<p>The menfolk saw a professional basketball game and I went to shul to balance that out. 
We did sing Adon Olam to the tune of âRudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.â Then I met the rest of my family and we went to a Chinese restaurant world famous for itâs soup dumplings. Unbelievably good. We keep strictly kosher in home and eat almost anything out. I always get asked about this, but itâs the way I grew up, so it seemed acceptable in our Conservative household. Whatever worksâŠ</p>
<p>HmmmâŠAdon Olam & Rudolph? Iâm humming to myself trying to make that one work.</p>
<p>You can do it to Silent Night, but we refrained. (No pun intended.)</p>
<p>momof3sons, LOL about Rudolf and Adon Olam. Our shul has a small but noisy contingent of grumpy humorless types who complain when one of the rabbis tries to do Adon Olam to Christmas music. Even when itâs of the non-religious type.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove-I belong to an egalitarian Chavurah with very knowledgeable lay leadership. (One of the members recently became ordained as a Rabbi.) Some people even let a sense of humor loose occasionally. ;)</p>
<p>mommusic-it does workâŠThink AdonOlamAsherMalach into RudolphtheRedNoseReindeer
LOL</p>
<p>The Kingâs Speech was excellent!</p>
<p>Then we came home and watched all the West Wing Christmas episodes. West Wing is a favorite pastime of ours.</p>
<p>Chinese restaurant was packed. Many Christian folk. (We know â friends at huge tables with extended family.)</p>
<p>Shawbridge: Thanks for the review. I knew the movie was bad, but I didnât know how bad. Fair Game is the story of how and why the Bush administration outed Valerie Plame and the fallout from that. Interesting film but sad for me. That is some history I donât want to relieve because I worked so hard (I was part of a consortium of college profs from about eight local colleges made visits to local Congressional representatives to ask them to refrain from war in Iraq. A foolâs errand.) to keep us out of Iraq.</p>
<p>The Fighter would have worked for all (D is love in Christian Bale) but my eight-six year old mom. She also loved The Kingâs Speech. </p>
<p>Too much food! Back on diet. Come and eat leftovers! My Kenyan student brought a homemade lemon Italian Cheesecake too. </p>
<p>Thank goodness I have a 21 year old son who never gets enough food.</p>
<p>We loved The Kings Speech, too! Saw it at a restored beautiful old theater, where the organ rises to stage level (yes, an organist before the movie!). Then Chinese, where we ran into half of our synogogue. Everyone has his own style of kosher, and we eat out, but still donât mix, or eat traif. I learned a long time ago not to judge!</p>
<p>@slitheytove: the baked ziti with three cheeses (goat cheese is among my favorite thingsâŠwait, no, a good stilton with fig cakeâŠno, brie and french breadâŠjust canât choose) sounds impossibly good. Would you mind sharing the recipe?</p>
<p>We saw âThe Fockersâ and it was pretty bad, but I enjoyed it immensely regardless. Just canât get enough Ben Stiller. Had very good Chinese after. I googled âJews and Chinese foodâ and came up with some pretty interesting info. Try it.</p>
<p>I canât wait to see âThe Kingâs Speechâ and definitely want to see âFair Gameâ (long overdue for that one). I donât know if anyone here saw âCity Islandâ but itâs a great film, worth seeing when itâs out on DVD.</p>
<p>College4three, if you also adore goat cheese AND figs then you must try this also:
[Fig</a> and Walnut Tapenade with Goat Cheese Recipe at Epicurious.com](<a href=âhttp://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fig-and-Walnut-Tapenade-with-Goat-Cheese-105649]Figâ>http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fig-and-Walnut-Tapenade-with-Goat-Cheese-105649)
People either hate it or love it, and I suspect youâre going to be in the latter category.</p>
<p>Anyway, the ziti, which I especially love because you can get all the ingredients at Trader Joeâs :)</p>
<p>From âMoosewood Restaurant New Classicsâ</p>
<p>Baked Ziti With Roasted Peppers</p>
<p>Tomato Mushroom Sauce</p>
<p>2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
4 cups chopped mushrooms (left this out the other night, I forgot to put it on the shopping list)
3 cups undrained canned tomatoes, chopped (1 28 ounce can)
3 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (or 1 tbsp dried basil)</p>
<p>Warm oil in saucepan and saute onions, garlic, salt and pepper on medium heat until onions are very soft, about 10 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook until juicy, 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes, simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes. Add basil just before assembling ziti.</p>
<p>Casserole</p>
<p>2 roasted red bell peppers, cut in long strips (I use jarred, or you can roast your own)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb penne or other pasta
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 cups grated provolone cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (or a few tablespoons dried)
1 tbsp dried oregano</p>
<p>Heat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 nonreactive pan. Bring large pot of salted water to boil; cook pasta till al dente then drain. While pasta cooks, stir together the three cheeses, the garlic, basil, and oregano. Mix drained pasta into cheese mixture.</p>
<p>To assemble, spread 2 cups sauce in pan, then cheesy pasta, then strips of bell pepper, then the rest of the sauce. Bake 20-30 minutes until hot.</p>
<p>Threekids-wait! Iâm confusedâŠâwe eat out, but still donât mix, or eat traif.â Does this mean that you only eat kosher out of the house, too? Iâm always interested in how people handle this. :)</p>
<p>slitheytove- I copied that Ziti recipe and it looks like it will be a big hit with my family (we love the Moosewood recipes) but I have a few questions. If you use jarred Roasted red peppers, how many jars is equivalent to two peppers? How long does it take you to make this, start to finish? What is a non-reactive pan (one that you can yell at and it dosenât talk back?) ?</p>
<p>seiclan, one of the small (is it 8 oz? 12? 16?) jars of roasted red peppers is generally around two peppers worth, but more or less is fine. Leaving them out entirely would probably be fine, too, if you donât have them around. Making it start to finish if Iâm being efficient (put up the pot of water for the pasta at the start, preheat the convection oven, have everything ready to go by the time that the sauce finishes cooking) takes a little over an hour. A non-reactive pan is something thatâs not going to chemically react with the tomato sauce or yell at it either 
and pyrex works fine.</p>
<p>Now Iâm hungry. :)</p>
<p>What is the 3rd cheese? I only see ricotta and provolone listed. Looks like a great recipe.</p>
<p>Whoops, add 1 cup goat cheese. Argh!!! SorryâŠ</p>
<p>Adon Olam lyrics = the tofu of Jewish melodies. Adon Olam works with anything, absorbing every melody like a marinade. The âtraditionalâ one sung in a lot of American shuls is an old German beer-drinking song.</p>
<p>@slitheytove: thanks for the recipe. I canât wait to try it (at first I wondered about the goat cheese too â thanks Judy). The other recipe looks awesome but is WAY above my pay grade. I would like to learn how to be a more sophisticated cook, but really doubt my ability.</p>
<p>@momof3sons: Growing up âConservadoxâ Iâve seen all kinds of observance. My family home had a kosher kitchen, but I was not discouraged from eating out. During my teenage rebellious years, I had shellfish and put cheese on my burger (but could never wrap my head around pork).
After I had my own family I wanted to go back to having a kosher home, but DH was raised Reformed. We strike a compromise by having a kosher-style home. The meat and chicken we buy is not kosher, but we never have milk and meat or shellfish or pork. We eat out, but my kids and I hold to the same rules (DH does what he wants out in the world).</p>