Mosaic Monday: Haroset for Passover!

Tomorrow night I'll be celebrating Passover with my family. We especially look forward to the haroset, which as a kid, I used to help make it with my grandmother and when my kids were small they helped make it! It's definitely an interesting concoction and one of those things you either love it or not. We love it! I think my kid loved it because he definitely overloaded it with the very sweet wine!

If you want to know a little more about Passover and Haroset, epicurious.com has an article about it with Haroset recipes from all over the world.

Wishing all who celebrate a very Happy Passover!

Haroset for Passover
Printable Recipe

This is a traditional Ashkenazi (Eastern European) recipe. 

Everything to taste, more or less!

makes about 5 cups

4 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (I used 2 Granny Smith, 2 Braeburn)
1 1/2 cups walnut halves, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup sweet red wine such as Manischewitz Extra Heavy Malaga (I also use the Concord Grape)
1 1/2 - 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 - 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar, white sugar OR honey (I use white sugar)

Put everything in the bowl of a food processor and pulse it as coarse as you like. Just be careful not to overprocess.

Visit Mary at The Little Red House to see all the mosaics this week for Mosaic Monday!

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Pasta Fantastic!

On Sundays we all eat dinner as a family, no ifs, ands or buts! Friends are always welcome, but it is the one day we can usually all manage to sit down together. Sometimes we order in, depending on how the day went and sometimes I experiment on those poor unsuspecting souls! Mostly they are ok with my experiments. They are particular about cheese, they didn't love the cream sauce stage I went through a few years back. But for the most part will try anything once. Except for Miss Picky. She presents a challenge. Not a good taster at all, not even a bite, unless we resort to bribery. It works. Sometimes. She wouldn't admit to liking something new anyway, just because. Usually. This time she did. They all did. Baked Penne with Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes. It was a pasta dish that was fantastic! Really!

If you know me by now, you know I have yet to follow directions exactly. So I didn't have whole milk. I used 1% milk and it was fine. It was also kind of lumpy when I tried to add all that flour to the butter, and then the milk, so I used a stick blender to whiz it up when it made the milk lumpy. really lumpy. Worked fine, no lumps :) I still don't get why I needed to add those extra tablespoons of flour. It's cooking not baking, not an exact science?  It thickened up fine without them. Sometimes I luck out and do well in spite of rushing at the last minute to come up with a good dinner. This was one of those times. This will be added to the hit list!

Ready to bake...

Fresh from the oven...

Ready to eat...

Baked Penne with Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Source: Martha Stewart Everyday Food, January 2009
Serves 8

6 tablespoons butter, plus more for baking dishes
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound penne rigate
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (8 ounces each), halved horizontally -- I sliced them in small bite-size pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
4 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups whole milk -- I used 1% milk
10 ounces white mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups shredded provolone (6 ounces) -- I used shredded mozzarella
1 cup finely grated Parmesan (4 ounces)

Preheat oven to 400. Butter two shallow 2-quart baking dishes. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta 3 minutes short of al dente; drain pasta, and return to pot.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Season chicken with salt and pepper; cook until opaque throughout, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Halve each piece lengthwise, then thinly slice crosswise.In a 5-quart Dutch oven or heavy pot, melt butter over medium. Add flour and garlic; cook, whisking, 1 minute. While whisking, gradually add milk; bring to a simmer, whisking frequently. Add mushrooms and tomatoes; cook 1 minute. Off heat, gradually stir in provolone and 1/2 cup Parmesan.

Add chicken and pasta to pot; season with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture into a large baking dish; sprinkle with Parmesan.

Bake, uncovered, until top is golden and bubbling, about 25 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Make ahead: You can also freeze it for a ready-made dinner another time. When ready to cook, bake it straight from the freezer, covered in foil. Prepare it as directed, but do not bake it; let cool. Cover tightly with foil, and freeze, up to 3 months. When ready to use it, preheat oven to 400, and bake (still covered in foil) on a rimmed baking sheet until center is hot, about 1 1/2 hours. Remove foil; bake until golden, about 15 minutes more.

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Mosaic Monday: Spring!

Welcome to spring! Finally.

Starting to see signs of spring like spearmint poking through, lilacs are beginning to show some life, and the puppy is happily playing with a twig and running around in the sunshine! Nice days ahead.

Visit Mary at The Little Red House to see all the mosaics this week for Mosaic Monday!

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The Passover holiday is coming. Twenty six at our table this year. Usually I'd have made and frozen three briskets already. Good thing for procrastination because it would have all been a waste. Lost power for five days with the Nor'Easter that hit last week, and had to throw out mostly everything from the frig and freezer! So I'm starting fresh and cooking three briskets and a big pot of chicken fricassee with meatballs today. If I can get motivated to get in the kitchen, it's such a gorgeous day outside today! and I can call for takeout. Even on a holiday. But I won't! I can't. Can I? I could call...
Ben's Deli!  but I'm not.

It's back to the kitchen for me!

This one is my go to every day brisket recipe because it's so easy and soooo good. But because of the beer, not kosher for Passover, if you keep it. Doesn't get any easier! You don't have to follow exactly, just dump it all together, cover and braise it for about four or five hours. Perfect every time.

Brisket
Source: Irene Wolpin, Calling All Cooks, Food Network
Printable Recipe

1 4-pound beef brisket
Kosher salt
Pepper
2 onions, thinly sliced into half moons (I use 3 large onions)
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup prepared chile sauce (Heinz Chile Sauce - I use the whole bottle)
3 tablespoons brown sugar (I use a bit more)
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 12-ounce bottle beer

Salt and pepper both sides of the meat. Place beef in a roasting pan. Cover with onion. Combine ketchup, chile sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and beer. Pour mixture over meat. Cover securely with foil. Bake at 300 degrees F for 4 hours or more until tender. Remove the meat from the pan, and puree the gravy with an immersion blender to thicken it up. Slice the meat against the grain, and return it to the gravy! Tastes even better the next day. Freezes well! I Sometimes I just puree half the onions because we like the onions. and most of the time I never even bother to puree it at all. It's great no matter how you do the gravy.

Chicken Fricassee with Meatballs
Source: originally from Syd, Cindy's mother
Printable Recipe

This recipe is pretty much an approximate, I got it watching my friend Cindy's mom make it years ago. I usually use a large package of wings, with about 20 wings in a pack. Use more or less of whatever you want, it's to taste.

giblets (liver, gizzards, neck) You can omit if you want but it adds great flavor!
chicken wings (cut at joints, chuck out the tip part or save it to make in a soup) or drumettes
2 pounds chopped meat
2 onions, chopped
2 eggs
pepper
salt (optional)
1/3 cup matzoh meal (you can use bread crumbs if you want to)
garlic powder
ketchup
paprika

Brown the giblets and wings with onions in a big pot with a little bit of oil, add some salt and pepper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the chopped meat, eggs, matzoh meal, some ketchup, a little water, a little garlic powder and pepper. Make little teeny, tiny meatballs. Add them to the pot on top of the browned wings, one layer at a time, so they don't get squished. Add some ketchup, some paprika and garlic powder to sauce. Simmer for a few hours. Check the sauce to see if it needs more ketchup, garlic, pepper or salt.

My notes: It’s all approximate. I use a regular package of chopped meat, probably about a 1/3 to a 1/2 bottle of ketchup. We like Heinz. The regular size bottle, not the humongous size. Probably a couple teaspoons of garlic powder, about a teaspoon or two of paprika, I throw some salt in, but not too much, plenty of pepper. Use as many or as little wings as you want. You can use chicken parts, too, just cut in small pieces. My grandmother used to add bay leaves. If you want, throw in about two bay leaves.

Click here  and here for some more Passover recipes from last year!

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Flashback Friday: Spring!

We lost power for five days during the "hurricane" with no name! Lost two 45 year old trees that my parents planted when they first built the house. But the house was fine and so were we! We will plant two new ones!

Saturday night one of the trees caught fire and burned the power line. It landed by our driveway and stayed there for five days! The electric company had people guarding it around the clock until they were able to send people to fix it. Took five days. They were all really nice and it was pretty scary! The street was blocked off, no garbage pick-up, no mail, no nothing!

All's well that ends well. Time for spring. The weather was a big contrast to last weekend! It's been a gorgeous few days! I picked up a bunch of tulips. It made a really beautiful day even better!

Was so nice to have heat and electricity! On Thursday we sat down to a nice family dinner, didn't have to wear coats indoors, no shivering no candles and no flashlights. We tried a new recipe and joined Suzy from Kitchen Bouquet and Flashback Friday with a flashback recipe! The new one is very good, Cilantro-Chipotle Tilapia! The flashback was Cherry-Chipotle Wings. A staple of our grilling season. And so it begins. Grilling. Mr. Griller will be very busy, it's supposed to be a nice weekend. We've had enough takeout for quite a while. Even for us!

Chipotle-Cherry Barbecue Glaze
Source: Food and Wine Magazine - June 2005, recipe by Grace Parisi,
Printable Recipe

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped (I just sliced the onions, it'll get whizzed up when you use the stick blender or food processor)
8 ounces cherry preserves (3/4 cup) (I use a bit more!)
1/4 cup minced seeded chipotle chile in adobo sauce (I use 2 – 3 chipotle's, and leave them whole – it’ll get pureed when you put it in the processor or blender. I use an immersion stick blender)
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar

In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the onion and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until bubbling, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer the mixture to a food processor and process until fairly smooth. Transfer to a bowl and let cool before using. The glaze can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

NOTES : Use this spicy, smoky, sweet barbecue sauce to glaze grilled meat or poultry in the last few minutes of cooking. It can also be served on the side.

Cilantro-Chipotle Tilapia
Source: Gourmet - February 2009, recipe by Ian Knauer
Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped canned chipotles in adobo (I used more like 2 tablespoons!)
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
4 (6-ounces) tilapia fillets

Preheat broiler.

Purée cilantro, oil, chiles with some adobo sauce, water, cumin, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a blender until smooth, then coat fish with sauce.

Line rack of a broiler pan with foil, then broil fish 3 to 4 inches from heat until just cooked through, 6 to 9 minutes.

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Power out...

I'm working on what's left of the laptop battery power. No more snow issues, now we have rain and wind! No power for who knows how long. Long Island was hit pretty bad in this last storm! For now we have takeout, a grill and a lot of thawing food! Not to mention TV and computer withdrawal!

In the meantime, I'm thinking spring!

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