I managed to make an incredibly, amazingly delicious dinner this evening, so I decided I had to share. The recipe came out of one of the cookbooks I'd checked out from Chicago Public Libraries, and I seriously regret not putting down which book it was. I'm pretty sure, though, that it was the
World of Jewish Cooking. The main dish was Klops -- Eastern European Sweet-and-Sour Meatballs, which I paired with a small salad and leftover potato kugel (always delicious!). Here is the dish uncooked:
The pride and joy of this meatball situation was that I managed to melt the sugar WITHOUT burning it. This is the second time this week that I was able to cook something difficult without screwing it up (the first being the salmon from several days ago). I'm actually starting to like cooking. Interesting, eh? So in that dish there you have the meatballs (made with matzo meal), and the sweet-and-sour sauce with tomatoes and onions and other delicious things. After an hour and a half of cooking (yes, this seemed like a lot, but really they came out perfectly), they looked like this:
I wish I could describe to you how delicious these meatballs were. I have plenty left, of course, which delights my senses. The sauce looks a lot thicker than it actually was. I'm not sure if the sauce was meant to be thicker, but either way, it worked perfectly -- the meat absorbed the flavor perfectly, making for some juicy, succulent meat. There are some recipes for klops on the interwebs, but seeing as I had such success with my version and since it came from an amazing cookbook (all were amazing, but I'm 99 percent sure it's the World of Jewish Cooking one), I'm going to stick with mine.
If you're interested in the recipe, let me know and I'll type it up and send it your way. It's sweet, it's savory, it's comfort food! Not to mention, all and all not so bad for you either!
With less than 24 hours to go until the end of Pesach, I have a LOT of leftover kosher l'Pesach food -- matzo meal, potato starch, matzo, matzo farfel, etc. Luckily, matzo meal is as good as bread crumbs and potato starch is a good substitute. Not to mention I plan on making these meatballs every couple of weeks, so hopefully I can use up the leftover matzo meal.
But I'll admit. I'm ready to get back to my frozen waffles and English muffins and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Chag sameach!
I trekked around my neighborhood yesterday taking photos for a Yelp project. There were a lot of beautiful textures and unique oddities to be seen, and here are a few of the photos. The rest can be seen over on my Flickr page.
My hair smells of smoke. Not cigarette smoke (ew) and definitely not bonfire smoke. Yes, I did just get home from the Lag B'onfire at the nearby Conservative shul. However, the bonfire was meager (think: more like an eternal flame), and it was the smoke coming off the gigantic (and brand new) grill, manned by the rabbi. The meat was kosher, the goods were kosher, the people were kosher (in that, you know, they were Jewish). Bada ching? Anyone? Anyhow, the "bonfire" was enough to keep us warm on this chilly Chicago evening.
Perhaps the coolest part of the night was the cutting of the hair! You see, if you keep the omer, you're not supposed to do a variety of things -- one of them being cutting hair. However, you *can* cut your hair on the omer. In the same vein, is this tradition (אפשערן) upsherin. The tradition has that a boy should have his hair cut on his third birthday. Now, if you're a kid whose birthday happens to fall during the omer, well, this means you have to wait until Lag B'Omer and then have the ceremonial haircutting. So tonight, we were lucky enough to have a three-year-old and yes! People took turns lobbing off the kid's beautiful head of thick, curly hair. The child seemed indifferent, which was sort of surprising, but that's what this photo is of ...
So I spent about an hour and a half mingling, took a few photos (you see, I left my 4GB card at home, and was stuck with the 16MB backup, making me have to take my photos VERY carefully), and now I'm home. So enjoy these photos.
The legend was at the University of Chicago Barnes and Noble bookstore signing copies of her book, Memo to the President Elect. I couldn't bring myself to buy the book, so instead of getting an autograph, I went and stood, paparazzi-style, and snapped some photos.
The pride and joy of this meatball situation was that I managed to melt the sugar WITHOUT burning it. This is the second time this week that I was able to cook something difficult without screwing it up (the first being the salmon from several days ago). I'm actually starting to like cooking. Interesting, eh? So in that dish there you have the meatballs (made with matzo meal), and the sweet-and-sour sauce with tomatoes and onions and other delicious things. After an hour and a half of cooking (yes, this seemed like a lot, but really they came out perfectly), they looked like this:
I wish I could describe to you how delicious these meatballs were. I have plenty left, of course, which delights my senses. The sauce looks a lot thicker than it actually was. I'm not sure if the sauce was meant to be thicker, but either way, it worked perfectly -- the meat absorbed the flavor perfectly, making for some juicy, succulent meat. There are some recipes for klops on the interwebs, but seeing as I had such success with my version and since it came from an amazing cookbook (all were amazing, but I'm 99 percent sure it's the World of Jewish Cooking one), I'm going to stick with mine.
This is baby Reilly.
Me with baby!
Ian with baby! But it's going to be six to eight for us :)
