Passover Foods

A very quick update since things have been busy.

It's been Passover, so The Pedant and I have eaten lots of leftovers and made some of our own food. We've managed to eat really well.

Chicken Soup with Matzah Balls

TP made a really good soup. It had lots of veg and the matzah balls were nice and hard - not light and airy. Blech. He makes a mean soup.

Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes

Ala Mark Bittman that we've made before. A real winner. I want to make (and modify) it again after Passover the southwest version with avocados, cilantro and lime juice and add some corn for more guts.

Shakshuka

Actually, not a great success. Mostly because I forgot to ask TP to get tomato paste. I love shakshuka, mostly because it's really forgiving and is so tasty. (It's even better with warm pita and chumus...) However, it came out REALLY watery this time, which was my fault. Sad.

Matzah Lasagna

This was a real winner. We had lots of veg and store bought tomato sauce (mostly because we saw it in the Teet - last year we made our own) and lots of cheese. Also, only 3 boards of matzah so it was light on the matzah. It came out really well. We may replicate the recipe with lasagna noodles to make it after Passover with lots of veg again.

Parve Brownies

Mostly because the store was out of good passover chocolates. Turns out, not horrible. Also tasted really great after a 10 mile (!!!!!) run.

Bisli

TP found kosher for passover bisli. It has been utterly amazing.

Although I'm ready for pizza tomorrow night.

Going Through the Archives

I'm a big fan of Google Reader, but one of the big problems with having all the useful features of RSS aggregation is that, if I want to comment about something, instead of merely sharing the LOLcat or missive from America's Beef Producers in the little widget box on the right, I have to "star" it and remember to look into my "starred items" folder later.

Which I don't do often enough.

Anyway, this will be the first in hopefully a series of posts where I clear out all the stuff I've been telling myself I'd blog about but haven't really.

LATKES
I am Jewish, therefore I blog about latkes. Haven't eaten any this season, because everyone around me is afraid of the demon fat and will not fry.

• Lots of movement on the internet about latkes. THe most interesting development was the concept of beetroot latkes with goat cheese, pioneered by the blog Eat Like a Girl. The goat cheese used is not the usual chevre, but an Irish goat milk brie. I'm not sure, if your local Teet does not carry brie made from Irish goats' milk (although what grocery doesn't, these days?), whether you should substitute real brie, chevre, or something else, like camembert.
• The Epicurious weblog had a round-up of many other latke blogs out there, which allowed me to consider a blog post about latkes without more of my usual manic searching for links. The best? A recipe on how to make latkes in the oven, which eliminates the oil which makes latkes ceremonially important, but is marginally healthier (if you can afford the carbs; for those who fear Demon Carbohydrate, this latke recipe is for you; if you want your latkes only marginally healthier, here are some tips to avoid common latke perils).
• Ms. McLellan at Slashfood realizes that one must alter the recipe slightly for sweet potato latkes.
  
• If you're taking this Hanukkah as an excuse to relive the famous DeLaurentis/Flay vs. Ray/Batali Iron Chef battle in your own home - Battle Cranberry, as we all remember - I would suggest this latke dressing from Two Fat Als. The Food Network has its own cranberry-themed latke, but I distrust it slightly because anyone who gives so much airtime to Paula "lard" Deen, Rachael "let's put the bacon on the challah" Ray, and formerly Emeril "andouille in everything" Lagasse can't take Jewish food seriously.
  
• Finally, the Jones Soda Company, who sell out their turkey-flavored soda every year despite it, well, being a kosher diet turkey-flavored soda, have a Hanukkah pack with latke-flavored soda. Use your best judgment.
  

The Treif You Crave

I'm sure by now you've heard of the winner of the annual White Castle recipe contest; you know, the woman who put chopped-up steamed hamburger bits in the root vegetable celebration of the victory of crazy fundamentalist Jews over assimilation-forcing Greek-wannabes. Hey, how many holidays do you have from the Apocrypha? I thought so!

Of course, the first thing I thought of was, "there's a White Castle recipe contest every year? Who knew?" And there is. According to the rules, the next deadline is July 13, 2008. The web entry form is found here. You take ten burgers and turn them into some non-burger food. Winner gets more burgers than he or she should ever eat; although, since the last time I ate at White Castle I and a couple other stupid people bought a box of 100 burgers, moderation doesn't really come into play.

Also not good for Passover

The internet enables chametz addicts by showing them how to cook pancakes using a mirror, a credit card, and second-hand syringes.

I am not that desperate, despite the Honey Bunches of Oats this morning.

(link passed to you from where I found it on Andrew Sullivan's blog)

Temptation!

They are distributing free boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats next to the subway station.

On the last day of Passover.

They wish to tempt me.

Ah, well, at least it isn't "free all you can eat doughnuts."

No Protein!

Passover is very much here with a vengeance. For me, a lacto-ovo vegetarian, who isn't even "crazy," (meaning: I'll eat soups with a meat broth, foods cooked with meat, etc.) Passover is bad, bad time. I am a Jewess of Ashkenazi heritage so for me, all legumes are out. Boo. For Lacto-Ovos, our major source of protein is kitniyot, and therefore, I cannot eat much protein during passover. I am relegated to eggs and cheese. Granted, worse things could happen. In fact, today for lunch, I had no protein. Why? Because the hard boiled eggs I had for my salad were inadvertently left on the drain board. Oops. I was able to find some nuts to nosh. Mmm...delish...fat...

However, I shouldn't complain. I personally love passover. And, I won't spend much time bitching about the fact that I must force myself to eat mostly cheese this week, but I will tell you, that as a sweet lover, Passover seems like it would have many options, but those options SUCK. There is nothing grosser than passover cakes, cookies, and pastries. My mom actually makes delish marainge cookies, but that's about it (her brownies aren't that bad either). However, Jelly Slices are to die for.

PassedOVER

All week I've been thinking Passover is this week (it's not, it's next week). Various reasons account for this, none of which are remotely enjoyable to share on this blog. But, it is exciting (relatively) that Passover is approaching. I enjoy it very much. It's always been one of my favorite holidays. Why? Several reasons:

• As a kid, I got to stay up late with the seder (I love staying up late!)
• My mom bought LOTS of junk food - potato chips, jelly fruit slices, marshmallows. Well, that's not so much, but in comparison to the rest of the year, it was an exponential growth
• Temptee Cream Cheese. Mmmm...
• Matzah Ball Soup...with hard-as-rocks matzah balls made by my aunt perfectly each year
  
• School vacation!
• Family craziness

The down side was that I couldn't eat real bread for a week and that my mom became the Passover Nazi with cleaning for weeks before. Our house was so clean, Mr. Clean commercials could be filmed there. Every weekend starting in February was devoted to cleaning the house. And, we were subjected to listening to the same passover record (yes, you heard me, record!) with a weird guy narrating...

However, the upside won each year (my guess: Temptee is actually that good), and Passover reigns supreme as my favorite holiday.

And this year, Stoner found some cute shirts:



Any guesses what they might be...first one to guess the answer gets an undecided prize....

In the Papers

I got two entries printed as honorable mentions in the Washington Post's "Style Invitational" weekly humor contest. For whatever reason, they really seem to love my smacks at the Administration, even though I like my less political humor better.

In mixed drink news, Annie over at Jewbiquitous gave out some really good gift baskets (there is a religious term which I will not use for ease of reading for all of you laypeople out there) for the Jewish holiday of Purim, and I don't just say that because we share some degree of consanguinity, or because she also likes hamentaschen (traditional Purim cookies) with poppy seed filling, so I am not the only one (Sherbs is not a fan, sadly). She gave out vodka and V8 to make bloody Marys.

I am totally in favor of giving out more liquor on the holidays. When I was in Hong Kong, sometimes they'd take shots of vodka and scotch into the synagogue for in-service drinking. It was awesome.

Still no progress on the Dr. Pepper project. Will keep you posted.

My Hat Has 3 Corners and Chocolate

Ack! Work has been busy for The Pedant and me, which is probably why we aren't posting as much as we used to. Perhaps one day our lives will calm down? I'm not sure...

I did, however, last night find some time to get together with Smel, Stoner, Preppy, and Smel's Mantastic Man to bake humantaschen. Now, there's an activity worth blogging about. Granted none of them had Dr. Pepper, although Smel did eat humantaschen and DDP for breakfast (I had rice crispies, her breakfast was probably more delicious).

[Offensive part start]

Now, I think Purim is a stupid holiday based off of a very ironic and humours biblical book. (For a bibliography about the ironies and satire in Esther, please email me.) Therefore, since the holiday is based on a parody of Jews in Exile and has no theological basis, it is not one of my favorite holidays. And, I no longer love dressing up in costume. Or care about megillah reading. I usually participate in festivities because I work for Jewish youth and have no choice...

[Offensive part end]

I do LOVE humantaschen. They are cookies and we all know I like those. And homemade cookies are stellar. So are store bought ones, unless they have poppy seeds. Only old men and The Pedant enjoy those. Last night, we had fun making humantaschen with no trace of poppy. We used strawberry jam, apricot jam, Hershey's kisses (milk and dark chocolate), peanut butter cups and peppermint patties. Some even contained a combo of 2 of the aforementioned fillings. Some of them had cocoa powder mixed into the dough for extra caloric goodness.

Now, if there is something you want to try one day, it's baking with a peppermint patty. They get all gooey and the insides start spilling out. It's amazing.

Now you are all invited over to consume many delicious humatashen.