Roasted Brussels Sprouts

by Alan Jacobs | Dec 4, 2025 | Food, Jacobs Family Recipes, Recipe

Recipe first posted Saturday, December 18, 2010

Clean sprouts, cut in half

Toss with Olive Oil and course salt

Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes

I roast mine on parchment paper to ease cleanup.

Jane’s variation is to add hazelnuts.

Sasha’s Cinnamon Sugar Pinwheels/ Pie Crust

by Alan Jacobs | Dec 3, 2025 | Food, Jacobs Family Recipes, Recipe

First posted on Thursday, November 28, 2013

First you start out by making the crust! This is also the crust that I use for making pies!

List of ingredients:

• 1 & 2/3 cup of flour 
• 1 egg yolk 3 tbsp water (I usually add about 5 to 6; the more moist the dough, the better) 
• 2 sticks of salted butter (one for the dough, and one for the snickerdoodle cinnamon and sugar mixture) 
• Raw sugar 
• Regular white sugar
• Cinnamon 
• Parchment paper 
• Cookie Sheet 

Snickerdoodles

Place the flour into a bowl. Make a well in the flour and place the egg yolk in the center of the well. (DO NOT USE THE EGG WHITE!) Next add one stick of butter; you want it to be at room temperature, so place it out ahead of time. Using your hands, mix both the egg yolk and butter together with the flour. Mix this very well!

Next, get yourself a bowl of water and ice. Using this bowl, add 4 tablespoons of water to the mixture. Add a couple more if the dough feels dry. (If the dough is too dry, it is very hard to roll out.) Form the mixed ingredients into a ball. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap (e.g. Saran wrap). Make sure that it is air tight. Put the dough ball in the fridge for about half an hour, then it remove from the fridge and let sit at room temp so that it becomes easier to manipulate. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle a liberal amount of flour on the rolling surface so that the dough does not stick. Roll out the dough into a circle as best as you can. 

Next, melt the remaining stick of butter. Brush the butter onto the dough. (More butter is better!) Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on it to your liking. Roll the dough into a cylinder shape (like a rolling pin) and cut into about 1 inch circles. Place the circles/pinwheels onto the parchment paper on the cookie sheet. (This makes clean-up easier!) Place the pinwheels into the oven and cook for about 20 minutes. Then serve and enjoy the yummy deliciousness that fills your mouth!
Pie Crust

If you are making just the pie crust, follow the dough instructions in the first two paragraphs above, but preheat the oven to 425 degrees instead of 375. To prevent the dough from rising, use a fork to poke holes in the bottom of the dough. Cover the crust with tin foil and place pie weights in it (or some other heavy object(s) that can withstand the temperature) so the dough doesn’t rise. Bake the dough for 15 minutes. Remove the tin foil and pie weights and lower the temperature to 375 degrees. Cook for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool. Place whatever pie filling into the dough and cook for however long it takes, then enjoy!

With love, Sasha Rosemarie Lopez-Jacobs, Snickerdoodler Extraordinaire

Spring Tonic!

by Alan Jacobs | Dec 2, 2025 | Food, Jacobs Family Recipes, Recipe

First posted Tuesday, April 15, 2014

By Don Jacobs 

“As far back as I can remember, when April arrived we brought in dandelion leaves for our annual Spring Tonic, which was dandelion leaves, bacon, eggs on mashed potatoes. Can still taste it. All those memories came back this noon as Anna Ruth prepared the exact same “tonic.” Talk about soul food! As I recall you have to have this four or five times before it does much good. While doubting its efficacy, I enjoyed the comfort!”

Jordan’s Roasted Chicken

by Alan Jacobs | Dec 1, 2025 | Food, Jacobs Family Recipes, Recipe

First published Saturday, December 27, 2014

By Jordan Levine

This is a chicken my mom regularly cooked while I was growing up and and continues to do so. As Von always likes to quote an episode of ‘Will and Grace’, my family’s relationship with chicken – “it’s real and it’s deep”. This was NOT the recipe my grandmother used – her’s was simpler – but it’s been our best shot at replicating what we imagine to be old-country magic.

Ingredients:

Roaster (5-6 lbs)

Garlic Powder

Hungarian Paprika (not the spicy variety)

Kosher Salt

White Wine (Sauvignon Blanc seems to work well)

Pre-heat your oven to 425F. After cleaning the chicken, place it in a roasting pan. Pour wine over the bird so that it forms approximately 1 cm of wine at the base of the pan. Then apply a coating of garlic powder and paprika to the chicken. Pour more wine over the chicken so that some of the spices make their way into the sauce at the bottom of the pan. Apply another coating of garlic powder and paprika so that the chicken is well covered. Lightly sprinkle the chicken with the kosher salt. (My mom and grandma usually used Kosher chickens so this step was not necessarily needed as the chickens would be previously salted.)

Place the chicken in the oven for approximately 1.5 hours. (if you cut between a leg and thigh, the juices should run clear with no blood/pink remaining).

Take the chicken out and allow it to rest for 15-20 minutes to lock in the juices before serving.