now just go with it, k?

One of the coolest thing about Passover is that it steeped heavily in age-old traditions and still leaves room to begin new traditions. On the first two nights of Passover we have a Seder where we retell the story of our enslavement and coming out of Egypt, sing songs and eat a big delicious meal. In the center of the table is a Seder plate and on the Seder plate are certain foods that have symbolic meanings behind them. These foods have appeared on our Seder plates for centuries, but in modern times families often add new foods as symbols.

A few years ago my family started adding an orange to our Seder plates. There are a few interpretations of what the orange symbolizes, but I’ll tell you what it means to us. To my family the orange represents the inclusion of ALL people in our traditions and most especially the inclusion of Gays and Lesbians. See the orange isn’t something that’s been a traditional part of the Seder, but that’s no reason not to welcome it.

This year will be adding another symbol too, a tomato. No, the tomato doesn’t represent that we’re from New Jersey and are very proud of our tomatoes (though that is true), instead the tomato is there to remind us that, while we celebrate our own freedom from slavery , slavery still exists. Unfortunately much of this slavery exists in the supply chain of our food system and some of the most egregious examples are from the tomato growers in Florida.

The tomato on our Seder plate serves as a reminder that we may be free, but our fight is far from over. Our fight will not be over until all slaves are free, until all workers are guaranteed fair wages and safe conditions.

I hope you have a wonderful Passover, Easter or just a great weekend! Enjoy time with your family and friends, but please try to fill your table with only good quality, fair trade, sustainable food. And if this holiday weekend involves prayer for you, take a minute to pray that we will one day live in a world where all people are free.

26 Dishes

Cooking my way through the alphabet

Tag Archives: Holidays