(no subject)

[skygiants]

Happy Passover, guys! I . . . have not done any Passover shopping at all. No, wait, I have a box of matzoh ball soup mix in my cupboard, but that's it. And from my memories of trying to Passover shop last year, I have a kind of gloomy suspicion that by the time I get to any supermarkets, they are going to be totally picked over.

Last year I asked people for Passover recipes, but since it was in the same post where I people to elaborate on their potentially-controversial feelings on matzoh I think everyone got a little understandably distracted. But this year it may be a somewhat more pressing issue, so: your favorite kosher-for-Passover recipes, please show me them!

(Personally I am a big fan of living off omelettes as much as humanly possible, and also matzoh-with-melted-cheese eaten with tomato soup.)

Comments

[genarti]

This is me brainstorming rather than me ever having had to keep Passover kosher. But!

Matzoh nachos with black beans and salsa and cheese and stuff? Lots of Indian food should be pretty easy to make with Passover restrictions too, unless I'm forgetting something major, and then you could either use matzoh as the dipping breadstuff or just have it without starch.

Are potatoes legal here?

[skygiants]

Matzoh nachos were a MAJOR staple of my Passover fooding in college. I should revive that tradition now that I can actually get my hands on good salsa!

Potatoes are totally legal and tonight's dinner with my mom is likely to be largely composed of potato pancakes. :D

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Beans are an interesting category. Most Jews of Eastern European descent avoid beans, rice and legumes for the holiday, while Jews from other regions are happy to eat them. The reasons for this may have to do with bulk food sales in twelfth-century markets, or they may just have to do with a bunch of rabbis having arguments. (Most of Judaism, IMHO, is about rabbis having arguments.)

[skygiants]

I always forget that beans are technically verboten during Passover for Ashkenazi - mostly because rice totally feels like cheating to me, while beans don't. (That's what makes Judaism awesome!)

[genarti]

Oh interesting! I think I'd heard that and then completely forgotten it.

Man, I could drop grains for a week or I could drop legumes for a week, but having to drop both at once would strain my cooking creativity mightily. Not that constant reminders of the restriction aren't part of the point, probably, but still.

[aberration]

Chocolate-covered matzoh... ;____;

[skygiants]

I am predicting now that there will be no chocolate-covered matzoh left anywhere within city limits.

(Feel free to prove me wrong, New York City! *HOPEFUL*)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Buy the matzo and chocolate separately, and coat it yourself!

[skygiants]

Alas, there is no way I will have time to do that before the weekend, and by that point Passover will be almost over!

. . . though if I feel extra-ambitious I might do it anyway.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Remind me to send you the recipe for the almond macaroons I made yesterday, as soon as I find the cookbook they were in. They are delicious and bear no resemblance to most Passover desserts.

[skygiants]

I will indeed remind you of that! Passover desserts I can make at home = ftw. \o/

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

I am currently camped out in the home of friends who invite me to Passover every year, and I always come a few days ahead and get drafted into koshering and cooking and cleaning. They make two types of haroset (um, one with apples and one with oranges and dates), they roast asparagus (for dipping with salt water), they slow-bake eggs in onion skins, they have cauliflower kugels and chicken soup and gefeilte fish spiced from here to Jerusalem and back and served with carrots nad parsnips, honey cake, coffee cakes from mixes, that sort of thing. Apparently angel food cake can be kosher for passover, too? The matzoh is minimal, generally. The main problems seem to be remembering what has been koshered and what has not be cleaned yet, and keeping us non-Jews from accidentally contaminating a counter top with our coffee mugs (I have been careful this year! *is proud*), and to keep the Passover stuff seperate from the rest.

I can send detailed recipes if you like? There's enough variety here to feed you for a while, I think!

[skygiants]

Recipes are always awesome - thank you! I have the haroset covered (in that my mom made some this weekend, and I'll be taking a bunch home, I suspect) and the chicken/fish recipes, while delicious, are alas not as helpful to me because of the vegetarian thing. But I am extremely curious about the eggs slow-baked in onion skins, I have to say. :O

(Also, that sounds like a tremendously fun Passover.)

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

I have sent an email, begging for the recipes.

(It is sheer MADNESS, I tell you! We finally got them to label drawers with ribbon this year--if it has a ribbon on it, DO NOT OPEN IT, it is Unclean and one is not to eat things from it...so naturally, I put one on the trash can!--so the main challenge was to memorize the meat and dairy patterns on the silverware. Harder than it looks! Also, the parents are exceptionally neurotic about this, and we resorted to feeding them wine at strategic moments, and MY GOD, the difference it makes! \o/)

[skygiants]

Thank you! :DDD

(Hah - I used to have some difficulties with that when I babysat for more religious families. The hard part was not accidentally serving the kids ice cream in non-dairy dishes!)

[obopolsk.livejournal.com]

I found almost no Passover food when I went shopping last weekend...but maybe you could find some stuff on the Upper West Side?

[skygiants]

It's worth a shot! I don't know if I'll have time to get up there, though. (Relatedly: if we're still planning on going for brunch-and-museum on Sunday, we're going to have to make sure to pick a place that has lots of non-starchy dishes available.)

[obopolsk.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking that! But then I got sidetracked by life and forgot to mention the brunch problem. I was thinking that maybe Ben's Deli or someplace like that has a passover menu -- I think Ben's is in the vague vicinity of MoMA.

[skygiants]

That could work! It looks like it's not super close, but close enough to be reasonable. And if they don't have a specifically Passover menu, they'll definitely have at least a decent amount of Passover-edible items.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Haha, there was somebody camped out at the Passover section all day at my store, restocking and restocking. It was so Augean stable-y.

Appropriate icon is appropriate?

I feel like I was going to suggest something but now I've forgotten it. I hope the bus ride back went okay!

[skygiants]

Shati, I just found passover rainbow cookies (which I could not find last year) and bought some on the way home from my mom's and was all excited . . . and then I left the plastic bag that contained aforementioned rainbow cookies on the subway. D: D: D:

It did! Also I left your sweater at House of Octopus, which I now feel was vaguely silly because I will be up again the weekend of the 16th and will be actually seeing you then. (I may not have yet informed you that you are making time to see me the weekend of the 16th! But you are. :D?)

[shati.livejournal.com]

I knew how this story was going to end when my eyes landed on "passover rainbow cookies" and omg nooooo. :( I'm sorry.

Ahaha I was all like "yaaay" and then I checked the calendar and the service for my grandfather is the 17th so I will be in New York that weekend. Ironically. But I might be here Sunday ... but are you leaving early Sunday?

[skygiants]

Thank you for understanding the serious tragedy of this. :(

I don't have to be leaving early Sunday! The last bus out is usually at 8:30 (well, okay, it's usually at 12:30, but 4 AM is slightly later than I am willing to get back to NY. *laughing*)

[shati.livejournal.com]

I just wish I could replace your cookies somehow! :(

Aha! In that case -- I am pretty sure we're leaving Saturday night, so I think I can tentatively declare my time made!