Food Friday - Tutti -Frutti edition

Today is a challah baking week.

When your dough looks like this, it's time to braid your challot.

Here they are post-braiding and before the second rise.

Yes, they do grow both during the rise and during their time in the oven.

We have dear friends spending the weekend with us. It's a treat to spend time with them.

I have been thinking about what to make for dessert. One of the cookbooks I inherited from my mother was a Jewish  community cookbook from Potomac, Maryland. I was ready to throw it away. It was mostly filled with the worst of 1970's cookery.

The daughter in law of my mother's cousin was the cookbook coordinator. I decided to give the cookbook one more look before I tossed or donated it. I am glad I took that second look. I found a strudel recipe from my mother's cousin. It looked good and I had hoped to make that strudel today.

I suppose I could have made it, but Friday's are still on the short side so I will wait and make it another time. I did make a fruit tart with the same sort of compote like filling that the  fabulous Russian grocery store across the street from my mother makes. 

I made a crust with pecans and bulgher wheat  white flour, sugar , salt coconut oil and and egg. I  mushed the crust it into the pan and 

baked the crust while I cut up some plums.

I love fruit with chocolate so I grated up some bittersweet chocolate and put it on the crust. The crust was hot so spreading the chocolate was easy.

I didn't have quite enough plums so I chopped up some dried apricots and put in a few hands full of dried cranberries.

As I assembled the tart, I remembered that there are some words my family can not say like normal people--ever.  I anticipate that this tart will have my kids calling out like Chico Marx  in terrible Italian accents, " Tutti- frutti TART!".  I know that they will cackle all through dessert as they keep saying it over and over.  It's my fault for encouraging them to watch the Marx Brothers at such a tender age.

My son has made most of the rest of the meal, chicken with hot smoked paprika and Meyer lemons and couscous made with mushrooms and chicken juice. I made pickled cauliflower.

Shabbat Shalom!