More Fun Playing with Holiday Food

I have been remiss in blogging lately - so busy with so many things! The most recent busy-ness has been the Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashonah, which literally means "the head of the days." We enjoyed two nights of friends and their family, and some terrific food. Thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Tom of Exploring Food My Way, I knew I didn't need to take a lot of photos this time around. Follow the link in the prior sentence to see Tom's photos and account of the pre-dinner festivities.

I did take a few shots, which I'll share with you:


Dinner Table - Each Place with a Ramekin of Ohio Honey


Garden Cherry Tomatoes and Horseradish, Gefilte Fish with Carrots

Once again, Mister Brisket delivered with wonderful raw fish for the Gefilte.


Platter of Assorted Garden Tomatoes with Garden Basil, and Garden Radishes and Peppers



Note to self - remove the reflective spoon from the plate before snapping picture when next you photograph.



I will stop here, so as not to spoil Tom's Part II post. This is a time of year about reflection and renewal. I have been doing a lot of that lately. I resolve for the New Year (5770, folks - the sixties are over) to continue playing with my food!

Fun Playing With Passover Food 2009

We are in the midst of the Passover holiday. I have always loved Passover, because of the special food memories that go with it. Many foods eaten during Passover are made and consumed just this once a year. Since moving to Cleveland 13 years ago, I usually make the traditional two Seders (unless we go to NY to visit the family). This year was a Cleveland Seder year.

The week before Passover turned out to be exceptionally hectic - as a result, I was too exhausted to take any Seder photos. However, you can see a wonderful narrative of our first Seder on my friend Tom's Blog, Breads My Way. Seder: Part 1, Part 2. Also, if you have a Facebook account, you can see the gorgeous photography of my friend Chris here.

So this year, I can offer you some photos of prep steps from some different perspectives than in my previous posts (I hope), and photos of some items in "leftover" mode.

We begin with the creation of one of the best pots of chicken soup I've ever made. I was lucky to have a Breychak Farms pullet in the freezer. This young lady still had her feet and neck intact:



In these two photos (above and below) - she has one food manicured - I realized after I snipped off the first set of toenails that I should take a picture before continuing!





By this point, I've finished the manicure, removed the feet, and removed the neck. Unfortunately, the neck was the only giblet - no poopick (gizzard), liver or heart. I did have an extra supply of feet and the back and bones from a recently cooked Breychak chicken, so I wasn't worried.


My secret weapon for skimming.




Soup Greens

Carrots, Onion, Celery, Parsnip. Flat and curly parsley will be added later.









I start with just the chicken and parts - remembering how long the feet take to give their all, I decide to leave the pullet whole.



That amazing alchemy happens - and after skimming and simmering (NEVER allow it to come to a boil) - the soup clears.




Everything is in the Pot!

While the soup simmers, I prepare the matzoh ball mixture. Since Kathy is no longer in the egg business, I needed to locate a new source for farm fresh eggs. I am very fond of Aaron Miller's eggs, but I was advised that they were in short supply.

None other than Hank Kornblutt at Mister Brisket supplied my answer! He pointed me to Hensbury Farm, where I hooked up with the owner, Jennifer. She agreed to meet me and provided me with all of the many dozen fresh eggs I needed - and these are truly wonderful eggs!



These eggs dated 3/15/09 were deliberately a little older, for making hard-cooked eggs. They peeled like a dream!






Yolks for Matzoh Balls

Some of these eggs are not Kosher, because of the bloody specks. Jews who keep Kosher are not permitted to consume any blood from any animal. I, however, have never let a blood speck get in the way of enjoying a farm fresh egg, so into the Matzoh Balls they went.


Whipped Yolks




Whites - Beaten to a Stiff Peak

The soup, meanwhile, simmers for many hours, until the feet have given up all of their collagen. Once chilled, the soup shimmers and shimmys like Jello.






The Final Product - Matzoh Ball Soup

Next up was the Gefilte Fish. As usual, I sourced my fish from Mister Brisket. Hank made sure I got some heads this time!

Bag 1 contains the stock making parts:



These are rinsed, put in a pot with onion, covered with water and brought to a simmer. As with the chicken soup, the fumet begins cloudy:



But through the magic that comes from the stove - it clears.



Skimming helps!

In the meantime, I beat several Hensbury Farm eggs in the bottom of a pot, then add my fish mixture. Hank has ground 1 part Pike, 1 part Whitefish and .5 part Carp fillets with onion, which looks like this:





My seasonings are simple - salt, white pepper and sugar. And a little matzoh meal to hold it together.

I form the mixture into quinelles (ovals) and poach them in the fish stock. After the first hour, I add carrot sections. I then poach for another 1.5-2 hours. I scoop the cooked fish out into one pan, and the carrots into a dish. Everything else, I'm sad to say, becomes compost - we never have the energy to save the fish fumet.

Bob makes horseradish from a root dug up from our garden, a little salt and vinegar:



The fish is eaten with carrots and horseradish - and, after the Seders - accompanied by buttered matzoh. Yum!









Another Seder delight is the Charosis - a mixture of walnuts, apples, Passover sweet wine and seasonings. Although I am always tempted by descriptions of exotic Sephardic preparations including dried fruits, dates, other kinds of nuts and seasonings - I can't bring myself to change this - because I LIKE it so much. We eat the leftovers as matzoh spread (since we don't eat peanut butter during Passover).

I have started adding a little cardamom and tumeric in recent years - but it's still mostly seasoned with cinnamon and Ohio Honey.





Looks like mortar, but tastes delicious!


Another Seder item that is just as yummy cold is the Sweet Farfel Pudding with Apricots; the Hensbury Farm eggs really kicked this up:





Finally, the "Day After" plate:


Brisket with Gravy & Onions, Potato Kugel, Sauteed Asparagus with Lemon-Grapeseed Oil Spritz



I hope that you are also playing with the Holiday foods of your choice - or if you do not celebrate a Spring holiday, that you playing with the bounty of the burgeoning Spring!

Fun Playing (One-Handed) With Holiday Food and Good Friends

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately - lots of time devoted to PT and rehabbing my shoulder. I've got a backlog of photos to share!

When last we left our intrepid food lover, she had just survived catering a weekend party for 65 people one-handed, with the help of some very special people. As the calendar would have it, Rosh Hashonah was scheduled to begin the next day, Monday September 29, at sundown. What to do?

As it happened, my good friend Linda, who has recently been through some tsorres (troubles) of her own, had neither the energy nor the desire to deal with her usual family holiday celebration. Together, we concocted the perfect plan - she'd bring some ingredients to my house on Monday morning, and we'd prepare our holiday meal together in my more spacious kitchen, then we'd enjoy a quiet New Year celebration with just our two couples the first night, and another friend in addition the second night.

I wasn't very camera-able at this point, so most of the photos are courtesy of our dear friend Edsel, who was the "other friend" the second night!

I did take photos of our beautiful soup pot - filled with lovely vegetables, and one pullet from Linda's freezer (which had started life at the Breychak Blue Egg Farm) and one pullet from the one and only Mister Brisket. Together with a few Blue Egg chicken feet, it was going to be something special:



Linda made the Maztoh Balls, using the recipe from her book, Onions, Onions, Onions. This is not the way I make them - she adds onion, schmaltz (chicken fat) and seltzer to the basic egg and matzoh meal batter - and she doesn't separate her eggs. I was game to try something different!


Linda's Matzoh Balls Cooking


The Festive Holiday Table

Sliced apples and Ohio Honey honey are first, together with Challah from On the Rise Bakery. Also, sliced hot peppers from the garden.


Gefilte Fish and Garden Horseradish

Thanks to Mister Brisket for providing the delicious raw fish mixture!


Garden Tomato Salad

This was surprisingly tasty with the addition of Thai Basil (I thought Bob was nuts when he told me that was how he was making it).


Chicken Soup, Matzoh Ball, Carrots, Noodles


Linda's Citrus-Braised Brisket



Linda did the brisket at her place over the weekend - a gorgeous hunk of grass-fed meat from Miller Livestock. She used a combination of North African spices and citrus for an interesting and tasty spin on the traditional holiday brisket.


Bob's Potato Kugel

Delicious, as always.

We were too stuffed both nights to cut up the garden melons we'd been gifted with, so no dessert (well - we did kinda dig into the leftover Chocolate Covered Bacon with Almonds the second night - but don't tell, since that wouldn't be kosher).



Since there was lots of soup left, we froze some, and I made another batch of Matzoh Balls for Yom Kippur the following weekend. It was sublime!