Food Friday- Thursday Night Dinner

This was my dinner last night.

Home made kale noodles turned into my grandmother’s staple, lokshen mit kaese, noodles with cottage cheese and eggs. Last night was the first time I had ever added greens to noodles. I added cooked kale rather than the more traditional spinach. I had kale in my freezer and not spinach. I discovered a few things while making these noodles. First of all, I discovered that my new stick blender from Costco does not work. So the kale puree is not as refined as I had hoped it would be.

The failure of my stick blender is not particularly useful information to any one out side of my household. My other discovery is actually of more universal usefulness. I realized that vegetables were probably added to noodle dough to make them easier to work. I used semolina flour which is normally hard to work, kneading semolina flour is one of those household tasks that are better than going to a gym. You really feel that burn in your biceps as you knead and roll out the noodles.

Using the vegetable puree in the noodle dough made the work fairly easy. I also have slowly begun to realize that packaged noodles are ubiquitous not because making noodles is that difficult, but because manufacturing them is so easy.

These noodles were eaten by everyone, even my vegetable hating son. I added about 1/2 cup of the pureed kale to the noodle dough which was 1- 1/2 C semolina flour, two eggs and a pinch of salt put into a bowl. You mix the dough beginning with your hand, pretend you are four and making mud pies. Add the pureed vegetable. Add more semolina flour if the dough is wet and gloppy. Sprinkle the semolina on your counter and knead until you have a lovely coherent lump of dough. Turn the bowl upside-down over the dough on your counter and do something else for 30 minutes. the dough needs a rest and so do you.

After your break come back and roll out the dough. I used my 1 inch dowel. It’s just the best dough rolling pin. Sprinkle more semolina flour on the counter and on the dough to keep it from sticking. I find it easier to rollout a Spaldeen sized lump of dough at a time.

Cut the noodles in any way that makes you happy. this time I cut 1/2 inch wide strips using a rippled pastry cutter. I left the noodles rest on a cookie sheet for several minutes before I boiled up the water. The noodles need a short cooking time, say five minutes.

Tonight we are having chicken roasted with smoke paprika and allspice. I baked barley, winter wheat and rye with black pepper, cardamom and soe of the chicken juice. the shitake mushrooms are from our visit to Kam Man.

For dessert I made this.

I know it looks repulsive but it is spiced fig sorbet.It tastes yummy despite it’s suspicious demeanor.

My life isn’t all cooking. I made my mother this shirt last night,out of a really heavy weight beefy knit.

I had made myself a dress out of the rest of the fabric several months ago. It feels really good on. I figured it will be a nice transitional shirt for the cooler weather.

It’s now tine to get the dining room to transition from a sewing room back into a dining room for Shabbat.

And to start you feeling ready for Rosh HaShanah.

El Nora Alila

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

Connecting with the past

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sarah in nyc

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