The Cookbook Junkies

Giveaway update:  Random number generator picked #65 Danielle Belford - an email has been sent to Danielle.  Congratulations!

Release date March 24. Grand Central Life & Style

The Community Table Recipes & Stories from the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and Beyond is gorgeous from the opening recipe of Weekly Challah to the last recipe of Goat Milk and Yogurt Panna Cotta with Spiced Fig Compote.  Katja Goldman, Judy Bernstein Bunzl and Lisa Rotmil collaborated to bring us recipes that embrace the Community Table.  "Food, family and community have always been at the center of our lives", they share.  "May your copy be filled with splatters and crumbs, and may you enjoy many new wonderful gatherings drawing inspiration from our book."  I love this sentiment - cookbooks are to be used and enjoyed and many of mine have remnants of meals past.

The photos, including step by step photos, of some of the braiding techniques for Queen Esther's Crown Purim Bread are fantastic.  The chocolate crumb babka, the fig and fennel bread, Swedish cardamom ring,  as well as the homemade pretzel look heavenly.  I was delighted to see a recipe for Bubbe's Hungarian Sweet Cheese Hamantachen which is going to be made for our next dinner party.  Hamantaschen has been all over the internet during the festival of Purim and I'm very interested in the savory aspect of this (albeit sweet cheese) hamantaschen.

The starters look delicious -- pickled carrots, homemade ricotta, summer and winter vegetable tarts, pickled grapes with rosemary, black bean cakes with tomato salsa -- but the latkes four ways are to die for -- potato, beet, curried sweet potato and finally a parsnip and potato combination.

The soup section ladles up yellow cauliflower soup with parsley oil, stracciatella "little rags", Vietnamese rice-noodle soup with beef, kasha and mushroom kreplach with vegetable consommé, cilantro matzah balls, and more.  The vibrant salad section has recipes for Syrian potato salad, Moroccan carrot slaw and summer corn cucumber and tomato salad.

The pasta, polenta and risotto chapter contains pappardelle with lamb ragu, egg noodles with savoy cabbage and sausage, Hungarian spaetzle, risotto with salmon, leeks and peas, Israeli couscous risotto and two-grain saffron couscous.

For our seafood loving friends we have fish tacos with orange chipotle sauce and jicama-grapefruit slaw, Turkish roasted whole fish, lemon cardamom halibut, and simple sole with three sauces.  And carnivores will love the chapters that include grilled chicken paillards for four seasons - I love this template for chicken with a fresh salad variation for all the seasons.  There are recipes for green masala chicken, spicy chicken stir-fry with greens and cashews, braised duck legs, duck breasts with apples and maple cider sauce, Thai grilled beef salad, Pot-au-Feu, Iraqi lamb burgers with mint pesto and Moroccan lamb tagine.

Grains and legumes are covered nicely with orange-scented black beans with crispy onions, Moroccan chickpeas, caramelized saffron onions and date relish, spicy lentil dal, fava beans with string beans and hazelnuts and bulgur salad with pomegranates and pine nuts.

We have celery root and potato puree, savory butternut squash crumble, savory layered zucchini eggplant pie, shredded beets with yogurt, Matzah Brei Sri-Lankan style and more in the vegetable category.  The authors also include a vegetable prep table for everyday meals with information on how to blanch, roast or saute vegetables from asparagus to zucchini with favorite seasoning suggestions.

And last but not least, the dessert section.   Honey cake with grilled peaches, lemon layer cake, lime-olive oil with rhubarb compote, vanilla crescents with citrus and verbena salad, pumpkin rugelach, summer and fall crostatas and over a dozen more will tempt your sweet tooth.

The book ends up with charts for dairy, meat or pareve breakdowns for the recipes, an appendix for Shabbat and Holiday menu suggestions and for recipes that are kosher for Passover as well as a metric conversion chart.

I have plans to try a few recipes next week and will update the post with thoughts and photographs but wanted to post this today to share my love of this cookbook as well as post the giveaway.

This book is truly lovely with a nice variety and selection of recipes suitable for celebrations and family meals.  If you chose to order the book - I would appreciate your ordering through the Amazon banner at the top of this post.  It will not cost you anything extra and will help add a few pennies to the website fund.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY:

Grand Central Life & Style has offered a copy of this beautiful book for one of my readers.  Please leave a comment here on this post for your chance to win.  Tell me something you have made recently for a celebration.  A random winner will be chosen on March 21st.   US and Canadian addresses only.   Good luck.  Thank you Grand Central Life & Style for this opportunity.

A few years back, I was not a lover of Italian food or at least the Italian food that I had experienced.  To me it was all the same pasta, cheese and tomatoes; pasta, cheese and tomatoes.   I’ve learned that there is so much  more to authentic Italian food.  I credit some of this to my good friend, Marc and to the Extra Virgin cooking show, a show I thought I would hate and ended up loving and enjoying — kind of the same way I felt about Marc.

I’m a sucker for restaurant cookbooks and specifically New York restaurant books and Patsy’s Italian Family Cookbook hits both of these notes.   There is a dash of old New York in the photos and narrative that I love and —  Frank Sinatra — who doesn’t love Frank Sinatra?

There are some of the usual recipes as in any Italian restaurant cookbook — meatballs, marinara, mussels but these are Patsy’s recipes – folks – Patsy’s!   The secrets and recipes from the wildly successful restaurant.

Some of the recipes that stood out to me were the Meatball-tini — cute tiny meatballs served in a martini glass, shrimp casino – a play on clams casino, I love their version of Italian wedding soup with meatball-tini’s, sopressata and broccoli, Pavese soup a simple soup with chicken stock, Italian bread and a fried egg, steak oreganata, veal scaloppini besciamella, the Pork Rollatini looks incredible, and flounder milanese. Truthfully, everything looks like something I would enjoy making and feeding to friends and family.

The chapter on breads — includes St. Joseph’s Bread, zeppole (my favorite), ricotta and wheat berry cheesecake — and the dessert chapter – anise biscotti, panettone bread pudding, fried bows, Grandma Josie’s cream puffs, peach crostata and apple fritters.   Dessert making is on hold during Lent – but come Easter – I’m going to be baking up a storm.

Today I am preparing the scaloppini besciamella but with chicken instead of veal – the recipe takes a little prep work  but it promises to be delicious.  I’ve never made a dish like this before – and the instructions were wonderful — the besciamella and cutlets are chilling and later I will finish the preparation.  I will edit the post this evening with photographs of the dish.

Update:  The chicken besciamella is heavenly.

The inside view — this dish will go into our rotation.

If you can’t have dinner at Patsy’s, you have the comfort of being able to re-create their legendary food at home with this wonderful cookbook.  If you do decide to order, I would appreciate your using the link above the banner to help support this site.

GIVEAWAY

Random Number Generator picked number 67 — Pam Green – Pam please e-mail your address to icywit@gmail.com by Friday the 20th.  If I don’t hear from Pam, another random winner will be chosen on Friday.

My friends at St. Martin’s are offering one of you a copy of this fabulous new book set for release on March 24th.  Please leave a comment here letting me know if you have ever eaten at Patsy’s.   For a second chance, please register here on the forum and leave a comment telling me you did.  (Folks who are already registered – leave me a comment stating so!) The giveaway is open to US addresses only.  A random winner will be chosen on March 17th.  Good luck.  (Be patient with your comments – all comments must be moderated and will show up.)

Thank you St. Martin’s!

There were some bananas on the counter pleading to be whipped into some banana bread when I saw the four pieces of leftover bacon from breakfast — Elvis popped into my head.   Elvis pops into my head a great deal.  One of his concert posters hangs in our bedroom and many mornings I wake up Andrew with Burning Love.

I’m ashamed to admit – Andrew and I already ate a loaf of this bread.  They were small — smallish.  It was so good warm from the oven.  Lord a mighty good.  I’m going to hide the other loaf and take it to friends tomorrow – maybe.  Jim hates bananas so this bread is all ours….insert evil laugh.

Elvis Bread

4 tablespoons of butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

2 to 3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup of peanut butter

2 slices of cooked crispy bacon, minced

2/3 cup of sugar

1 1/3 cups of flour

3/4 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl with a wooden spoon – mix the melted butter with the peanut butter to loosen.  Add the ripe mashed bananas, sugar, eggs, minced bacon and mix to combine.  Add the flour, salt, baking soda and powder — to combine – do not over mix.   Butter two small loaf pans about 4 x 6 and divide the batter.   Here in Colorado the loaves baked in about 40 to 45 minutes.

While the bread is baking, mix up the glaze — 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar, 1 tablespoon of milk and two tablespoons of maple syrup and a dash of salt.  Whisk to combine and set aside until warm bread comes out of the oven.  Drizzle over the warm bread and sprinkle with some crumbled bacon, if you desire.

I adapted this recipe from my go to banana bread that I have had written on a recipe card for ages.  I would credit the source for the banana bread but I have no recollection.