My Kids’ Family

When I last discussed this monumental process, the three moms had just decided on menus. One might think that this is easy, and in some years it is not that hard. You have two Seders. You make a lot of food and eat it both nights. In many ways we are doing that, with minor changes. However, this year a wrench is thrown into the gears because Passover begins Saturday night right after Shabbat. This means that we cannot do any preparation at all the entire day before, but our houses have to be “kosher for Passover” before Shabbat. So the 2 Seder menus just went up to three menus, including Friday night Shabbat dinner.

The three families will each dinner on Friday at one house, lunch Saturday afternoon at another and then all descend upon our house for the first Seder on Saturday night. One final wrench is that you really cannot start the Seder until after sundown on Saturday night with is around 8:15. Way too late for dinner with kids. So we are introducing an innovation, and eating the meal before the Seder and at the “meal” during the Seder we will have dessert. Here is a PDF of our basic menu.

passover-2008-menus

Yesterday Marsha and the moms met again to discuss shopping and what we will need.  As we are all hosting these Seders together we are sharing the costs.  For example, we know that we need a minimum of 15 dozen eggs.  Eggs are a major staple of passover cooking and thank God the holiday is only one week long.  We will be making 200 Matza balls.  That equals 5 1/2 dozen eggs right there.  You get the idea.  By the end of this week much of the shopping will be done.

To bring us to today, on Sunday mkm and I defrosted and cleaned the large freezer in the basement and we are now emptying out our main freezer in the kitchen and relocating the food downstairs.  Half of the large freezer will be dedicated to passover foods while the rest holds are every day stuff.  We also cleaned out mkm’s grandmothers fridge which is also downstairs to hold the every day fridge stuff that needs relocating.  Tonight we will remove everything from the kitchen fridge and freezer, the pantry and the counters so the woman who cleans our house every other week will do a more thorough cleaning in the kitchen on Wednesday.  Thursday night, the dads will convene at our house to bring upstairs all the Passover supplies (pots, pans, dishes etc.) and put away all the every day stuff.

This then brings us to this coming Shabbat.  Cooking is going to occur Saturday night and Sunday, and I will post part three of Passover prep on Monday.

Everything you always wanted to know about Passover prep but were afraid to ask.

Now that would make a great title for a book. Maybe I’ll write it someday. As I’ve said, Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday (and not even because my Hebrew name is Pesah!) despite the fact that it is a lot of work getting ready. It may not take a village, but it does take the equivalent of a recking crew to get everything done. Especially this year.

Lets start at the beginning. Passover food entered the stores starting the first week in March. The first thing we do is try very had to ignore this fact when we walk into the local supermarket. Of course, they make that hard, because at the local Stop & Shop, the food is right by the entrance. So while we are still buying flour and fillings for Hamentashen, the store is trying to get us to think about Passover. They don’t scare us!

About a week after Purim, when we have either consumed or gotten rid of all the junk food that comes in the purim baskets, mkm starts to make lists. Every year at the end of Passover, we make a list of all the non-perishable food items we have left for the next year. Each year right after Purim, mkm spends days trying to find said list.

After a few days of searching, she gives up and goes into the basement and recreates the list. Then she can start shopping. Thankfully we choose to pass over the Passover pizza and Passover pancake mixes and just by the necessities (Matza, Matza Meal, Matza Cake Meal, Matza crackers, Matza, Matza, Matza and Matza). In the New York area, the supermarkets use the Matza as a loss leader, and if you spend $50 on a shopping order, you get a free five pound package. So far we are up to two of them.

That gets us to where we are today. As I said, this year is a bit different as we are doing our seders with mostly friends rather than mostly family. Two other families in our town will be joining us for seders this year (plus some parents, sisters, uncles, aunts and other assorted people). There will be at a minimum 21 people at each seder. That number will likely increase a bit for each night.

Last Thursday, mkm had a lunch meeting (read power meeting!) with the two other moms at the local Panera. As far as I can tell they spent about 2 1/2 hours planning out the whole pre-passover process, and in upcoming postings, I will share our plans.

In the meantime, here is a funny youtube video. This is the British version of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.”

Enjoy!

Not much to write about this morning (aside from the news about Heather Mills stealing all that money from Sir Paul, but you can read about that at wrekehavoc). I was up late last night baking 5 dozen Hamentashen and I have at least another 5 dozen to go tonight. So I would not expect much from me tomorrow either.

If people have not guessed yet, food is a somewhat important part of my life, as is Judaism. Luckily for me, food is also an important part of Judaism, so life, at times, it quite good. Years ago I used to write a Jewish food column on an early Jewish website called the Jewish Communication Network. I am posting my Purim entry from that site here today.

We are now beginning a period of time in which many Jews think of so much food it can make them go crazy. Purim is just around the corner, and right behind that is Passover. Today I would like to talk about Purim and Hamentashen.

In the Purim story the Jews are living peacefully in Persia, but Hamen, one of the kings advisers, does not like them because they are different. He gets the King’s permission to destroy all the Jews. A Jew named Mordecai and his niece Esther save the day, the King moves his support to the Jews, and they win the war and kill Hamen and his people. For more info, read the book of Esther.

Esther then proclaims a holiday for all time to commemorate this. There are not really any traditions about the foods to be eaten at this meal, but there is one special traditional food for Purim, and that is known as Hamentashen.

Hamentashen is a three cornered cookie like pastry with some sort of filling in it. It is very easy to make, and I hope that you will print out this recipe and make it tonight! The recipe makes about 18 Hamentashen, and can be doubled, tripled or even quadrupled without any problems. I hope you enjoy.

Well, enough talk, on with the recipe:

1. 1 stick Margarine - softened
2. 1 c. Sugar
3. 1 large egg
4. 1 tsp. Vanilla
5. 2 tsp. Baking Powder
6. 2 c. Flour

1. Place the Margarine in a bowl and add the sugar.
2. Mix the two together with a fork or beaters until totally incorporated. This is called creaming.
3. Add the egg and mix together.
4. Add the Vanilla and the Baking Powder and mix.
5. Add the flour a little at a time until the dough is no longer sticky. Use more or less flour as needed.
6. Flatten into a disk and wrap with plastic wrap. Put in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.
7. Turn the dough out onto a floured board or table. Roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness and then cut circles with a cookie cutter or use an “old-fashion” glass.
8. Set aside your cut cookies. You may stack them with a bit of flour between each layer.
9. Take one circle and put about 1/2 teaspoon of the filling in the center. Bring up one side and then a second side and pinch together one corner. You will now have a “third side” to bring up and pinch together the two remaining corners.
10. Place on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray and put in pre-heated 350° oven for about 10-15 minutes or until just beginning to turn color. I like my Hamentashen to be just turning brown.
11. Remove from oven and cool on racks.

FillingsThis is not meant to be an endorsement, but I have tried them all. The best filling that one can buy for Hamentashen is Solo brand pie filling. It has the best consistency of the pie fillings I have found. Traditional flavors would be Prune, Poppy or Apricot, though they have many different flavors. You could also use Chocolate Chips, or Nutella, which is a hazelnut chocolate combination.  Be careful with Chocolate chips though as the cookie will dry up when baking.  I like to put a small amount of raspberry or strawberry filling in the center and put two or three chocolate chips in the filling.
If you would like to make your own fillings, you should take your fresh fruit, peel then and take out any seeds or pits and then cut them into smaller pieces. Place in a pot and put in some sugar to taste. If the fruit dried, like apricot, you should just cover the fruit with water.  Cook this down slowly until you are left with a thick syrup. If it is not the right consistency, mix one teaspoon of corn starch with 1 teaspoon water in a glass. Pour into the fruit mixture. It will thicken up quickly.

NOTES:
You can use 1/2 stick of regular Margarine and 1/2 stick light margarine to cut down on some of the calories.

You can use your food processor for this recipe. Put the Margarine and the sugar in the bowl of the food processor, and process for 30 seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients except the flour and process for about 1 minute until mixed through. Add the flour and process until the dough begins to form a ball in the center of the bowl. At this point, take it out and finish it on your floured board.

It is best to chill the dough before rolling so it is easier to work with.

Enjoy!

With some regularity I am going to post some yummy recipes.  Some are my own and others come from different sources.

Pumpkin Bread
courtesy of  Noam’s  Kindergarten’s  teachers

3 C Flour                                 4 Eggs
2 C Sugar                                2 C Canned Pumpkin
1 t Salt                                     1 C Oil
1 t Baking Soda                       1/2 C chopped nuts
2 t Baking Powder
1 T cinnamon
1 T allspice

Preheat oven to 350°
Grease 2 loaf pans
Place dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Wisk well to combine.
Beat eggs in a medium bowl and add the oil.  Mix well to combine.
Add pumpkin to egg mixture and mix well to combine.
Add egg/pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Transfer batter to prepared loaf pans.
Bake for one hour or until cake tester comes out clean.

Enjoy!