And now the Kugel portion of our show

Growing up in Boston the fact that Passover was according to the Torah, Chag ha Aviv, the spring festival, was more or less an article of faith. While there was a  teeny chance that the trees might be blooming and the daffodills might be out, it was far more likely that as Pesach was beginning the old and tired snow dregs would still be piled up next to the street.

Here, despite the see-sawing weather that bounces from day to day between shirtsleeve weather and down coat weather it really and truly is spring.

We have made progress on our Passover prep. All of the silver has been kashered.

We have made three or four batches of Passover puffs. I have already lost count.

The maror top sitting on our livingroom window sill conties to grow.

The folks on the Kosher Costco facebook group are all a-buzz because the Kosher for passover kugels this year are from a supplier whose kugels are not up to snuff.

I woud like to suggest this as an alternative...make your own.

Before I begin I have noticed that a staple of  Kosher for Passover shelves has been getting harder and harder to find I the past few years, matza farfel.

In planning for this year's seders making farfel kugels seemed like a good idea because my son-in-law is allergic to potatoes.  Farfel is nothing but matza shards.

 I put a box of matza in a big bowl and smashed up the matza. This is a good job to give to a cranky or angry child. All of my old Passover cookbooks suggest that you soak the matza farfel in water  before using it as a kugel ingredient, so I did.

While that matza soaked I shredded a couple of carrots, a parsnip and most of a big head of fennel. I realized as I looked at the vegetables that this collection of vegetablesand flavors exactly pinpoints where we are in the year, on the cusp between the last gasp of winter and the beginning of spring

When the vegetable shredding was completed I drained the damp matza dumping the water down the sink and added the soggy matza to the shredded vegetables.

Then I made a custard with six eggs mixed with a box of chicken broth. I had the chicken broth my my shelf.

After mixing the soup with the eggs, if you have a fancy tool you can use that, I had a fork, you can start adding spices to the custard.

You see black pepper, smoked paprikahot paprika and salt.

 I also added about 1/2 a cup of olive oil.  Mix the matza with the egg/soup mixture You can see that I also added some dried parsley at some point.

Put into a baking pan. I line my pans in parchment paper because it makes my life easier. I used my father's giant roasting pan. A smaller pan will give you a taller kugel...but that's the pan I have to use. Passover is all about making do with what you have on hand.

Bake at 350 until the sides pull away from the pan and the middle looks set- You can check the solidity of the middle by slipping a knife into the center, a clean knife means that everything is cooked.

This took about 15 minutes of actual work and about an hour in the oven while I took care of other things.

Including starting some candied orange peels.

Later in the day I made an apple kugel. It was made with yet another box of matza, another six eggs, and six apples. Peeling and cutting up the apples took more time than running the vegetables through the food processor so the matza drank up all of the water.  I wanted the kugel to be slightly sweet but not dessert sweet. I sweetned with silan (date molasses), apple butter (three tablespoons) and two tablespoons of brown sugar. For flavor I added cinnamon, allspice, black pepper and salt. I added water to the beaten eggs and also about 1/2  a cup of oil.

Once the kugel is cooler I can pack it up and put it in the fridge. So there it is two giant kugels made with stuff I had at home.

Kugels were always improvised with stuff that was available.  Our ancestors in Europe didn't work off of exact recipes. They figured out how to make things work with what they had on hand.