Not So Secret Family Recipe

As the Jewish holidays approach, I always look forward to my favorite dish of the season: my mother’s noodle pudding. This noodle pudding has the perfect amount of sweetness, with raisins and sugar, while the thick noodles and sour cream give it depth. The texture should be dense but light enough that some noodles fall apart with the touch of a fork. Serve the noodle pudding at room temperature or slightly warm, but remember that cold leftovers make a delicious breakfast!

My Mother's Noodle Pudding

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. extra broad egg noodles
2 eggs
½ stick butter
1/3 c. sugar
3 tbsp. sour cream
½ c. milk
1 tsp. cottage cheese (this may seem like an unusual measurement, but too much cottage cheese will dry it out)
raisins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Cook noodles until very soft. Add next six ingredients to noodles and mix well. Sprinkle raisins in the noodle mixture to taste. Pour noodle mixture into an oven-proof casserole dish, and sprinkle some more raisins on top. Bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until golden brown - don't overcook because that can dry it out. Serve at room temperature or slightly warm.

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Upcoming Food Events

We are going to start a weekly feature in which we post upcoming food events in and around Penn/Philadelphia. We will post it every Sunday. If you have any events that you would like to appear on this weekly feature, please email pennappetit.blog@gmail.com with the information.

This week's events, 9/28-10/4:

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"Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty" with author Mark Winne

• Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 5:00pm
• University of Pennsylvania; Apse, 4th Floor, Fisher Fine Arts Library (220 S. 34th Street)
• Co-sponsored by Fox Leadership Program, Penn Planning, and Penn Center for Studies in Public Health

Food stands as a glaring example of how the gap between this country's "haves" and "have-nots" remains deep and wide. Join us in this public lecture where Mark Winne discusses the issues of hunger, food insecurity, and the policies and systems that seek to close the food gap in America. For more information about the event, please contact foxleader@sas.upenn.edu.
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Metropolitan Agriculture in North America: From Planning to Development

• Saturday, October 4, 2008 from noon - 5:30pm
• University of Pennsylvania, Houston Hall (3418 Spruce St., Philadelphia PA)
• Hosts: MetroAg - Alliance for Urban Agriculture; Penn Planning & Penn Institute for Urban Research; with support from the Cedar Tree Foundation

Please join us for the first public forum for the new Alliance for Urban Agriculture (MetroAg). The afternoon will start with an informal networking lunch, followed by roundtable discussions of regional planning and community and economic development featuring leading practitioners, policy makers, and scholars of sustainable agriculture. The event will conclude with the first general meeting of the Alliance. This forum is part of the annual conference of the Community Food Security Coalition, taking place in Cherry Hill, NJ, October 4-8. The $30 ticket includes a locally grown lunch (with vegetarian options), coffee and snacks. A limited number of student and low-income scholarships are available on a first-come basis. Click here to register.
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Next week, 10/5-10/12:

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Marcella Hazan – Amarcord: Marcella Remembers

• Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 7:30PM
• Central Library (1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103)
• Cost: $14 General Admission, $7 Students

The godmother of Italian cooking in the United States, Marcella Hazan’s standard-setting cookbooks include Marcella Cucina and Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Her husband, food and wine-writer Victor Hazan, will accompany Marcella on stage as she discusses her latest memoir, Amarcord. The Hazans will be interviewed by Patricia Talorico of the Delaware News Journal. (Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture)

NOTE: Andy Kahan is offering FREE tickets to Penn students for this event. If you are interested, please email him directly at kahana@freelibrary.org.
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Autumn Flavors - Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup at Au Bon Pain. Photo by Alice Gao.

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Friday Blog Lovin' - DIY Potato Chips...in the Microwave

Blog: Apartment Therapy The Kitchn

Yummy microwavable recipes can at times seem few and far between. These surprisingly crunchy chips can be spiced up with your favorite seasoning and for a different twist, try making them with another type of potato, perhaps a purple one?


Note: Click on the photo to see the original post.

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Hummus Restaurant - A Newcomer

Hummus is the newest restaurant to hit the 40th Street strip, nestled between McDonald's and the Radian. They serve sandwiches and platters of near-authentic Middle Eastern food: falafel, shwarma, kabobs, and hummus. Though I find their namesake dip on the grainy and garlicky side, the pita (either white or whole wheat) is nice and fluffy--and it's rumored to be imported from Israel.

I got a delicious shwarma sandwich to go and couldn't have been more satisfied. The meat was tender and well-seasoned; it balanced perfectly with the tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage salad, onions, harif, and tahini. I added fries to the sandwich for $1 to truly do it Israeli style. Hummus is a "must check out" for those who haven't been, but beware: it's not dirt cheap.

Check out the menu here!

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Obscene...vegetables?

I got this beauty at the Headhouse Farmers Market in Philadelphia, located at 2nd and Lombard. Photo by Alice Gao.

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Toxic Typo

As reported by the Freakonomics blog, a recipe typo in a Swedish food magazine led to four cases of nutmeg overdose. What exactly was the typo? 20 whole nutmeg instead of two pinches. While nutmeg poisoning may not sound bad-ass, it still lead to hospitalization. And someone getting fired.

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Taste (and see) the Rainbow

This Eye Candy lollipop appeals to your sense of sight rather than taste. Using sensory substitution, it sends your brain visual information via your tongue. The images transmitted with this hi-tech lolly range from shooting stars to spiders and are meant to help you be a better person (somehow). The website claims this technology is delicious, plus you get a bubbly feeling on your tongue. So, it's kind of like new-age, hallucinogenic pop rocks. Trippy.

I'm pretty sure the experience of licking a lollipop and seeing spiders would forever ruin lollipops for me. But I'd totally go for "tranquil fish swimming through the streams of [my] consciousness."

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