www.your-jewish-mother.com

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www.your-jewish-mother.com

Your Jewish Mother has moved!  We’re still redecorating but please reset your bookmarks, bloglines and RSS feed and visit us at:

 www.your-jewish-mother.com

 We’ll be waiting with kamish bread, of course!!

I think his wife should be called “Kosher Spice”

According to JTA, The Global News Service of the Jewish People:

Beckham won’t bend it against Israel.

David Beckham, the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer star, won’t join the England national team when it plays Israel in London next week in a qualifying game for Euro 2008. The midfielder, famed for his ability to bend the trajectory of the soccer ball, was sidelined for six weeks after spraining his right knee in a collision Wednesday night when Galaxy played Pachuca, a Mexican team.British media reported earlier this month that Beckham recently discovered that his mother is Jewish.

You write matzoh ball, I write matzah ball

 

Whether it’s fluffy or floats like a brick, matzah/matzoh balls aren’t just for Passover anymore.  At least not in my house.  They’re a year-round favorite that makes my kids sit at the table at attention waiting for just one more.

But, what’s the preferred spelling method?  Chime in please, don’t just roll your eyes and click back to one of our fabulous recipes of words of infinite wisdom.  Because as this site takes shape, much like with a matzah/matzoh ball…I really want to get it right.

Ok, the die has been cast, we’ll be going with matzAh ball.  Hope that floats it for all of you!

Plum Chicken for a Sweet New Year

I like to serve a sweet chicken on Rosh Hashanah and  I found the plum chicken recipe I made few years ago–it got rave reviews!  I quadrupled (or maybe quintupled) the recipe, made the sauce ahead of time and when I got home from shul I poured the sauce over the chicken and popped it in the oven.  The most difficult part was finding plum jam. 

 Plum Chicken

1 chicken cut in 8ths

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup orange juice

1 clove garlic, crushed

Combine all ingredients and pour over chicken.  Bake uncovered at 350 F for 60-75 minutes.  Baste occasionally.

Enjoy!

* Just a note: I totally concur as I’ve had Plum Chicken at Your Other Jewish Mother’s house.  It was the first time my daughter ever asked for “more chicken!”

- Your Jewish Mother

High Holiday fun

 

When my kids were little I always looked for ways to have all Jewish holidays fill more than just our time in services or their lessons at preschool and Hebrew School.  For most holidays – aside from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – my kids went to school, so  I made a habit of having Jewish books and crafts or toys out on the living room coffee table so that they naturally looked at them and played with them.

My kids aren’t growing up in an area where “everyone” is Jewish, so I found this to be a way of also having their friends see and learn a little about holidays and to integrate it into their day and their play.

Brisket, the Recipe I Like

 

This is my mom’s brisket recipe.   Ok, it’s actually Betty’s recipe, a long-time family friend. 

This is not the recipe with grape jelly or beer.  I never understood those, they did not sound very Jewish to me.  It is not the recipe with onion soup mix–that is how my aunt made brisket–that is the one my sister likes. 

This is the recipe I like. 

But my daughter the vegetarian, of course does not eat it.

My son, the carnivore, does not like any brisket, so he will not eat it. 

My mother also makes it with a veal brisket, but my brother-in-law will not eat that because of the way the calves are raised. 

My husband will eat this, but he eats almost anything.

Nevertheless-this is the recipe I will make, or my mother will make, for Rosh Hashanah. 

Roast the brisket 1/2 hour per pound, covered, at 300 F (less 1/2 hour)

Refrigerate or use ice cubes to congeal fat and remove the fat.

Slice, and add to sauce below.

Brown 3 sliced onions and 1 lb sliced fresh mushrooms.

Add 2 large cans tomato sauce, 1/2 tsp worsteshire sauce, salt, petter, and 1/4 tsp garlic flakes or 1 clove garlic.

Simmer sauce a few minutes and pour over uncovered meat last 1/2 hour.

 That’s the recipe, word for word from my mom’s recipe card.

Thanks Mom!  Shana Tova, and will you make it this year?

Please don’t cook the noodles

 

This recipe for the easiest, breeziest noodle kugel ever come directly from a friend of mine. Indirectly it comes from the pages of Bon Apetit in 1998.

Easiest Noodle Kugel

8 ounces wide egg noodles (Take note, this is not the whole bag. Don’t use more than 8 ounces or no one will like your kugel, which would really be embarrassing for both of us)

1 cup dark raisins (I leave out the raisins)

5 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled

1/3 cup sugar

4 cups whole milk

3 cups cornflakes, coarsely crushed

1/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar

(I’ll admit that I lighten up everything except the butter – and it tastes just fine.)  

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish.

Spread UNCOOKED noodles over bottom of prepared dish and sprinkle with raisins. Whisk eggs, sour cream, butter and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Whisk in milk and pour mixture over noodles. Let kugel stand 5 minutes. Mix cornflakes and brown sugar in bowl; sprinkle evenly over kugel.

Bake kugel until set in center, about 1 hour. Cut kugel into squares. Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 8 to 10. 

Are stereotypical Jewish mothers a dying breed?

G-d forbid!

I say no, they – we – are not. We’re just a little less different and every other mother is a little more like us these days. 

And is that a good thing?  

According to Alana Newhouse, Jewish mothers are out-of-style and out-of-touch and not-so-funny.

Let me know what you think.

I say kamish bread, you say mandelbrot

 

If you can bake something and freeze it and not eat it until the holidays – here’s the recipe for you.  They are also mighty tasty frozen – which is the problem.  It’s the only thing I like to bake even though the double-baking component means it’s time-consuming.   

But even more than the time it takes to bake and bake again is the time it takes to figure out if it’s Mandelbrot or Kamish Bread.  I never heard the term mandelbrot until I moved to the Midwest.  And here, no one knew what Kamish Bread was.  They do now because I bake it and take it everywhere I go, at least on holidays. 

Mandelbrot seems to be the term of choice, although after some research I found one reference on the World Wide Web to Kamish Bread – which means – almost bread - and makes perfect sense to me, unlike Mandel which means almond and brot which means bread – especially when there is nothing almond in my main recipe.

Chocolate Chip Kamish Bread 

¾ cup sugar

1 cup oil

4 eggs

3-4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons vanilla

Mini chocolate chips  

Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, oil and eggs.  Add the sifted flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, and mix well.  If you leave out the vanilla, your kamish bread will have no taste.  A little bit of vanilla packs a powerful punch.  Take my word for it.  Don’t forget the baking powder either.  The loaves still bake, but they don’t rise at all and the taste is flat.  Take my word for this too.   

Add the chocolate chips until there are enough, but not too many.  

Mixture should be very thick and sticky. Shape into two loaves and place on either side of a cookie sheet.  

Bake at 325F for 30-35 minutes and then remove from oven.  Cut into slices while still warm and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes, or until slices are light brown. 

You can also substitute one of the teaspoons of vanilla for almond extract and add dried fruit and/or nuts.  Dried cranberries and walnuts are a good combo, since I know you were wondering.  You can also roll the loaves in cinnamon and sugar before baking. 

You can also buy Kamish bread at a bakery, but ask for Mandelbrot no matter what flavor you favor, or no one will know what you’re talking about. 

And no, it’s not the same thing as Biscotti.