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Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Frosting

February 17, 2015 By Karen

Becoming a parent is one of the biggest leaps of faith out there, and Friday marked four years since I crossed that threshold for the second time. When you make that decision, you’re filled with dreams. Dreams of who your child will be, and what your family will look like. It doesn’t matter if you become a parent by birth, by adoption, or by marriage, because all the hopes are the same. You want your kid to be healthy. First and foremost, that’s what everyone says.

So what happens when things don’t go according to plan? My little guy was a preemie, and I’ll never forget the panic I felt when I knew he was coming six weeks early. The heartbreak I had when the nurses in the NICU told me I couldn’t hold him yet, because for him the stimulation of touch was too much. Seeing him hooked up to wires, and confined in a little tiny box, wearing an eye mask to protect him from the harsh lights. But I was so lucky, because that fear was short-lived. After ten days, we took our guy home, a whopping 4½ pounds.

That first year and a half wasn’t easy. Our guy had missed out on key development in the womb, leaving him one grumpy baby. He had no internal way to sooth himself, and so he never slept longer than 45-90 minutes at a stretch. The kid had issues; a smile or a laugh was rare, and that’s exhausting and heartbreaking for a parent. Besides healthy, we all just want our kids to be happy….

Extra Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

February 9, 2015 By Karen

When I was around 8, my brother Andrew won a bicycle from a drawing at Baskin Robbins. It wasn’t just any bike though; it was a brown, pink and white polka dot bike. Super cool for a 12 year old boy, right? Famous for their 31 flavors of ice cream, my family helped keep that place in business with our frequent trips. Mint chocolate chip ice cream cakes were birthday favorites, but I especially loved those little clown cups they had, with the scoop of ice cream decorated with that totally amazing super sugary icing topped with a cone hat. Do you remember those? Do they still make them? If they do, I have to take my kids.

Well, that bike sat in the garage for years, and sadly I have no idea whatever happened to it. (I can only imagine what it would go for on ebay these 3 plus decades later!) But I do know what’s happened to my love of ice cream: it’s grown. And there’s no chance of it disappearing the way that polka dot beauty did.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I have a thing for chocolate. If my first ever post about chocolate cake didn’t give it away, maybe the chocolate almond frosting clued you in. And if you still missed it, the chocolate milk hopefully made it pretty obvious. Then there were the brown butter chocolate chip cookies, the brown butter brownies with dark chocolate chunks, and of course the chewy sesame granola bars with dark chocolate. (Are you noticing a theme?) So it might surprise you to know that I’ve never been a huge chocolate ice cream fan. As someone who strongly believes the darker the chocolate the better, I feel like most chocolate ice creams just aren’t chocolaty enough….

Pear and Cranberry Crisp with Gingersnaps, Oats and Almonds

November 19, 2014 By Karen

Mom, will you die when I’m tall?

No sweetie, I’m not going to die until you’re very old and I’m very very old. Being tall has nothing to do with it.

But Mom, what happens when I die. What will I do then?

Well, when you die, you don’t really have a chance to do anything else.

That’s sad, Mommy. I’m going to be very sad when I die.

Oh sweetie, you don’t have to worry about that right now. It’s not going to happen for a really really long time. But you’re right, it is a super sad thing when someone dies, and crying about it is what people do. Just like I cry about Zayde sometimes.

Did Zayde know me Mom?

No. You were in my belly when he died though, and he knew you were on the way.

Four years ago, on the day after Thanksgiving, my dad finally let go after an eleven year battle with multiple types of cancer and all the complications that came along the way. Over the course of his illness he suffered much of the time, enduring a stem cell transplant, multiple rounds of chemo, radiation, and more pills and pains than anybody should have to. But here’s the amazing thing: during all that time he maintained an intense desire to keep going. To live. To be present as best he could, and to participate in and witness the big life events. He defied all the medical odds, and despite being told he may only have six months, he made it over a decade. They weren’t easy years. They were anything but easy. Yet whenever you asked if it was worth it, he always responded with, “Well it sure as hell beats the alternative.”

My dad didn’t die when I was tall (at 5’1″ I’m never going to claim that description,) and he didn’t die when I was old. By years, he wasn’t very very old either, just 66. But his health caused him to age too quickly, breaking his body down.

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving 2010, there was the same question there had always been: will this be his last? I was at my own home in New Jersey when the call came that it was time. Honestly, I can’t remember right now exactly when in the day I heard, but I was planning to have a house full of people that afternoon for dinner. I had already made the caramelized onions for the gravy, the cranberry sauce was chilling, the green beans were trimmed, and the cornbread was drying out for the stuffing. Should I leave the turkey in the oven and head to the airport immediately, or would there be enough time to wait until the morning?…

Chewy Sesame Granola Bars with Dark Chocolate Chunks

October 20, 2014 By Karen

Have you ever watched your favorite movie or television show and felt envious of the soundtrack that magically enhances the lives on the screen? From the opening credits to a certain character’s theme song, the music changes the mood of a scene and influences your reactions as you watch. Well, my house seems to have a built in soundtrack. Okay, it wasn’t actually installed in 1928 when the house was first constructed, but with the brilliance of modern technology (otherwise known as our Sonos system that Brian controls remotely,) music miraculously pours through speakers all over my house when I least expect it.

Sunday morning, butterflies flew about my stomach as I mentally prepared to run my first ever 5K. Like I mentioned before, back in July I couldn’t even run for sixty seconds without huffing and puffing and feeling like I needed to collapse. After years of avoiding it, I embarked on the Couch to 5K program, and consistently trained for the first 9 weeks, working up to running nonstop for 30 minutes, which covered two out of the three miles I needed. But summer ended, the mornings have been dark, life got in the way, and I let my new found exercise routine slide. I’d been in denial that October 19th was just around the corner, the date of our town’s annual 5K. But sure enough it had arrived.

I’d been deep in suds as I attacked the dishes, worrying that I was going to be walking more of this race than I wanted to, when the music started playing and Melissa Etheridge’s “I Run for Life” pumped into my kitchen. Luckily, I’m married to a man who has the uncanny ability to pick just the right tune for every occasion. And although I’ve loved this song for years, I never would have thought to put it on myself. (Honestly, I’m the one always listening to audiobooks, NPR, and podcasts, and sadly music often falls off my radar.) Have you heard it lately? Well, if you lived on my block you might have heard me belting it out my kitchen windows at the top of my lungs early Sunday, because it changed my whole attitude about the day. Minutes earlier I had been anxious that I was going to disappoint myself, “failing” to run this race the way I originally intended to, but then Melissa reminded me why I decided to do this in the first place….

Pumpkin Apple Noodle Kugel

October 13, 2014 By Karen

I know my last post was a bit on the heavy side, so I have decided to go easy on you today. This one is all uplifting, so sit back and relax. First of all, I have some fun news: despite (and who knows, maybe partly because of) the serious nature of what I wrote on Wednesday, people clearly are drawn to all the words in the title Brown Butter Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chunks, because they have gone wild for it on Pinterest! In just five days, almost 350 people have pinned the recipe! As someone who is just starting to learn about Pinterest, I find this kind of amazing. I don’t yet get exactly how the whole thing works, but am thrilled that people see the picture of these brownies and want to remember them. If you’re reading this now, and are one of those people, thank you! Every picture on Tasty Oasis is easily “pinnable,” so if you want to have a visual collection of recipes, pin away! It has boosted the traffic to this blog tremendously in such a short period of time, and even more people have subscribed to get emails about new posts. (Have you? It takes just a minute, and you’ll be notified every time something new comes out. You can click right here to do it now.)

A couple of weeks ago I posted a recipe for Noodle Pudding with Cinnamon and Raisins , also called kugel, which is a traditional side dish served at the Jewish holidays this time of year. Only slightly sweet, it’s a lightened version of an old family favorite, and one that I make year after year. But as luck would have it, later that same day I happened to see an article on Food52 called How to Make Kugel Without a Recipe, by Sarah Jampel. She has a great write-up about all the different ways you can take your kugel, and you should definitely check it out. But in one line she off-handedly mentioned pureed pumpkin, and all of a sudden my wheels started turning. Why had I never considered this before? It’s fall, and pumpkin recipes are everywhere! And then I thought about my other fall love: apples. So I had to rush to the store immediately for more noodles and got started on recipe testing. …

Brown Butter Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chunks

October 8, 2014 By Karen

It’s 8:27pm, and my big guy begs, “Just one more chapter??” He holds on to my arm and gets clingy, when all day long he’s been too cool to answer my questions or make eye contact. Three minutes to bedtime, and all of a sudden he wants to tell me all about his day and ask about mine, and then, out of nowhere, “Did Hitler shoot himself in the head? Why would anyone do that? I mean, for Hitler… well, I’m glad he did, but why would anyone else do that?”

He’s seven. My son is seven, and I am not ready to have this conversation. On so many levels.

A month or so ago, while reading a comic book with his dad, there was a reference to the Nazis, and Brian did his best to give a basic explanation. But last week he came home from his school library session with a book of historical fiction titled, “I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944,” by Lauren Tarshis. (Have you heard of this series? Apparently this one was just published this year, but there were eight before it, including “I Survived the Attacks of September 11th, 2001,“ and “I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011.“ You know, light reading.) Did I mention he’s seven? A seven year old who’s curious, and has a lot of questions.

…

Noodle Kugel with Cinnamon and Raisins

September 21, 2014 By Karen

As a kid, there was always good food in my house: healthy, nourishing, and comforting. But I was never aware of how it came to be. I have vivid memories of grocery shopping with my mom (two overflowing carts to feed our household of six,) but very few of her actually cooking because I didn’t participate in it. She tells me that she spent hours sitting on the kitchen floor pouring over “Gourmet” magazines, looking for recipes when my brothers and I were young, but it doesn’t even sound familiar. I know in theory that she cooked a Shabbat dinner most Friday nights until I was nine, but I can’t tell you what we had at them. For a family that wasn’t very religious, I somehow only remember the special occasion foods she made like brisket and latkes with homemade applesauce at Hanukkah, harroset (an apple, walnut and red wine mix served during the Seder) at Passover, and one of my very favorites: kugel on Rosh Hashana.

For us, kugel meant a slightly sweetened noodle casserole served as a side dish at the holidays. But as I grew older I learned that kugel means different things to different people. Both noodle “pudding” and a savory potato version (that’s basically a casserole approach to latkes, potato pancakes, hash browns, or whatever you want to call them,) come from Eastern Europe and are a traditional part of Ashkenazi Jewish cooking . There’s even a carrot kugel, which we called carrot pudding that looks nothing like pudding at all (at least not in the Bill Cosby Jell-O sort of way,) but more like a bundt cake. It’s hard to believe it’s in the same category because it doesn’t even slightly resemble the kugel I share with you today. (But stick around, because I’ve got a pretty great recipe for that carrot one and hopefully I’ll get to it soon!) If you want to know even more about kugel, there’s a detailed write up about it here.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, and part of how we celebrate is to eat foods that reflect the wish for sweet beginnings and good things to come in the year ahead. Apples dipped in honey start the night, and honey cake often ends it. But the main meal can incorporate that theme too. Which is why this slightly sweetened noodle pudding is the perfect side dish to serve at the holiday table with brisket or a roasted chicken, or even Spice-Crusted Roasted Salmon. Made with broad egg noodles, it’s a bit creamy, with the warmth of cinnamon and a juicy pop from the golden raisins sprinkled throughout. The top gets nicely browned, so not only is it delicious, it’s pretty to look at….

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

August 27, 2014 By Karen

Growing up the only chocolate chip cookie recipe I knew came on the back of a bag of Toll House morsels. And let’s be honest: that recipe stands the test of time. Simple, no fuss, and tasty. As a kid I’d hang around the kitchen while my brother would stir together a batch with a friend, anxiously waiting to lick the spoon. Back then nobody feared raw egg (even Orange Julius threw it into their smoothies at the mall to get that amazing froth), and the only possible repercussions were sticky fingers or fewer cookies in the end.

Until I hit my 20’s, I was perfectly content with getting my cookie dough fix from a refrigerated tube of Pillsbury. Even though I knew better, salmonella never deterred me (and still doesn’t.) I’m certainly glad there’s no way to go back and count how many times girlfriends and I would devour the whole thing in a night. Never baking it, we would get down to the end and squeeze what remained out of the plastic like it was the dregs of the toothpaste, but so much more delicious. Admittedly, I feel a little ill looking back on that.

Jump ahead a few years, and my baking obsession kicked into gear full swing. Pre-made dough became a thing of my past, because I learned how quickly I could throw together a batch from ingredients I typically keep at home. I tried recipes from favorite cookbooks (the one in “Best Recipes” from America’s Test Kitchen was my go-to for years,) the classic Neiman Marcus one that went viral long before social media made “like” and “share” buttons, and whatever popped out from my online searches.

But when a friend brought hot from the oven chocolate chip cookies to our book club on a cold night back in 2011, I took one bite and knew there had to be a winning recipe behind it. (Okay, so it wasn’t one bite. It was more like 47 bites because I could not stop eating them!) Deb at Smitten Kitchen had done it again. Her “Chewy Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies” found its way into my binder of “keepers,” and I haven’t looked back….