The prevailing wisdom among almost all the strictly observant Jews I know is that you’re not supposed to like the food during Pesach. You’re supposed to complain about it vocally and constantly, wishing that you could have a decent diet for this week. (The especially devout can be identified by their willingness to discuss, under any social conditions, the effects of large quantities of matzah on their digestive and eliminative processes.) The thing that never quite makes sense to me is how many people seem to go out of their ways to find, purchase and eat foods that they dislike.
We’ll be hosting dinner for about ten people this coming Sunday night, and I went grocery shopping yesterday after we figured out the menu. My bag contained five pounds of carrots, three leeks, three bell peppers, two dozen eggs, fresh thyme, fresh bay leaves, a hunk of ginger and two cans of macaroons. (What? I like macaroons. Deal with it.) Scratch the last item and it wouldn’t look much like a Passover shopping run at all, which was sort of the point: the best way to be happy with your meals during this holiday is to eat things that are worth eating all year round.
Next year, right after Purim, I plan to post the Kemach Torah 2012 Pesach Guide. Normally a “Pesach/Passover Guide” is a set of instructions concerning which products are available for use during the holiday, which ones can’t be used, and which ones don’t need special Pesach supervision. This one will be different. It won’t be a guide to observing the holiday, for which there are many sources better than my own limited erudition, but to enjoying it. The suggestion box is open now (hint: it’s the comments section of this post), and the best ideas will be incorporated into the post in one year’s time.
Ready. Set. Zissen Peysakh!*
* Yiddish, “sweet Passover.” Compare with the often-used Hebrew expression chag kasher vesameach (“kosher and happy holiday”).
Love it and absolutely agree, though that hasn’t stopped me from eating my body weight in cream cheese and matzah in the first 3 days. This inspires me to buy some actual… whatdoyoucallthem… vegetables!
A zissen Pesach to you too.
Since you’re asking, I’m a huge fan of my mom’s shnitzel recipe, which is good enough that it’s how I make shnitzel year round. I beat/scramble/attack-with-a-fork some eggs with some garlic powder (okay, lots of garlic powder) and a bit of black pepper, then dip the raw cutlets into it, followed by a dip in a plateful of matzoh meal to coat both sides. Then, into the pan to fry. I use olive oil because I bought it last Pesach when I needed “cheap” Pesach oil that I wouldn’t want to throw away at the end of the week, but my mom uses Canola oil during the year and Safflower oil on Pesach.
It’s always fun to eat shnitzel on Pesach because it makes me feel like I’m eating chametz, since I associate the recipe with the rest of the year.
The same recipe can also be used, by the way, for fried fish, and, of course, other spices can be added to the egg mixture according to your taste.
I should clarify, It’s how my mom makes shnitzel year-round too, not just me. :)
Bake with recipes that didn’t really need flour to begin with, although I have found that a ratio of cake meal to potato starch is usually nearly as good.
Flourless chocolate cake. French Chocolate Loaf cake. Fresh fruits and whipped cream.
Last year we started making our own Pesach ice cream. Milk, eggs, cream, sugar and vanilla plus whatever else you want. It’s really yummy.
You probably have this one already, but:
Go to the good produce store, the one with the locally grown organic chioggia beets and green garlic shoots and four kinds of eggplants and ten kinds of mushrooms. Take half the money you were intending to spend on prepackaged “cake” mixes and spend it there. This is the time to buy the fancy mushrooms and the fruit you’ve never seen before and the fresh herbs that have an unpronounceable name but smell amazing. It’s time to play with vegetables!
Also, candied pecans are easy to make, delicious and neatly fill in the “snack” portion of the culinary ecosystem, especially when eaten alongside good dried fruit. By good dried fruit, I mean, skip the prunes, eat the apricots sparingly, and buy dried berries from Trader Joe’s (presuming your kashrut practice permits). This year I’m loving TJ’s dried Bing cherries.
The only special Pesachdik food we bought this year is matzah, because Lordy jeez, the prices for that were high enough; but I approve of this project wholeheartedly.
Our discovery last night was that ratatouille makes a remarkably nice meal, especially with cheese grated on top (and even more so if your practice allows you to eat Quinoa during Pesakh). My impression is that while my future in-laws use it as a Pesakh meal, they’ve decided to make it during the year as well now.
I’ve eaten the quality seder leftovers and bought the good vegetables and experimented with quinoa and beet greens and varieties of dried fruit. I fried eggs and served them with sweet potatoes. By coincidence, like debka-notion, I made ratatouille last night and called it good. But I find myself losing patience now. How do you all recommend getting through the last three days, when you’ve eaten all the tastiest Pesach foods and all you can think about is chametz?
Well, we’re doing various quiches and a tortilla de patatas for dinner, along with an almond flour cake and a ganache-style cake for dessert. Not sure what to do if you really want bread. Potatoes to the rescue?
Last night we had a party (it’s a custom of S’s to host a Motzei Shabbat Pesah party, because it’s a time when people are getting sick of whatever they eat all Pesah). The menu included
fried plantains drizzled in a sugar/lime syrup (kosher all year round and soooo good)
fried eggplant balls (eggplant, onion, egg, some herbs) that looked like falafel and were accompanied by a roasted tomatillo/tomato/anaheim pepper sauce
quiche
vanilla caramel custard
chocolate mousse – very good, esp. with the pesadikh cognac
and pickled daikon. We frequently pickle radishes; daikon was just a little extra fancy. (Nothin’ but daikon, water, salt and half a pepper.)
Then of course there’s salad. There’s always plenty of good salad all year round, including Pesah.
I am really excited that you are writing about this and am looking forward to your guide next year. I try to look at Pesah as a time when I don’t eat bread, rather than a time when I eat a lot of matzo and matzo meal items. I also just try to eat all the same foods I eat year round, just minus the chametz. Chicken and fish and beef with a side of veggies and/or potatoes, yogurts and eggs for breakfast, chocolate for dessert… Somehow, this year especially, it hasn’t seemed that hard at all – there are so many things to eat. I made tilapia fillets the other night and instead of my usual mix of breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan cheese with herbs and spices, I just omitted the crumbs, doubled the cheese and coated the tilapia. It was really delicious, crispy and flavorful and I didn’t miss the bread crumbs at all. I’m planing to make an almond flour cake tomorrow also, my mom makes it every year and it’s delicious.
…and then there’s the French onion soup I made a few years ago. I used pareve beef stock, but a nice mushroom stock would certainly work as well. The best part was melting the cheese (smoked gouda, in my case) on top of the squares of matzah that served as croutons. And this was the best part because the matzah’s texture, remaining mostly hard but also being quite thin, seemed entirely appropriate to the French onion soup enjoying experience.