Food Friday

If I have any obsessive readers, they might have noticed that last week, there was no Food Friday entry. That's because as far as I was concerned, there was no food prep. I had gone to Boston to take care of my mother. I left the rest of my family home. My big kids made a feast for Shabbat dinner. My son got up early to make the challa. He and my daughter worked together to make Chinese vegetable dumplings,Chinese Red Stewed chicken and a Chinese inspired shredded vegetable salad. They even invited a guest  Yes, I'm really proud of them.

I ate Friday night dinner at my sister's. It was a Middle Eastern inspired meal. Yes, that too was good.

This week I'm back in the cooking saddle. I had decided to make noodles and cheese again and serve that with fish. ( That is both noodles and cheese made from scratch) While at the farmer's market this morning I ran into my friend Cathy. She invited us over, so we are joining families and meals for Shabbat.

I finally remembered that I had purchased a pasta machine in the thrift store about 15 years ago. My son helped me bring it down from it's hiding place and I used it for the first time.Thanks to the pasta machine, we are eating skinny pasta tonight. I'm making the cheese out of some sour milk that was hanging around and some whole milk. Cathy is making a Russian beet dish. I'm making salmon. I'm thinking that this meal will have a very old world feel, I'm thinking Summer night in Odessa as the theme for tonight's dinner.

I had lifted weights this morning. Between that and the pasta making, my arms at least, will be looking good.

At first I had planned on making filled pasta. We have a lovely large carton of crimini mushrooms so I had planned on doing a musroom filled pasta. The skinny blades of the pasta machine proved to be too tempting. So instead, I am cooking the salmon under a paste of mushrooms onions and celery cooked in white wine with salt and pepper. The pasta will be dressed in a simple Eastern Eruopean cheese sauce made out of the home made cheese, butter, salt, pepper and eggs. It's the  Easten European version of Fettucini Alfredo. My grandmother was famous for being a bad cook. But this was the one dish she made well. For me, this is the height of comfort. When I was pregnant with my oldest this dish of Lokshen mit kaise was one of the foods that I craved all of the time. I made it with commercial egg noodles and cottage cheese. It's good made with all commercial products, but just better made from scratch.