Banana Pineapple Chocolate Comfort Cake

Originally I found this recipe in the Rockland Journal News.  It's a heavy, forgiving cake, more like a quick bread.  The recipe is enough for a generous tube pan cake + a loaf pan or the mini-bundt pans I just purchased.  I sent this to you at Wesleyan, Nomzi - and I think you and your friends dubbed it as Comfort Cake, more or less. Since this is a parve cake, I often made it for Rosh Hashanah.
It's worth baking this cake just to smell the aroma!

Preheat oven to 325
2013 Note: this year the oven was broken.  I baked an 8" tube pan, half the recipe, for 48 minutes in the convection oven at 325

3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs [these are optional! I accidentally left them out and the cake is dense but flavorful]
1 c. oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. ripe diced bananas, mushed (about 4 medium)
8 oz. can crushed pineapple and juice
4 oz mini-chocolate chips (or regular size is OK, too)

• Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl or standing mixer.  
• Add undrained pineapple, oil, vanilla, eggs, mashed bananas, and chocolate chips. 
• Pour batter into a sprayed tube pan until it's about 2/3 full, and then the remainder into a loaf pan.
• Bake ~ one hour.
• Test with toothpick to see if cake is done.

Pasta Puttanesca

This has always been an Abba favorite, but I found the recipes for it somewhat intimidating, until I bought a huge bottle of capers at Costco.  This motivated me to try it, since those capers weren't going anywhere soon. I make it with a lot of shortcuts - pitted olives, bottled minced garlic, spaghetti sauce.  It's a spicy, tasty sauce.  Really pretty with grated Parmesan and fresh parsey.

1/2 lb pasta - penne, or your choice.
Boil water for the pasta, and start your sauce prep.

1 or 2 cans anchovies
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes or spaghetti sauce of your choice
1/2 c pitted olives, sliced
1 T. drained capers
1/4 t crushed red pepper
[you can also add chopped artichoke hearts - just in case it's not rich enough for you ...]
Chopped parsley for garnish

In large skillet, over medium heat, pour the oil from the anchovies.  Add the garlic and cook a minute or two until fragrant.
Stir in the tomatoes (or sauce), capers, olives, and pepper and bring to a simmer.  Add the anchovies and break them up with the spatula.  Cook a few minutes.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Serve over drained pasta.
Add grated Parmesan to taste.

Aunt Ruth's Super Easy Ice Box Cookies

Ice Box cookies do sound old-fashioned.  Essentially these were commercialized as slice-and-bake cookies, chilled vacuum-packed dough logs.  These are so simple it seems ridiculous to buy store-bought.  It's originally from Aunt Ceil, Grandpa Sam's oldest sister.  Ruth brought the recipe to Fargo and it became very popular.  Debi Osnowitz makes them with poppy seeds, via Maxine Liszt.  Ruth's are crispy and incredibly simple and good - quite addictive.  I like the poppyseed-less version better.

When I tasted Aunt Ruth's I asked what happened to the poppyseeds, since I remembered that different version. "Betsy, I live in a retirement community. You can't bake with poppyseeds, everyone has diverticulitis!" In other words, what kind of idiot are you?
When Ruth took the tin out of the freezer, I enjoyed a wave of nostalgia - the tin was the same design Mom used for all her wonderful baked goods - though not these cookies.  It was from fruit cake.  Ruth reminisced that Mom had brought over a prune bread, her signature recipe, when Ruth moved to Fargo as a new bride in 1952. (Ruth claims responsibility for my existence, but that's another story.)

Double Recipe

2 c. confectioners sugar
1 lb butter
4 c. flour (sure, put in some ww...)

2/3 c. poppyseeds (optional)

Single Recipe
1 c. confectioners sugar
1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)
2 c. flour

1/3 c. poppyseeds (optional)

Mix the ingredients by hand, like you're working clay, and roll out in three long salami logs.  These cookies don't spread a lot, so I think Ruth's are around 3" thick.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Heat oven to 375.
Slice and place on cookie tins - no need to oil them, there's so much butter in these.
Let them cool - they will crisp and harden.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until they are beautifully browned like the ones above.  Mine didn't brown around the edges - doing some research on that!

French Toast a la Nomi

How could we not have a Challah French Toast recipe? If you can call it a recipe.
The pictured version is two eggs.

~ four slices of challah
2 eggs
~ 2 T milk
a few shakes of cinnamon/sugar or add them separately
a little vanilla
butter for the pan

The trick of French Toast is finding a bowl that is shallow with a flatter bottom for soaking the slices.

Beat the eggs.  Add a little milk + the seasonings.  Put your first slice flat, and when it's soaks up the liquid, turn it over.  Then slide it up the side of the bowl and repeat.

In the meantime, melt the butter over a large non-stick skillet, on medium flame.  Butter burns if it's too high, so keep an eye.

Soak your additional slices. Slide them into the hot pan.  First side will take 3-4 minutes, second side just 1 or 2.  Serve with
cottage cheese
yogurt
jam
syrup

Yummmmmm!

Salmon Cakes, Salmon Croquettes, Salmon Patties

All the same, really, but croquettes sound more appealing.  My mother made these a few times a year and I always loved them, so they are comfort food for me.  David asked that they be eliminated from our shared cuisine, but when he's out of town, I make these for myself, with rice pilaf. They never tasted like Mom's, but tonight I nailed it, so here's her recipe, with my modifications in [brackets] - her Mishnah, my Gemara.

1 can salmon (1 lb), or 2 small cans
1 egg
1 T. catsup [+ a t. mayo]
bread crumbs to bind [about 2 to 3 T]
dried onion [one half small onion, minced, plus a half stalk celery, minced fine. If you have garden herbs, some parsley would be great.]
Option (tasted this at Yosemite at The Big Trees) a t. or so of capers
salt, pepper
flour for dipping and frying
lemon, for garnish [if you're being fancy!]

1. Mix all the ingredients.  A potato masher works well. The salmon skin and bones are very nutritious and break up easily into the mixture.  The mixture should be moist but a little loose.  Don't go too heavy on the  bread crumbs or it makes it too dense.
2. Chill a half hour or more.
3. Heat oil in a large skillet.
4. Put a small heap of flour on a small plate.  Shape the mixture into flat patties and dip each side in the flour and then set it in the hot oil.
5. Cook until they're set on the first side - the flour gives the croquette a smooth, browned surface.  That's what I had been missing over the years!  Turn over and cook a few more minutes on side 2.  Makes about 6 or 7, as you see.

These would be good with a sauce!

Nomi's Favorite Banana Bread

This basic recipe is from a kid's cookbook I sent away for with coupons, from Gold Medal flour, copyright 1987, which was a great year.  Like many of my cookbooks, this is the only recipe I used it for.  It's an easy, basic loaf. Sometimes I bake it in 2 smaller loaf pans, or more recently in a quarter sheet pan in the Breville.  It's quicker and somehow it feels more gratifying.  When Abba was on a low far diet I substituted apple sauce for the oil.  For a protein boost, and to moisten it, I also used no-fat sour cream.
I often freeze ripe bananas, don't even need to put them in a container, they have their own wrapping - they don't look beautiful, but they are fine for banana bread!

1/3 to 3/4 C sugar (recipe calls for 3/4 but I think it's too sweet.)
1 1/2 C mashed bananas (3 large)
3/4 C veg oil [substitute: 1/2 c applesauce + 1/4 c. no-fat sour cream]
2 eggs
2 C all-purpose flour - [I usually use half WW and half regular]
1/2 C chopped nuts
1 t baking soda
2 t vanilla
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 salt

Heat oven to 325. 
Spray loaf pan(s) with oil.
In large mixing bowl, mash the bananas.  If you have a potato masher, that works well.
Add sugar, oil and eggs, mixing all together. [Tip: if you are substituting sour cream for part of the oil, put the oil in first, and then drop in the sour cream which will displace the oil and can be measured accurately, without the sour cream sticking to the measuring cup.]
Combine in remaining ingredients. Pour into pan[s]. 
Bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 60-70 minutes for a single loaf or ~ 50 minutes for two smaller. 
Let cool 10 minutes, then loosen sides of loaf from pan and remove from pan. Let cool completely before slicing. 

If you use a silicon loaf pan, it works fine but the top of the loaf is flat.

The debate: is this a dessert? 

Matzah Ball Soup

Can't believe I didn't put THIS recipe up, since you've always been such a fan.  I'm taking the one right off the Striet's Matzo Meal box.  All matzah ball recipes are basically matzah meal, liquid (broth or seltzer or just water), eggs and oil.

Makes about 16 matzah balls, not huge.
First make the batter.  While it chills, you make your soup.

1 cup matzah meal
4 large eggs
1/4 c oil
1/4 c water, broth or seltzer
1 t. salt (or less, if you use boullion which has a lot of sodium in it)
ground pepper to taste

for soup itself, vegetarian:

parve boullion

parsnips

onion

carrots

other roots, if you have them

dill, if you can get it

parsley

spinach

Salsa, optional

In a medium sized bowl, beat eggs.  Add water, oil, salt and pepper.  Add matzah meal and stir thoroughly.  Refrigerate about a half hour to 45 minutes.  The longer they're chilled, the heavier they turn out. (At least I think that's how it works.)  My mother always told the story that the first time she made matzah balls, with her friend Maxine, they thought the batter was to loose so they kept adding more matzah meal.  Bad idea!
Wash the bowl and fork right away.  This batter dries to a concrete-like consistency!

Meanwhile, get going on the soup.

In large pot, bring 8 c. water (2 quarts) to a boil.  Add a peeled whole onion and about 3 T of parve boullion. Meanwhile, peel and chop one parsnip, about 2-3 stalks celery, and 6 or so baby carrots, or 2 peeled adult carrots.  (they're not actually baby carrots!  they're just pieces of larger carrots.)  They need to be finely diced since you serve them in the soup.

Doda Rochelle's housekeeper, Connie, who is Latin American, puts some salsa into the broth, which gives it a little more color and kick.  SInce the vegetables are diced, it cooks fairly quickly.

To shape the matzah balls, spray your hands with oil.  Then make shape them, plum-sized, dropping each one into the boiling broth.  They quickly rise to the top.  The recipes all say they should cook ~ a half an hour.  Seems like they're done sooner than that to me, but usually the problem is the opposite, it takes a long time before you're ready to serve it.

It's lovely to have fresh parsley and dill to chop and add on top.  This soup looks much better in light color or glass bowls, BTW.

Becca throws in lots of spinach in the end, which also adds great color and nutritional boost.

Knaidloach are actually quite easy.  People are always kind of scared of making them, and I have no idea why!