Pam R

How very un-northern of you. I wonder if anybody else feels the same way...

Miriam, your menu is lovely, as usual. What about something lemony for dessert? A tart or pie? It's fruit-y, but in a different way. I'm celebrating early, though not cooking myself. On Thursday the executive chef of the Dan Accadia hotel in Tel Aviv will be in town, preparing a Seder with the chef at our local Fairmont. I'm not sure what the menu is, but it's 7 courses - and last year it was fantastic (I do know that there will be shortribs, beef cheek and chicken... plus much more). They try to do a combination of local foods and Israeli foods. I'm really looking forward to it.

Good morning. It's a very bright, very frigid day today. When I left the house it was -25 C (-13 F) - factoring in the wind it's -37 (-34.6 F). eta: But it's a dry cold! Before I left the house, I put all of the borscht ingredients into the slow cooker. I'll have full photo coverage later on. Breakfast was leftover quiche and the other half of yesterday's grapefruit. Thanks for the comments Shaya. The phyllo is a great way to get it in the oven quickly. I started dinner prep at about 5:30 and the quiche had to bake for 45-50 minutes. With no pre-baking it comes out really crisp and golden brown. Very easy. You should make kreplach. Your tortellini are beautiful, and these will be a snap for you. It is easy. Really. I do leave the skin on - I think it adds flavour. But the colour of both stocks was comparable. I'm not sure why I get the yellow colour - but it happens all the time (carrots? fat?). I know some people will add the yellow onion skins to their soup to add colour, but I don't. Fry onions. Don't get me wrong. I think a ripe, speckled banana is great - for banana bread. Or banana muffins. Soup? I'm not so sure...

Last big post for today. Generally, my fridge looks something like this: Drinks, some saucey things, homemade salad dressings and butter in the door. A weird collection of margarines (I'm really not sure why they are all there. I use one type - Earth Balance - for non-dairy cooking/baking. I think the other ones may be years old. . .) There is usually some assortment of vegetables, and I have to have a bin full of assorted fruit. Now, let's admit that blog week is not a normal week. I've been shopping twice, and it only started today. First shopping trip: Second shopping trip: Which resulted in a slightly fuller fridge: With a drawer full of citrus and apples (Pink Lady - the best): I'm almost set for the week. I was going through recipes today, and of course I need to go shopping again - but I've got the basics.

You may say that you can't place the banana flavour... I don't know Maggie.

It took me ages to upload dinner pictures, because I went into the kitchen to skim the beef stock, and ended up unloading, then loading the dishwasher. Phew. Dinner started with beer cheese soup. I used a mixture of two cheddars - and I'm thinking I didn't like one of them for the soup. Don't get me wrong - it was good. But I've made better. I started by sweating some onion, carrots and celery in olive oil - added some flour, then beer, milk and half and half. Simmered for 10 minutes or so, until thickened, then whisked in the shredded cheese. Garnish with popcorn. It's a rich soup - and I had a small bowl. Followed it up with a quiche and salad. Quiche photo melange: Phyllo crust, filled with sauteed leek, onion, cauliflower, mushrooms and spinach and a list custard of eggs, milk, half and half, salt, pepper and a little grated parmesan. Salad was baby romaine, orange segments (supremes), red onion and toasted pine nuts with a dressing of fresh oj, balsamic, dijon, s&p, and olive oil. Good dinner.

Geez, both your soups look great. Mine wasn't the best version I've ever made - but the rest of dinner was excellent!

Very interesting concern. So what I did, was cover the bones and meat with cold water, brought it to a simmer, skimmed off all the shmutz, took the bones and meat out of the pot, and I'm letting the water simmer and reduce right now. We'll test the soup tomorrow and see how it goes. The thing about bean and/or barley soups in the crock, is that they absorb so much water the concern is that there isn't enough water, not that it won't evaporate. Interesting. Off to upload some pictures from dinner.

Susan - the dough looks beautiful. Can't wait to see the baked loaves. I hope so too! I know my soup isn't as clear if I neglect the skimming as it gets going. I'm assuming you don't skim when using a crockpot (I don't). If not, all that scum that you skim off gets cooked into the liquid. As for gelatinous - gelatinous is good! My new thought on the borscht in the crock pot. If I put the bones/meat in a pot tonight, and cook them just until the scum starts forming - then add that to the crock tomorrow, with all the veg, that may work.

I haven't been in the kitchen at all today. I've been helping customers, typing up recipes in MasterCook (I put all my recipes in MC) and putting together my column. I've also been busy typing up Passover orders - Passover planning is in full swing here and it takes a lot of time. Anyhow, for lunch - a salad. I try to make a salad (or soup!) for lunches at work - otherwise I find that I eat a lot of crap I don't want to. When I'm working at my desk most of the day, I tend to nosh more than when I'm busy in the kitchen. So, there's been some noshing this afternoon too. Salad - simple, but enjoyable. Romain, tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers, Israeli feta (so good) and a dressing I made with lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, canola oil (canola keeps it looser in the fridge), garlic, salt, black pepper, oregano and a pinch of sugar (tiny pinch). And as I was working away, some "Juicy Sour Twists". Red Razz flavour licorice type thing. One of my suppliers sent me a box of samples last week - this was in it. They aren't bad, but not something I'd buy myself. After Passover I'll bring in a few flavours - I think kids will like them (it can be hard to find kosher candy). (please ignore the mess on my desk - all of the Passover supplier lists are stacked beside the computer)

Oh.. oregano and orange. I'm just not sure about the sweet part.

Anybody use the crock-pot for soup? I've made a black bean soup and a beef and barley soup - but I'm wondering about a borscht. I want to make a beet and beef borscht this week - and it would be great if I could put it on in the morning and have it ready when I come home. Any thoughts?

I think I've seen them bake the cakes. Maybe. I'm sure they baked all those cookies for the stacked wedding cookies. Didn't they?

When I ran to the store earlier today, I also picked up a bunch of groceries (mostly produce). I'll take some pictures when I unload the groceries at home tonight. In the meantime, back to the chicken soup and kreplach. First the recipe (not the best picture ) I have at least a dozen of these little notebooks that I try to keep on hand at all times. When I'm trying something new I try to jot down any notes - and if it's good, it'll make it to a column or get filed away for a cookbook. Random kreplach making pictures: (dough, cooked soup chicken, boiled potatoes and sauteed onion for filling) Fried Onions deserve their own picture. Even though I made this to eat later in the week, I couldn't resist have a bowl. Shall we call this Jewish Wonton Soup? Half a pound of meat, and one batch of dough, made 48 kreplach. I boiled, drained and then tossed them with a small splash of canola oil. Onto a baking sheet - and then there was no room in the freezer for them. Thankfully I have the outdoor fridge: I have a deck off of my kitchen - and a pail beside the door worked well. Until it started snowing and it got really windy. But once I noticed, they were already frozen and I transferred them to freezer bags and into the freezer. Now, my question is - does anybody else make a mess of the kitchen when they're making stock? No, I'm not showing you the mess. But I liked the look of the sink with the clean pots stacked in it:

Hey! I was going to make beer cheese soup tonight. With the popcorn and everything. Wacky. Randi - my guess (and I have no scientific proof to back this up) is that the salting process for kosher poultry adds flavour. Brining it really. Otherwise - it's the same chicken, isn't it?

Every other week I write a kosher cooking column for a local paper. I try to come up with interesting ideas, things that aren't found in all of the synagogue cookbooks, to share with my readers. But every once in a while, I'll do an old standard - or, as is the case this week, I'll listen to what my customers are asking me, and write about that. The #1 question I get in the store is 'what do I need to make a good chicken soup?'. I don't know why, but the question always surprises me. Didn't their mothers or grandmothers teach them how to make chicken soup? My first question to them is "do you use the meat?". My theory is that if you don't use the meat from the whole chicken, don't bother using it. I've made it both ways before - with and without the whole chicken - but never in a side by side tasting. So this week, the column will contain two versions - the first using bones, the second a whole, mature chicken (soup fowl). With a bonus recipe for meat kreplach. (Click here for my eGCI Kreplach Demo and here for my EGCI Chicken Soup Demo.) The different pots: On the left we have a mixture of chicken bones, necks and wings - the right is a 4 lb. mature chicken, cut in 4: Cover in cold water (I used 20 cups in each pot), bring up to a very gentle simmer, skimming off all foam and . . . stuff, as it appears. Simmer for about 45 minutes, loosely covered. Then add the vegetables. Carrots, celery, parsnip and onion. Same amount of each went in to each pot. Simmer another hour and a half or so - with the lid slightly askew, so that some of the liquid can evaporate. Add some salt - taste. Keep cooking it until it tastes like chicken. Then strain out the solids. Look at that colour! No onion skins in my soup. I took most of the soup off, and chilled it. Then removed all the schmaltz. But I kept about 1/3 of each batch in the pots, and added some fresh chopped Dill - and simmered briefly. Then chilled everything. Half of it packaged for the freezer: Most of the soup (from each batch) was frozen for use throughout the week. A couple of quarts were eaten over the weekend. And the meat from the whole chicken was turned into kreplach filling (I'll post the pictures from that next). Any guesses on the amount of similar tasting stock I got out of each batch - or rather, think I got the same amount or different quantities? eta: I'm totally guilty of using my stovetop as extra counter space - even when my huge kitchen counter is empty. Anybody else?

Your soup looks great - I think I may do a split pea soup - my father has been requesting it for about 3 weeks. Mine will have to be sans pork - but my usual split pea soup is vegetarian, and he wants me to try throwing in some smoked turkey drumsticks. Your hint about adding the smoked meat towards the end is something I never thought of - but if I like it really smokey, can I throw them in at the beginning? I chop my vegetables up very small too - I love how everything melts together.

I make a blueberry soup with rosemary - I like the combo. As mentioned, of course, Strawberry and black pepper - good with some Sambuca. What about cilantro? Maybe with some mango/lime?

Judith - Quinn is gorgeous. Sandy - I'll have a handwriting photo up shortly - and maybe even some fridge shots in different stages. I have a question. We planned on doing a recipe out of RecipeGullet. I'm all for that - but is there any chance it can be a recipe I put into RecipeGullet? We've only just begun - yet I can tell you that there are too many soups, not enough blogging days!

I retract this statement. It turns out that going from my warm house to my car that was parked in the garage, and then the 5 steps from the car to the store, I got a false sense of warmth. Pushing a shopping cart through 2 inches of new snow, with the wind howling, brought me quickly to my senses. Damn, it is frigid out there.

Good morning from Winterpeg! It's a balmy -18 C (-0.3 F) with an expected high of -16 C. I woke up to everything blanketed in fresh snow, and a bright, sunny day. Let's get breakfast out of the way. At work, we sell baked goods that we bring in from Montreal - so I try to keep a bag or two of their spelt bagels in the freezer at home: Toasted with butter and half of a 'deep red' grapefruit (which looked more like a dark pink): To drink - iced green tea. I rarely drink coffee - but have several glasses or mugs of iced or hot tea every day. When I opened the front door at work this morning, I thought people who aren't in a snowy climate might like to see our sidewalk. It's hard to tell, but the path is shovelled through a 3 foot snowbank. Our customers park on the street in front of the store. I have to run out to the grocery store (we're sending out food for a funeral in a couple of hours and need a couple of things) - when I get back I'll show you some of the soup prep I started early. PS: It was great fun to see the guesses on the teaser photos. Some of you guessed me - but nobody guessed that there was more than one of us!

I love the show. It just started airing recently on FTVCanada. tmgrobyn, I couldn't agree with you more. Even though he (and the crew) create cakes that I'll never be able to create, there's still a lot that I can identify with. Bubbe talking him into baking all those cookies that he doesn't usually do? Scrambling to get the cakes delivered - in one piece - on time. Supplier shorting you during your busiest week of the summer? Haven't we all been there? I do wonder why he seems to have an aversion to cake boxes.. ghost - Have any pictures of the cake? And I'm really curious - how do his cakes taste? I mean, we know they look fantastic - but do they taste as great as they look?

I shouldn't have used the word 'volunteer' - maybe victim would have been better. What I don't think we should do is clutter up the challenges with a lot of posts about finding the next challenge. I am aware that a few people have had a rough time finding the next challengee. But I think the best way to deal with this is through the PM system. eta: Send me a PM if you have any questions.

There's been a dearth of volunteers to pick up the next challenge. If somebody is interested in participating, I'd suggest sending a PM to duckduck.

It wasn't you! This happens with this topic - it'll pick up again. And I'll take a second and request that any great recipes get posted to RecipeGullet so that they don't get buried in the middle of a long topic. Thanks!