a note from the stove

THIS was the view from my window the other night. Truly the pillar of flame and cloud.

But more realistically I have been getting myself ready for Passover. The main dishes are done but the side dishes and the desserts all need to be made.

One of my favorite desserts of late has been an Italian clementine tart that i discovered on an Italian You tube channel. Below are two different iterations of the tart.(The recipe is in the link)

The tart is delicious and is made with tons of nuts. Unfortunately, some of my guests each night are very nut allergic.

I was trying to figure out how to recreate this without nuts. I wondered if it was possible to make a pie crust out of quinoa, and in fact, it is. I found a few recipes that weren't OK for Passover but I found one that was made with flax seeds and Quinoa. I don't have flax seeds but I do have chia seeds.

I cooked up some quinoa and added some chia seeds. I added pie crust friendly flavorings to the grains and allowed them to cook. I covered the bottom of a springform pan with parchment paper and greased the sides well. I pressed the quinoa/chia mixture into the pan and then baked until brown.

I sometimes watch Israeli cooking videos. It seems that nearly every cake is made with the addition of boxed vanilla pudding. The vanilla pudding shows up so often that it has become something of a running gag in our house. The pudding is non dairy AND kosher for Passover.

I made a custard using 4 whole clementines, 4 eggs, the box of vanilla pudding a splash of orange juice, some tapioca flour, ( the pudding on it's own is a soft set pudding and I wanted a firmer set), a bit of sugar and some vanilla my sister had made for me that is kosher for Passover and is incredibly strong.

I baked the tart until it was set.

The color is amazing. I will be topping the tart with melted apricot jam and fresh berries.

I need to make the same tart but in a nut version.

We also need to eat between ow and the start of the holiday. I have been making struggle meals of sorts. The dish below was made out of chicken from our soup, quinoa and vegetables. It was kind of bleak.

Sunday, my daughter and Tanta Marcia came over to kasher metalware. It took a while but we got a syslem going. Polishing the pieces that needed polishing and drying

everything as it came out of it's boiling water bath and then putting everything away.

I made a batch of dried fruit and chocolate balls.

They are delicious.

This morning I made out first batch of matza puffs of the season.

They are vastly improved if you really let the batter cool before beating in the eggs. I stupidly tried to beat the batter using the whisk attachment on my immersion blender in a shallow-ish bowl. You are looking at 23 puffs. The batter for another puff was spattered all over my kitchen. Not a nice way to start my day.

More of the soup-chicken bits were cooked with leeks, fennel, mushrooms and celery and then made into knish logs.

I am going to make a tomato-ey sauce for them right now.

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

sarah in nyc

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