Wednesday, June 29, 2011

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!


23 comments:

  1. We had to cut down the only tree in our backyard for similar reasons a few years ago, Betty. I miss it so much!

    I love Noodle Kugal and Matzo Ball soup but luckily I never have to make it as there are quite a few Deli's near me that make them and sell them as take out!

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  2. Sorry to hear about the drought and that you had to loose the tree.

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  3. I probably DID have a Jewish grandmother. However, she died before I was born, and I didn't find out about this part of my heritage until several years ago. The food you cooked looks delicious. I loved the line "This should delay the heart attack by approximately two months."

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  4. Anonymous6:25 PM

    We are still doing damage control, we had about a dozen Loblolly pines and a few pecan trees blown over week before last, we or I should say Mr cut the trees up and we hauled off the pieces down behind our duck pond,still got alot to do, but it's just that,TO DO!..
    And the noodle Kugel looks delish,wish I had some right now.
    ~JO
    LazyonLoblolly

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  5. How sad about the tree!

    Thanks for the recipe, which I would LOVE to try. :)

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  6. Anonymous8:07 PM

    That's quite a job taking the tree down.

    Teresa

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  7. I've never tried kugal, but it has cheese, sugar, and carbs...it's gotta be good.

    Be sure to stop by this week to enter my giveaway.

    Have a great holiday weekend! La

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  8. Wow! Kugel is filled with such wonderful things. I haven't never tried it, but need to.

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  9. Betty, your photos are wonderful! I love all the green grass, since I live in Arizona and all we have in our yards are rocks!!!!

    Matzo Ball soup is sooooo divine, but in order to make it correctly, you need schmaltz!! As you know, schmalts is chicken fat. This is the ultimate comfort food! O.k., so we keel over from too much cholesterol, but believe me, we die happy!!!!

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  10. Noodle Kugel - never heard of it but it sure looked good.

    And of course I am so sorry about your tree. I hate to lose trees.

    I know y'all need some rain real bad.

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  11. i've made kugel...
    i know a jewish grandmother, i'll have to ask her for her recipe and i'll let you know if it's any different from yours :)

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  12. So sorry to hear about your tree. We lost lots of ferns, azaleas & dogwood trees to the drought about 5 years ago...it's very distressing. Still chuckling over "This should delay the heart attack by approximately two months" :-)

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  13. "...this should delay the heart attack for about 2 months."


    I'm still laughing out loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  14. The weather all over is getting stranger by the day, I think. I'm sorry your drought is still so brutal. Slow drip is the way to deep water down to the tap roots. Once the tap roots dry out there is not much to do to salvage the tree. I can see why you'd be sad loosing on of those beauties.

    I've not tried kugel. If I find a long lost Jewish grandma, I'll be sure to ask her for you, though!

    Thanks for a kool link this week.

    A+

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  15. I love Noodle Kugel but I don't have a recipe for it. I no longer have a Jewish Grandma to ask. Time flies by and I'm now a Jewish Grandma myself. I do have a recipe for Jewish chicken soup... made my way. I may put it up on my blog next week as you're the second blogger who's expressed an interest.

    http://rosalindadam.blogspot.com

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  16. Never had the kugel but I love matzo ball soup.

    And I love trees, too.

    =)

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  17. I love Matzo Ball Soup! I am not Jewish, but lived in South Florida for many years and loved the Jewish food you could find in the deli's there.

    I just bought Bittman's "Best Recipes in the World" in the hope that it would have some recipes for Jewish Food and it does!

    I'll go check out the Bubbe site also!!!

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  18. I've never tried the Jewish dish,but it looks good.

    Too bad about the tree. We're seeing trees dying in our are too. So sad.
    Tree work is a work of art, and expensive, but they sure earn their money.
    Hugs

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  19. I love kugel, too!
    Too bad about your beautiful tree! We lost a big tree in our front yard a couple of years ago, but not to lightening. It was uprooted by wind shear! The wind was about 60 miles an hour!!

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  20. We see something each day in the paper or on the news about the heat in the southern US. It sounds terrible. So sorry about your tree - will it at least keep you warm next winter?

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  21. Oh my mother-in-law used to make the most amazing kugel in the world...She was the best cook. I wish I had her recipe, but I think she just made things from her head...She made matzo ball soup too and every amazing thing you could think of. xo Cindy

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  22. Your title grabbed me...glad it did. Now I'll grab your recipe, I'm hungry:) glad you got the tree down too. We had droughts here for a few years, but this year we're flooding! go figure....

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