Patriotic Pie

Raw pie.  It seemed like a good decorating idea at the time.

The last time the blog had a pie was over a year ago.  It’s time to correct that.

I got apples to make a pie last week, but it didn’t happen.  Then on Thursday my son called with the happy news that he would be coming to visit for the weekend.  I girded my loins and got started on making that pie. 

Just before I put it in the oven, I had the brilliant idea to sprinkle red, white, and blue sugar on top of it.  And then, THEN I decided that it was a Miss American Pie, and that therefore I should write “Bye Bye” on it in candy letters.  Clearly, to make the candy letters stick, some egg white wash, applied sparingly, was necessary.

I never would win any prizes for pie decoration, but this one might win a prize for being the ugliest pie. The white sugar was not proper decorating sugar, so it never showed up on the finished pie.  Son said the blue sugar was green (and it is, where it was swamped with egg white).  The red color managed to bleed into any place where there was egg white.  And the candy letters burned.

Oh, my.  Ugly pie.

It looks rather bruised and damaged, but it is still as American as apple pie.  It will be gone by tomorrow.

Best Scholastic Use of Pie

Working on extra credit requires using Mom's markers

“Create something American, and bring it in to class, and you can earn five extra credit points,” said Younger Daughter’s U.S. history teacher to the class.

When we at the Common Household heard this, naturally our thoughts turned to apple pie. Any excuse to make a pie is a good excuse. 

This time, it was up to YD to make the pie.  I could use some extra credit points in some subjects, but the points were offered to the students, not the parents.  I sweetened the deal for her by offering to drive her to school, if she made a pie for her class.

On Wednesday night, I found YD’s pie plate, the one with her name on it that she received as a party favor at a friend’s birthday (one of the more inspired party favors I have ever seen).  I pointed YD in the direction of the pie ingredients.  Then my husband and I went out for a few hours, leaving YD in the kitchen alone, and her older brother lurking about in the house.

When we returned home, the pie was in the oven, and YD was coloring a pie chart of 2014 US fiscal spending, because, next to apple pie, nothing is more American than arguing over the federal budget.  She had enlisted her brother’s help to cut the apples – I hadn’t realized that YD had never done this step on her own.  YD has made plenty of pies with me, but none by herself. 

In the night, I lay awake trying to calculate how big a piece of pie each student would get.  Is the circumference of a circle 2πr or πr²?  I decided it had to be the former, because the latter number was too big.  Before drifting back to sleep I concluded that for an 8-inch pie plate, simplifying π to a value of 3.0 (scandalous, I know, but I’m not swift at arithmetic and I was mainly trying to fall asleep), and further assuming 24 students in the class, each student could get a piece of pie measuring about 1 inch at the outer edge.  Just a taste, but not enough to ruin anybody’s appetite for the healthful school lunch that they eat at about 10:30 AM, a great lunch time for people who have to get up at 6 AM.

Done, and

Done.

The pie was declared a success, as the plate came back empty.  A triumph of American values!

Not Your Grandmother's Kugel

In the days of the ancestors, it was decreed that the whole people should gather in a solemn assembly to celebrate the Lord’s creation, and to begin the Days of Awe. 

And the Lord said to the people, “Thus shall you celebrate:  by preparing a sweet mixture of eggs, sour cream, sugar, wide egg noodles and dried fruit of the vine.  And you shall call this mixture noodle kugel.  From this day forward you and your children and your children’s children shall partake of this meal.”

And the mother-in-law said to the daughter-in-law:  “You shall make my noodle kugel recipe, for there is no other that will please my son.  I have decreed it.”

And the daughter-in-law undertook to do as she was instructed to do.  She approached this task with joy, saying, “At last, a Jewish recipe that does not involve chopping everything into little bits or cooking a hunk of meat for hours.”  But lo, her mother-in-law’s recipe for noodle kugel listed not all of the ingredients.  It was not clear if it required ½ an ephah or ¼ an ephah of sugar.  It gave not the baking temperature; neither did it tell the type of baking pan to use.

And so the daughter-in-law set out to gather unto her all manner of noodle kugel recipes.  She took butter of kine, egg of chicken, cream of sour, wide noodles of egg, and brought forth a fine noodle kugel in a lordly dish.  And she saw that the thing pleased her husband.

As the years passed, the daughter-in-law began to be horrified at the fat content of the noodle kugel and at the vast quantity the recipe made. The heart of her husband was not well within him.  Seeking to do her husband good, like a merchant ship she launched forth and communed secretly with Google to find a healthier and smaller recipe.

And so, at the beginning of this year 5775, the husband spake unto his wife, saying, “Lo, the high holidays are upon us.  It is my fondest wish that we should have noodle kugel during this time of festive convocations.”

And so she girded her loins with strength, and assembled lower-fat ingredients; she set to cooking.  Eating not the bread of idleness, while the noodle kugel was baking she went outside and raked a multitude of leaves to the top of the hill.

Looking well to the ways of her household, she served the noodle kugel.  And lo, her teenaged child arose up, and called her blessed; her husband also, and he praised her, saying, “Now this is the only dish which is not made better by adding cream of mushroom soup.  Many daughters-in-law have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that maketh a good low-fat noodle kugel, she shall be praised.

                                                                                        - The Book of Comestibles 31:10-31

     Noodle Kugel 

    

Makes one 9x9 square pan.

     1 cup cottage cheese (lowfat is fine)

     1 ½  cups (12 ounces) sour cream (lowfat is fine)

     1 ½ Tablespoons milk

     3 eggs, beaten

     1/4 cup sugar

     ½ tsp. vanilla

     ¼ cup raisins, or chopped apple, optional – I use both

     8 ounces wide egg noodles

     cinnamon and sugar for topping (mix together 1 Tbsp sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon)

     ¼ cup corn flakes, crushed

Grease a 9x9 square baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cook the egg noodles in a large pot of water till tender. Drain.

Meanwhile, mix in a very large bowl the first 7 ingredients. Combine with the cooked noodles, and turn into the baking pan.

Top with some cinnamon and sugar, and also some crushed cornflakes if you like. Bake in a 350 oven for about 45 – 60 minutes. Cut into squares to serve.

Makes 12 servings.

(If you use 1% cottage cheese and low-fat sour cream, each serving is 5 Weight Watchers PointsPlus.)

Past and Future

Today I look into the past and toward the future.

Into the past

This is my 500^th post on this blog.  On this festive occasion I would especially like to thank my children:

- my older daughter, who, when starting her own blog (long since abandoned for other worthy pursuits) also challenged me to blog;    
Ÿ

- my son, who, having no qualms about comparing his mother to a cockroach, thought of the name for this blog; and
Ÿ

 - my younger daughter, who, having the soul of a poet, has provided several guest posts, and is a loyal reader.

I thank my husband and my children for providing endless material, and for putting up with me as I furiously jotted down their dinner conversations. 

I thank you, dear readers out there in cyberland, for reading this blog that is often about nothing.  For me, writing here has provided a welcome diversion from the private and unspoken challenges of our lives here in the Common Household.  My very first post was about head lice, and I like to think that it has been all uphill since then.

Today is my Dad’s birthday.  I miss him.

Today is also Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Days of Awe, and the start of the year 5775.  A palindromic year!  

For a sweet new year

In this post I would like to show you photos of our beautiful, elegant Jewish New Year dinner last night, but I can’t.  We had Chinese food my husband picked up from the grocery store.  (Chinese food is appropriate on the Jewish holiday of Christmas, but not Rosh Hashanah.)  This is because we were in a rush to get to the synagogue early.  I was in charge of last night’s oneg, which supposedly means “delight” in Hebrew, but actually means “a large amount of cakes, cookies, chips, crackers, hummus, and other snacks served after a worship service.”   When I was growing up, this type of event occurred at church every Sunday after worship, and it was called “coffee hour.”  But we never had hummus at coffee hour.   

Into the future

We did have some apples and honey last night and today, to signify our wish for a sweet year.  I wish the same to all of you!

Very soon I expect to be a great aunt.            ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 

Tomorrow I have a big work project due.  So I’m off to try to get some sleep, dreaming of wheat acreage.  But, dear reader, I want to ask about your past and future.  Did you attend coffee hour in your childhood?  What snacks are in your future?

A note for Younger Daughter on Wednesday

Yikes! L'Shanah Tova!

Rosh Hashanah snuck up behind me and bit me on the heel.  Two days ago, I suddenly realized that there would be a New Year coming mighty soon.  Yesterday I panicked about the most important thing regarding this Jewish holiday:  what to serve for dinner.

I took into account the following: My husband said he doesn’t have time for a fancy dinner this evening because he has to get to the synagogue early.  My mother-in-law is not here.  Two of the kids are off at college.  We don’t have enough people in the household to eat a brisket.  I didn’t have enough warning to invite people over. 

Therefore, for the first time in Jewish history, we are having leftovers for Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner.  That gives me one extra sin to ponder as the Day of Atonement approaches.

I did remember to dash to the liquor store and get some Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine, because what’s a Jewish holiday without Manischewitz?  I conveniently forgot to stock up on gefilte fish. At the farmer’s market this afternoon, I realized I should get a round bread – Youngest Daughter picked out a round garlic bread.  So it’s not a raisin challah – show me in the Bible where it says Moses had a raisin challah on Rosh Hashanah.  We have apples and honey – I’m pretty sure both of those are mentioned in the Bible.

Maybe I will invite Einstein to dinner.  He won’t mind leftovers.

Happy 5774, everyone!