Food Friday–outside influences edition

Well I had thought that all of the food I had bought would last through the holiday, but I was wrong. I had to buy three more dozen eggs which will bring out 2013 total to 12 dozen eggs. I also went to two of the local Kosher stores.  I noticed frozen Kosher for  Passover pizza.

As I walked home, I thought about how  one could make a kosher for Passover pizza crust.  By the time I got home I figured it out and got to work.

 

I beat two eggs with a mixer added about a cup of matza meal, some olive oil and some salt. I let the mixture sit for a bit so the grains of mazta could swell a bit, and then patted the mixture into the bottom of the spring form pan. After the crust had baked for a few minutes I added the sauce and the toppings.

 

I made this simple pizza for my younger son. My older son and I shared a chopped kale and pickled salmon pizza. my youngest said that while it wasn’t as good as a regular NYC pizza, it wasn’t gross and was a nice change of pace.

While in the kosher store I bought this.

I decided to use it in tonight’s chicken and long with onions and pears.

 

As I assembled the chicken I kept thinking about cooking terms like lardoons. I think that the salty smoked beef will flavor the chicken nicely and be a nice foil to the sweet pears.

 

 

Here is the chicken right out of the oven. I reduced the cooking juice with some wine left over from Seder.  I’m making yet another marinated vegetables and I still have to make another set of meringues. It’s actually nice not to have to bake challah.

 

Matza!! right out of the box! A boon to housewives world over! I’m actually not yet sick of matza this year. 

And a note on Passover cooking tools. My dairy pots  and knives are a hodge podge that I have picked up over the years.  they aren't great because they don’t have to be, they are only used a week a year.

My meat pots and utensils are the ones my parents bought in Halifax when they first got married. Their meat pots are great.  many of the work utensils, the spatulas and big work spoons are those wonderful old fashioned wooden handled ones with the red and white painted handles.  I love them.

 

Last year I realized that my father’s Passover knives while they were dear to my heart because they were my father’s, were dull enough to be safe to give to a baby to play with. I bought new knives this year and am a much happier camper. Just because they knives belonged to my sainted father does not make them holy.  I haven’t thrown away the knives…but maybe I will give them to babies in my building.

( That’s a joke, I’m joking, I promise)

I do love some of the heavy baking pans, including the large handled one I used to cook tonight’s chicken. I get such deep satisfaction using those sturdy things that were made to last.

While my sister was here for the holiday we reminisced about the dairy pots. They were just about the thinnest pots I have ever used. I’m really glad that I didn’t inherit them. They may still be in my mother’s apartment in boxes, unless she abandoned them in the basement in Quincy.

 

I am looking forward to tonight’s dinner. are guests are all people that I’m particularly fond of. They don’t know one another yet, but I think it will be a good table.