Not quite food porn.

[mamadeb]

I've always been a decent cook, but a few things throw me. Cholent (the long cooked stew that is traditional for Shabbos lunch) is one. Noodle (or lokshen) kugel - to be precise, salt and pepper kugel - has also always eluded me. The difference is, I can take or leave cholent, but I love noodle kugel. So, when I want it, I buy it.

Except that I want it today. And there isn't any because the stores are, like me, post-Pesach, and no one has had time to make noodle kugels to sell. And I didn't want potatoes and we ate a lot of rice in the weeks just before, to use up what I had, and I wanted something reheatable, and that means kugel.

So. For the first time in a decade, I made a lokshen kugel. I cooked half a bag of wide noodles, and while that cooled, I beat three eggs, some salt, a *lot* of pepper and some good olive oil, and mixed that with the noodles using my hands (some things just require *hands*, y'know?) and poured the mixture into a baking pan.

After a week of disposables, it was good to use my old, stained, well-seasoned square pan. It was also good to have my old pasta/vegetable pot, my big stainless knife, my big cutting board, my kitchen. Pesach is completely packed away, other than the leftover lasagna and spinach pie, and most of my stuff is where it belongs, but I still have boxes of the stuff we sold, which is now ours again. The spices and oils and vinegars and the pancake mix and pretzels and flour. And they're sitting on a table in my kitchen. There's no hurry, but I will want to use that table, so they will go away.

I also made lemon-basil chicken, using dried basil and fresh lemons and some garlic powder because I tossed out my last garlic bulb and forgot to buy another. I also forgot to zest it, but it smelled and tasted good, so I'm not worried. The vegetable will be string beans because we don't eat them during Pesach, either.

Gotta admit, I'm looking forward to having a complete week next week.

Comments

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

(some things just require *hands*, y'know?)

Ain't that the truth?

....now I want to make dough. I love making bread. *knead knead*

[gingicat]

I prefer sweet noodle kugel, myself. My mom's always made the one in the "How to Cook Like a Jewish Mother" cookbook.

[leela-cat.livejournal.com]

I have this wonderful little recipe book of cards that Jo and I snagged from her mother. It was put together by the Jewish Fellowship of Davis, California, and contains an accumulation of recipes from the members (some recipes old enough to mention where in "the old country" they originated.

I've never made a salt and pepper kugel. I'm now wondering what it tastes like. Thanks for the suggestion.

And the best part of this Shabbat for me? Better than getting all my old pots and pans and dishes back. Better than anything else? Challah. Wonderful, yeasty-fresh, soft challah.

Mmm......

Elisabeth, who would also really like that recipe for pesachte eggplant lasagna

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

recipe. Hmmm.
Take an eggplant. Peel it. Cut in to thin slices (as thin as you can get it easily) lengthwise. Sweat by sprinkling salt on either side.

Make your normal sauce. Mine is onions, garlic, green peppers (or red) and mushrooms sauted together until soft. You can add whatever other veggies, like spinach or zucchini, you like. Add a medium sized (8oz, I think) can of tomato paste. If you have basil or oregano, add those. And pepper.

For year round, I use a lb of ricotta cheese mixed with an egg, garlic powder, black pepper and Italian seasonings. If you can't find pesadich ricotta cheese, *small curd* cottage cheese works well. And if you don't have dried green herbs, use fresh or don't worry about it.

I use preshredded low fat mozzarella, but you can certainly shred your own.

Take a lasagna sized pan. Put a ladle or two of sauce at the bottom. Put on a layer of square matzah (dry, unsoaked.) Then a layer of sauce, of curd cheese, of mozzarella. Then a layer of eggplant, and repeat. End with a lot of cheese sprinkled on. You can make the lasagna all matza or all eggplant.

Bake for an hour at 400.

[leela-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's great. I've added it to my collection, and will try it out next year. Or maybe I'll just make it with regular noodles now or just eggplant and see what happens.

I do love new recipes.

Elisabeth

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I usually rinse my eggplant off after it's purged; otherwise, things turn out too salty. It's a bit salty anyway, so you might need to adjust recipes to compensate.

Purged eggplant keeps pretty well in the fridge, btw - I just used some a week old two nights ago, and although it was a wee bit oxidized, it wasn't slimy like unpurged eggplant would be.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

Cholent eludes me too. Unfortunately, although I can't stand it, my husband loves it. So it would be nice if I could figure it out. If you ever find the secret, I'd love to hear it!

[cellio]

Cholent eludes me too. I usually end up with some variation on the "meat and veggies and stuff in the crockpot" theme for Shabbat lunch, but it could be chili, chicken "stoup" (more than a soup, less than a stew), a roast, or assorted other things.