Fun Playing With Passover Food With Family

And so we come to the reason for the trip east in the first place - preparing Seder delectibles to share with my family! My nephew came home from school and the game was on.

First order of business for Saturday: a 20 quart pot of chicken soup. 

While the soup bubbled, and before starting on the Gefilte Fish, we paused for an amazing lunch treat. My parents have new neighbors in the house behind theirs. The neighbors have chickens, which are allowed to free range all over their properties. This morning, the doorbell rang and we were presented with a half-dozen just-collected eggs by the two adorable children of the neighbors, with a delightful hand drawn card that made Mom's day. Those eggs did not last long:

Soft Boiled Fresh Egg

On Sunday, we turned our attention to the brisket, matzoh balls, and hard boiled eggs. Cleveland's own Mister Brisket provided the beef:

Here, the meat has cooked a bit over half way, and we sliced it then chilled it, to finish cooking before the first Seder. This is the first cut or flat. I also brought some of the deckle, or point, just to be sure we'd have enough (we had plenty, so I brought that back home with me).

Here's a look at the finished matzoh ball in soup; I took this after I got back to Cleveland:

And finally, the eggs. Yoda, um, Mom took charge of those; even she marveled at how hard it is to peel farm fresh eggs even if you cook them perfectly (Mom's Passover claim to fame was hard cooking and peeling over 500 eggs at a time for the Hebrew School Model Seders when I was kid):

And so, it was time for the first Seder in my parents' house in . . . I don't know how many years.

Mom, Justin, Andrea, Jeff, Stan, Daniel, Bob

The only family member missing is my sister Chaya. She couldn't make it up from Florida. But it was great to see my two nephews!

Seder Plate

Charosis

Dad made the salad

Baked Cauliflower with Scape Pesto (no cheese)

Unfortunately, here is where I got too busy serving to take pictures.

Potato Kugel

This leftovers photo came after I got home; I never did take a picture of the Farfel Pudding, which is one of my Passover staples. Because I couldn't get apricots at the two stores I looked in (who knew apricots in natural juice were so rare?) I used a can of mango instead - and liked it a lot better; mango and coconut oil (in place of margarine) will now be de rigueur in my Farfel Pudding.

We enjoyed two holiday breakfasts with my parents before we left. First, Dad made Matzoh Brei; note the coconut oil taking the place of the traditional onion Nyafat that is no longer made.

Perhaps Bain Capital, who's Sankaty Advisors Unit just bought Manischewitz (which had bought up Rokeach, maker of Nyafat, several years ago), will bring Nyafat back. Who needs Nyafat? I sweated some onions in the coconut oil to simulate the Nyafat, and it wasn't a bad knock off.

At Dad's request, I scooped the onion pieces before out of the pan before he put the raw food into the fat, and then served them on the side. Delicious!

For our last meal Wednesday morning, Dad asked me to make Matzoh Pancakes. We served these with berry jam and strawberries, neither of which wound up in the photos.

Matzoh Meal Pancakes

And then we left.

Fun Playing With Food and Family - I could not ask for anything more. Wishing you the best of this spring and holiday season!

It was fun playing with Seder food, but all good things. . .

Wow - seven blog posts showing our Seder preps. Hard to believe it is all over, but this is the last one. It has been a labor of love to prepare and serve all of this food to some of our family and friends, while my own family is so far away in Massachusetts, and Long Island and Binghamton NY. And I didn't even include everything - I was not happy with the brisket pictures, so those will await another occasion (although, be assured, Mister Brisket's meat cooked up magnificently, as it always does).

The last prep I photographed was the Charosis or Charoset. This mixture of nuts, apples, wine and sweetener is another of those holiday delicacies that can be prepared in innumerable variations. Every year, I think of adding exotic Sephardic spices like coriander and tumeric - but in the end, I make this once a year, and I can't bear to mess with perfection.

Charosis is one of the six items placed on the Seder Plate, together with a roasted egg (Beitza, the festival offering), onion and horseradish (bitter herbs, or Maror), roasted lamb shank bone (to commemorate the Paschal offering at the Temple in Jerusalem), and Parsley (Karpas, which is intended to stimulate the curiosity of the children). Charosis symbolizes the morter used by the slaves to make bricks for the Egyptians.



Mom made her charosis in one of those 1970s nut choppers like this one:



This resulted in a very coarse product. Yes, it kinda looked like mortar, but it fell apart when put into Hillel's Sandwich. And it was a bear to process all the apples and nuts needed for a big Seder in that little thing. I prefer to process the mixture a bit more than mom did, using the food processor.



Mom always used sugar to sweeten this dish, but I've become passionate about Ohio Honey, and so that is what I use. Walnuts, Heather's awesome Vietnamese cinnamon, Organic Apples (no waxes or pesticides, please) and KP Blackberry wine complete my ingredient list. Interesting note about the wine - Manischewitz Blackberry has no artificial ingredients, unlike the more traditional Concord Grape. And, it actually tastes good, in a sweet kind of way. So, this is my "go to" Kosher wine.

I start by giving the nuts a light buzz in the food processor, then peel and chop the apples. I then buzz them up together, finally adding the remaining ingredients as it goes.



It does eventually look like mortar - but it tastes so good!



Finally, here is a photo of our Seder table. May all of you enjoy your Spring holiday, whatever it may be, and have a wonderful season of green, growth, good health and of course, playing with your food!