Parve Squash Pie with fresh butternut squash

Please accept my apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. I have to admit that the high holidays have been a whirlwind of chaos at my house. Lots of cooking and guests and such combined with all the work required for my “real” job and taking care of my house. Thank goodness the holidays only come once per year. And yes, I’m purposely ignoring Pesach right now because I’m so darn tired.

I started cooking for Sukkot a few days ago and had planned to take pictures and blog about the dishes I made. However, in the process of cooking I learned a couple of valuable tips (aka, made a couple of major mistakes) that most of you probably already know but they were new to me so I thought I’d share my experiences. First let me say that I started cooking around 8pm after a very long day at work and even after a cup of coffee, I was still not at my best. Excuses, excuses : )

I started with a recipe for carrot muffins thinking this was something that kids would enjoy and happily eat … not realizing they were also getting some nutritional value. I mixed up the recipe and realized after I’d dumped possibly a tablespoon of baking soda into the batter that the recipe called for a teaspoon. Hmm, did I put in a tablespoon or a teaspoon? I’m so tired who really knows but how much difference can it make. I’m sure it will be fine. It was not fine!

I poured the batter into these adorable mini-bundt cake molds and was so excited when the timer sounded to tell me the muffins were ready. I took them out of the oven and offered a bite to my husband. He started chewing the muffin and made the bitter beer face. “Ugh, there is some kind of weird metal after taste,” he said. So I tried the muffin and he wasn’t just whistling Dixie. It was disgusting. And it made me want to cry to have to throw out the whole batch. Then my husband made me totally paranoid by saying that he didn’t think baking soda could be used for food … only cleaning and laundry, which sent me straight to Google to do a search. Fortunately, I learned that baking soda is eatable but I just used too much. Rookie mistake #1 for the evening.

After the fact, I decided I should have taken a picture of the muffins in the trash can to show you the full affect but you’ll just have to use your imagination. The photo I included is a parve squash pie I made for Rosh Hashana using fresh butternut squash. There is never a single bite of that pie left. I’ll post the recipe as soon as I get a chance.

Next, I had plans to make a vegetable soup and an oven fried chicken. I purchased all of the ingredients but failed to read the recipes when I was copying down the list of necessary items. When I was ready to get started, I read the first sentence for the soup recipe, which told me I needed cheese cloth for the items that would “spice” the soup. I of course had no cheese cloth. I decided to move on to the chicken and discovered that a roasting pan with a meat rack or cookie cooling rack was “vital” to make this chicken crisp all the way around. Also something I didn’t have. Rookie mistake #2 of the night  – read the entire recipe when you are making your shopping list.

So I had to postone both the soup and the chicken recipes until I had time to go to the store. Ugh. So much for all of my planning.

I’m cooking again tonight so here’s hoping this round goes better than the last. Tomorrow I’ll share a recipe for a parve peanut butter pie that is totally awesome and even easier to make.

What are you cooking for Sukkot?

Happy Kosher Treif Cooking!