Baby's First Haircut

Today Katie took Pete for his first haircut!  Pete is 17 months old, and with the exception of a little snip here and a little snip there, he's never had a real haircut.  I went along for this exciting milestone while Henry and his Dad (and Russ) stayed home to do other things.  Kylie, a stylist at my friend Bonnie's "Greenfield Hairport" was an expert with this little guy.  Katie started plying Pete with M&Ms to keep him from crying.  When that didn't work, Kylie resorted to the old Dum Dum lollipop and Pete kept it together long enough to get a big boy haircut.  Now we can see those beautiful baby blues!  Way to go, Pete!

Before through After...Pete's 1st Haircut!
(click to enlarge)

Maple Walnut Scones

Today I bring you maple walnut scones, a very simple recipe made even simpler by using a biscuit mix.  I used Bisquick but you can use any similar product.  I found a number of recipes on-line for quick and easy scones, and switched things up a bit to create this recipe for two of my favorite flavors, maple and walnut.  Once baked, they are glazed with a maple sugar glaze and sprinkled with chopped walnuts.  These fall into the category of "pretty food" but they are equally as impressive as palate pleasers.


And a side note:  don't forget the contest!  At the end of every month for the next year, I will choose one follower who posts comments to any post (you can add new comments all the way back to the earliest posts if you'd like) to win an 8" round cake (locally) or a dozen large chocolate chip cookies (to be shipped).  I think it's worth it!  So sign on as a follower if you haven't already, make a comment or three, and get ready to win some goodies!


MAPLE WALNUT SCONES
oven 375 degrees F - makes 12 mini or 6 regular sized scones

2 cups Bisquick or other self-rising biscuit mix
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup buttermiilk (or regular milk soured with 2 teaspoons vinegar - let sit for 5 minutes)
2 tablespoons maple syrup - real is best, maple-flavored is fine

In mixing bowl, stir together Bisquick, sugar, and chopped walnuts.  In separate bowl, combine beaten egg, buttermilk, and maple syrup.  Stir wet ingredients into dry, mixing just to blend.  Turn out onto well-floured surface and knead 10 times (folding over/flatten/folding over/flatten).  Shape into 1/2-inch thick disks (two for mini, one for regular).  Cut disks into 6 wedges.  Separate. Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, fitting so there's about an inch between scones.

Brush with egg wash (1 egg and 1 tsp. water, whisked together with fork).

Start checking at 17 minutes, but bake for up to 20 minutes OR until you notice the edges are starting to get golden brown.  Remove from oven and drizzle with maple glaze (recipe follows):

Maple Glaze

1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
drops of water, added and whisked with fork until of drizzling consistency, when it flows nicely off a fork in a slow stream.

Immediately sprinkle with additional chopped walnuts, before the glaze sets. You might have to press them in a little.

Pumpkin Pie Walnut Muffins

Tonight, I'm baking Pumpkin Pie Walnut Muffins.  This recipe varies from my traditional muffin recipe in that it uses canola oil instead of butter, and buttermilk in place of sour cream.  Canned pumpkin any time ( or mashed in season) and pumpkin pie spices provide all the flavor.  It's a moist, high-rising muffin, proud as it sports a sprinkling of walnuts across its crown.  I posted a photo of these on my facebook page tonight, and lovely Teresa (my honorary neice) said she had to have the recipe, so here it is, just for you TLR!  I hope you love it!

PUMPKIN PIE WALNUT MUFFINS

Bake at 375 degrees F

Makes 12 standard muffins, plus a few more

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup buttermilk ( or 1/2 cup milk soured with 1 tbsp. vinegar - let sit 5 min.)

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or 1 tsp. cinnamon; 1/2 tsp. nutmeg; 1/4 tsp. ground cloves)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts.  

In mixer on low speed, blend oil and sugar until completely combined.  Add eggs, one at a time.  Add pumpkin and vanilla. 

In separate small bowl, combine flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add to pumpkin mixture and mix until thoroughly combined.  

Spray muffin cups with baking spray or line with muffin liners.  Fill muffin cups half-full and sprinkle tops with chopped walnuts.  Let it sit for 15 minutes before baking (allows the baking powder to start working and gives you a higher, lighter muffin). Bake at 375 degrees F or until tops are dry and bounce back to a light press.  Cool for 10 minutes.  Remove from muffin pan and allow to cool completely.  

Enjoy!

Easter Cookies

This post is short and sweet, much like the two little buddies who will be sharing the Easter cookies I'm baking this weekend (pictured with this post, the cookies I made last night for a friend).  The recipe is one I use all the time, from The Food Network's Alton Brown.  It's as simple as can be.  You mix up flour, baking powder, and salt.  Separately, you mix butter, sugar, an egg, a little bit of milk, and vanilla extract.  Mix it all together and let the dough hang out in the fridge for an hour or so.  It rolls out beautifully (I like to roll cut out cookies a little thick, about 3/8 of an inch), bake at 350 degrees F until they just begin to show a little color on the edges, cool, and decorate.  It's a lot of fun. The original recipe, from an earlier post, is linked here.  And I've also added a photo of the same cookies from Easter two years ago, when we gathered in Katie's kitchen to produce a basket-full of beautiful treats!

From Easter 2010 - so much fun to make!

These are a bit of work, but worth it.  If you're baking this weekend, have a great time.  I wish all of you a lovely spring weekend, whether  you honor Easter, Passover, or another meaningful springtime ritual.  Enjoy this time with your family and friends.

And speaking of family, here are Hank and Pete yesterday morning:  I stopped in before leaving for work, and they were enjoying breakfast in their "toy" room:

...so mesmerized by Curious George
that they didn't even notice me!

Tricia's Birthday Dinner

The Birthday Girl!

When you come from a big family, and then you have a big family, there are happily a lot of birthdays to celebrate.  Tonight we celebrated my youngest daughter Tricia's birthday.  She was 30 on Tuesday, but our dinner in her honor was tonight.  It was a small group with Tricia, her fiance Jeff, Katie, Henry and Pete, and also my sons Jeff and Joe.  I had four of my five kids and my two grandsons in one place, which is just about all I ever need, and of course, we missed Meghan (we always miss Meghan).  She and Mark are loving life in California.  Tricia's Dad Gene and his wife Kathryn were both working tonight.  It  seems impossible to find a time that works for everyone these days, so we are especially looking forward to having them join us for brunch at Katie's Easter morning.

For dinner tonight, we had chicken spiedies, a romaine salad, broccoli, and a home-made macaroni and cheese that I put together last night.  The topper was Tricia's chocolate with chocolate birthday cake.  I've been so busy with work that I had to rush home to frost Tricia's cake, which I was in the process of when she and Jeff arrived.  And then I had to wrap her gifts at the last second, searching for Scotch tape and finally getting it all done after the guest of honor arrived (!)  You'd think I'd have my act together by now, but that's just the way it is when you work all day and then try to accomplish something after work!  Anyway, it was all worth it with such a delicious and happy dinner, and I am very glad that we'll be together again in just a few days, enjoying an Easter brunch on what is supposed to be a beautiful day!

Once again,  happy birthday to my lovely daughter Tricia.  It seems like just yesterday we brought you home from the hospital.  Yesterday, plus thirty years!  xoxox

Hershey's Chocolate Cake and Frosting
(recipe on the Hershey cocoa can)

Dave Lieberman's Noodle Kugel

Dave Lieberman's Noodle Kugel
(photo from The Food Network)

When I visit the home of my friend Catherine Golden, she often serves traditional Jewish foods for holidays and celebrations.  I laugh when I consider myself her "token Irish Catholic friend" - realizing that is not, at all, the case.  Catherine has friends of all denominations, and many, many of them!  Her home is one with doors open to everyone, and she is always a gracious hostess whether it is a party of fifty or one person knocking on her door.  Anyway, the one dish Catherine always insists I try (in addition to anything with her prize-winning jam!) is kugel, a pudding of sorts with noodles in an egg custard.  It is delicious!  In researching on-line recipes for noodle kugel (Dave Lieberman's recipe from The Food Network follows - gorgeous photo above, to the left), I learned quite a bit.  I went to that unofficial replacement for the now almost-defunct Encyclopedia Brittanica (sad), Wikipedia, and learned:

"The name of the dish comes from the German Kugel meaning "sphere, globe, ball"; thus the Yiddish name likely originated as a reference to the round, puffed-up shape of the original dishes (compare to German Gugelhupf — a type of ring-shaped cake). Nowadays, however, kugels are often baked in square pans. There is a common association of this word to the Hebrew k'iygul ("as a circle"), but this is a folk etymology.
The first kugels were made from bread and flour and were savory rather than sweet. About 800 years ago, cooks in Germany replaced bread mixtures with noodles or farfel.  Eventually eggs were incorporated. The addition of cottage cheese and milk created a custard-like consistency which is common in today's dessert dishes. In Poland, Jewish homemakers added raisins, cinnamon and sweet farmer's cheese to noodle kugel recipes. In the late 19th century, Jerusalemites combined caramelized sugar and black pepper in a noodle kugel known as "Jerusalem kugel," which is a commonly served at Shabbat kiddushes and is a popular side dish served with cholent during Shabbat lunch.
In Romania, this dish is called Budinca de Macaroane/Paste Fainoase(Maccaroni/Pasta Pudding), and it is a traditional Romanian dish. In certain villages throughout the country it is known as "Baba Acolo". It is made with with or without cheese, but it most always includes raisins.  Savory kugel may be based on potatoes, matzah, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, spinach or cheese.
Kugels are a mainstay of festive meals in Ashkenazi Jewish (Jews of Eastern European descent) homes, particularly on the Jewish Sabbath and other Jewish holidays or at a Tish. Some Hasidic Jews believe that eating kugel on the Jewish Sabbath brings special spiritual blessings, particularly if that kugel was served on the table of a Hasidic Rebbe.
While noodle kugel, potato kugel, and other variations are dishes served on Jewish holiday meals, matzo kugel is a common alternative served at Passover seders which is adjusted to meet passover kosher requirements.
A similar Belarusian dish is potato babka.Amongst South African Jews, the word "kugel" was used by the elder generation as a term for a young Jewish woman who forsook traditional Jewish dress values in favor of those of the ostentatiously wealthy, becoming overly materialistic and over groomed, the kugel being a plain pudding garnished as a delicacy. The women thus described made light of the term and it has since become an amusing rather than derogatory slang term in South African English, referring to a materialistic young woman."
This may be more than you ever wanted to know about noodle kugel, but I believe knowing the history of a dish informs our perception.  It provides respect for tradition and gratitude for the passing-down from one generation to the next those things that define a culture.  With the world becoming smaller and smaller, and cultures expanding to incorporate each others' food traditions, the world has become a more delicious place!  This recipe is the highest rated of any I found on the Web, so expand your horizons, or revisit your Bubbie's kitchen, and give it a try!

DAVE LIEBERMAN'S NOODLE KUGEL
from the Food Network Kitchens

1/2 pound wide kosher for Passover egg noodles
1/2 stick butter, melted
1 pound cottage cheese
2 cups sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
*my friend Jane suggests sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on top before baking - says it helps give a nice, sweet, crunchy crust!
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.


Boil the noodles in salted water for about 4 minutes. Strain noodles from water. In a large mixing bowl, combine noodles with remaining ingredients and pour into a greased, approximately 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
Bake until custard is set and top is golden brown, about 30 to 45 minutes.


********************


Recipe and Photo:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dave-lieberman/noodle-kugel-recipe/index.html


History of kugel:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kugel

Contest!

You can win one (or more!) of these!

CONTEST!!!  Happy April! To celebrate the 2nd best month ever for my Adirondack Baker blog (I don't think anything will beat December 2011!), and to generate more comments on the blog itself, I'd like to offer up twelve cakes - one 8" round 2-layer a month to twelve lucky winners.  If you live out of the area, I will send you one dozen chocolate chip cookies in the mail).  All you have to do is sign on as a follower on my blog, and starting today, comment on the postings, even past postings.  If you're already a follower, and you continue to comment, you're in the pool.  I will judge comments on sincerity and content (don't just say "hi!")  You can add your comment under "Name/URL" and it will be easy.  You can win more than once.  Feel free to share - the goal is to increase the number of followers!  Thanks so much!