Playing with peanuts and kosher holidays

Someone celebrated a birthday at Logan’s Road House in Beaumont and we left with some in-shell peanuts. I chose to make them the protein in an Asian meal I made up.

I don’t know what to call it, but coconut milk, cucumbers, purple onions and garlic chives ended up over Jasmine rice, and the peanuts went on top. It was filling and light at the same time. It’s always good to play with your food.

The Kosher Baker

The only time Paula Shoyer uses store-bought challah is to make bread pudding, because her family won’t give up a homemade challah without a fight. 

She shares a Mocha and Whiskey Chocolate Bread Pudding, made from this bread, that puts one in the mind bread pudding much closer to New Orleans and meant to celebrate Mardi Gras.

Shoyer teaches French and Jewish baking in the Washington, DC area and offers some amazing recipes and background in her book “The Holiday Kosher Baker.”

This is a more serious book for those who know their way around flours and macarons. Finished results are beautiful and, I assume, tasty. I’d like to book a flight to DC to sample some class projects.

Here’s a taste of what’s in the book:

Babka Bites, Honey Cake Biscotti, Whole Grain Carrot Cake, and Fruit Cobbler with Chickpea, Pecan and Cardamom Topping. As says the subtitle, these are traditional and contemporary offerings.

darraghcastillo@icloud.com