Sweet Noodle Kugel

It's not exactly my Bubby's recipe. She used to make it with a can of Del Monte's fruit cocktail ("without the liquid!"). I got a little fancier and used sliced pairs and raisins, just like a recipe I'd seen in Faye Levy's 1,000 Jewish Recipes. No matter what you do, it's hard to make a mess of eggs, cheese, butter and sugar.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil a bag, or a half bag, depending on the size of your baking dish, of egg noodles. Cook them until they're almost al dente then run them under cold water and let them sit. In a bowl, mix equal parts cottage cheese and sour cream (don't skimp on either one), half a stick of softened butter, two beaten eggs, sugar (more or less depending on how sweet you like it), a dash of cinnamon, raisins and thinly sliced pears or apples. Mix in the noodles then pour it all into a greased baking pan.

One last touch: Before you put it in the oven, drizzle a bit more softened butter over the whole thing. That'll get the top all crispy and brown. I cooked it for about an hour.

I'm now sending this over to Ruth's Presto Pasta Night. (Think of it as Jewish baked ziti.)

Pasta Night: Lemon & Garlic

Jessie in Lexington, Va., had a classic cook's conundrum: an exotic ingredient she wanted to play with, but no clue how to use it. (How she came to have an excess of salty preserved lemon around to begin with is a mystery.) She writes:

"I'm never quite sure what to do with salty preserved lemon, so last night I tried adding it to a simple pasta dish. Throw a bunch of trimmed ramps (that have been blanched in boiling, salted water for about 3 minutes), lots of roasted garlic, olive oil, preserved lemon, and a squirt of fresh lemon juice to a food processor and pulse into smooth. Toss with al dente spaghetti, and top with grated parmesan and freshly ground pepper. Serve with a slice of homemade bread and home brew."

We're submitting this dish to Ruth's Presto Pasta Night. Crossing fingers...



The home brew is delightful, but hardly simple. If you have a few hundred free hours on your hands, give it a shot. Here again is Jessie:

"Making homemade beer is sort of like canning vegetables in that it requires standing over a 3 to 5 gallon pot of boiling liquid for a couple of hours while all the windows in your home fog up. But unlike canning, it's crucial to regularly measure the density of the liquid with a hydrometer before adding additional ingredients (tales abound of home brew bottles exploding under pressure due to imprecise hydrometer readings). What you're looking at here is a blond ale, with a 7 percent alcohol content, comprised mostly of malted barley and stored in 3-4 cases old Grolsch bottles. The entire process--boiling, bottling, and, in particular, fermenting--takes about 10-12 days. The taste reminds this beer maker of the English ale New Castle. "

A hydrometer???

Linguine With Clam Sauce

Mince quite a few garlic cloves and saute them briefly in olive oil. Add two small cans of minced clams with their liquid, salt and white pepper. Bring to a simmer. In a separate pot, boil linguine (we used whole wheat) and when it's almost ready, add lots of chopped parsley to the sauce. Combine pasta and sauce and add plenty of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Sunday Salads

From Lenore in Miami, clockwise from top.
Salmon salad: Can of salmon, capers, parsley, lemon, olive oil, minced shallot, salt, pepper.
Egg salad: Onions, celery, salt, pepper.
Crusty bread.
Pasta salad: shells, diced red and green bell peppers, sliced black olives, mayo, celery salt, dry mustard, pepperoncini, diced cornichons, diced shallot, salt, pepper.
Roasted peppers tossed with mashed anchovies, olive oil.