Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce and Cornbread Stuffing

Some people who live in Southern California may remember that many years ago we had a natural foods market called Mrs. Gooch’s (later bought by Whole Foods). When I was first learning to cook, I picked up a little booklet from Mrs. Gooch’s entitled simply, “Thanksgiving Dinner Menu.” I tried the recipes for cranberry sauce and cornbread stuffing, and they were so good and so easy that I have made them every year since then. For my family, Thanksgiving would not be the same without these simple but delicious dishes. This year, when I took out my now old and tattered copy of Mrs. Gooch’s Thanksgiving Dinner Menu, I thought it would be fun to share these recipes. I hope they will become well-loved classics in your house, as they have in mine. Happy Thanksgiving!

Marla

Cranberry Sauce (Pareve)

1 pound fresh cranberries
¼ cup water
¾ cup honey


Mix honey and water, add cranberries and cook over low heat until cranberries have cooked down (you will hear them pop). Pour into a bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.




Cornbread Stuffing (Pareve)

1 small pan baked cornbread (any recipe will do. I follow the recipe on the cornmeal box substituting milk with soy milk)

1 small loaf whole wheat bread, cubed
1 ½ cups chopped celery
1 ½ cups chopped onion
3 cups vegetable broth, with 1 ½ sticks margarine melted in it
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 ½ teaspoons salt


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Crumble the cornbread in a large bowl and add all the remaining ingredients. Mix well.

Stuff your turkey, or place in a well-oiled 9x13 pan.


Bake for 30-45 minutes covered, then 15 minutes uncovered.

Shop, Shop, Shop!

Adat Ari El Sisterhood is having their annual Hanukkah Boutique tomorrow. Hard to believe Thanksgiving is only two weeks away and the shopping craze gets under way. Every year I have great intentions to shop early, only to be in the mad rush with everyone else. The Hanukkah Boutique is a perfect place to shop for all your friends and family. So, don't delay any longer and do your holiday shopping with us!

In the cooking arena you will find The Chocolate Traveler, Pampered Chef, Tupperware, bamboo kitchenware, table linens, gourmet latkes to order for your Hanukkah parties and items in our very own Gift Gallery.

Join us for lunch as Lena and I, along with our team of extraordinary volunteers, offer the "Famous" Lentil Soup and Sour Cream Biscuits inspired by Paula Deen.

We hope to see you there!

Christine

Pad Thai Time

As our Southern California weather finally turns cooler and a little rainy, I find myself spending more time in the kitchen and heating it up. My cool weather favorites are pasta dishes and soups since they are comfort foods and use the fewest pots! I love cooking, but not the cleaning.

This week we announced the registration for the Creative Cooking Classes and it reminded me of a dish brought to us by Chef Dadi Revivo at last Spring's cooking class. Chef Dadi prepared a Thai meal consisting of Green Papaya Salad, Pad Thai ("Dadi Style") , Red Curry and Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango. All very delicious, but the Dadi's Pad Thai was my favorite and a big hit with the class. I consider his Pad Thai comfort food and perfect for our fall weather. So, with Dadi's permission we are sharing his recipe with you. This Pad Thai recipe is versatile and can be made vegetarian and enhanced by adding your favorite vegetables or proteins (see serving suggestions below). The presentation is beautiful and is perfect for family style eating and entertaining.

Enjoy!
Christine




Pad Thai -"Dadi Style" (Pareve

1 Tablespoon oil
2 medium onions, sliced
6 garlic cloves, smashed
4 inch ginger, cut into thin slices
3 small red chili, sliced and seed removed (keep seed if you want super spicy)
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 pound linguine or spaghetti
2 Tablespoons fish sauce*
1/4 cup tamarind paste**
2 large eggs, beaten


Garnish:

1 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
2 limes, cut into wedges
A handful of bean sprouts

Over medium-high heat, heat oil in a large, heavy bottom pan or a wok.


Add onions, garlic, ginger, chili and cinnamon sticks. Season with salt and pepper.


Mixing occasionally, cook until onions are soft and brown (do not burn the onions...)

While onion mixture is cooking, cook pasta to al dente and drain. Set aside.

At this point add your optional protein (except eggs, that comes later). Though not in the recipe, we added chicken during this class.

Once onion mixture is soft and brown, add the scallions and the pasta. If pasta is dry, rinse with water to bring back to life.






Cook over medium-high heat, stirring until pasta is well mixed with the onion mixture and the pasta is getting darker, about 2-4 minutes.


Add brown sugar and cook, mixing constantly. The sugar should be caramelized and not burnt.

We were introduced to tamarind paste, which is made from the fruit of the tamarind tree. Tamarind adds a sweetness to the dish. If tamarind is not readily available, Dadi suggests a substitution with prunes (see below).



Once the sugar is caramelized, add soy sauce, fish sauce and tamarind paste. Stir until liquid is absorbed and reduced.





Next, drizzle eggs over the pasta while mixing, until eggs are cooked, about 4 minutes.




Check for seasoning and add more salt if needed.

As we know, cooking is a lot of fun! Smacking peanuts with a rolling pin is sure more fun than chopping them!





Discard cinnamon sticks and transfer to a large platter and garnish with cilantro, roasted peanuts and lime wedges.

*To make this dish vegetarian use 2 more tablespoons of soy sauce instead of fish sauce and add your favorite vegetables to the onion mixture.

**Instead of tamarind, you could use prunes. Cut 5 prunes into halves and cook them with 3/4 cup of water until they are soft. Transfer to a blender and puree.



Serving suggestions:

For those who love peanut butter- mix 1/4 cup all-natural peanut butter, unsalted and smooth to the soy sauce before adding to the dish.

Add chicken (as pictured above), turkey, beef, tofu. Sear small pieces of selected protein to the pan after you add the pasta.

Creative Cooking Classes

Adat Ari El's Sisterhood is Celebrating! Multi-Interest Day (M.I.D), our adult education program, is celebrating it's 50th year. Adat Ari El's Sisterhood proudly presents this program to our members and to the community at large. Among the classes offered throughout the year is a Creative Cooking Series.

Creative Cooking Classes meet four times throughout the year and include culinary field trips. Cooking students meet in private homes to learn from professional chefs, as well as accomplished home cooks. Over the years, menus encompassed fare from all over the world: Thai, Moroccan and Italian. Thanksgiving and baking are on the menu this year, as well as a tasting tours of Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The classes are informal and interactive.

The classes will meet on November 17, January 19, February 16 and March 16 from 9:30 to approximately noon.

Join us for a couple classes or all four. For more information regarding registration, please contact Deborah at Adat Ari El (818)766-9426 x 207.

Cookies, Kids and Home

Today we welcome our guest blogger, Marla. Marla is currently the Vice President of Service for the Adat Ari El Sisterhood, overseeing the Kiddushim and Sisterhood Kitchen. She is also the Religious School Cooking instructor and volunteer extraodinaire!



I love to cook and bake, and when my children were small, we always had a lot of fun baking together. Of course baking with your mom is something that a kid can only do if mom has a house and a kitchen. What about kids whose families are homeless? A lot of homeless families live at L.A. Family Housing in North Hollywood California, and I started thinking about how much fun it would be for them to have a chance to bake. So, this summer I went to L.A. Family Housing once a week and baked with the children who live there. There were kids of all ages, from 4-15. Some of them had spent time in the kitchen with their parents when they had a home, and others had never cooked or baked at all. We had a lot of fun making cookies, cupcakes, cobblers, and for the finale, Strawberry Shortcake! Now that school has started, the baking at L.A. Family Housing has ended, but you might want to so some baking with your children. They will love making something sweet and delicious that they can take to school in their lunchboxes or have for an afternoon snack. Here is an easy and delicious recipe that is perfect for little hands.



Disappearing Delights (Dairy)

This recipe can also be found in California Kosher.


Bottom Crust:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
4 oz melted margarine (not butter)

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add egg and melted margarine to form a course meal. Pat into greased 10x15 jelly roll pan. Then make topping.

Topping:

2 eggs
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 pound powdered sugar
1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional) (my own addition, not in original recipe)

Mix topping ingredients and spread over crust. If using coconut sprinkle a little over the top. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes. Cool on wire rack and score for 2 inch bars. To avoid crumbling cool thoroughly, cut into bars and remove each one carefully.

Notes: I leave out the coconut and walnuts and add chocolate chips when baking with children because kids usually don't like coconut, and if you use walnuts you may run into nut allergy issues. Although it is easy and fun for the kids to pat down the dough for the crust, you may want to help them spread the topping because it tends to stick to the crust if you spread it too much. Although it won't change the taste of the finished bars, they will look a little messy if the topping and crust get mixed up. In any case, this is an easy and fun recipe for kids to make, and it will taste delicious even if it doesn't look perfect in the end. The children will be so proud to help you put the cooled bars on a plate and then hand the plate to mom or dad and say "look what I made!"

Don't forget, anyone can cook!

Marla