Give me 22 minutes, and I’ll give you a dozen of the best corn muffins you have ever tasted. Sweet and moist, with a maple-ey note that makes you think of corn pancakes drenched in syrup. This recipe originally appeared in Good Housekeeping at the request of a reader who had tasted them at Heathcote Tavern in Scarsdale, New York.
Having turned my pecan pie into bar cookies, I decided to do the same with my pumpkin pie. I used the same crust recipe as for the pecan bars, but used brown sugar and added in a little cinnamon to give the dough a streusel flavor.
The two clips are more or less the same thing, but the first has easier to read subtitles and the second has interviews with Lt. Col. Shai Abramson, IDF Chazzan. The principal of my children’s school e-mailed the second one, and I wanted to share it with you.
I also want to share the English translation of the prayer for soldiers in Israel (from Aish.com); Mrs. S has just posted the Hebrew text  as well as the Hebrew and English of another prayer:
“He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.
May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.
May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.”
Is it just me, or do you also find it next to impossible to find pareve deep dish pie crusts in the freezer section of the supermarket right before Thanksgiving? They are dairy, or the only crusts left are all broken, or something. Maybe I should have shopped earlier?
Homemade crusts are better, anyway, but I am so not in the mood to be rolling out crusts.
Fortunately, I remembered about my pecan bars. The crust is an easy press-in dough and, when all is said and done, you end up with forty bars, which is a bigger serving yield than you would get from a pie anyway. Isn’t it easier to platter and serve bar cookies than pie? Most people want just a nibble after all that heavy food.
And these pecan bars are exceptional, with a perfect balance of nuts, maple brown sugar goo and crust.
See, it turned out for the best. Who needs frozen pie crusts? Not me.
These cookies are from The Cancer Fighting Kitchen, by Rebecca Katz. I’m not sure why they are triple ginger because I see only powdered ginger and candied ginger in the recipe. Does anyone else see the third type of ginger? It doesn’t matter, the cookies are delicious and healthy (well, healthier). Katz’s book explains the health value, particularly during cancer treatment, for use of ingredients like ginger, coconut oil and alternative flours (this recipe uses spelt and barley), and some of this information is available on her website.
So the theme for the November Kosher Connection is “stuffing,” and I originally was going to go with my traditional bread stuffing, or maybe mini pumpkins stuffed with pumpkin bread pudding, or a savory stuffed vegetable (like this tempeh quinoa stuffed acorn squash) or something, anything connected to traditional Thanksgiving flavors. But, then I saw an Oreo Stuffed Bundt Cake on Bakers Royale, and changed my plans.
These are cupcakes stuffed with a cookies and cream filling, glazed with chocolate and garnished with an additional bit of cookie. It looks fancy, but is really not hard to make. A multi-step recipe, yes, that it is, but each step is dead simple.
Update: even though I thought people would be more in the mood for pumpkin and pecan pie on Thanksgiving, these cupcakes disappeared fast.
I have power back, at last. The above shows what I saw the morning after Sandy swept through. A tree down, ripped out by its roots, blocking the street. Mercifully, it did not crash into anyone’s house and hurt anyone or damage anything. Many were not so lucky. Trees came down all over town, sometimes crashing into roofs. Power on our block was out for longer than for some others because an enormous tree came down with live wires onto a house nearby and those wires impacted our power supply. It took some time, and help from a team of power workers from Florida (see the comments), to straighten that situation out.
I am so grateful to all the out of state workers who came to help us bring us back our power, and the local PSEG workers, as well.
Gratitude is one of my primary emotions when I think back on the past couple of weeks. Friends, neighbors, relatives, even strangers all pulled together to get through a difficult situation. And I feel very lucky that our situation, which could have been so much worse, was not that bad, really, all things considered.
What a long, strange post-apocalyptic acid trip it has been, though. It has all felt a little surreal. Everyone being out of power for days with no known end in sight, the long lines for gas, people lined up with their gas cans to get fuel for their generators. School and offices being closed for days. Chaos with commuter lines. Trying to find out which stores had power and fresh food. All the people needing shelter (and clothing and, well, everything) because their homes were destroyed by flood. The shocking devastation to the shore area. The grim gray canopy that hung overhead for days after, creating an overcast semi-twilight all day.
Pragmatic Attic 