Rice Kugel

Kugel. Hmm, interesting. Actually, Kugel really is. According to Wikipedia, Kugel "is a baked Jewish pudding or casserole most commonly made from egg noodles (lochshen kugels) or potatoes, served as a side dish." By scanning the wikipedia article and the wide variety of other recipes that come up on a google search, I learned kugel can be sweet or savory, a dessert or a side dish, based on bread, potatoes, noodles, and yes, even rice. I thought this onion one looked good.

I'm adapting my kugel from the noodle kugel recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook. That's a little tribute to Rod Dreher (the guy who irritates me every time I read something he wrote or hear him interviewed, but that's another post) and his idea of the Crunchy Con.

Getting back to Kugel, I replaced the noodles with cooked rice; the vanilla with almond extract, since I'm out of vanilla; and the bread crumbs in the topping with almond meal. Oh, and I doubled it, of course. We are using ours for breakfast this morning.

Here's what I did.

Rice Kugel
6 eggs, beat together with a wisk
3 c cottage cheese
1 1/2 c plain yogurt
2 8oz packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 c honey
1 tbs honey
1 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp salt
Mix these together well.

4 cooking apples, diced
8 c cooked rice
Add to the cheese and egg mix.

Pour into 2 greased 9x13 cake pans.
Topping: 1 c almond meal, 1/3 c brown sugar, mixed together. Sprinkle over the cake pans.

Dot each pan with 1/2 cube of butter

Bake uncovered 35 minutes at 375 F.

It's in the oven now. I'll let you know how we like it.

Oh, and if you use all organic and butter from grass fed cows and evaporated cane juice instead of the brown sugar, you can even call it an NT recipe. You could even use your own cream cheese from making whey. Or use whole grain rice and soak it over night...

But I didn't.