Books to be read, and Matzoh Ball Soup

Stuff has been a little crazy lately. crazy like working 13 hour days, and getting up the next day to do it all over again with a smile on my face. what can i say? I'm a slave for free food.

not a lot of reading got done. but i made two batches of Maztah Ball Soup, and learned some stuff in the process - parsley = good, thinking your Maztah balls are done before their time = bad.

My Matzah Ball Soup (adapted from Mom's recipe)

make the soup:
olive oil or schmaltz (what's schmatlz?)
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
half an onion, diced
one clove of garlic, minced
4 cups chicken broth
6-10 cups water
salt & pepper

saute the carrots, celery, onion and garlic in some olive oil/schmatlz in a large soup pot. mix in some salt & pepper. when the veggies have softed up a bit, pour in the broth & water, and slowly bring to a boil.

while soup is heating up, make the matzoh balls:
2 tbsp schmaltz or vegetable shortening
2 eggs
a heavy half cup matzoh meal
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp soup stock or a mixture of stock & seltzer to equal the same amount
3 tbsp minced fresh parsley

mix schmatlz/shortening together with eggs in a bowl. and matzah meal, soup stock/seltzer, salt & parsley, and blend well. you should have a mixture that holds together. if not, add more matzoh meal or liquid as needed.

have a small bowl of cool water handy, and wet your hands. roll the matzoh mixture by the tablespoon between your palms to make small balls, and drop into boiling soup. Partly cover and boil for a minimum of 20 minutes (i called them done after 15 once, it wasn't pretty. they were in fact, kind of nasty). matzah balls will roughly double in size while they are cooking, and much of your broth will be absorbed.

book news is a bit lame right now.

i'm desperately trying (again!) to get through Hal Duncan's (debut?) novel Vellum. It's relatively fun, in a Kevin Smith Dogma meets that Keanu Reeves Constantine movie. You know, angels versus demons, trying to recruit the angels and demons who thought the war was stupid and fled to earth in an attempt to hide from the powers on high. It's a good book. It takes a LOT of mental concentration to follow some of what's going on, and i'm ending up reading it in 5 minute increments, which is probably an insult to the book. I really want to enjoy this book, but i really, really should be reading it when i can actually give it the attention it deserves. Maybe in the fall or winter?



got an advanced reading copy of the new Steven Brust - Jhaegaala. I can't tell you how excited i am about this. Still trying to finalize a review of his The Book of Jhereg. You know those snarky noirish detective movies? Mix that with a really good detective caper, and take out all the cheesy garbage, and toss in some telepathy, some teleporting with nasty physical side effects. . . and you'd have something like The Book of Jhereg. except the book is way better than that. if you like fantasy of any shape or flavor, get yourself some Brust.

speaking of fantasy, i couldn't drive past the comic shop this afternoon without spending money i didn't have on Elric: the Making of a Sorcerer, the graphic novel by Michael Moorcock and Walter Simonson. What was even cooler was the guy who owns the comic shop told me to come back and tell him what i thought of it. more than that, i talked Fullmetal Alchemist with the other clerk. that place is so geek-cool!!

you know, I'm not as Passover Crazy as I could be.

You know those crazy Christmas ladies, who have a themed Christmas tree in every room of their house? And when they go on vacation, they go shopping for the sole purpose of buying a commemorative christmas ornament? I'm working on being that obsessed about Passover. I buy cookbooks if they have good passover friendly recipes, the more non traditional, the better. I start planning Seder and other Passover meals a month ahead of time. I'm always surprised how many Passover friendly (or one ingredient away from Passover friendly) recipes I find in my favorite French Cookbooks, The Book of French Provincial Cooking, by Hilaire Walden. Best cookbook purchase ever.

Sure, I don't observe Passover as much as I could (non-Passover friendly food gets shoved to the back of the pantry or fridge, or tossed in the freezer), but i'm happily food obessed. We shared cooking responsibilities with another family this year. They hosted the Seder, we brought the side dishes and one of three desserts. I got to cook on a flat top range for the first time.

With recipes below, or links to the recipes:

Marinated Mushrooms (Adapted from The Book of French Provincial Cooking)
Zucchini Gratin (Same Source as above)
Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Garlic Roasted Potatoes

and Forgotten Cookies for Dessert.

Marinated Mushrooms

1 onion, sliced very thin
l clove of garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp coriander
1 cup red wine
1 lb button mushrooms, sliced if bigger than bite sized
2 large tomatoes, diced
salt & pepper
chopped parsley
bay leaf

Saute onion & garlic in oil for about 5 minutes. Stir in mushrooms, coriander, and tomatoes, salt and pepper and bay leaf. Pour wine over. Bring to a boil, then simmer 10 minutes. If you want the sauce thicker, removed mushrooms and onions with a slotted spoon, and simmer until it's at a thickness you want, then add mushrooms and onions back in. garnish with parsley. Can be served hot or at room temperature.

Zucchini Gratin

2 lbs zucchini, sliced
olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped basil or parsley
salt & pepper
½ cup matzah meal
¼ - ½ cup shredded greyere cheese
1 tbsp butter

put sliced zucchini in a colander with plenty of salt (it draws the moisture out). Leave for one hour, then rise zucchini well (rinse it again, there is a lot of salt there!) and dry with paper towels.

Preheat oven to 400. Heat oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat, and saute zuchini until they begin to brown. You want them browned, not mushy. Remove zucchini with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add tomatoes, garlic, basil or parsley, and salt & pepper to skillet. Bring to a boil, then simmer till it thickens a bit. Stir the zucchini back in, then pour it all into a baking dish. Mix the matzah meal and cheese in a bowl, and sprinkle that on top. Cut the butter up, and dot the top of the gratin with it. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Stay tuned for more Passover goodness, including Matzah ball soup (I made the best soup of my life the other night. I need to figure out what the heck I did!), Turkey and Leek Fritters, more Rattatoullie, Sweet potatoes with pears, and some other stuff. It's all good.

. . .sadly not much on the book front. I got Michael Moorcock's The Dreamcatchers Daughter from the library, and I've been staring at it for a week, unable to pick it up. If you've been following this blog, you know of my growing obsession with Michael Moorcock, so why can't I pick this thing up? The dust jacket summary mentions something about historical World War II characters (maybe one of them is an Eternal Hero?). . And you know what? I'm just not ready for my Elric fantasy world to be tainted by the contemporary. I want Elric to stay in the beautiful, surreal, idealistic fantasy world he belongs in. Sigh.

Hal Duncan's Vellum also made it into the library bag. I tried reading this book last summer, and I couldn't get into it. Too weird, even for me. So i'll give it another try. And i'm sure next year, i'll pick up The Dreamcatcher's Daughter, and just go nuts for it.

Finished Steven Brust's Book of Jhereg. Excellent book. Now I just need to find time to write a review.

Thrown together tuna salad

where is that line between "recipe", and "something you throw together"? making tuna salad isn't a "recipe", but it's quick, easy, and the husband can't figure out how i throw it together in less than 10 minutes.

2 cans tuna, drained
one celery stick, finely chopped
about 4 inches of cucumber, seeded and chopped
one green onion, chopped
about 2 tbsp capers
one heaping tbsp mayonaise
couple drops lemon juice
about a teaspoon white wine, if you happen to have any in the fridge
chopped hard boiled egg, if you remembered to make hard boiled eggs the night before, and managed not to eat them all. (this has happened to me. i'm an egg addict)

blend all ingredients. layer in a pita with lettuce / tomato / cucumber / whatever else you want. easy quick yummy dinner. no stove or oven required.

see? that's not really a recipe, it's just something that's been thrown together.

but netxt time i'll post a real recipe, i promise. this weekend i'm trying my Mom's famous "Forgotten Cookies". they are a merangue base, and i've never made them by myself before. this will be a practice desert for passover.

hmmm. . . books . . . can't say i've read anything monumental lately. Read Jumper, yeah, the one they made a movie of, with the kid from the new Star Wars. but it's not a new book, it was originally published in 1992. After I finished the book, i hit the IMDB page of the movie, to see how the movie differed from the book. let's just say they differ a LOT. book review will be published in a few weeks, and then i can talk about it in more detail.

i just started reading Steven Brust's The Book of Jhereg. i'm still getting my land legs when it comes to fantasy, and i don't have much experience reading stories where the main protaganist is a hired killer. maybe this qualifies as a "boy-book"? and is it "Brust", or "Broost"? anyway, i've heard good things, and at 90 pages in, i may not be crazy impressed, but i am happy. the fact that i'd rather be reading this book than watching tv says a lot. but i'm not foregoing sleep for it.

anti hero

i've been sick lately (hubby and i have been passing the same cold back and forth. ain't that nice of us?), so not much cooking has been happening. and thanks to cough syrup with side effects, not much reading has been going on either.

I did read the 2nd Elric book, my Michael Moorcock. enjoyed it muchly, but not as much as the first one. everything was new, and weird, and magical to me in the first book, so there weren't too many surprises here. that said, i can't tell you how much i appreciate a "hero" whose attitude is "i've got nothing better to do, and what's the worst that could happen, death?" sometimes a suicidal hero is better than a hero who is too dumb to be afraid. alright, i've read the Elric saga up to and including the short story "Stormbringer". what's next in that universe?

speaking of heroes who are too dumb to be afraid, i read Heinlien's Glory Road. very fun, very silly. the timing is right for this to be another authors reaction/satire of Tolkien's epic hero-ing and quest-ing around. Oscar, recently medically discharged from Vietnam, is trying to figure out what to do with his lifer - preferabbly something having to do with nude beaches. nearly forced to answer a newspaper ad looking for a "Hero", he meets Star, a beautiful, multi-universe traveller, who takes him on the quest of a lifetime, if they survive. adventure, injury, and bad guys follow, and in the end, Oscar gets the girl, and learns she's royalty, to boot. it is truly an adorable story. Mr. Heinlien is my favorite sexist (yet not. . .) man in the world.

Magnificient disaster

i love fish. never met a fish i didn't want to eat, cooked or sushi-like.

that said, i haven't a clue how to prepare fish at home. witness this steaming disaster that happened, oh, about an hour ago.

i had dreams. . . perfectly steamed tuna steaks with capers and tomatoes, served atop buttery linguine. sigh. . . it was not to be.

came home from work to perfectly thawed tuna steaks. mixed up the following in a small bowl: about a half cup diced tomato (out of a can), one clove of garlic minced, maybe a tablespoon of minced onion, a few tablespoons of capers, splash of olive oil, salt, pepper,done.

made some adorable little aluminum foil packets, each with a peice of tuna and some of the tomato mixture. now, how to steam these darn things? i don't have a steamer, and "the joy of cooking" was rather useless in it's description of steaming. but i went to engineering school! i can improvise! 2 quart sauce pan half filled with simmering water - check. metal grating )you know, one of those curly cue things?) hotplate set on top - check. tin foil packets set on top grating hotplate - check. turn packets every 5 minutes for equal cooking.

when the packets began dripping all over the place, husband suggested we put an old metal baking sheet under the sauce pan, to catch drips. done. it worked. good thing i hate that baking sheet, because it's now going in the trash. it can withstand 500 degrees in the oven, but not direct stove heat.

20 minutes later, the tuna was cooked to death on the outside, raw in the center, the baking dish was obviously warping (and turning a lovely rose color) under the heat and strain, and husband was asking if we were still going to have linquine studded with veggies, and i was starving. and suddenly everything began to smell of tuna.

frustrated, i turned the stove off, popped the tuna into the oven, and sent husband off to taco bell.

10 minutes later, i enjoyed my cooked to death tuna steaks. i hope he brings me back something from taco bell.

folks, this is why i only get fish at restaurants. i know i'll be happy.

a miss, two hits, and another miss

I thought i loved Charles Stross. Then i read his Halting State. Accerando and Glasshouse were two of the best scifi books i've ever read. Charlie, what happened? The concept of Halting State is just short of brilliant, but the execution just didn't work for me.

I thought i loved Jeff Vandermeer (who i do still, dearly adore), then i started reading Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga. the grace of his prose, the poetic romantisicm of Elric's exquisite pain. Not sure if i've ever run into this depth of intelligence in fiction before. i don't mean smart like tons of 50 cent words, i mean smart like the perfect elegance of a golden mean. and yes, smart can still have plenty of plot holes. it happens. i finished this book a few days ago, and keep staring at it. . . i'm going to read it again cover to cover before it goes back to te library, aren't i? and my review was so. . surface.

Mr Vandermeer, you'll have to deal with being my new second most loved, rather than first. m'kay? (and no, i still haven't taken City of Saints and Madmen back to the library, but the novelty hasn't worn off yet)

After much nagging from a friend, i picked up Catch 22. i'm laughing, i'm crying, i'm avoiding watching the news even more. this really is better than Slaughterhouse Five (not V's best by a long shot, but his most famous, and a very accessible anti-war novel). these days, i could probably be arrested for reading the Catch.

i decided to try cous cous. trying to experiment with grains other than wheat (holy crap, have you seen the bread prices??), and i remembered having a cous cous salad thing a number of years ago and liking it. so in an effort to make my cooking adventure a little easier, i bought one of those prepackaged cous cous dinner things in the ethnic aisle of the grocery store. Note to self: cous cous is good, but don't ever ever, EVER buy those prepackaged cous cous things in the ethnic aisle of the grocery store. those things taste of nothing but salt, so just march your butt back to the bulk section and buy a 1/2 pound of straight cous cous. you'll be much happier.

Hamentaschen make me happy

i don't have a lot of luck with pastries, but Hamentashen make me happy.

Hamen-what-shah? Hamentashen, those triangular shaped pastries eating during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which celebrates how Esther saved the Jewish people from certain destruction (she saved the tribe, and married outside the faith! go Esther!).

I used to always use my Mom's crisco based recipe, and Mom, I love you, but crisco left my dough dry, and too crunchy. Thanks for those Jewish cookbooks you bought me a few years ago, I found the best Hamentaschen recipe! Instead of a cookie-ish dough, it's a tricked-out pastry dough (tricked out? can i say that about a pastry dough?)

the filling is also important. i've learned the hard way DON'T OVERFILL YOUR HAMENTASCHEN! the dough expands, and the filling expands, and they will kind of explode in the oven. although yummy to eat, it doesn't look pretty. it's tempting to cram in as much filling as possible, i know, but these are NOT cannoli! and everything expands. I've had best luck with using the SOLO brand of pie filling, or a 1/2 to 3/4 tsp of melted and cooled chocolate chips per Hamentaschen.

This recipe is from Faye Levy's 1,00 Jewish Recipes. it makes about 3 dozen Hamentaschen. I think the trick is the cooling of the dough before baking.

2 3/4 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 sticks cold butter, cut into little peices and chilled until you're ready to use them.
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3 tbsp milk, or maybe a little more
another egg for later

combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a big bowl. use a pastry blender to cut in the butter until the consistency is course crumbs (like you're making a pie crust). in a small bowl, beat the egg with the vanilla, then add to the flour mixture. cut with a spatula until the dough begins to come together. mix in milk one tablespoon at a time (how much you need depends on the ambient humidity of your kitchen. seriously) until the dough forms small balls which stick together when pressed. Shape dough into a flat disk, and wrap in plastic wrap, and put in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

to make the Hamentaschen: cut your disk of dough into 4 peices. keep unused peices wrapped in plastic wrap. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it's about 1/8" thick. Cut into rounds with a 3" cookie cutter (i found the small can of Dole Pineapple chunks is perfect), and place just less than 1 tsp of filling in the center. pull three sides to the center and pinch, to form a triangular pastry showing a big of filling at the center. roll out all the dough, and use the scraps too. put Hamentaschen on a greased cookie sheet, and refridgerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350. brush hamentashen with beaten egg, so they get shiny when the cook. Bake 12 at a time for about 15 minutes, or until they start to go brown on top. Cool on wire racks.


this isn't a picture of my hamentaschen, but this is what they look like: