Passed over. Next? (with menu)

So, Pesach. was. awesome.

The Man worked insanely hard at work and at home, and began moving the laundry along and forgetting to press START. The kids learned that, temporarily (the adults told them, earnestly) the playroom was being remade into the Place to Store Jillions of Dishes. Also Pots. And they dealt with that, wisely taking over the long, open floor of the living/dining room.

You can wage some serious epic battles between droid-dominoes and Jedi-dominoes in that space. Also, a modified, refrigerator magnet form of Rogue. Maybe even teach it to some friends. Except when you are carefully checking the rice and beans - three times - for stray grains o' barley and such. (Also? finding them. Kosher for Pesach, my allergy mama ass.)

And I ran around, making lists, reworking last year's lists, realizing that the lists were multiple pages long, hyperventilating and explaining to paper bags that I just did not have the time to do all of this, and if i could please just get a wee bit more oxygen, I'm sure that I could do some prioritizing.

The kids brought home wonderful bits of art, a ceramic object designed to distribute grape juice to four cups, and the sweetest seder plate, made by a sweetly earnest small person.

Like that one.

And that one.

The Man and I raced around, trying to actually enjoy - and encourage? - the kids' enthusiasm without actually having to stand still long enough to do so. Until it was time to light a candle, get out a carefully cut paper feather, and unleash the kids with flashlights, to hunt for the chametz. Because we have some, you know - oats rock my world, even when they force me to clean it, too.  The boys raced through the house, shrieking with glee. I got it! I found it! and hey! that's great - I didn't think of looking under there! and the adult how on earth did you GET under there? And (thoughtfully) how are you getting back out? and the inevitable, Noooooo! I was going to find that one! and, then the hiccupping, damp wail of bu-bu-but he found two-thirds, at least, and I wanted to find half. And now I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't! Followed by a quiet slipping out the door by one parent, three very subtle thuds and a thumbs up.

Equity more or less restored, we were on to the seders. And the fingerpuppets. The plagues, as brought to you by the dollar store (jumping plastic frogs, red paper confetti, etc), the four questions as brought to you by Vanna Toddles - complete with glamorous waving motions - and the best Red Sea enactment ev-ah. (Note: I love teenagers. They give a whole new height? depth? to the concept of parting the waters.)

We missed some of our dear and insufficiently near ones, welcomed friends, and discovered that the formula of two preschool (current and former) teachers, plus one librarian plus the rest of us = a bouncing, question-prodding, puppet-waving seder with a fair dose of speed and giggles. And oh yes, who bring friends with their own set of hand puppets. And kids who walk into the kitchen and say things like, hi! how can I help?


It was undeservedly good. And at the end of it, when the last guests had left and we were merely elbow-deep in dishes, the Eldest rounded up his brother and father, and the three of them stood in the kitchen and applauded.

I am so doing this again next year.
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Pesach/Passover 2011 - as planned, and occasionally as delivered to the table.
note: we follow Sephardic rules for Pesach, and eat rice and beans.

1st seder
* carpas:  parsley, tiny red an' yellow an' purple potatoes, broccoli, carrots, potato chips. Salt water.
(add in: chimichurri, guacamole or gremolata, grapes)
* charoset:

• apples, raisins, lemon juice, cinnamon & sweet red wine. Add ginger juice to taste.
• fresh cranberry-orange relish
• orange confit, if I can find the time to make it. (I didn't.)

dinner:

green salad

sweet potato fries/rice

some sort of meat (!!!)

mint sauce

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lemon sorbet

blood orange sorbet

Tuesday: lunch

make your own sushi with lox, cukes, avo, scallion, mango, lettuce, sushi rice - and, regrettably, with some faux, Passover-friendly non-soy sauce. The sushi was a hit - the non soy sauce was not.

2nd seder

*carpas: see 1st seder. Add in: melon, strawberries, etc to sustain the smalls until dinner. Even though they were fed a pre-seder meal. Also? dips.

*charoset: see 1st seder. And don't slow down on the magid, because we're going to lose a third of the shorties by the end of dinner... But at least they'll last long enough for:

dinner:

green salad

Karina's crustless vegan pumpkin pie, heavily reworked into a sweet potato deliciousness. 

maple syrup salmon

baked chickpea salad

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orange sherbet (oh, Alton - you marvel!)

sorbet, sorbet and more sorbet.

Also? fruit.  Apple crisp if I have time.

Wednesday:

leftovers. Also? dishwashing. 

dinner: okay, here we might manage something like a shepherd's pie using the leftover meal/poultry from the 1st seder. Bulking that up with hot dogs. Unless, of course, there are mere shreds left over from the 1st seder, in  which case it's a good thing that I bought those boneless chicken thighs. 

Leftover rice, plus add some of the citrus surplus to sliced red onion, cracked green olives, a handful of red grapes and the leftover romaine leaves from the seder for a green salad. And oh, by now, those plantains should be beautifully black. Whip out the wok, honey, and get a-frying.

Thursday:

make your own cheese matza deliciousness. We supply the best GF oat matza that Lakewood can make, umpteen cheeses and heck, dips and veggies. Extra points for the unexpected and yummy.

dinner: um. Who can remember?

Friday:

dinner:  rice, leftover salmon, salad. Dips. Sorbet! Wow, this meal thing practically runs itself, given enough momentum. How many times can I say 'leftovers' this week, and in how many different ways? Tonight's phrasing: wrap it, baby. 

Shabbat:

breaded (oat matza meal!) chicken and hot dogs

Dougie's buffalo wings sauce

condiments & cranberry relish

salad with extra crunch, to balance the mush/squish of the really moist, super-marinated chicken.

rice with fennel & herbs

dinner: basil pesto pasta, salad, tuna. Pickles!

Sunday: dinner

leftover milchigs/dairy, reinvented in fill-your-own baked potatoes.

Yeah, kind of like that. (Note: the green stuff under the carefully mashed and re-filled potato is avocado. Also, an olive. History is politely mute as to whether the potato was consumed, but contemporary journals suggest that at least 2-3 purposeful bites were taken.)

Monday:

dinner: crepes! Time to go light and sweet, so whip up some cream (oy, me achin' arm), slice that dripping-sweet melon, sprinkle some of the last of the mint, chop up the sad strawberries and douse them in sugar and lemon juice, and heck, put some lemon juice into a tiny bowl, and some sugar into another. Crepes. 

This is the bestest Pesach food ever, Mum. Why haven't you made this before?

I surveyed the sweet-fest in front of me, and considered.

Actually, I have. It's just been a while.
The Toddles looked up, chewed, swallowed, and put a slightly greasy hand on my shoulder. I love you, Mummy. But I like your food better.
I nodded. All things considered, I was fine with that.

Crepes provided breakfast and midnight snack for the next three days. and by the time we ate our way through another three or four meals, crepes were also providing school lunches. And it was time to dig out the kitchen, update the Pesach inventory and find just enough non-Passover dishes to be able to cook for shabbat.

Which, by tomorrow evening, we will have done. I think. 

brace yourselves: the Passover prep post

The challenges are few, but comprehensive:

* organize and plan resources:

* menus & recipes (vegetarians! non-vegetarians! carnivores who also eat PB&waffle!)

* haggadas, various seder materials for adults, children

* guest head-count + places for guests to stay

* scheduling for tasks/goals

* shop for non-perishables & perishables

* turn chametz kitchen into Pesachdik (Passover-oriented) kitchen

* clean and transform the apartment

* clean and transform the car

* various sundries, all astonishingly time-consuming.

Of these, the quest for affordable, gluten-free matza reigns supreme. Where? How? Last year, I ordered my matzot from these lovely people, and the year before we bought our first and slightly crumpled box of oat matza from this company. This year, I will be appreciating but avoiding these matzot, which do not (say the company FAQ) meet the requirements for Passover, though they do meet the requirements for gluten-freeness.

Where my recipes are concerned, I do have a binder with last year's recipes, menus and inventory of my pots, pans, plates, etc - it's a glorious, shedding mass of paper. Tonight, promises the Man, he'll tackle it while I wade through my scraps of recipes. This year, we simplify last year, which had me firmly tethered to the kitchen. Because what's the point of a burble of cousins, if you can't burble along with them?

Until the wading begins, it's electronics all the way, baby - and the annual hunt for the thing that didn't work. Three years down the road from my first seder, that's charoset. Last year, we used this - and the children informed us that it was not banana-riffic. I offered a fresh cranberry-orange relish, and was informed that while fun, it was not charoset. So.

Here's what I've found: dried fruit charoset, non-sponsored dried fruit charoset, or choose one from this list. But I'm most certainly taking suggestions...

Pre-seder mini-dinner, seder 1's dinner and carpas/charoset/z'roa/maror/washed romaine, day 1 lunch, pre-seder dinner, seder 2 dinner, carpas/charoset/z'roa/maror/washed romaine, 2nd day lunch, dinner, 3rd day lunch....breakfast????? yikes??

Oh, me, oh my - how the shopping list does grow. Mine is mostly produce, fish and a bit of (eep) meat. And a headache's worth of fruit, to pacify the children in search of a nice cookie. Which we haven't got. *sigh* Most of our year-round desserts are Passover-friendly, but their ingredients aren't cleared for use by the rabbis. Usually, this is simply a matter of rabbi-power: they don't tend to check the niche market foods, because they're short on time. And rabbis. But we persevere....and make lots of phone calls to the Sephardi rabbinate.

Fluffing my bits of paper, I begin to think that the standard Pesach and allergy mistake is the same. If you lack a central ingredient for a recipe, don't fake it - find another recipe. Sorbet has served us well in the past, and I'm eyeing a variety of the ice creams and sorbets over here. Solid sweet-yumminess? On shabbat, we tested this vegan coconut macaroon recipe, and woot! Yumilicious. Apparently, macaroons are like meatballs: the eggs and flour appear to be crucial, but are, in fact, not. Whew. But I'm still stumped on breakfast. Matza and jam? Listening to me mutter, the Man winced.

The list grows, and my paper-ruffling continues: it's easy to turn out an elaborate, tether-iffic menu, and harder to turn out a simpler one, with built-in breaks between meal preps. Oh, for the luxury of being able to cook in advance of the holiday.... Oh, well. Until that glorious day, I'm eyeing leftovers, and hoping to turn up some good non-lentil, vegetarian bean crockpot recipes. Because we can used dried, inspected beans, but not canned. Any suggestions?