Food Friday- FleishFest Edition

 Tonight is a big night at our house. We are celebrating the birthday of our youngest and our older son returns from Arizona for the weekend. All six of us will be around the table. There was a request for...meat-- fleish.

It has been so long since we were all together. There is something so truly festive about planning and cooking and serving this meal of many meats.

I made beef with a spiced coffee rub. I still need to slice it up and make a sauce to cover the meat and keep it from drying out while it warms up for Shabbat.

My youngest requested spicy chicken wings. The wings are covered with a mix of Korean gochujang, maple syrup, vinegar, and coffee. I would have preferred to use molasses but I used up the last of our jar and Passover is soon...so the maple syrup will have to do. I love the mix of Korean, New England, and Southern flavors all in one dish.

Unlike my usual Shabbat dinner, there are some purchased delicacies including

beef kreplach and an insane amount of pastrami.

The pastrami is in the oven on low,  uncovered. By the time we serve dinner it will be crispy and dark .

In case that wasn't quite enough meat I also purchased

frozen pigs in blankets because they turn ANYTHING into a par-tay. Sorry, I don't have toothpicks topped with ruffled cellophane.

We will also be having a big green salad---because I am not entirely nuts.

I baked a cake for my youngest. It is sort of based on this recipe which seems to be a Yankee version of a Jewish honey cake.

I adapted the recipe so it isn't dairy. I baked it in a bigger pan than called for-- so I guestimated how much more of everything to add.  I looked at this recipe while I assembled the cake. That doesn't mean that I actually followed it . After I baked it, it looked like this...

I took the cake out of the pan, cut away the ugly ends, and ended up with a cake that was about 12 inches x 8. I cut it in half so I had two 6 x8 cakes, cut each cake half into two layers, and stacked the cake layers with store-bought non-dairy caramel filling and marshmallow fluff between the layers.

Today I decorated the cake. I made a chocolate custard to top the cake...

Then I gilded the lily just a bit

with drizzles of white chocolate pulled with a sharp knife.

For those of you concerned with my salt intake. I am not partaking of the store-bought salty goodies. I will enjoy watching the people I love eating .

I can't tell you how happy I am to have Shabbat dinner with all of the kids. 

Shabbat Shalom!