Hanukkah is one of my all-time favorite holidays. For one, it features latkes and jelly filled donuts. Secondly, it is celebrated for E-I-G-H-T days and nights. Last year, my sister gifted Sophia EIGHT presents. They were such a hit and Sophia loved the attention her Aunt showered her with. The winner was a hand-made color book where each of the primary colors was quilted into a page and its name was cross-stitched on the opposing side. She still reads it and loves it. This year, I caught the crafting bug and tried my best to spread the crafts around.
This year, my sister who’s a genuine balabusta — a perfect homemaker and gracious host — hosted a Hannukah dinner for my parents and us. She made latkes, khatchapuri, sufganiyot and a few other dishes, too. After all, whoever said that Hanukkah couldn’t feature a few Georgian dishes? To compliment all the fried dishes, there was my mom’s to-die-for beef stew and a few others, too. Let’s just say this was a practice run for tomorrow’s Turkey Day dinner hosted by Evan’s parents.
As we were celebrating the festival of lights and gifts were on the kids’ minds, we delved in. Evan and I held off on giving Sophia any gifts just yet as she was yet again a lucky recipient of my sister’s generous gifts. I will reveal some of my own crafty creations in due time as Sophia opens them. Until then, I am especially grateful to Evan for watching Sophia while I crafted not only for Sophia but for our cousins (all six of them!!!).
That kind of a weekend where we once again crafted, caught up on chores and stayed in because it was frigid — well, by November standards anyway. I did manage to sneak out to the stores for just a short while and brought back a princess-themed stamp set for Sophia. Here she is stamping to her heart’s content.
Good thing that she was occupied because we managed to make linguine with bolognese sauce.
But our Italian weekend that just sort of happened didn’t end with bolognese sauce. It was followed by an orange infused, apricot jam crostata which I formed while Sophia watched her very first movie/cartoon. She picked “The Adventures of Pooh”.
The crostata looked much prettier in my cookbook, but looks don’t always foreshadow taste.
The crostata followed pizza margherita — another of Evan’s signature dishes. There are leftovers and I feel quite accomplished in the culinary and crafts department. As I write this, Evan is listening to Beethoven with Sophia though I hear that Stravinsky is up next. There is something magical about staying at home, staying in and filling the house with amazing aromas.
Lastly, a very brief attempt at a “recommended reading/watching” list; I managed to get started on this documentary of the plight of Russian Jewry in Russia in the 1970-ies and would like to recommend it to anyone who is curious about what life was like for Jews and in fact for most others, too.
This weekend was focused on everything that is in season: crafts and cranberries. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are looking forward to my mother-in-law’s fabulous dinner spread and some serious family time. I kid you not, folks — my mother in-law makes an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G thanksgiving dinner and it trumps most others I have been to. Until then, I am cooking a few fall favorites with cranberries in anticipation of the grand finale that is the turkey holiday itself.
I made these cranberry rolls on Saturday morning just in time for my parents’ visit. I am always happy to cook in exchange for help with Sophia!
The issue was that these only required a cup of cranberries and I had plenty of tangy berries left over still. After much deliberation and consultation of my recipe books, I decided on cranberry orange muffins for Sunday afternoon.
They turned out oh so well! There is something about cranberries and orange zest perfuming your kitchen in the fall that makes you happier…
We didn’t just feast on baked desserts all weekend, of course. Evan roasted a lamb shoulder and together we made an Azeri pilaf.
It was a relatively low-key cooking weekend because I was absolutely consumed with crafting. My sister and I are working on a secret project that may or may not have something to do with Hanukkah and we were both sewing as if our life and livelihood depended on it. I can’t tell you what it is because the recipients (or at least their parents) may or may not read this blog and then it would ruin their surprise.
Without giving much away, this is a shot of my secret project … very home-made.
This is a snippet of my sister’s project. Obviously, and don’t think my mother didn’t point this out, my sister’s is much more polished. I am okay with that.
It isn’t a birthday without a small celebration — right? Sophia turned two on Friday and our family and friends came together to celebrate on Saturday. Nothing fancy, just adults catching up, kids playing with one another, decorating pumpkins and a little bit of mac-n-cheese and chocolate cake… That’s the summary of the weekend because quite frankly, there was nothing done yesterday except some major putting up of feet to rest from all the festivities… and the recent plague Sophia and I were besieged with.
Of course I know you’d like the details about the birthday party, so here goes: the theme was butterflies and bugs and the invitation was blue, yellow and most importantly orange(Sophia’s absolute favorite color)! We invited our friends and family and a few of Sophia’s neighborhood friends. After all, this is her party and she should ring it in with her friends. All in all, ten children between ages 1 and 9. The menu had to be simple since there was quite a crowd (~40 people) and included Philadelphia style hoagies, mac-n-cheese, Tuscan stewed chickpeas, herbed quinoa, fritata, veggies and dip, hummus, roasted pepper hummus, asian green salad with napa cabbage, sweet and sour meatballs and to really make sure everyone was fortified — a cheese plate with a petit salumi platter. You don’t believe? Here… look!
We opted to purchase the hoagies so that we can focus on making everything else. They came from Taylor Gourmet Deli — and since the President thinks they are good, I figured so would our guests. We did have help with the food: my mother-in-law made her signature sweet and sour meatballs and my mother made her signature asian salad. We’ll talk about desserts and who contributed there in a bit.
Food is great and so are the german beers Evan picked up in honor of Oktoberfest, but you have to have entertainment at a kids’ party. So… thankfully, my mother-in-law who is an early education specialist, suggested pumpkin decorating. I admit, I was rather skeptical — picturing glitter everywhere and glue all over my furniture, but it went over swimmingly. The kids were thrilled to do it and enjoyed taking home the fruits of their labor.
All the decorating and chaperoning of the decorators led to quite an appetite for some cake! If there was one thing that I insisted on doing, it would be to make my daughter a home-made [multi-layer] birthday cake. I wouldn’t mind having the affair catered, but the cake, the cake was going to be mine. This, ladies and gentlemen was no ordinary cake — it was a three-layer, moist chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream on the inside and vanilla buttercream on the outside. When fully assembled it measured 8 inches. That’s EIGHT inches! I like BIG! I decorated it with edible butterflies, too!
There was another cake, the picture missing because it was too good and went flying off the platter before I could snap a picture. It was a poppy-seed cake so moist it would blow your socks off made by non-other than my sister.
Here are Evan and I with the birthday girl right before and during the blowing out of the candles. My sister-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law took the pictures and I guess things got too busy and there are none of us together … but you can just imagine that. Beggars can’t be choosers! The party was great, the birthday girl happy about her cake and presents and balloons, of course. Evan and I feel very loved and are profoundly grateful to all our family and friends who made a 2+ hour journey from Pennsylvania and Delaware with young children in tow.
Oh, oh, oh! Before I forget … besides the pumpkins as party favors for the children, each kiddo got a home-made dirt cake Evan and I put together in mason jars with bugs and creatures (all edible) hidden inside. Besides… what parent wouldn’t want a kid on yet another sugar high after the one from the chocolate cake wears of?!
This is the delayed Weekending post that I promised. In fact, this Leek and Butternut Squash soup, a healthy quinoa chili and my mother’s birthday cake were the only things I cooked this weekend. In part, because my parents came into town and brought delicious treats and in part because we went out (something that we don’t do often) to celebrate.
Even though Sophia calls my mother Baba, we’re moving toward Babushka which is a very lovely and endearing term for a grandmother. She can alternatively go with Bubbie.
Anyway, Friday was our Babushka’s birthday and even though we didn’t get to spend her birthday day with her, we did get the weekend. We all know that birthdays are monumental excuses for cake and indulgence. I took this as an opportunity to indulge and bake a cake. This cake, a new one for me, was a caramel banana cake layered with caramel buttercream.
… eats together. It just so happened that both hubby and I bought new cookbooks this past week. We hadn’t planned it and didn’t even talk about it with one another. Good timing though because my in-laws were coming in from out of town. We like to feed them with good food to ensure they’ll be back. Cooking, you see, is something that we both really enjoy especially when we can do so together. Two extra pairs of hands were of immense help with Sophia and allowed us to try something from each of our cookbooks. The results were quite delicious — and not very difficult either.
Then… while I relaxed for a few minutes, hubby made cumin beef from the same book. That, with plain white rice was a huge success even with the youngest diners. 🙂
My mother-in-law baked a delicious vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream for us for the occasion of our 5th wedding anniversary. She’s a pro at decorating and we’re pros at … well … cake consumption :-).
… this has become a tradition and follows the cake she baked when we secretly eloped Quaker style.
It was quite a bit of cake and so we froze the top heart-shaped layer with the big “5” on it. We’ve been sternly warned that she better not see THAT cake at Sophia’s 5th birthday celebration :-).
Just the three of us and just three days off. Memorial Day weekend came and went and I am here to report that we had a great time. First and foremost … as this dictates the fun-levels when hanging out around the house is weather. The rain held off as did the heat and the humidity. We spent hours outside at the playground, visiting the zoo, our local pool (we didn’t go in, but went to re-acquaint ourselves) and gardening. I finally planted those tomato and pepper plants and tried my best to fortify the garden to prevent little rabbits and chipmunks from snacking on our goodies. Sophia’s taken a keen interest in gardening and especially loves to smell all the herbs. She happily rips off a little mint leaf smells it and then urges hubby and me to follow suit. I hope this will help educate her that our veggies don’t grow shrink-wrapped in the supermarket.
We also tried some new recipes like this chicken curry from none other than Bon Appetit.
and these beignets
… getting a shower of cinnamon sugar
… and tada!
… they’re light and fluffy and even our youngest gourmand helped herself to one.
But as healthy good as those beignets were, there is nothing like a fresh radish and scallion salad with a touch of sour cream (you can also use yogurt to dress).
I grew up eating salads like this one, and it is just a refreshing and welcoming spring greeting much like the weekend itself.
Believe you me — I didn’t want a big to-do. I thankfully didn’t have a big party… and lets face it: putting thirty candles on a cake may have set it and the house on fire. Sisters think alike that way you see, and that is why my sister baked not just one cake for me, but two. She realized that putting all those candles on one is a fire hazard 🙂 and decided to divide the candle burden so to speak.
I know, you are dying to get all the details on the cakes. The chocolate one is a fourlayer cake with ganache filling and poured chocolate on top. That beauty right there just became my all-time favorite. The non-chocolate cake is a russian napoleon cake that consists of well over a dozen layers with a vanilla custard filling and crumb topping. Can’t go wrong with that — trust me.
Party or not, but a family dinner is de rigueur when hubby and I are visiting. Besides baking the cakes, my sister also marinated meats for the most succulent BBQ. My dad grilled. There were several side-dishes that my mom made while I played with Sophia… there is never a shortage of delicious foods when we visit my family. Despite the casualness of it all, I was happy to know that (Sophia, hubby and) I mattered and that people made time for us on a Friday night.
What’s the one thing you remember from your Passover Seder? I remember the food, the aromas, the laughter and of course the family and friends who come together to celebrate.
I remember my mother’s matzo balls, gefilte fish, my sister’s brisket, my mother-in-law’s heavenly kosher for passover chocolate concoctions. Being married is difficult during the holidays; both our families host and we have to alternate who we celebrate with.
My husband’s Bubbie has hosted a dinner in the same place for as many years as I can remember. She makes chicken soup with matzo balls and gefilte fish … those are her special touches. We look forward to seeing her, hubby’s uncles, their families and being together.
On my side of the family, my mom and sister trade off hosting. They always help each other and sometimes [hubby and] I help as well.
Last year, we didn’t go anywhere since Sophia was so young and Seder fell on a weeknight. Hubby didn’t have enough vacation days at work, Sophia was very little and so we stayed home. I am not even sure we had matzo ball soup. We were disappointed and a little lonely, and vowed to celebrate with our family next (this) year.
First night of Passover fell on a Monday (yesterday) this year, and yet again, a trip up north to Delaware/Pennsylvania seemed rather difficult. Instead of missing out on the festivities, we decided to host here in Maryland. It was quite an undertaking and I was a little apprehensive about it. Since it was our first Seder in this house, we decided to have two other firsts: first time using our nice china and first time using silverware that Bubbie gifted us for the wedding.
The attendees were my parents, hubby’s parents and his two grandmothers and my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. The menu was a smorgasbord of jewish delicacies including my mother’s homemade gefilte fish, mother-in-laws flour-less chocolate cake, Bubbie’s brownies, my chicken soup with matzo balls and, of course, the brisket. It was a great time.
A lot of work, a lot of smiles, laughter, memories remembered from holidays past and new ones made. I am ready for a weekend … 🙂 too bad it is Tuesday. Will I do this again? yes, absolutely.
