Cathy Gohlke's Blog, page 5

ILYANA BUKOWSKI’S SAVORY KUGEL

ILYANA BUKOWSKI’S SAVORY KUGEL

“Ilyana. Such a pretty name, and as Sophie remembered, a delicate woman, a woman who loved beauty and flowers and soft laughter over candlelight dinners and made the most delicious brisket and savory kugel Sophie had ever eaten.” —The Medallion

Ingredients:

2 cups dry wide egg noodles (6 oz.)
• 1 small can sliced mushrooms, not drained
• 1 pound frozen chopped spinach, thawed, well-drained • 1 large Spanish onion, diced
• 3 eggs, beaten well
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 4 Tablespoons butter, melted, and divided in half
• 8 oz. whole milk sour cream
• 8 oz. whole milk cottage cheese
• 4 oz. whole milk cream cheese (melted till soft)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Chopped flat parsley (a few sprigs)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Dash of nutmeg
• 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Generously butter a 9 X 12 inch pan. (Can also be made in 2 cakes pans.)
• Cook noodles in boiling, salted water for 4 minutes. Noodles should be al dente.
• Drain and rinse noodles in cold water; drain again and pat noodles dry.
• Salt spinach with 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and cook or microwave three minutes. Pat dry.
• Cook onions in 2 Tablespoons butter over medium-high heat until caramelized.
• Add mushrooms with liquid and simmer.
• In separate bowl beat eggs, half the melted butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, cream

cheese, salt and pepper, lemon zest, nutmeg and chopped flat parsley.
• Add spinach, caramelized onion and mushrooms to egg and cheese mixture. Mix thoroughly.
• Gently fold in al dente pasta.
• Pour mixture into prepared baking dish.
• Smooth top of kugel.
• Drizzle the other half of melted butter over kugel and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. • Bake, uncovered, for 40-50 minutes or until top is golden brown and a toothpick

inserted comes out nearly dry.
• Kugel may be made a day ahead and reheated, covered, in 350 degree oven. Do not microwave or it will become soggy.
• This can be served as a side dish or as the main event. Delicious with fish and a salad. Makes a great breakfast or brunch entrée.

The Medallion is available online or wherever books are sold.

Cathy

Until next time, God’s abundant blessings for you, and happy reading!

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The Courage of Surrender

Parents targeted by Nazis during WWII were forced to make heart-wrenching decisions in order to protect their children.  Should I keep my child with me?  Should I send them to someone else—someone I know, or more frightening still, someone I don’t know in the hope that they will be saved?  So often I’ve asked, what would I do?  How will I know what is best, what is safest for my child?  Courage comes in many forms but making a choice like that takes more courage than I can imagine.

 

The Medallion

An illuminating tale of courage, sacrifice, and survival.

Two couples’ lives are ravaged by Hitler’s mad war but forever linked through the fate of one little girl.

Warsaw, 1939. The German blitzkrieg has shattered the city. As Sophie Kumiega awaits news of her husband, deployed with the Polish Air Force, she is determined to keep her unborn baby safe. She didn’t count on being drawn into the dangerous and all-consuming plight of her neighbors.

Rosa and Itzhak Dunovich never imagined welcoming their longed-for first child in the Jewish ghetto, or letting anything tear their family apart. But Rosa soon faces a terrifying reality: to save their daughter’s life, she must send her into hiding. Her only hope of finding her after the war—if any of them survive—is the half medallion she places around her daughter’s neck.

Inspired by true events of Poland’s darkest days and brightest heroes, The Medallion paints a stunning portrait of war and its aftermath, daring us to believe that when all seems lost, God can make a way forward.

 

The Medallion is available online or wherever books are sold.

Cathy

Until next time, God’s abundant blessings for you, and happy reading!

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New Book Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

Be among the first to see the cover for my new novel, A Hundred Crickets Singing, ready to release in April 2022.  Sign up now for my  newsletter  where September readers will catch the cover’s first glimpse!Sign up here: http://authorcathygohlke.com/Secrets She Kept book quote:

“My favorite customer was old Frau Bernstein, very much alone since her husband died the year before. Each time I brought her a thermos of Frau Kirchmann’s soup you’d have thought I’d stolen all the crown jewels of Europe and laid them on her doorstep. Long white hair braided into a high bun and smile wrinkles wreathing her cheeks, Frau Bernstein greeted me warmly. Effervescent despite her poverty, she was everything I imagined a Grossmutter to be.”—Cathy Gohlke, from Secrets She Kept

Until next time, take care, enjoy these glorious days of summer, and may God bless you,

Cathy

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Grilled Peaches

Summer is the perfect time for this easy and luscious fruit.  Served as a side dish or dessert, peaches make the perfect light and sweet accompaniment to any meal.  A wide variety of other fruits—plums, apricots, nectarines—can be grilled in this way outside or indoors on a grill pan, or roasted in the oven.

Grilled Peaches

Ingredients:

4 or more firm peaches or other fruit, cut in half and stoned or pitted.

Olive oil for brushing the grill or grill pan.

½ teaspoon Cinnamon or ¼ teaspoon cardamom

2 Tablespoons butter

¼ cup Honey

Whipped cream (optional)

Directions:

Combine honey, butter, and either cinnamon or cardamom in microwavable measuring cup. Heat honey mixture in microwave or on top of stove—enough to make the butter melt.

Prepare outdoor grill for hot fire, or heat a grill pan on top of the stove, or set the oven at 400 degrees.  If using the outdoor grill or indoor grill pan, brush the rack with olive oil.  If using the oven, spray the baking dish with cooking spray.

Brush honey mixture over fruit and grill, cut side down on grill rack or pan for 3-4 minutes, until nicely grill marked—OR if roasting in oven, prepare fruit the same way and set in baking dish cut side down, roasting for 10-20 minutes, until lightly browned and beginning to caramelize.

Lift off grill or grill pan or baking dish with tongs and arrange on a serving plate.

If using whipped cream, allow guests to spoon their own or spoon a couple of Tablespoons into center of each peach.  Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.

Photo Credit: Tessa Rampersad, Unsplash.com

Until next time, take care, enjoy these glorious days of summer, and may God bless you,

Cathy

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Forgiveness

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”—Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch watchmaker, along with other members of her family, saved many Jewish people from the Nazis by hiding them in their home.  Corrie told her story, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, in The Hiding Place. Corrie’s life, so generously and courageously lived, her book, and her messages on forgiveness helped inspire Secrets She Kept.

Secrets She Kept is available online or can be ordered wherever books are sold.

Until next time, God’s blessings for you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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LIESELOTTE’S APPLE NUT CAKE

LIESELOTTE’S APPLE NUT CAKE

“I assembled a tray with a steaming pot of coffee and thick, fragrant slices of an apple nut cake, warm from the oven, that Mama had taught me to make—some combination of a cake she’d grown up with and one she’d Americanized.”  — Cathy Gohlke, Secrets She Kept

 

Cake Ingredients

3 cups unbleached flour1 teaspoon soda (make sure soda is fresh)1 teaspoon cinnamon2 cups sugar1 and ½ cups Wesson oil3 eggs3 cups well-diced apples2 teaspoons vanilla1 cup chopped pecans1 cup coconut (optional)

 

Brown Sugar Butter Glaze Ingredients

1 stick butter1 cup dark brown sugar¼ cup milk

 

Directions for Cake

Sift together flour, soda and cinnamon.Mix sugar, oil, eggs (one at a time) and vanilla in a separate bowl.Fold in the other ingredients.Pour into a greased and floured tube pan.Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.Allow to cool on cake rack for 20 minutes.Remove from pan and cool completely.

 

Directions for Brown Sugar Butter Glaze

Mix all ingredients and boil slowly for 2 and ½ minutes, stirring constantly.Pour over cake and allow to set.This cake stores well at room temperature or in refrigerator and grows more moist each day, so it’s nice to make a day or two ahead.

~This is a delicious cake my mother baked every Christmas—a very fond memory for me.~

Secrets She Kept is available online or can be ordered wherever books are sold.

Until next time, God’s blessings for you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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Corrie ten Boom—Woman of God

Corrie ten Boom’s writings have impacted my life since I first read The Hiding Place, her book with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, and first saw the movie adaptation in the 1970s.  I still remember the thrill of those scenes and the tears I shed through both book and film.  The secret she learned about forgiveness changed my life and that of millions of others.

 

 

Secrets She Kept

The secret a mother was forbidden to share . . . the consequences a daughter could not redeem—but will risk everything in her attempt.

All her life, Hannah Sterling longed for a close relationship with her estranged mother. Following Lieselotte’s death, Hannah unlocks secrets of her mother’s mysterious past, including the discovery of a grandfather living in Germany.

Thirty years earlier, Lieselotte’s father, ascending the ranks of the Nazi party, demands a marriage for his daughter to help advance his career.  But Lieselotte is in love—and her beloved Lukas secretly works against the Reich. How far will her father go to achieve his goal?

Both Hannah’s and Lieselotte’s stories unfold as Hannah travels to Germany to meet her grandfather, who hides wartime secrets of his own. Longing for connection, yet shaken by all she uncovers, Hannah must decide if she can atone for her family’s tragic past, and how their legacy will shape her future.

Secrets She Kept is available online or can be ordered wherever books are sold.

Until next time, God’s blessings for you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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Cherry Almond Scones

Cherry Almond Scones

(This recipe is one I adapted from a cookbook to my own tastes and ingredients I had on hand.  I’m sorry to say I don’t own or remember the cookbook, but these are delicious made with fresh cherries!)

Ingredients:

1 egg, at room temperature

½ to ¾ cup milk

1 teaspoon pure almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup cold butter

1 cup fresh cherries, pitted and cut into quarters, or substitute frozen cherries cut in quarters while frozen—do not thaw before mixing them in.

2 Tablespoons buttermilk (optional)

2 Tablespoons coarse sugar (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk egg in a small measuring cup. Add milk to make ¾ cup liquid.  Whisk in the almond extract.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; whisk to combine.  Add the butter and, using your fingers or a pastry blender, break up the butter until the pieces are the size of peas.

Add the milk mixture and the cherries to the flour mixture and gently mix together with a rubber spatula in a turning motion until just combined (DO NOT OVERMIX).  The dough will look rough and uneven.  Empty the dough onto a lightly floured work surface.  Pat and gently shape the dough until it sticks together in a disc about 1 and ½ inches thick.  Transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

Using a sharp knife, cut the disc into 8 pie-shaped pieces and separate the scones slightly.  If desired, using a pastry brush, brush each scone with buttermilk and sprinkle lightly with coarse sugar.  Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve warm.

Makes 8 yummy scones.

Until next time, take care, enjoy these glorious days of summer, and may God bless you,

 

Cathy

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A quote from Night Bird Calling by Cathy Gohlke

“It’s not that much different today, is it?  People want what they want and they find a way to make their sin palatable to society—or legal.”—Cathy Gohlke, from Night Bird Calling

Until next time, take care, enjoy these glorious days of summer, and may God bless you,

 

Cathy

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Gladys’s Pecan Cookies from Night Bird Calling

Gladys’s Pecan Cookies

“It was Wednesday, time for Jesse’s next visit with Miz Hyacinth.  There was no new letter from across the pond, but they could have tea and maybe some of Gladys’s pecan cookies and play Miz Hyacinth’s Victrola—maybe some Caruso records she was partial to.” — Cathy Gohlke from Night Bird Calling

Ingredients

1-3/4 cups chopped pecans1 tablespoon plus 1 cup butter, softened, divided1 cup packed brown sugar1 large egg, room temperature, separated1 teaspoon vanilla extract2 cups self-rising flour1 cup pecan halves

Directions

1. Place chopped pecans and 1 tablespoon butter in a baking pan. Bake at 325° for 5-7 minutes or until toasted and browned, stirring frequently. Set aside to cool.2. In a large bowl, cream brown sugar and remaining butter until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Gradually add flour and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or until easy to handle.3. Roll into 1-in. balls, then roll in toasted pecans, pressing nuts into dough. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Beat egg white until foamy. Dip pecan halves in egg white, then gently press one into each ball.4. Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks.

This recipe came from Taste of Home, where it was attributed to Martha Thefield, of Cedartown, Georgia

Until next time, take care, enjoy these glorious days of summer, and may God bless you,

 

Cathy

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