Alphabe-Thursday..."K" as in I need a Jewish Grandmother

It's time again for Alphabe-Thursday sponsored by Ms. Jenny over at Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."  Head over to Ms. Jenny's blog for a list of this week's participants and information on how you can participate too.

This week we are studying the letter "K" as in KUGEL.  I don't have a Jewish grandmother, but there are a couple of Jewish dishes that I enjoy and one of them is Noodle KUGEL.  (The other one is Matzo Ball Soup.)  Lacking a Jewish grandmother I did the next best thing and used grandma Google.

I came upon this site called Feed Me Bubbe.  Bubbe is the Yiddish word for grandmother.  If you have time take a look at one of the videos of Bubbe cooking some traditional dishes.  She's adorable and her grandson helps her with the site.

After much research I came across a recipe for Noodle KUGEL on another site and after a couple of adjustments came up with this:

Noodle Kugel

1 pound egg noodles

½ cup butter, melted

8 eggs

1 c. sugar

2 cups sour cream

2 cups small curd cottage cheese

1 t. cinnamon


Topping

9 cinnamon graham crackers

3 T butter, melted



Directions:

Cook noodles and drain. In a bowl toss the noodles with the ½ cup of melted butter and set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat the eggs, sugar, sour cream, cottage cheese and cinnamon until well blended. Stir in the noodles.

Transfer to a greased 13 inch x 9 inch x 2 inch baking dish. Put the cinnamon graham crackers in a Zip Lock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Combine the cracker crumbs and the 3 T of melted butter. Sprinkle over the top of the noodle mixture.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F. for 50-55 minutes or until a thermometer reads 160 degrees F. Let stand for ten or fifteen minute before cutting. Serve warm or cold (I prefer warm).


Note:  You can always use No Yolk Noodles for a healthier alternative.  This should delay the heart attack by approximately two months.

However, if anyone has a real Jewish grandmother I'd love to have her recipe for Noodle KUGEL.

Sometime I'll share my recipe for Matzo Ball Soup too, but I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it correctly since I'm cooking my Matzo Balls in Chicken Noodle Soup and I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be cooked in chicken broth and then added to the soup.  I do it my way and they clean their bowls, so I must be doing something right.

Now on to another "K" word...KILLING.  The drought is KILLING  trees in the Houston area.  I'm seeing well established trees and shrubs dying.  Soon it will be like Christmas for the tree removal companies.  I believe it's mostly trees and shrubs that aren't native to this area that are dying off.  They've told us to deep water the trees by putting a hose under the canopy of the tree and running it very slowly for a couple of hours.  That way the water will soak into the ground and not run off. 

Something KILLED one of the trees in my yard, but it wasn't the drought.  This one started dying last year and I think it might have been hit by lightening.  It had a huge crack down the trunk last year and it finally died this year. 

Click on pictures to enlarge and use your browser back button to return to this page.

This is a picture of the crack in 2010.  It became much wider this year.

Look at all the ferns growing around the base of the tree in 2010.  They didn't come up this year due to the drought.  The yard was much prettier last year.

We had the tree taken down yesterday.  I was concerned that a hurricane or storm would knock it over and it would take out another tree with it. 
It was interesting watching them work.  This is our poor tree marked for removal.  It had three large branches, but one was up by the power line that runs along the back fence.

The branches went pretty high up.  The electric line didn't show up in most of the pictures, but it's there.

They threw rope up over the branches of some of the other trees in the yard and then used them to help lower the branches of the dead tree.  They kept cutting it into slices as they lowered it.

Here's one of the men throwing a small orange rope over a branch.  The orange rope had a weight to help bring it down on the other side.  This particular tree is a distance away from the dead one.

Then they attached a heavier blue rope to the orange one and brought that one up over the branch. 

They'd tie one end to the dead branch they were cutting and then they'd pull while it was cut.  There would be more than one line attached to the branch and the men would be positioned around the yard so they could slowly lower the cut branch and guide it down.   In this picture you can see how far away the one man is from the tree they're cutting down. 

And the branch is lowered.

They got those dead branches to fall exactly where they wanted them.  I have a bunch of smaller trees that we've been nurturing for a few years.  They were seedling that were given away on Arbor Day.  They didn't hit a single one.  The last branch was the tricky one.  It was right by the power line, so one of them had to climb up, tie the rope on, and then cut.  He'd cut and then slide down a little only to repeat the same thing again.

In this one if you look closely you can see the power line.  It's even with his left foot.

They were here and gone in two hours.  Here they are almost done.

All gone!

Now head over to Ms. Jenny's blog so you can visit more Alphabe-Thursday "K" posts!