Today’s the first day of Autumn! I’m still sharing this summer produce recipe, okay?
Summer produce. Yum! Too much fresh produce that you can’t finish? Eew. That’s probably where pies, crisps, tarts, and cobblers came from, actually. And boy, do I love baking with fruits! After making a whole bunch of lattice-crust pies, I decided to take a different route with these plums, and this cobbler was born! Continue reading
Your side dish can’t get easier than this. If you have pesto in your freezer (either store-bought or homemade will do?), then you can prep this dish in about five minutes. Have basil growing like a weed in your garden? Then it might take a bit longer to make, but it’s still pretty simple, and always a big hit. Continue reading
What do you do when you have (what feels like) millions of figs on your tree? You eat as many as you can, obviously. And then you give a couple bunches away. And then you eat some more. But when you get sick of eating them raw, you have to think of other stuff to do with them. In the past, we made jam (yum!), but we wanted to do something different now. Like roasting them. And then we looked through How Easy Is That? and saw that Ina has a recipe for roasted figs with caramel sauce! We LOVE caramel. So of course we had to try this recipe out, and aren’t we glad that we did! Continue reading
What do you do with summer fruit that’s going to be bad tomorrow? You make pie, of course! Honestly, I can’t decide if I like most fruits raw or cooked (baked, barbecued, you know). So when both Dad and I came home from the supermarket with giant bags of summer peaches, there was no way they were all getting eaten. At the end of the week there were exactly six left to make this amazing pie! I also had a few raspberries, so I threw them in here. The recipe called for nectarines and blackberries, but hey, this substitution worked just fine.
The thing about this mint ice cream is that it’s not flavored with extract. Instead, I steeped some mint leaves in the milk and let that flavor the custard. Delicious! Then, I added some chopped up thin mints to the batter during the last few minutes of freezing. Wow! What a great minty combination! You get that bright fresh mint flavor from the ice cream, and then the chewy and pepperminty thin mint bite a little while afterwards. This is a great refreshing summer ice cream. Continue reading
Happy 2nd birthday, Kosher Foodies!! Today our blog turns 2. And to celebrate this momentous occasion, we would like to share one of our all-time favorite cake recipes with you. Sure, I made it over two months ago for Zeke’s birthday in May and wanted to share it with you the second I cleaned up all the forks and plates, but I figured that this special day warranted an extra special recipe, so here you go. It’s worth the wait.
Boston Cream Pie is actually cake. Delicious yellow cake with pastry cream in the center and drizzled with chocolate ganache. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Well what about if cut a hole out of the middle and stuff it with the cream, then put more cake on top and top that with lots and lots of chocolate? Yeah, it’s good. At least that’s what the people who ate all of it thought. It was a HUGE cake – I doubled a recipe that served 8-10, and at the end of the night only two slices were left. Those were quickly finished, as well. So if you’re in the mood to make an impressive cake, try this one. You won’t be sorry. Continue reading
On the rare occasion that I buy sour cream, I really need to use it before it goes bad. That means a lot of cake and muffins are baked in my house, then frozen for future breakfasts. I mean, I don’t want to waste a perfectly good ingredient. In this case, I decided to bake coffee cake, because it’s classic New York cuisine and easy to make for breakfast. I found a recipe in an old issue of Bon Appetit I had lying around, and it was perfect! A thick crumb topping and a nice moist cake.
Passover is next week! Who is busy cleaning, looking for hametz and menu-planning!? Everyone? I thought so! We tend to skip the typical Passover dessert. Cakes made with potato starch and matzo meal just aren’t good; we’ll wait a week for the real thing. But this is different. It’s supposed to be flourless, but it’s not one of those rich, dense flourless cakes. The whipped egg whites and cream make it light and airy. Not only is it delicious on Passover, but it’s beautiful! Continue reading
When this recipe was republished in the New York Times a few years ago, Jessica and I cut it out and sent our brother to the supermarket right away to buy those eight onions so we could make it for dinner that night. “Eight onions!?!” Marc said? Yes, eight onions. We sliced them by hand that time, but now I have a food processor and discovered the slicing blade, so it was easier this time.
A while back, Stephanie posted about kelsonnes, a traditional Syrian stuffed pasta dish. While many people use pre-made dough, making it from scratch is not so hard. It’s pasta that you can make without a pasta maker, so it’s totally worth it. The stuffed pasta is so giant that you get a ton of cheese, which is amazing. We usually eat these with egg noodles baked with butter. The buttery noodles get nice and crispy, mmm.
The recipe said that it yields 60 kelsonnes. I made 50. It really depends on the thickness of the dough. And no, I don’t serve/eat all of them at once. I usually make about 4 per person (of course we serve this alongside other traditional Syrian foods) and freeze the rest for an easy dinner later in the week.
I made individual bowls of noodles and kelsonnes here. You really don’t have to do that, but I like to take advantage of my oven proof bowls, so I do. If doing it this way, reduce the oven time and watch them closely. You don’t to burn the noodles too much!
Kelsonnes, adapted from the red Deal Delights cookbook:
For the dough:
For the filling (I cut the original recipe in half for you – otherwise there is WAY too much leftover cheese):
1. Make the dough: combine flour, eggs, and salt. Add the water in a slow stream and mix together until you get a soft dough.
2. Combine filling ingredients, set aside.
3. Split the dough in half and roll out each half of the dough on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness.
4. Drop a heaping tablespoon of the cheese mixture every 3 or so inches on half the dough (make sure you have enough room to close the dough between – see picture).
5. Cover the mounds with the other half of the dough.
6. Cut out the rounds with a round cutter (about 2 1/2 inch).
7. Repeat with remaining dough.
To assemble the dish:
For 4 people you will need:
1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
3. When boiling, add the kelsonnes. Boil for 5 minutes before adding the pasta.
4. Boil according to the time written on the package. Drain.
5. Combine butter, a pinch of salt, noodles and kelsonnes in a large casserole. Mix until the butter melts.
6. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, until the top noodles begin to brown and get crispy.
