Cranberry Brie Pull Apart Loaf

We don't have parties very often, but I just made this for a winter tea. It's appropriate anytime, but lovely for the Thanksgiving to New Years holiday stretch. It is beautiful and delicious. A bit of a technical challenge, but not much in the way of complexity. Quantities are flexible.

1 round or oval boule or sour dough loaf
1/3 c whole cranberry sauce (could be apple slices for RH) [I just made a small amount with equal parts water, sugar, and cranberries]
5 T butter

1-2 T honey
8-10 oz Brie (it's easy to find kosher brands now, for whatever reason) - sliced thin.
a few sprigs of rosemary, chopped, plus a few sprigs for garnish

Thyme - chopped or ground, maybe a teaspoon.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the loaf in a criss-cross grid, leaving the bottom intact. Make sure the knife is sharp - if the bread is dense, this is hard. One recipe said to do is diagonally, which might be easier.

Melt the butter with honey, rosemary, and thyme.

Setting the sliced loaf on a tin foil base, on your baking tin - pour about half of the melted butter in the crevices and over the top so it soaks in.

Poke the brie slices in the cuts, in both directions. It's going to melt, so don't worry about it being perfect.

Pour, or by hand, stuff cooked cranberries in the slots. Pour the rest of the cranberry sauce and the butter over the top.

Bake until the brie melts, about 15 minutes. Don't overbake or it's really hard to cut the bottom. 

It's nice on a pedestal cake server. Garnish with rosemary sprigs.

Use a serrated spatula and pull!

This is gorgeous! And delicious!

There was a lot leftover and I served it room temperature at a kiddush, and people enjoyed it that way, too. But hot and gooey is the goal.

Cranberry Sweet Potatoes

This was part of the Resnick/Rosen/Teutsch Thanksgiving, Shulamit's very first. She was considerably smaller than the turkey.
What I like about this dish is that the colors are really beautiful. Would be nice for a vegetarian potluck - it is vegan/gluten free and both yams and cranberries are extremely nutritious superfoods.
For the 1323 feast, I used freshly cooked cranberry sauce, though the recipe calls for canned.  It is so easy to make, and so much better, but not essential - canned is fine.
It is easily doubled.
I clipped it out of a newspaper decades ago. The onion is an interesting addition.

Note, I don't microwave the yams first.  With a Santoku knife they are not that hard to cut.

Buttermilk Kugel

This is an easy, dense, nutritious relatively low-fat/nutritious kugel.  Most kugels call for sour cream and/or cream cheese.
The recipe comes from both Beryl Levine, Susan's mom, and Bev Osnowitz, Debi's mom. Beryl didn't cook much, what with five kids and commuting 90 miles to law school.  She was the talk of the town. My mom's generation, about 10-20 years older, just couldn't understand why a well-to-do doctor's wife with 5 children could have high-powered career ambitions.  Once she was a practicing lawyer and appointed to the North Dakota state supreme court, they warmed up to the idea, though.

12 oz egg noodles
3 eggs
½ c. sugar - less if you don't want it as sweet
3 c. buttermilk (lowfat by nature, but I think you can also opt for a lower fat variety)
butter - generous pat
optional: small can crushed pineapple. (Don't need to drain.)

Streusel topping:

¼ c. brown sugar mixed with ¼ c. cornflake crumbs and about a teaspoon of melted butter

1. Boil noodles, following package directions.


2. Preheat oven to 350°.  Put the pat of butter in the pan, cut it into small pieces, into a large oven-proof pan (lasagna size).  Place in the oven to melt the butter.


3. In a large bowl, mix all the non-streusel ingredients.  With a HOT PAD, take out the pan, swirl the melted butter to coat the whole pan bottom.  Pour in the noodle mixture, which will be very loose.


4. Bake for 35 minutes.  Take out the kugel and spread the streusel on top, pushing any baked/hardened noodles down underneath the surface.
    
5. Bake another 25 minutes.

I like this with cut fresh fruit.  If it's for shavuot, you might hit local strawberries!

Kasha Varnishkes - tweaked from Jane Brody

I've already been through the year once with this blog, so there are fewer favorites to add, but kasha varnishkes is a great dish.  I have been bringing it to the break fast at the Ferleger Friedmans for probably 15 years.  I love it, Zach loves it, Abba doesn't love it, so I don't make it for us at home much.  However, it is a great lunch  and it's easy to double the recipe and freeze a lot. This recipe makes a HUGE amount.  This is really good stick-to-the-rib food.  Buckwheat is extremely nutritious and when you cook it in egg, even more so. (not vegan.)

When I was a grad student at HUC-JIR, it was on 68th St, so we'd occasionally eat on 72nd Street at what I think was called the Famous, a dairy kosher deli which catered to refugees who populated the area - by the 1970's, they were elderly.  They served this dish with a mushroom gravy, and it was GOOD.  Rumor had it that Isaac Bashevis Singer ate there.  (there was also a great cafe for pastry -Eclaire, very European and elegant, nearby.)

2 t. butter or oil
2 medium onions, chopped fine
½ lb. sliced mushrooms
2 eggs
1 BOX buckwheat groats, medium granulation  = 2¼ c. kasha  (Wolff's is classic, but any brand is fine.)
4½ c. boiling water + bouillon powder (1 T + 1 t)
1 lb bow-ties (large size, not the little ones for soup)
salt & pepper

In a large pot, bring water to boil (about 2 quarts) to boil and cook bowties according to the package directions.

Meanwhile, in a LARGE skillet with a cover, heat the oil and saute the mushrooms and onions until soft and translucent.

In a medium mixing bowl, pour in the box of kasha and two eggs, and mix until all the groats are wet.

Add to the skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the groats are dry and separate from one another.


Add the hot broth to the skillet, add salt and pepper, cover, and simmer for 10-15 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed.  If it's an electric stove, you can turn the burner off for most of the time.

Drain the bow-ties.  In a very large serving bowl, mix the bow-ties with the cooked kasha. You will likely have enough for some freezer utensils, too.

(The advantage of this version, a huge quantity, is that it uses the whole box of kasha and the whole box of bow-ties, so you don't have odd amounts left over in your pantry, and isn't much more work than making a normal amount.)

It is good with grated cheese, and also with a gravy.  The ratio of groats to bow-ties isn't strict.  And, the reason not to use the finest granulated kasha is that it's too fine and separates from the pasta so it's hard to eat.