Eastover/Passter, but let's be clear: neither Easter nor Passover

Some fairly religiously underaffiliated friends suggested having a "Passeaster" celebration this weekend, complete with all of the great food things one comes to expect from Passover and Easter with none of that complicated religious stuff to get in the way.  Obviously, I was in.  Our hosts sent out a lovely list of food items that might be included in the feast and altruistically volunteered to handle all the really difficult-to-make spectacular-to-behold showpiece food items. In order to not show up empty handed and lame before eating more than one's fair share of brisket, this left "potato side," "Easter candy?," and kugel as remaining options available to make .  I have unreasonable difficulties making potatoes not crunchy (which is only a desirable state when making potato chips and that is only sometimes what I am making) and I already ate an adorable dozen mini Cadbury eggs (they came in the cutest miniature egg carton!) this week so can clearly not be trusted around holiday candy of any kind. Kugel it was. So now's as good a time as any to admit, I actually do know that kugel is not "kosher for Passover". I knew it even before I had to hear it from my boss when she agreed to give me her family kugel recipe and then again through osmosis when she called her mother (in Florida) for the recipe and her mother clearly judged my boss for hiring an idiot who didn't know that kugel wasn't a traditional Passover food. I KNOW. HOWEVER. We're not having Passover. It's Passter... or Eastover... or whatever. But not Passover. (Sidenote to say these hybrid holidays like Chrismukkah and Eastover are unique to our generation and while I recognize that for devoutly religious folks among us, these mashups are literally sacrilegious, I actually feel like they represent a really neat worldview of young-ish people of this time. Second sidenote to say, since my last post, I've turned 30, so maybe you quibble with me including myself in "young-ish". Point taken.) Right, so kugel. Despite being non-affiliated with the kugel culture firsthand, I've had my share of delightful kugels. I like from the outset that it seems like my very favorite type of food, which is something that there are a million variations of that you can add whatever the eff you want to without totally wrecking its pretty basic awesomeness. In fact, I almost made a caramel apple kugel that seemed like it would be pretty spectacular, but I let reason prevail. The other important thing to know going into making kugel is, this recipe will make you pretty certain a heart attack is in your imminent future. There is zero nutritional value from what I can tell, and it features immoderate amounts of pretty much every ingredient you're supposed to have in moderation except for maybe steak. Also, everything is white, which is like Nutrition 101 for "not great for you, actually pretty bad for you". Whatever! It's a holiday!  (Sort of?) First, I had to go to the store to assemble these ingredients, which was embarrassing, because they were the only thing in my cart and it made it look like I don't know I'm supposed to eat vegetables. This is the ingredient list I got from my boss's mom, after she stopped judging: 12 ounces egg noodles (I got "extra wide" - you do you) 3/4 cup sour cream 3 ounces cream cheese 1 1/2 sticks (that's 3/4 cup, mathies) of butter 3-4 large eggs DID YOU HAVE A HEART ATTACK YET? You will. Salt to taste 3 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup milk 16 ounces cottage cheese White raisins (optional) (but WHY would you leave these out when they are pretty much the only fruit-and-vegetable-adjacent thing listed?!?) Topping 1/2 cup corn flakes, crumbed up 1 tablespoon melted butter 1 tablespoon brown sugar Dash of cinnamon (I committed to a full teaspoon, because I live on the edge) Ingredient family portrait: One of these things is not like the other (Hint: it's the one that's a fruit)

First, you need to prepare your egg noodles according to package instructions, which means 10 minutes after the salted water boils. I'd encourage you to start with a big enough pot to fit all the water and noodles first, so that you don't have a dangerous hot water/noodle situation on your hands when your noodles outgrow the too-small pot you started with. That happened to a friend of mine once...

While your noodles are draining, melt that ration of butter.

Once the noodles have been drained, you can return them to one of the two hot pans you've now made dirty messing up your pot size and add in your melted butter and mix it up. Do you dig the color it is? You're going to be soooo into the rest of this recipe.

Now add in the cream cheese, "chunked up". This is the first time you will physically feel as disgusting as this recipe seems like it is making your body. If it looks like this, you've done chunked it up real good.

Get used to this color

Now you're going to mix up the milk and sour cream. Here's where I started to take my first liberties, because you obviously knew those were coming. I don't drink milk-milk and soy milk felt like a weird substitution this time. I am loathe to buy milk-milk for recipes because no matter how small a size I get, a lot goes to waste and maybe I'm just spoiled from soy milk (soy-led? Wait, no.), but milk-milk goes bad super fast. Anyway, I opted no. Also, I already had to suck it up and buy buttermilk for my new donut-making habit this weekend, so I just figured, it's half a cup, who cares. More sour things seemed like par for the course with this recipe.

This is mostly to show how tan my forearm is. Thanks, Mexico.

I also made a bold move on the sour cream, opting for this "Greek-style" sour cream, because it claims half the fat and honestly, this recipe is making me feel really guilty and my mom hasn't even read it yet.

Just like, small allowances for "health"

So stir those two rebels together and then pour them on top of your super multi-cultural noodle mix.

Shades of meh.

Add in your sugar and a dash or two (or more if you used unsalted butter and have already recklessly disregarded living into your 80's,which I did and I have) of salt (potentially the only kosher part of my recipe but I seriously have no idea).

I am fascinated by the various food suppliers of different regions and one of the most adorable I have seen is Daisy dairy products here in Chicago. Just real cute.

Everything is more charming in the Midwest

You've got the hang of stirring things in, so why don't you go ahead and dump that whole tub of cottage cheese into the mix and see how vibrant it makes your kugel-in-progress.

So, um, still that color, huh?

At this point, I had to add something to mix it up a little, so while the recipe called for optional raisins and specified they be white, I just couldn't.

Let there be craisins!

For all I know, the craisins may be the most blasphemous part of this whole operation, but I stand by my choice.

Speaking of danger, I don't like corn flakes (does anyone?) and wasn't going to buy them for this recipe and knew I already had the dregs of a box of Wheaties (which I actually do super love, so color me unpredictable!) at home, so I just used those for the topping. I would support you using pretty much any cereal here short of like, Fruity Pebbles (though lord knows, we could use some color), so I'd say, whatever's around, but if you're a rule follower, it should be corn flakes. Probably name brand, honestly.

Crush those into smithereens and add in one or two tablespoons of butter and a little bit of brown sugar and cinnamon and mash that all together.

When brown feels like it is dramatically diversifying your color palette.

My recipe-giver specified that adding in the eggs should be the very last thing and while I take liberties with many things in the kitchen, messing up the timing of eggs in recipes is something I never fool around with. The recipe calls for 3-4 large eggs, so I used 4, but only the yolks of 3 because, health.

Beat those eggs up and then toss them into the pot.

Poor, sad, craisins, so outnumbered by things that are beige.

Your kugs is totally ready to be baked now. Butter or spray up a baking dish (8x12", 9x7", honestly, I do not think it matters. I have a 9x7" and then I also have a little mini baking dish that I used because after allotting my month's ration of dairy to this recipe, I wasn't going to give all the goodness away. Jesus probably would've.)

Sharing is caring, but pre-planned leftovers is just good sense.

Pour your kugel into the dishes and then top with your topping, that's why it's called topping. I didn't have enough for Mini Me, so I guess maybe I AM capable of making sacrifices. Pop it into your - OH NO, I FORGOT TO TELL YOU TO PREHEAT THE OVEN - preheated 350 degree oven and let it cook for about an hour. When you're done, it's going to look like this.

And taste like beige.
Just kidding. It's going to taste amazing.
Because that's what butter and dairy and eggs do to a recipe.
(And um, also, craisins.)

HAPPY EASTOVER!