Challah Kugel = Bread Pudding

It's 2 weeks before Passover, well into the Eat All The Food Challenge that I enjoy annually. What's left? What can we make that is appealing?

There is typically a challah or two, with a few inches consumed, in our freezer.

A bread pudding can easily be a parve kugel. I found this one online, but it had a different step, soaking the challah pieces and making them into a spongey dough. It sounded kind of gross, but I tried it and it's good!

It's really a concept rather than a recipe. Baking temperature 350.

A bowl of challah pieces, torn or cut. If you want to be fancy, trim off the crusts.
A few eggs
Oil (if this were for a dairy meal, it would be delicious with melted butter)
Apple sauce, apple chunks, raisins, whatever you like (chocolate chips for a dessert)
sugar
Lots of cinnamon
Optional: chopped/ground nuts

Grease or spray a baking dish WELL.

Moisten the bread. Let it sit for a few minutes and then drain off the excess water and squeeze/knead the wet bread into a uniform dough/glob. :-)

In a medium dish, crack a few eggs, beat and add all the other ingredients as to your preference. More sweet and it's a dessert, less sweet it's a kugel.

Mix into the bread dough. It's hard to incorporate so just stir until it's fairly uniform.

Pour into the baking dish sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar, and maybe some ground nuts.

Bake until browned, about 45 minutes.

I was sceptical but my dear husband kept scooping up serving after serving of it, at our shabbat dinner. It's good! I had the leftovers for breakfast.

It's more uniform than bread pudding.

Bunny's Yekkeh Style Savoy Cabbage

Here she dictated "grated" cabbage - she probably used the food processor. I just chop it thinly in strips.

Savoy Cabbage

I cook the cabbage in a little oil in a large covered frying pan. It takes quite awhile for the liquid to start accumulating. I saute the onion in a little oil in a separate pan, add the flour to thicken it a bit, and then add it to the lightly cooked cabbage,stir, and turn off the heat.

It would probably be really good with butter. The trick here is to not overcook it or you will have what Uncle Steven refers to as "the wurst dish ever." (I presume Bunny served it with wurst, sausage?) This is  pleasant and super nutritious.  The flour and nutmeg make it quite delectable. IMHO.

There is now a German Jewish Cookbook out.


I bought it, looked it over, and sold it to a happy purchaser on Amazon. Blech. But, I have always liked Bunny's very simple prep for shredded Savoy cabbage. It is around in the fall.

Oatmeal Scones

Frosted with icing and grated lemon zest

These have great flavor and texture. Makes about 2 dozen small scones.

Found the recipe online but it's so modified, it isn't the same recipe by now.






Preheat oven to 375°

1 ¾ c. flour (one cup white, ¾ whole wheat is a good mix)

1 ½ t baking powder

¾ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

⅓ c. sugar
-------------------------------------------------
¾ c. butter (1.5 sticks), cold, cut into bits

1⅓ c. old fashioned oats

½ c. currants, dried cranberries, chopped prunes or raisins

½ c. buttermilk or regular milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

confectioners sugar + water drops


Combine first 5 ingredients by hand in a medium-large bowl.

Add butter and mix by hand until it resembles coarse meal.

Add oats, currants, buttermilk, and egg until dough just sticks together. Knead in the bowl until it holds together. Doesn't take long but your hands get very messy!

Flatten into a large circle on a smooth surface like a flexible mat.

Cut into sixths. Then cut each sixth into 4 triangles. Try to make them approximately the same size.

Arrange on a sprayed cookie tin. They will fit on one sheet. They don't rise or spread much. Bake about 18 minutes or until lightly browned. (It's hard to see since the dough is already brown.)

When they're cool, you can ice them. In a small bowl, pour confectioners sugar. Add a scant amount of water and keep eye dropping it in until you can spread it. If you put in too much water it is too thin to spread.

Throw-It-Together High Protein Passover Pancakes

I made this up many years ago.
No measures on this one, it is a concept. Eyal and Nadav liked it in 2026, so much that they asked for it for breakfast and again for lunch. It's quite healthy, and of course with Nutella melted on top, who wouldn't like it?

Butter, for large frying pan
2 eggs
Salt - sprinkle
Cinnamon - generous amount, like 1 t.
Sugar - modest amount
Milk (or cream)
Matzah meal (can be part cakemeal if you have it)
Almond flour
Mashed ripe banana (there's usually a few in the freezer)

Melt the butter over low eat so it doesn't burn.

Beat the eggs.
Stir in sugar, salt and cinnamon.
Add matzah meal, almond flour, and some milk until it's a nice batter consistency.
Turn up the heat in the frying pan to medium/high and drop rounded spoonfuls of batter which you can flatten.
Fry til browned, and flip to brown the second side a bit, as well.

These are good with jam, fruit, cottage cheese, syrup, but mainly Nutella -- things you would have around at Passover. They are very nutritious.

Drop the Nutella on in the pan with the heat turned off, let is sit a minute, and you can spread it thin.

Spanish Potato Omelette - Tortilla Espanola

I read about this dish, a classic tapas in Spain, and gave it a try. There are many versions with various add-ins, but this is the basic. You can increase the quantity. This made 4 portions. The tricky part is flipping the pancake so the eggs set and it's browned on both sides.

2 large russet/baking potatoes
1 large onion
generous amount of olive oil
4 eggs

Peel the potatoes and slice in fine chunks.
Heat olive oil at medium heat in a large fry pan, and add the sliced potatoes.
Chop the onion and add to the frying pan. 

Stir occasionally until the potatoes start to brown and the onions become transparent and start to brown. The potato slices stick together so break them up when you stir.  This takes about 10-12 minutes.

Crack 4 eggs into a large bowl and beat.
Mix in the cooked potatoes and onion.

Heat more olive oil in the frying pan, or in a smaller frying pan that will hold the mixture. Pour in the egg/potato/onion mixture at medium heat until the bottom browns and the eggs start to set. Don't leave it for too long (like, for example, to go light Hanukkah candles 

😊) cuz it can burn.

Now for the trick.  Flip it onto a flat surface with the cooked part face up, keeping it intact.
Then slip it back into the frying pan to brown the bottom. There are other methods of doing this, but this one worked well. Invert to serve. It's very filling, and attractive. 

Serve warm or at room temperature.  This is a very solid, hearty, tasty dish.

And very aesthetically appealing. And kosher for passover!

Watermelon with feta, balsamic, & mint

This is a beautiful first course. A slice of watermelon--this one is a mini-melon, the size of cantalope--sliced but on the rind, sprinkled with feta, drizzled with balsamic, and garnished with mint or basil.

Essentially it is a recipe for watermelon salad, but presented individually.

Easy, beautiful, refreshing, really healthful.

Beautiful plates help!!

Chocolate Mousse Pie/Torte

This recipe was a Baker's Chocolate ad in a magazine decades ago. I noticed it would easily adapt to Passover, which it does. You basically whip up a big batch of chocolate mousse and bake half of it. It solidifies and creates a base, and when it cools, you poor in the rest of the mouse, chilled. It is not a hard cake to make, and you could think about making it any old time. Also, while not vegan (8 eggs!), it is gluten-free.

1 pkg. (8 sqs.) semi-sweet chocolate or 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 c. water or coffee
8 eggs, separated (use clean eggs with no cracks in shells)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla (substitute cinnamon on Passover if you can't find vanilla)
2/3 c. sugar

Heat chocolate and water/coffee in a large glass bowl in the microwave in 30 second increments stirring until smooth. If you've switched to an induction, put in the chocolate and water, using a large sauce pan set at 1 or 2, and be patient. Some have a melt setting.

Stir in egg yolks; add vanilla. 

Beat egg whites in a large mixing bowl gradually adding the sugar,  until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes.

Stir a small amount of the egg white mixture  into chocolate mixture to lighten it; then fold the chocolate mixture into remaining whites.

Pour 4 cups into a well-buttered 9" springform pan. Chill remaining mixture. (you can make it in a pie pan but I think the spring form gives a better presentation.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until just set. Cool slightly; then chill 1 hour. Center will fall, forming shell.

Spoon chilled chocolate mousse into chilled shell. Chill 3 hours (or overnight.) [Sometimes the mousse just doesn't set; then it is a chocolate sauce!]

It's a cake that could use some garnish - grated pistachios, a dollop of whipped
cream if it's not a meat meal, some berries. Or maybe all three.

Also - this is really good frozen. You could intentionally freeze it, but for us we (surprisingly) had some leftover once and discovered it is great frozen.

Turns out the original recipe, though much more complicated, is Maida Heatter's, in the New York Times, a cake guru of the 70's-80s. Helen Feinberg makes some of her recipes. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/05/21/82224385.html?pageNumber=430  The main difference is she says to beat the egg yolks before adding them to the chocolate mixture.