Old fashioned potato knishes

I invited my friend Paul to come over and make knishes with me, I'd never tried them before. We used the following dough recipe which is from Joe the Pastry Guy

Traditional knish dough

2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, put wet ingredients into a well in the middle of the dry ones, stir vigorously until melded, knead in the bowl for a minute, cover with saran wrap and let rest for an hour.

Here is the filling we made:

Filling for potato knishes

1-1/2 pounds of potatoes cut in halves or quarters. We did not peel them.
2 onions chopped up in the food processor (next time I will use three)
A big bunch of parsley chopped up in the food processor
1 tablespoon of oil
2 tablespoon of butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
lots of pepper
an egg (or an egg white, or an egg yolk) for glazing

Put water on to boil as you scrub your potatoes and cut them. Put them in the coldish water, bring to a boil, and cook around 20 minutes. Meanwhile, start frying the onions over low heat in the salt, oil and butter. The longer, the better, we cooked ours almost half an hour, stirring constantly, but they could have cooked longer. Towards the end we added the parsley and pepper.

We each had a rolling pin. I divided the dough into four balls, he rolled out two and I rolled out two, as thin as possible, they came out about 18" long and about 4" wide. Along the long side we put a long log of filling about an inch tall, spread some oil on the still exposed part of the dough, and rolled the dough up so it wrapped around the filling almost twice.

Then you mash down on the filling about every 2-1/2 inches with your hand and where you mashed, pick up the end, twist where you mashed (like a sausage casing) and cut where you twisted. You end up with a little pillow twisted closed at both ends. Squish it around and put it with one of the twisted ends down on the baking sheet, then I pushed into the middle top (at the other twist) to make an indentation in mine but Paul didn't do that, so his are the ones that look sort of open at the top.

Beat the egg and glaze the knishes (we used our fingers). Bake for about 25 minutes at 375 degrees. This made about 25 knishes at the size you see in the picture.

Out with the old: the first night of Hanukah and squash casserole

I spent a couple hours this morning getting rid of clothes that didn't make me happy. Since most of my clothes come from the Goodwill in the first place, I didn't feel bad sending them back there. Some were skirts too short for a woman my age to wear, some were in colors I never exactly liked, some didn't fit any more, some were experiments gone wrong... some were worn out... there was a red sweater I thought of as still pretty new until I saw a photo recently of me wearing it a quarter of a century ago...

It was the first night of Hanukkah of course and my friend Paul came over to light candles. I cooked borscht and a zucchini casserole.

The casserole was part of a long-term project: to actually COOK the recipes I've torn out of newspapers or wherever over the last decades and stuffed into a box. If these long-preserved never-prepared dishes turn out lousy, I'm throwing out those recipes. Duh, right?

This one turned out well. It's a keeper.

Zucchini casserole

2-1/2 pounds of zucchini sliced into thin rounds in the food processor
1-1/2 cup shredded cheddar (or other cheese, I am never particular)
3/4 cup ricotta
6 eggs
chopped parsley to taste
1 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
3/4 cup breadcrumbs (I used Italian seasoning breadcrumbs)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup shredded mozzarella

The original recipe said to put the rounds of zucchini in overlapping rows in a buttered lasagna pan. I actually did this and it looked beautiful but it took a long time and, as you put a topping on the casserole, nobody is ever going to see your nice design. Sprinkle each layer of zucchini with shredded cheddar.

Whip together the ricotta, eggs, parsley, salt, and pepper and pour over the zucchini.

Combine the last four ingredients and sprinkle over the top. Cook at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes. The recipe said to cover it with a tent of aluminum foil for the first 25 minutes of cooking but I forgot to do that and it turned out well anyway.

Chocolate pretzel toffee bark with toasted almonds on top.

I published this recipe last year but I'm updating it after having made it quite a few times. Also, I wanted to make enough so the entire jelly roll pan of pretzels would be covered with toffee.

It's ridiculously compulsive and time consuming to line all the pretzels up into a grid, but it is equally ridiculously satisfying to be able to snap the toffee into perfect rectangular pieces.

Here is what you have to do before you start heating the mixture:

1. Run very hot water into your sink (to drop the bowl and utensils into immediately after the project)
   
2. Have something to do (so you don't poke the toffee before it cools, which takes HOURS)
   
3. Toast the almonds - I do it in the toaster oven, 350 degrees for 5 or 6 minutes
   
4. Get out your 11x17 cookie sheet and cover it with pretzels (see below). Some people put the chocolate chips right on top of the pretzels and then pour the hot goo over the top of the chips. I didn't do it that way but it might be better.
   

Pretzel Toffee Bark

1/2 of a 12-ounce bag of square pretzels (I used Snyder Butter Snaps)
1-3/8 cups salted butter (2-3/4 sticks)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1-3/8 cups white sugar
2-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1-3/4 cup sliced toasted almonds

Melt the butter and add the sugar and corn syrup. Boil to 280 degrees (not quite hard crack), stirring CONSTANTLY. Don't guess, get one of those cheap candy thermometers at the grocery store.

Immediately pour over pretzels spreading as evenly as possible while you pour because you won't have long to spread it. If you insist on spreading the goo absolutely all the way to the wall of the pan it will be hard to get the toffee out. Drop the empty saucepan into the hot water in your sink along with the wooden spoon.

Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips and then the sliced almonds over the pan.

Put in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes and then mash down on it with a potato ricer or any other flat thing to get the almonds and chocolate to mix together. There will be a lot of melted chocolate with almonds stuck to it on the ricer when you're done. You know what to do.

Cool completely at room temperature. Go off and do the thing you planned to do so you wouldn't poke your toffee. It takes a long time for the chocolate to harden again.

If you put it in the fridge or freezer to get the chocolate to firm up you will RUIN it, as I did last year. In the freezer it rehydrates or something and loses its charm. But people will still eat it.

AFTER the chocolate is solid again, break the toffee into pieces.

How to make a half-size cheesecake

A whole big heavy full-sized cheesecake has so many calories. And face it, if there's half a cheesecake left over and you stick it in the refrigerator, it's going to get eaten.

I didn't find a recipe online for what I wanted - a half-sized cheesecake - so I figured it out for myself and it was perfect.
And very easy.



After I made two half-size cheesecakes in a 1-quart baking dish, I splurged and bought a 7" springform pan. A 6" pan would also work, you would have to cook it a little longer at a little lower heat.

Half-sized cheesecake recipe: the graham-cracker crust

1-1/4 cup of crushed graham crackers (this USED to be one of the three wrapped portions inside a graham-cracker box but now a box of graham crackers weighs only 14.4 oz so you'll have to break into the next portion)
1/4 cup sugar
a dash of salt
6 TB of butter

You don't really need this much crust but in my family people like a lot.

I crush the cookies in my food processor but you can pound them flat inside a gallon-sized ziplock bag too. Don't use low-fat graham crackers, they won't hold together well. Some people add cinnamon but I don't like it in this recipe.

I melted the butter and added the rest of the ingredients and pressed them carefully against the aluminum foil lining of my casserole (and then against the edges of my springform baking tin when I got it yesterday), and pushed them up the sides as far as they would go. It's recommended to chill the crust for half an hour but I didn't bother and it turned out fine.

Small sized cheesecake: the filling
12 ounces of cream cheese (that's one and a half of the big size or three of the small size) you can use non-fat creamcheese and it will turn out fine!
1/2 cup of sugar plus 1 tablespoon which is added to the sourcream topping
2 teaspoons of vanilla
dash of salt
2 eggs
8 ounces of sour cream

They say cheesecakes turn out better if you don't mix them too vigorously - I had all the ingredients at room temperature and first beat the sugar into the cream cheese (with the dash of salt).

Then I mixed in the two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla by hand and poured it into the casserole.

Shake your cheesecake gently to settle it and then bake it at 330 degrees for about 35 minutes. You want it not all the way cooked - you want it jiggly for about three inches in the center.

Pull the cheesecake out of the oven and let it cool for five minutes. Meanwhile, stir the other teaspoon of vanilla and the one tablespoon of sugar into the sour cream.

Mix the sourcream, vanilla, and sugar and drop by dollops onto the hot cheesecake. spread them into a thin, even layer.



Put it back in the oven for another ten minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in there for an hour or three before putting it in the refrigerator. These small cheesecakes never crack.

In which Menticia and I make delicious tv-dinner style baked chicken breasts

Menticia and I finally finished reading "The Lovely Bones" in Spanish (it's called 'Desde mi cielo') and as a reward to ourselves we made dinner, then watched the movie as we ate. Completing my nostalgia moment, we had Pepperidge Farm turnovers for dessert (a favorite from my childhood). This was the main course.

Oven-fried (oven baked) chicken tv-dinner style

1-1/2 cups buttermilk
1-2 tablespoons mustard
1/2 teaspoon of whatever spice you like: we chose blackened creole mix
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
3 minced cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pounds of skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 cups panko bread crumbs
3 tablespoons oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and put a cake-cooling (or other kind of) rack on the aluminum foil. Spray the rack with cooking spray.

Our package of chicken had three big breasts in it. We put each in a plastic grocery bag, smashed it flat (so it was the same thickness throughout), and then cut it in half so we had six pieces.

In a smallish lasagna pan we whisked the first six ingredients together, put in the six flattened pieces of chicken breast, and went off to watch "The Lovely Bones" for an hour while the chicken marinated.

We whirred the bread crumbs in the food processor with the oil and salt and pepper and put this dry mix on a plate. We lifted the pieces of chicken out of the marinade and coated them with the dry topping (don't put on a ton - just enough to cover), then gently laid them on the rack.

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake - Ezra and Katy's birthday cake

In the midst of all the wedding cake tasting last week, I made two cakes myself. I admit, I was feeling competitive, and since my recipes have been chosen to suit my tastes exactly, it's no surprise I preferred them to ALL the boughten cakes.

Here's one of my two favorite chocolate cake recipes.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake

1-3/4 cup flour
2/3 cup butter
1-3/4 cup sugar
1 ts vanilla
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/2 ts baking soda
1 ts salt
2 cups sour cream
3 large eggs, separated

Preheat oven to 350; grease two 8" or 9" round pans. Separate the eggs.

Cream butter, sugar, next four ingredients. Beat in the egg yolks, one by one, until fluffy. Gently mix in sour cream.

Beat egg whites into high, fluffy peaks and fold them alternately into the mix with the flour. Spread in pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Frosting (enough to ice the cake above, two layers)

2 ounces (squares) unsweetened chocolate
6 tablespoons butter
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk (approximate)
2 ts vanilla

Melt butter and chocolate in microwave in short bursts, stirring in between. Cool and then beat in vanilla and sugar to taste. If you need more icing, add the milk and then 1-1/2 cups more powdered sugar.

My fabulous recipe for piroshki; it helps Ezra get a job...

I've been making this recipe for years. The dough is Russian and makes the best pie crust I've ever had, especially for small pies. It's easy to roll out and leftover dough can be rolled flat, cut into strips, and baked as an appetizer.

Mom's Excellent Piroshki
makes 24-30 depending on the size of coffee cup you use to cut the dough

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
2+ cups flour
1 egg yolk (save the white for the glaze)
1/4 ts salt (1/2 ts if you use unsalted butter)
2/3 cup sour cream

I toss this all in the food processor and whip it till it hangs together. You could also grate the butter through a vegetable grater into the flour, add the other wet ingredients, and stir into a ball. It will be just a bit softer than ordinary pie crust. I press it about 3/4" thick and put it in a ziplock bag in the fridge to chill for a short while, but you don't have to. I have a canvas cloth which I flour, and I use a noodle pin but any rolling pin will do: roll it out thin and cut it into circles with a biscuit cutter or a coffee cup. You can stack the circles if they are dusted with flour. Meanwhile you, or a cooking partner, make the filling:

Fry and drain 3/4 pound - 1 pound hamburger. Set aside.

Next, chop (or pulverize in food processor) and saute in butter till soft and moisture is mostly evaporated:

2-3 onions
4-5 cloves garlic
handful parsley
parmesan cheese to taste
dill

Mix with the hamburger. Put a modest amount of filling in each circle, fold it over, and moisten the edge with water and/or egg white to seal. Glaze the half-moons with the reserved egg white. Cook at 350 degrees 20-35 minutes.

Ezra applied for a job at Whole Foods, to be the guy standing behind a little table offering samples of foods he's cooked to the passers-by. He made this recipe, substituting "Smart Ground" texturized vegetable protein for the hamburger; he used cumin and coriander instead of dill. He took the lovely piroshki to his interview and got the job.

Technorati Tags: Pierog, pierogi, piroshki, smart+ground, pie+crust, recipe, receipt