Saturday, April 11, 2009

It's Passover, so you know what that means....

Actually, it means some pretty darn good food! I often hear about bland, boring food for Passover. (If you're unfamiliar, here's a decent link that will give you some of the rules for eating during Passover.) In a nutshell, we can't eat any food that is leavened. No bread. No pasta. No crackers. Mostly, we eat matzo.
This year I've found some wonderful recipes. They are mostly kosher for Passover. I use butter instead of margarine, I don't use K for P (shorthand!) vanilla, and I am not strict about only using ingredients (spices, milk products etc) that are K for P.
Having said that, these recipes meet my standards. I was very lax about photos, but the lovely people whose recipes I've used have photos for me.
David Lebovitz makes the most incredible matzo toffee. I could eat it by the panful. And I would if the other people in my house didn't demand their share.
I made my cinnamon/sugar nuts from some of the leftover egg whites. Again, I could eat the whole thing. (It's in the same post as the butterscotch pudding. Scroll down for the recipe.)
I made a great matzo farfel kugel. Farfel is broken pieces of matzo. A kugel is a pudding. This is the recipe I used. I did change it up a bit and added a 10 oz. package of frozen spinach and some diced roasted red pepper for color. It was very tasty.
I made vanilla bean meringue cookies with the rest of the egg whites. These were the "meh" food this time around. I didn't cook them long enough, so they are a slightly weird texture. User error this time around. I've made them before and they were very good.
Passover would not be complete without a meal of matzo brie. It's a Passover version of French Toast. You soak broken pieces of matzo in an egg mixture and then fry it. I make mine savory, however. I don't really use a recipe. Here's how I do it: Dice some onion, saute in oil until softened. Add some diced salami. Cook until the salami starts to brown. In the meantime, break up some matzo, put it in a bowl, pour water over it, and let it sit until slightly softened. Drain the water. I beat one egg per piece of matzo. Mix the egg into the matzo. Add this to the frying pan. Cook. Salt and pepper at the table. I'm making it tonight, so perhaps I'll add some photos later.
This coming TWD recipe can be made K for P! Very excited. I'll have that in a few days.

1 comment:

Lainie said...

YUM. It all sounds good! I will definitely have to try that toffee matzo recipe.

I'll also have to tell you about the recipe my mother recommended. Not sure it would be a winner ;)