Month: April 2012

Tasty Treats: Rugelach

I have a weakness for rugelach (the ch is that hard, throaty sound that one perfects through one’s Jewish upbringing). Unfortunately indulging in these tasty treats only happens at special occasions, which includes dinner at my in-law’s and sadly at shivas. Why? Because these devilish but divine desserts are expensive! Yes, you have to pay by weight. And much like chips, you can’t eat just one. 

Rolled out rugelach dough

Now I know why the bakery charges for rugelach by weight–because there are so many steps involved in the making of them! And one recipe only produces a dozen and a half of them. So that’s a huge investment of time for little return. I found a recipe in Evelyn Raab’s book, The Clueless Baker. My copy is well loved and well worn. I’m not sure it’s still in print but if you can find one I strongly recommend adding it to your repertoire of cook books. The dough is actually more of a pastry made with butter, cream cheese, flour and a bit of sugar. The whole recipe itself is easy, it’s just the time and steps required are labour intensive. Once the pastry is made I had to divide it into three portions, shape them into round discs and refrigerate them for at least an hour.

While that was happening I made a mixture of chocolate chips, cinnamon and sugar. The recipe also called for walnuts but I didn’t have any. I whizzed the mixture through the food processor. Then I rolled out the pastry dough and sprinkled the mixture on it.

Rugelach pastry dough with filling

The next step is to take a pizza cutter and cut the dough into about eight or ten wedges. This was followed by the final step, which was to roll each wedge from the wide end to the point into a crescent shape. 

Ready to bake

Baking the rugelach for about 20 minutes was the final step–actually eating them was the final step. They turned out so flakey and light and the perfect balance of chocolate and cinnamon. But was it worth the time and effort? According to reaction from my family it was. So I think I’ll be making these again.

Mmmm...rugelach!

cialis

levitra

A Room For Living

I used to hate my living room. It’s the first room you see when you walk in the front door and for some reason I didn’t consider it inviting nor did I think it had a cohesive look or a focal point. No matter what I tried nothing seemed to work. So I went back to the drawing board. Without a fireplace in the room or something for the eye to land on I had to create a focal point on the one long wall the room had. The couch acted as the anchor and to create some symmetry I flanked it with two matching sideboards we inherited from my husband’s grandmother. These are substantial pieces of furniture and lend the kind of weight the room needed. Since the couch is relatively modern I updated the sideboards by getting them sprayed a warm chocolately-brown and for fun I replaced the hardware with pale blue milk glass pulls. Sticking with the symmetry theme we put two matching cream lamps on the sideboards. The cream really pops against the grey-brown wall colour, which matches the couch perfectly!

Now back to that focal point; I decided to create a gallery of art work above the couch and that would be the focal point. Some of the pieces came from family while others are inexpensive prints. I think using all black frames gives the gallery a cohesive look without looking too contrived. We added to the gallery as we acquired the pieces and the only thing that ties all of them together are the frames.

A Room for Living

My favourite thing in the room is probably the carpet–a wool Sumak rug that I can only describe as a perfect marriage between traditional and contemporary. There are a multitude of colours in it–peach, aqua, taupe, burnt orange, forest green, cream….I picked fabric for the throw pillows based on the carpet and I had so much fun doing it!

My husband’s biggest coupe was finding the Huber bucket chair and ottoman (made in Canada!) on Kijiji–from two different sellers no less. The original fabric was *hallucious* so I had to hunt down a durable fabric that honoured the era of the chair without being too hokey. I must admit the cream and green fabric wasn’t my first choice, but my husband liked it and since he found the chair I figured he could choose the fabric. I’ve got to hand it to him, it looks great and works really well with the rest of the furniture in the room. 

Huber bucket chair

We spend more time in this room now than we ever did before and I’m really pleased with the results. It’s eclectic, cozy and full of  family mementos. Now I love my living room.

acheter cialis sans ordonnance

I’m Ba-ack!!!!

Okay, it’s been WWWaaaaaaaaaaYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyy too long since my last post. But life gets in the way–a NEW life, in fact. Yes, we welcomed baby boy #3 into our lives about 3 months ago. So we’re through the first tough stretch with him, which I guess should allow me to turn my attention to some other items on my *to do* list. In the last 48 hours that includes baking a key lime pie, a banana chocolate chip cake, mowing the lawn and cutting out the pieces for two baby quilts, which should have been made a long time ago.

Mmmm...key lime pie!!!

The key lime pie was an homage to our recent trip to Floridahhhhh….it came out a bit on the tarty-limey side, and the crust was a little too hard for my liking but not bad for my first attempt. The most annoying part of the recipe was juicing all those tiny key limes to get half a cup of juice. I used my reamer but quick work it did not make. The recipe is from Martha Stewart if you’re interested in trying it.

Best Banana Chocolate Chip Cake EV-ER

The banana chocolate chip cake is my go-to stand-by dessert. I make it into muffins, cakes, loafs…you name it. If you’ve got bananas sitting in the freezer or spotty ones sitting on the counter that no one in your family is going to eat, then this is the recipe for you! If you can decipher the recipe I’m posting, it’s yours. I’m not going to make it easy because I guard this recipe closely. It came from my mom’s friend Fern, and I get nothing but compliments when I bake it. Enjoy!!!

 

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake Recipe