Recipes of the Weird or Adventures in Kugel and Slop

In spite of it being the thesis of this blog, I am continuously fascinated by how making my way through recipes my family has eaten and continues to eat, I stumble upon bits of history.  And sometimes history no one has thought to talk about for several years… because the food is as much a piece of the present, why question how it got to be tradition?

Indeed, the regularity of a few dishes makes me forget that it is odd we serve something… like noodle kugel at our Irish/French Canadian Catholic Christmas feast.  And Easter feast for that matter.  I think I’ve been aware it is a traditional Jewish dish for a while – maybe not always – but long enough to know that it isn’t… well… as logical as boiled dinner or meat pies.  But whatever, we do have a lot of varied dishes at each and every one of our holidays.  We have a lot of good cooks.  Cooks who like to venture outside of the comfort zone. 

My grandmother definitely set the bar for that one.  Last week when I made the dressing in her kitchen and was looking for the bread crumb grinder in all the drawers, I found a whole drawer of cookbooks in that pantry closet.  So many many cookbooks (in addition to the recipe cards I make my way through now).  Some were just binders of magazine clippings.  Things that may have been foreign to our heritage… but are now typical entries in the sweets category.  

But kugel?  There isn’t a Jewish cookbook in that drawer.  And, it is something that amused my cousin’s husband on his first Christmas feast… and provoked a conversation that inspired my December supper club theme.  That family dish you have every year but have no idea why or where on earth it comes from.

So I made noodle kugel… or as my grandmother’s recipe card says, Noodle Pudding (which is pretty much a translation of kugel).  This dish is not my grandmother’s recipe.  It came to us from my aunt… but has been around so long I forgot (or maybe never knew) the reason why.  A quick conversation with my mother today reminded me that my aunt was married to someone from a Lithuanian family… and the big mystery was solved without a lot of hoopla.

Anyway, it is definitely not a typical Irish or French dish.  It definitely has that Eastern European quality of lots of sour cream and butter.  My grandmother’s recipe card calls for Velveeta, but the idea of touching Velveeta makes me gag, so I substituted a package of cream cheese and half a container of ricotta.   My milk had also turned a little past a decent aroma, so I substituted almond milk.  It didn’t make the flavor suffer one bit.  These substitutions also didn’t really do much to make it healthier – because did I mention a whole STICK of butter.  

Noodle Pudding (Kugel)

½- ¾ lb egg noodles (one typical package)
1 16 oz. large curd cottage cheese
½ small package velveeta cheese (which I did not use.  Blech)
1 c. sour cream
¼ lb melted butter
Cook noodles as directed and slice or grate cheese and mix with other ingredients.  Pour into greased 9x13 pan.  Then mix 4 eggs (beaten), plus ½ c sugar, 1 ½ cups milk, 4 tsp vanilla.  Pour over first mixture.  Coat heavily with cinnamon and sugar.  Bake 1 ¼ hour in 350° oven.  Bake about 1 hour then shut off oven and leave in oven for 10-15 minutes.  Freezes well (also good cold)

Optional: Eliminate sugar, add more velveeta (really?  Gross)  for less dessert like taste.  Or add 1 box raisins to mixture.

This was a huge hit at the dinner table.  Not that I’m shocked, really.

And seeing that the theme of dinner was weird traditions, I thought I would take out a weird dessert. – something that we don’t have regularly, but is somewhat legendary.  There was an ill-fated attempt at one of my grandmother’s birthday parties a few years back.  I don’t remember thinking it all too appetizing.  But I figured I would challenge myself with a classic recipe of the 1950’s Brennan household, affectionately known as Slop.  

Sounds appealing, no?  Yeah, I pulled out the typed recipe card and laughed at myself for deciding to subject my guests to this after dinner concoction.  I mean… I’m the one who refused to use Velveeta, but sure, why not Fluff?

It is actually a pretty easy recipe.  Basically, you cook the rice, add the fluff and pineapple.  Let it chill out in the fridge.  Whip up some cream and add cherries.  It looks like rice pudding and the weirdness had a lot of hesitant first bites (myself included).  But, there were several second helpings… enough that the bowl was almost empty when I cleared all the dishes at evening’s end.  Go figure.  It was indeed delightful.

 

 Not really the best picture of the finished product, as the whipped cream decided to reflect the flash in the most blinding way, but it is actually kind of pretty with the cherries.  One could almost say festive for the holidays.

Pie, Take One... or Food Blog Meet Supper Club

Three years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to not just talk to my friends on Facebook and over text messages.  I decided to start a supper club that would meet (mostly) once a month for a themed dinner.  The idea is to sit around a table and look at people (not little blue screens you hold in your hand), talk, and share a good meal.

So, naturally, this is a perfect audience for the experiments of my cooking.  I choose the theme of each dinner… and it just so happened that I selected pie for the theme of this dinner - even before I started the blog.  But the theme is made for my grandmother’s recipe collection because it is full of pies.

I don’t know if it is cliché to say that pie makes me think of my grandmother.  It seems a very grandmother thing to make pies.  But let me tell you, my grandmother made them and made them well.  Apple pie is probably the one I remember most.  And lemon meringue.  And vaguely in the back of my memory, there was mincemeat.   Some of the more unusual varieties came out at Thanksgiving… but pie plates occupied that not so secret storage for sweets spot in the pantry closet as frequently as a tin of cookies.  

Nana Rose was also a pie maker.  In fact I think she was the one who initiated the practice of using torn up bed sheet strips to line under the edge of the crust as it baked in the oven.  Gram told me that Rose baked two pies every Sunday, one for the house.  And one for my great-grandfather Frank – my grandmother’s father.  

I am fascinated by the relationship between the widower and the divorcee.  My great-grandfather lost his wife in 1939, while my great-grandmother divorced her cad of a husband… leaving them both single parents who became so much a part of the lives of their grandchildren.  Rose was there during the week, but Frank would take the whole brood out for long walks on Sundays (exhausting them plenty for Sunday night).  And in return, he would get one of Rose’s pies.

 Grampy Frank with his daughter and six of his grandchildren.

I decided to make Gram’s pumpkin pecan pie.  Knowing it was a one-shelled recipe, I followed her instructions for two so I could use the second to bake a brie for the pre-dinner snack.  Normally I use a pre-packaged phyllo dough for that recipe.  But pie crust works just as well.

Now, full disclosure, pie crust is not my specialty.  I can make pizza dough in my sleep.  I can create a lasagna from random ingredients in my fridge or pasta sauce out of beets.  Anything with cheese… well, okay, I have to give cheese most of the credit.  But pie crust… well… pie crust is an art I have yet to master.

Remember that paste story I mentioned at the beginning of this blog?  Well, it turns out that is an actual step… and maybe that’s where my pie making skills went south.  Apparently I got stuck on that step and never made it to the dough part.   I should have taken a picture of the paste – but, well, unfortunately I have serious focus issues when I cook and prep my house for a dinner party… so for that part you just have to use your imagination.

Pie Crust Recipe (forms two shells)
Ingredients:
2 c. flour
1tsp. salt
2/3 c. Crisco (I admit I am not a purist here.  I get my pretentious organic vegetable shortening from Wegmans)
1/3 c. water

Directions:
1. Sift flour and salt into a bowl
2.  In separate bowl, take out 1/3 cup flour and blend with water to make a paste
3. Cut the Crisco into the remainder of the flour until it is in pieces, the size of peas.
4. Stir the flour paste into dry ingredients to make a dough that will hold together.
5. Form into a bowl
6. Roll to desired size

So like I said, I used one to make the brie, baked with caramelized onions and an apple.  That was the messiest and not one connected piece… so I didn’t photograph it until the plate was nearly demolished.

The second shell I used to make a pumpkin pecan pie.

The shell (with a little bit of the batter)  At least it was one piece.

Pumpkin Pecan Pie (made better as 9 in pie, rather than 8in) – did I read this instruction?  No.

Beat 2 large eggs in a bowl.  Stir in 1 can 1lb pumpkin, ½ c. brown sugar, ¼ c. sugar, ½ tsp. each salt, ginger, 1 tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp. ground cloves.  Whisk in 1 ½ light cream.  Pour into unbaked pie crust.  Bake 400° 45-55 minutes until crust is brown, filling set.  Cool pie.  In small pan melt 3 Tbsp butter, stir in 2/3 c. brown sugar, 24 pecan halves of 2/3 c. coarsely chopped pecans.  Put pecans on top of pie.  Broil 2-3 minutes until brown.  Serves 8-10.  Serve warm.

Cooking with pumpkin always makes me happy.  Adding fragrant spices to it, so much the better.

In spite of my lackluster product, I must say I would rather a sloppy homemade crust than one from the store.  It’s like pizza dough – basic (cheap) ingredients… and the only way to confront this demon of imperfection is to just keep on trying!

That said, I can identify two imperfect things from this day in the kitchen i.e. the way I did not follow directions.

1. I broiled my pie while trying to track down extra pie servers.  So… those 3 minutes went a little long… and the pecans were more black than golden.  But that didn’t stop us from eating!

2. I did not heed the advice about the pie plate size – so I had too much filling.  What does one do with batter of eggs, spices, and cream?  Make French toast of course!