Hubby's birthday!

In honor of Paul's birthday, I baked him America's Test Kitchen's Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake (via Annie's Eats).

Yum. 

It was so good I forgot to take a picture of a slice showing all the layers (you can almost see them in the second picture.)

Delicious.

AF's Fabulous Chicken Salad

As promised in my previous post, here is my favorite chicken salad recipe, courtesy of my good friend, AF. 

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
honey
2 granny smith apples
2 small cucumbers
1 shallot
1 red bell pepper (optional, can be roasted too)
dijon mustard
mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste
turmeric and cumin to taste


Coat chicken in honey.  Broil 4-5 minutes on each side, until done.  Let cool. Shred into bowl.  Meanwhile, dice apple, cucumber, shallot, and red pepper if using. Add to bowl with chicken.  Season with mustard, mayo, and spices to taste.  Chill and enjoy!

The High Holidays!

Since it was just me and the hubby this Rosh Hashanah, I decided to go all out.

Two kinds of challah.

Apple:

And my regular challah recipe, but made roll-sized and round!

[The leftover apple stuffed challah makes fantastic bread pudding!]

For the first night, I made a persian chicken, apple and cherry stew, a khoresh.  It was a bit too sweet, and a bit too watery, but the chicken was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

The persian rice with crispy topping [tahdig] was more successful.

We had a really nice Riesling to go with the meal.

Since I was trying to be economical, lunch consisted of my friend AF's fabulous chicken and apple salad (recipe will follow in another post!)

Night two started out with the traditional apples and honey with an unusual fruit (starfruit in this case, I couldn't find pomegranate):

There is a Jewish tradition to eat a "new" fruit on the second night of any holiday.  Some popular ones are pomegranate, star fruit, kumquat, etc.

We had a traditional brisket for dinner.

All in all a delicious holiday with lots of leftovers!