sarah in nyc

Saturday night right after Shabbat ended I made two pies. Both were pumpkin pies. Because I don't want to kill my nut-allergic son, I made a plain pumpkin pie.  That pie is now cut up and in our freezer. My son in law's late mother used to bake pumpkin pie topped with lots of pecans. Her family called it a pecan pumpkin pie. My son in laws' mother is no longer alive but perhaps eating something that reminds him of home will be a comfort to him. besides, pecans make pumpkin pie extra delicious. As I laid out all of the pecans I kept thinking about S, one of our virtual guests who is a really spectacular baker. I kept thinking that she would have figured out a prettier way to arrange all of the pecans.  Both pies are now all cut up and wrapped and in our freezer. Each year as I make pumpkin pie I think about my late inlaws. Every year before Thanksgiving they would declare "We don't like pumpkin. We don't like pumpkin pie." Every year they would take a slice...

This is the dish we have been eating fairly often in the past couple of weeks. I don't know exactly what to call it. It's a bread dough pulled into a rectangle, topped with oil, paved with raw sliced vegetables, herbs, spices, and a bit of cheese. It is similar to the large rectangular pans of dough topped with vegetables we saw in the shops in Rome. It is also related to the variations on this theme that we were served at the kiddush after services at the Great Synagogue in Florence and it is also a culinary cousin to Pita Za'atar. Here are two ready for the oven.  Right now the pushcart fruit guy a couple of blocks away has lots of zucchini and tomatoes. When he has red and yellow peppers or mushrooms I use those. If I had thought of it today I would have used the skinny asparagus that he was selling today.  Simple bread dough for vaguely Roman Style Pizza  put 2 cups water in a bowl ( if my kitchen were cold I would have warmed it for 30 seconds in a microwave) add 1 T...

This is a challah baking week, and it is still winter so Shabbat starts on the early side.  Shabbat starts at 5:21 this week. It isn't as much of a mad rush as it was during the weeks when Shabbat began around 4:00, but still, if we expect to eat tonight the tasks all need to be completed in the right order. I got the challah dough going before I finished drinking my morning coffee and began kneading after my breakfast. Breakfast was, as it is most mornings fruit and almonds run through the food processor. I used to call this roughy, as opposed to a smoothy. Recently I have decided to re-brand my breakfast and call it fruit porridge. I have the feeling that if I were to market this it would sell better with the new name. Either way, an orange, some fresh cranberries, a handful of almonds and a package of vitamin C powder are what got me going in the morning along with a big cup of coffee. Once I got the challah kneaded and rising in the big aluminum b...

Roasted Brussels sprouts make me regret all of my decades of Brussels Sprouts hate. These are cooked in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Herbes de Provence and lots of freshly ground black pepper. There are also some mushrooms tossed in the pan.  This ugly looking stuff in a bowl is magic in the form of sour dough. My friend Alan is serious about creating an actual sour dough. My version, is as one might expect, a little less exact. When I make a bread dough I leave part of it to hang out in the fridge as a sloppy wet dough. I have been pulling out some to do my weekday baking and adding a bit more water and flour to the bowl that stays in the fridge. It bubbles and grows and has been the leavening agent for three batches of bread this week, I have been loving the best bread baking flour ever. We purchased it in the frum market in Boro Park.I love how it is packaged in a plain brown paper bag. it has tons of gluten and creates a nice muscular dough. I did a...

Getting ready for the last Yom Tov bit of the holiday has provided me with some frustrations and some real pleasures. Amazon.com Widgets First two bits of frustrations.  Frustration bit number one Eliana wanted white lightning bolts on the underside of her tallit.  I started out making two bad lightning bolts couching silver thread to the tallit with many rows of zig zagging. I have spent a couple pf hours picking out the stitching and not cursing. This is a much improved lightning bolt. It's easier to construct. After the holiday I will make more of them. I think I have picked out every stitch of my failed attempts. Frustration Two We have been invited to dinner tomorrow night and lunch on Shabbat. I had planned to make a batch of meringues and an orange version of the cranberry chocolate tarts I had made for seder. In thinking about this dessert combination I had thought that I could be clever and put the egg yolks into the nut crust. The yolks and...

For those of you still cooking,  this lemon almond cake  is the best Passover cake in my repertoire. It is baking in my oven as I type this. Each time I make it I am amazed by what a beautiful cake batter it is. Amazon.com Widgets One of the things I love about my local fish monger is that if you ask for say,  1 3/4 lbs of salmon he will slice off EXACTLY that amount. The lemon cake needed a cup of ground nuts. I tossed some into the food processor. It came out to be exactly one cup ground. It's a good thing to be able to develop and eye for the work one does. This is the 2016 version of the lemon almond cake. There is a layer of tart lemon custard underneath the sliced almonds.  I also made the must be served the first night of Passover flour-less chocolate nut torte. last night I made the also must be served at Seder meringues. No, I am still not done, closer but not yet there. I did take some time to escape to the park with my neighbor and si...

The weather is just the peak of spring perfection but the Passover meals are not going to cook themselves.  I was outside enough to be able to at least notice that it was a gorgeous day. The beef is cooked, sliced bag and in the freezer joining the chickens. I have inherited my mother's ability to pack the freezer like a clown car. The charoset is completed and the flavors are melding in the fridge door. It ought to be perfect by Seder. We need to eat even thought it is not yet Seder. I pulled out all of the chicken from the soup, and made a giant chicken loaf.  To be honest, in this state it tasted a bit like reconstituted sawdust. My son mentioned that it needed some sort of a sauce. He was, as usual correct. I made a tomato sauce out of two cans of crushed tomatoes and caramelized onions. It was both acidic and slightly sweet and transformed the chicken loaf into something really delicious.  The kiddush cups all got kashered. My frien...