Food Friday- Made Up Food Edition

On the first afternoon of Passover, I had begun making a lemon cake. the eggs were separated and I started whipping up the yolks and my mixer died. I had nine egg whites in a bowl and my whisk was in the MIA Passover box.

My sister came up with the brilliant idea of borrowing a mixer from a neighbor. I finished mixing the cake put it in the oven and frankly, it looked a bit weird. I realized I needed to bake another cake in case the first cake was a disaster.

I made up an orange almond cake . It was really good. We are having guests for Shabbat so I decided to reprise the cake.

Here it is below.

What’s in it? As far as I can recall

Made up Orange Almond Cake

9 egg yolks – beaten until thick and butter colored with a cup of sugar and the rind of one orange and the juice of the same orange

6 egg whites ( I made meringues with the other 3 whites) beaten until stiff with a pinch of salt

gently add the stiffly beaten whites to the yolk mixture

sprinkle about a cup of ground almonds to the batter and gently fold in until well mixed

I poured the batter into a spring-form pan,( but you could use a tube pan if you wish_ and bake at 350 until the cake is done ( pulled away from the sides of the pan and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean) turn cake over until cook -remove to plate

custard topping

in a small saucepan combine a couple of hefty table spoons of potato starch, a cup of sugar the juice of an orange some orange juice from the fridge and the zest from the orange. Heat while stirring until the mixture boils and becomes clear. spread or pour over cake 9 depending on how thick the mixture is.

I baked the meringue wreathes on the bottom of the spring form pan on parchment paper. when they cooled I peeled them off the paper and added them to the cake. It looks cute. You could also top the cake with fresh berries.

I have been making a pot of Matza Brei each morning for breakfast. Tomorrow is shabbat my older son whop thinks about food a great deal asked me what breakfast would be tomorrow morning.

I needed to make something that could be eaten cold and would be something that my youngest would eat as well.

So I made this.

It’s a breakfast lasagna. Like many Passover food items it’s a combination of matza milk eggs and cheese think lasagna but slightly sweet. The cheese layer is plops of cottage cheese. The lasagna is flavored with cinnamon, orange peel, orange juice and is enhanced with milk, raisins and some sugar and maple syrup.

Our sedarim were wonderful. When I’m less tired, I will tell you about them.

Comments

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog