Matzo Kugel ~ ElephantEats.com

For those of you who are unaware, next Monday starts the beginning of Passover- the week long Jewish holiday that commemorates the Exodus of the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  When Pharaoh freed the Israelites, it is said that they left in such a hurry that they could not wait for bread to rise. In commemoration, for the duration of Passover no leavened bread is eaten. Matzo(flat unleavened bread) is the primary symbol of the holiday.

I spoke a little bit about this last year when I shared what is, in my opinion, the most delicious Passover dessert you will ever find, a Chocolate Apricot Torte. An amazing dessert for any day, not just Passover.

Matzo Kugel ~ ElephantEats.com

Anyway you can’t eat anything leavened (or flour or a few other things), but you can substitute flour with matzo meal or matzo flour. It doesn’t have quite the same properties, so you have to be a little creative.

There are three main types of recipes for Passover:

First there are that don’t involve leavening agents at all, like meat/fish/poutry/veggie based dishes.

Second are dishes in which you would usually use such a small amount of flour (like under 1/4 cup) that you can easily substitute matzo meal without affecting the texture/taste, etc.

Finally, a large part of Passover recipes are those that highlight matzo rather than trying to hide it.

Matzo Kugel ~ ElephantEats.com

This recipe I’m about to share is one in which matzo is the star. I’ve shared my Aunt Rita’s Noodle Kugel with you before. Hers is my favorite noodle kugel around, but a more traditional kugel (pudding) involves eggs, dried and fresh fruit, along with noodles and sometimes cottage cheese. This kugel is similar except that it uses matzo in place of the noodles.

When soaked in water and then baked, matzo takes on a chewy consistency that, although not like noodles, is actually pleasant. I had never made this particular recipe, but there are many similar ones, and I’m sure every Jewish family has their favorite. They do make Passover “noodles” but in my opinion you should stay away, as the consistency is vile.

Matzo Kugel ~ ElephantEats.com

I’d definitely make this kugel again. It was very sweet, almost like dessert, so I think to serve it as a side dish I’d cut back on the dried apricots. Other than that, it was delicious!

 *Note that in order to make this dessert pareve (neither meat nor dairy), I used margerine, but you could easily use butter instead.

Apple-Matzo Kugel

Very slightly adapted from Epicurious 

Print this recipe!

makes 12 servings

4 large apples, Granny Smith or any tart apple, cored and cut into medium dice
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
7 plain matzohs
1 cup warm water
8 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter or margarine, melted
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup dried apricots, medium, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Toss the apples with the brown sugar and orange juice, set aside in a medium bowl.

Break the matzoh into 2- to 3-inch pieces and soak in 1 cup of warm water until soft but not mushy. Set aside.

While the matzoh soaks, beat the eggs with a wire whisk in a large bowl until blended. Add the salt, sugar, cinnamon, melted butter, raisins, and apricots.

Squeeze the liquid from the softened matzoh and add the matzoh to the egg mixture with the apples. Stir the kugel well and pour into a lightly greased 2 1/2-quart casserole dish or a 10×14-inch pan (i think 9×13 will work fine).

Bake the kugel for 60-80 min. Cover the top with foil if the top begins to become too brown early in the baking. It will look firm but you may see some liquid- it’s just the melted butter. It will firm up soon after coming out of the oven.

Remove the kugel from the oven and cool to room temperature.

Tip:
The kugel can be made 2 days ahead, cooled, and refrigerated, covered. Bring to room temperature and reheat in a 350°F oven.

Light Carrot Dill Cream Sauce for Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

First of all, let me say that Nate is officially back! Unfortunately there’s still no job, but he’s back nonetheless. While I’m happy to have him back, it was nice to have a fairly empty fridge rather than one stocked to the brim with Trader Joes. Have I mentioned the boy can eat?!

So I took it upon myself to clean out the refrigerator a bit before his arrival. During my cleaning I came across a bag of baby carrots that Nate had bought and never opened. Nate had given me a list of food to get for him before he got home and baby carrots was on it. He claimed the ones in the fridge, though unopened, were no longer edible.

Light Carrot Dill Cream Sauce for Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

I wasn’t about to waste those carrots! Have you noticed that I’m big on not wasting? :) So when I was deciding on some sort of sauce to make for my homemade farfalle, I knew I wanted to include carrots. Plus, carrots scream Spring to me, and now that daylight savings has come and gone, I know the new season is right around the corner.

Farfalle is good with a cream sauce, so I decided I’d use the carrots pureed in a cream sauce, and then the addition of dill was a no-brainer for a fresh, light taste perfect for Spring!

This sauce is actually very low in calories for a cream sauce. I used carrots to bulk it up and thicken it, and it contains only low-fat milk, not cream. You’d never know from the taste though, the onions, garlic and lemon give it so much flavor!

Light Carrot Dill Cream Sauce for Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

This recipe made about 3.5 cups of sauce. I found that 3/4 cup of sauce was plenty for the 6 oz of pasta that my farfalle recipe made.

6 oz is three proper servings….but in our household, 6 oz of pasta serves one Nate. So rather than making more pasta, I ate some of the sauce over spaghetti squash and it was delicious for what it was (I.e not pasta).

How beautiful is the color of this sauce? I just think it’s so perfect for Spring :)

Since this recipe made so much, I’m thinking I might use the rest of it in a lasagna. Maybe I’ll layer some zucchini and mozzarella in there? Yum!

Light Carrot Dill Cream Sauce for Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

Light Carrot Dill Cream Sauce 

Print this recipe!

Yields 3.5 cups 

2 cups baby carrots (about 11 oz)
1 Tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp flour
1 3/4 cup 1% milk, divided
3 oz. light cream cheese
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
juice of 3/4 lemon
salt (start with 1/2 tsp) and pepper

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add carrots and cook 15 minutes or until soft when pierced. Remove carrots to bowl of food processor but leave water on a low boil so you can cook the pasta later.

Melt butter in the bottom of a medium saucepan. Saute onions until soft. Add garlic and cook another minute.

Whisk in 1/2 cup milk and the flour until smooth. Whisk in 1 cup more milk and bring to a boil, whisking often. When it comes to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Add cream cheese to milk mixture and whisk til melted. Remove from heat and stir in dill. Set aside.

Add pasta to boiling water.

While pasta is cooking, puree carrots and 1/4 cup milk in a food processor until smooth. Add to milk mixture along with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

When pasta is done, drain and add sauce. (I found that 3/4 cup sauce covers 6 oz of pasta perfectly. So that means a pound of pasta should use about 2 cups sauce). However I recommend making a full recipe…the sauce is just so good!

Homemade Farfalle Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

Sadly, two weeks ago one of Nate’s closest family friends, Henny Ray Abrams, passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 58. In the years of knowing Nate, I had gotten to know Henny pretty well.

He had, as an adult, learned to cook and had taken to inviting us over to dinner parties in his brooklyn apartment fairly regularly. He always served us a delicious 3 course meal including freshly baked french bread. He and I often talked about cooking, comparing knowledge and recipes. So it was only appropriate that when we got married, Henny’s gift to us was the pasta maker attachment for my kitchenaid mixer. I decided to pull it out this weekend, in honor of Henny, who I know would have been excited to hear that it got put to use.

Because Nate knew Henny much better than me, I thought that I would invite him to take over before I share the pasta recipe, telling us a little more about the man that he came to know so well:

I first want to thank Amy for allowing me to write this post since there is never a good way to deal with a subject like this. Last week a very close, way too young, family friend passed away suddenly.  His name was Henny and he was basically like an uncle to me.

Nate and Ethan with Camerasm

Nate peering into Henny’s Camera….backwards

Henny was a well-known and respected photographer, working in news, sports, entertainment, but mainly he worked in motorcycle racing as a photographer and reporter.  When I got a go-cart for one christmas he supplied our helmets with some of his old motorcycle helmets. To say they looked ridiculous on us would be an understatement, but they did the job.

Christmas is the time of year that I most often associate with Henny, which is odd considering he was Jewish. But, until I was out of college every year we would all gather a couple of weeks before Christmas and do our annual Christmas picture. When we were younger these seemed like interminable exercises, with what seemed like hundreds of pictures being taken. As I aged, I noticed how much quicker the process seemed to take. Yet, this was a family tradition that Henny always took part in and really seemed to enjoy. He never married or had children of his own, so we were probably as close as it was going to get (along with all his other friends kids).

The other christmas tradition we had with Henny was him coming over on Christmas day for dinner. I have a feeling this is going to be the hardest part of all of this to face this coming Christmas. It was the one time of year we would have steak (I know, I never eat it otherwise) and he would always cook it. We started this tradition about 15 years ago, but it seems like it’s the way it’s always been.

Nate Ethan and Tess Couch sm

Henny’s annual family photo of Nate and his younger siblings

I’m more in shock than anything else right now, considering Henny was only 58 years old. There are a lot of things that don’t seem real, like we still have a batch of his amazing chocolate chip cookies in our freezer that he made at Christmas. When we’d go to his dinner parties, he used to always send us home with extra of whatever dessert he had served and so we still have a piece of his tupperware in our apartment that we had intended to return on our next dinner with him at his apartment. I’ll never get to have those things again and I’m not sure I know how to handle that.

I’ll end this post by telling a story that I think encapsulates what kind of guy he was. Henny came down for our wedding in October and was driving back up to NYC right after it ended (which was around 8pm).One of Amy’s bridesmaids, and my friend Kim, needed a ride back up to the city. I didn’t even have to ask, he just offered to take a complete stranger friend of mine back up to Brooklyn. I asked Kim afterwards how the ride back was and she said they talked the whole way back, despite having just met 2 hours prior. He would do anything for us and his other friends. At least I still have the photographs he took of us, but I will miss him.

Nate with Ethan and Tess on couch with soccer ball copysm

I’m so glad Henny gave us this pasta maker for a present. He knew how much I liked to cook and now every time I use it, I’m going to think of him.

Homemade Farfalle Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

I have to say that making pasta was SO easy. Like, almost so easy that I might make it fresh every time I want it instead of getting pasta from a box. The only issue is the pasta maker attachments that I have can only make large flat sheets (lasagna), fettuccine  and spaghetti. If you want farfalle you make the large flat sheet and then cut and shape it, but it takes more effort. To make any noodles with a hole in them requires another attachment. Unfortunately for me, Nate doesn’t like long noodles, but the next time I make this I’m doing fettuccine because it’s just quicker.

Homemade Farfalle Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

So many bowties. So many adorable little bowties. Right? If anything, I will make these again for the cuteness. Oh and speaking of cuteness, how cute are Nate and his siblings in those photos :)

Next up I’ll share a recipe I made using this farfalle!

Homemade Farfalle Pasta ~ ElephantEats.com

Homemade Farfalle (Bowtie) Pasta

Recipe from Lesserevillife, technique from various sources 

Print this recipe!

makes 6 oz. pasta– 3 proper (albeit small) servings

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 egg
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

Combine the flour and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Beat the egg in a separate bowl, then add to the medium-sized bowl. Start mixing, then add 1 tablespoon of water. The mixture should be starting to appear doughy. Add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. The dough should be ready to take out of the bowl and onto a flat surface to roll. If it’s still feeling tough, add an additional 1 tablespoon of water.

Knead the dough with your hands a few times for a uniform texture. Cut dough in half and set one piece to the side. Follow directions below depending on whether or not you have a pasta maker.

With Pasta Maker Attachment:

Pat one of the pieces of dough into a rectangle about 3/8″ thick. Run dough lengthwise through pasta maker on setting 1. Fold dough in half lengthwise and feed back through pasta maker. Continue this folding and feeding back through until dough is smooth and is the width of the pasta maker.

Turn dial to setting 2 and run pasta through. Move to 3 and run through again, then 4 then 5. After running pasta through on setting 5, lay it out on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with other piece of dough.**

Without Pasta Maker:

Shape dough into a ball, then flatten slightly. Use a rolling pin to roll it into a large oval, about ⅛” thick.

**continue here for both:
Using a knife, cut the dough into strips about 1” wide. Take a strip, and use a pie cutter or knife to cut the strip into about 1 ½” rectangles. The ridges of the pie cutter will give the pasta ends the traditional farfalle zig-zag, but a plain old knife works fine

With the rectangle’s long side facing you, put your pointer finger of one hand in the center of the rectangle. Using your other hand, pinch the middle sides of the long edges of dough together, towards the center and your finger. Release your finger from center of dough as you pinch together so the pasta meets the other side. Pinch hard enough for it to stay shaped. *If you’re visual and need a tutorial for the bowtie-forming, visit http://www.pasta-recipes-made-easy.com/farfalle-pasta.html.

Dry dough for an hour. If making immediately, cook pasta in boiling water for 2-3 minutes.

Otherwse, refrigerate or freeze in an air-tight container until ready to cook. Cook for 7ish minutes when ready.

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Side-note: Do you guys like my new header?? It took me so long to draw and decide on how it should look (with some good input from Nate and my mom!), but I think I like it. I’m also teaching myself HTML and CSS and am working on a whole new blog design, to be unveiled semi-soon!

Baked Red Wine Rosemary Risotto ~  ElephantEats.com

Do you happen to have some red wine lying around? If Nate was home I wouldn’t, since the man loves some red wine…but he’s not, and I happened to have some red wine leftover from the bolognese I made last week. Since I’m not a drinker or a waster, I had to find another use for it! After doing a little search for recipes using red wine, I settled upon risotto.

But as you know, I’m currently all alone with no one to impress with this dinner, so I certainly wasn’t about to spend an hour standing over a pot stirring. I decided to take the lazy way out and shoved my risotto in the oven (and crossed my fingers it would work).

Baked Red Wine Rosemary Risotto ~  ElephantEats.com

Lo and behold, after about an hour it was done! You don’t save any time making it in the oven versus the stove, but it’s not active time. While it was baking I started this blog post, checked email, chatted with Nate online and cuddled with my kitty cat, so it was definitely an hour well-spent.

I pulled it out of the oven not sure what to expect, but it really looks and tastes like regular risotto. It was absolutely delicious! Although I’m partial to anything with rosemary and mushrooms, so I knew I’d love it even if it came out as one gloppy mess…which thankfully it didn’t :)

Baked Red Wine Rosemary Risotto ~  ElephantEats.com

Since I’m eating this alone and it will take me at least the entire week to finish, I’ll probably be so sick of it that I won’t want to look at risotto again for a year.

I still have half a bottle of wine left. Be prepared for some sort of chocolate cake incorporating it. Unless you guys have some better ideas?

Baked Red Wine Rosemary Risotto ~  ElephantEats.com

Baked Red Wine Rosemary Risotto with Mushrooms

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Makes 4 LARGE or 6 smaller servings

1/4 oz. dried mushrooms
3/4 cup boiling water
2 Tbsp butter, divided
1 lg onion, diced
1 lg carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups arborio rice
1 1/4 cup red wine
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese (plus more for garnish)
32 oz. chicken stock
1-1.5 tsp salt (depending on how salty you like things)
ground pepper

Put dried mushrooms in a cup and cover with 3/4 cup boiling water. Set aside to reconstitute for 20 min.

Preheat oven to 350 and coat a 9×13 pan with cooking spray.

While dried mushrooms are softening, melt 1 Tbsp butter in a large sauce pot or saute pan over med high heat. Add onions and carrots and cook til onion is soft.

Add garlic and cook 2 minutes. Add rice and toss to coat.

Add red wine, stirring completely. Dump winey rice mixture into prepared pan.

Melt second Tbsp of butter in the saute pan. Add sliced mushrooms and stir. Remove dried mushrooms from water, reserving water. Chop mushrooms and add to other mushrooms along with rosemary. Saute til soft.

Add mushroom mixture, mushroom water, parmesan cheese, chicken broth, and salt/pepper to baking pan and stir.

Place in oven and cook uncovered for one hour, stirring halfway. Rice is done when the liquid is completely absorbed and mixture is cooked. If still undercooked/crunchy, add more water 1/3 cup at a time, cooking until absorbed. Remove from oven and cool for 10 min.

Salt more if needed. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan.

Inspired by Joy the Baker

vegetarian lentil bolognese
I’m not a vegetarian but I find that I cook more than 50% of our meals meatless. This is in part because the only animal protein Nate will tolerate is poultry. He’ll eat seafood (though not shellfish), but it tends to be pretty pricey.

Anyway, I can only eat so much chicken and turkey, especially since I’m not particularly fond of either. Plus vegetarian meals are usually lower in fat and calories.

vegetarian lentil bolognese

Who doesn’t love a good Bolognese sauce? I make pasta sauce a lot for Nate and I usually use our go-to protein- Lean Italian Turkey Sausage. The sausage is raw and I squeeze it out of the casing and chop it up in the pan with a wooden spoon as it cooks. It adds tons of flavor and has much less calories than beef.

However after calculating the nutrition in the Smoked Cheddar Pot Pies that I made a couple weeks ago, I realized that turkey sausage, while healthier than ground beef, is still incredibly high in fat! I don’t usually care about these things but I figured it just can’t be healthy to eat as often as we were eating it.

vegetarian lentil bolognese 3

So I set out to make my usual pasta sauce completely vegetarian, without sacrificing the taste or texture. I thought about what I could add for heft, and I remembered that I had a pack of Trader Joe’s precooked lentils in the fridge. I also decided to throw in some mushrooms to add a nice chew. I think next time I might even use some reconstituted dried mushrooms for more chewiness and depth of flavor.

I think this sauce easily rivals a traditional Bolognese and it’s much lower in saturated fat and calories. The wine makes it feel indulgent. Enjoy it over a steaming bowl of pasta and a sprinkling of parmesan for a delicious, satisfying, well-rounded dinner!

This makes about 7 heaping cup servings at around 210 calories, 2g fat, and 10 grams of both protein and fiber per serving! I calculated the nutrition here.

vegetarian lentil bolognese

Lentil “Bolognese” Sauce

Makes about 7 cups

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Ingredients:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 large carrot (or two small), diced
1 rib celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
One 8-oz container mushrooms, chopped coarsely
1 lb cooked lentils (Trader Joes sells them in a vacuum sealed pack in the refrigerated section)
Two 28-oz cans crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine
salt & pepper, garlic powder, italian seasoning
sugar to taste

Preparation:

Heat oil over medium high heat in a large, deep saucepan. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook until onions begin to soften.

Add garlic and cook for a minute. Add mushrooms and mix together. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until mushrooms begin to soften. Mixture may look dry but the mushrooms will begin to release moisture after a minute or two.

While mixture is cooking, warm lentils according to package directions. Add lentils to pan. Add tomatoes and wine and bring to a boil. Reduce head and simmer for 30 minutes, partially covered, stirring occasionally.

Season to taste with salt/pepper, garlic powder and italian seasoning. Add sugar to taste. This depends on the tomatoes. Sometimes they’re very acidic and other times they aren’t. Taste your sauce and see…if it seems to sour, add sugar starting with a Tablespoon or so.

Serve on pasta!