Today, all day, was the 238th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, Ooh Rah!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps

Some of you may know and if you didn’t, DCM served our country as a US Marine, “Once a Marine, always a Marine”, can you tell I’m a very proud girlfriend? Every year, we celebrate the Marine Corps birthday; when he was still in Georgia, the kids would bake him a cake, why stop a great tradition?

Today, I asked him what type of cake he wanted and he proclaims quite decidedly, ” cheesecake!” After brunch we stopped off to get supplies, he thought we would be buying a cheesecake, ha ha, not a chance! I have an awesome recipe given to me by a dear family friend, one of my ‘moms’, KS. We bought the supplies and home we went. I left all the ingredients to be softened on the counter and a few hours later, it was baking time.

The recipe will be at the end of the post, (I am including the recipe for both a cheesecake and pie), enjoy! We did! (Just to give you a warning, this is not a dairy free deal and if you are lactose intolerant and don’t take a Lactaid pill, you will be sorry, just saying. I might have to try this dairy free sometime!

Can we say…YUM!

/a>
There have been some wonderful posts all day on Facebook, thankful and birthday wishes, fantastic photos of loved ones past and present in uniform. Happy birthday to all the great men and women who have and are serving in the United States Marine Corps.

Happy birthday and Thank You.

KS’ amazing cheesecake

CRUST
1.    Grease A 9” x 3” springform  with butter
2.    Mix 3 Tbl. Sugar, ½ tsp. cinnamon, ½ stick milted butter, 1 cup cracker crumbs
3.    Press mixture onto bottom of pan
4.    For pie use a ready to use pie crust.

CAKE                                                                           PIE
3- 8 ounce packages of cream cheese                     1- 8 ounce package of cream cheese
1 ½ cups of sugar                                                        ½ cup of sugar
1/3 cup of flour                                                            1/6 cup of flour
16 ounces of sour cream                                            5 ½ ounces of sour cream
Juice from ½ lemon                                                     juice from 1/8 of lemon
Zest from one lemon                                                  Zest from ¼ of lemon
6 eggs separated (at room temp.)                            2 eggs separated (at room temp.)                     
2 tsp. vanilla                                                                2/3 tsp. of vanilla

DIRECTIONS          
1.    Beat cheese until soft and creamy
2.     Add sugar and mix until light and fluffy
3.     Add yolks one at a time
4.    Add sour cream, vanilla, flour, lemon rind, and lemon juice
5.    Beat egg whites in another bowl until stiff
6.    Fold into cream cheese mixture
7.    Pour into pan
8.    Bake at 3590  1/14 hr. for cake(until golden) –for pie 25 minutes
9.    Shut of oven and leave cake in for 1 hr. more – pie fro 20 minutes
10.Remove from oven and let stand until cool

Remove from pan and refrigerate

The food from the Passover Sedar is so wonderful. I wanted to share the recipes with you.

Please let me know if you have questions and enjoy!!!

[I have to find the recipe for chicken soup, I do know it has raw chicken, lots of water, parsley, salt, carrots, celery, parsnips, turnips, sometimes consume and bouillon. We have tried to make matza balls from scratch, we were not successful, so we made them from a box and we are ok with that!]

Beef brisket [5 people – 4pounds]
Season the day before
Cover brisket with granulated garlic and ketchup
chop an onion and add to pan filled with 1/2 inch of water
bake at 325 for 3 hours.

Turkey
1 onion
Orange Juice
granulated garlic
Take inards from both ends. Cut onion in 1/2, place inside cavity.
Pour orange juice all over the bird and in cavity, leave 1/2 inch in
bottom of pan.
Sprinkle garlic all over and inside. Cover with aluminum foil tent.
After 2 hours, baste every 1/2 hour [1 lb per person; 20 min/lb]
last 1/2 brown by removing aluminum

Champagne Turkey
1 (12 pound) whole turkey, neck and
giblets removed
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 apples, cored and halved
1 tablespoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2/3 (750 milliliter) bottle champagne
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Rinse turkey, and pat dry. Gently loosen turkey breast skin, and insert pieces of butter between the skin and breast. Place apples inside the turkey’s cavity. Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Place turkey in a roasting bag, and pour champagne over the inside and outside of the bird. Close bag, and place turkey in a roasting pan.
3. Bake turkey 3 to 3 1/2 hours in the preheated oven, or until the internal temperature is 180 degrees F (85 degrees C) when measured in the meatiest part of the thigh. Remove turkey from bag, and let stand for at least 20 minutes before carving.

Veggie Patties
These were a big hit! We got them from a kids Passover recipe list!

2 cups zucchini, broccoli and/or cauliflower [we didn’t use cauliflower]
1/2 cup matzo meal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons dried basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
canola or vegetable oil
Accompaniments: Marinara sauce, ketchup or mustard [we thought duck sauce would work well too]

Place the veggies in a food processor, pulse to chop fine. Add the chopped veggies to a bowl with flour, salt, egg, basil and garlic powder. Mix to combine. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat, place 1 tablespoon of batter into the pan for each pancake.
Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side.

We tripled the recipe for 30 patties.

Crispy Potato and Leek Roast
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled
4 shallots, thickly sliced, lengthwise
4 medium leeks, sliced thin and rinsed well
Coarse salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes [optional – we didnt use them]
8 sprigs thyme

Preheat oven to 375. Brush bottom of a round 9-inch baking dish with olive oil. With a sharp knife or mandolin, slice potatoes very thinly crosswise. Arrange potato slices vertically in dish. Wedge shallots throughout [it would have been better if we’d place the shallots between more slices of potato] Sprinkle with salt and pepper flakes [if using] brush with remaining olive oil. Bake 1 1/4 hours, add thyme and leeks and bake until potatoes are cooked through with a crisp top, about 35 minutes more.
Matza Apple Kugel
6 matzas
6 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons margarine, softened
1 cup soaked raisins
1/2 chopped peacans [optional – I never add nuts]
2 granny smith apples, grated

Preheat oven to 400. break matza into small pieces, place in a medium sized bowl and cover
with hot water, wait one minute and drain.

In another bowl, beat the eggs, add sugar, vanilla, raisins, [peacans] and apples. Mix with the matza. Pour into greased 3-qt cassarole. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, dot with margarine.
Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, lower to 300 and bake for another 20 minutes. Great warm or cold
[This is my FAVORITE dish for passover!]

Macaroons
1-1/3 cups Bakers Angel Flake Coconut
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp matzo meal
1/8 tsp salt
2 egg whites [I made a batch with 2 eggs and the only difference is they came out a little cakier]
1/2 cup almond extract [I use vanilla extract since GES is SERIOUSLY ALLERGIC to almonds]
18 Planters almonds [again, I don’t add almonds, just as good]

Preheat oven to 325. Mix coconut, sugar, matzo meal and salt in a large bowl. Stir in egg whites and almond/vanilla extract until well blended.
DROP teasponfuls of dough, 2 inches apart, onto lightly greased baking sheets. Press almonds
into center of each cookie.
Bake 20 minutes or until edges are golden brown.Immediately remove from baking sheets. Cool on wire racks

Matza Brittle
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup chopped nuts [optional – and i never add nuts]

Line a jelly roll pan with tin foil [I cover the sides of the pan, this helps with clean up big time!]
Place a layer of matza in the pan.
In a saucepan, combine butter and sugar and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes. Pour over crackers, bake at 350 for 5 minutes or until crackers float. Remove from oven . When cools, break into pieces.

There are almost never any leftovers!

[for those who keep kosher for Passover more strictly, I have never used margarine, sorry]
This recipe was originally made with saltines, you can also add chocolate chips when it comes out of the oven]
[sprinkle chocolate chips when the pan comes out of the oven, when melted, sprinkle nuts on top, cut into bars]

Passover starts tomorrow night and we are expecting about 20-25 people tomorrow and 20-25 for second night!

Passover has changed quite a bit since my nieces were born. As a kid, we used to go to Grandma M’s in Brooklyn, until we started having seder, the Passover meal, at mom’s house. The tradition was, mom, GES and I would go a few times during the week to help cook and then mom would stay there and dad, GES and I would drive to Brooklyn, stop for pizza and then head to grandma’s. There would be 20, sometimes more and we would laugh and laugh with the sedar and some [ha ha] food thrown in. It was wonderful, one year we even recorded the seder, it was great to listen to it years later.

As we got older, the seder moved to our house and mom and GES and I would do the cooking, grandma was responsible for the applesauce, we had a ‘thing’; she would make the applesauce and i would tell her it needed sugar, no matter how good it was, she expected it, who am I to disappoint a grandma? She also continued to make the multi-colored layered jello, yeah, not a huge favorite with all of us, but that was her thing and my cousin MS would “decant” the jello, the challenge was to get it coming out looking like the jello mold!  We still had about 20-25 people and there was sedar, laughter and food.

Speaking of food, soon I am going to post just the recipes we use for the seder, you can these recipes any time.

After my mom passed, we had seder at our house, there were less people and GES and I cooked all the food mom and grandma had made and taught us how to make. When EJ was born, and how convenient of her to be born right around Passover, we had seder at GES and AS’s house, what a blessing. We were about 8 people.

One of the things we enjoy, I know I speak for my sister, is inviting people to join us, the holiday is not only about food and laughter, but celebrating with friends and opening the door to welcome strangers, Elijah’s message to the T. There have always been people at the seder that were not related to us by marriage or blood and to share this time with them is not only a treat and a blessing, but a mitzvah. A mitzvah could be explained as simple as “doing a good deed” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitzvah].

Growing up, we used to follow the seder in the haggadah, the Passover prayer book, the funny part is, not everyone at the table had the same haggadah, that makes for an interesting sedar. My dad always had the ‘master’ haggadah, it had a kid “dunking” a bay chick, you had to be there and we all had the Maxwell House haggadah you got for free from the grocery store!

Now, we all go to GES and AS’s for Passover, and as you know, I’ve been here since Thursday for EJ’s birthday. Seder has grown as more and more friends of my sister and brother in laws have children, as I mentioned, we are expecting 20-25 people, that’s adults and children and we do an abridged version of seder. It used to take us about 4-6 hours from start to finish, now, seder takes about 30 minutes tops, [think Spongebob] still with all the good food, chatter and laughter, learning, messages and meaning.

It’s the togetherness, sharing the holiday and the moment, doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or not, please join us, the door is open, the food is overflowing, the fellowship is overwhelming and the love is just right.

A zissen Pesach to you!