Food Friday - Pre Passover Edition

Growing up, we called the time before Passover "Passover Starvation Week". My parents were attempting to clear out the pantry from all of the foods we couldn't eat on Passover. It really wasn't exactly starvation week, more, "Weird Eats" week. As we ran out of the foods we usually ate, meals were a bit out of the ordinary with new combinations being put together. Some were sucessful and other, less so. Some, much less so.

My culinary goal for this Shabbat was to use up as much flour as possible. Our guests are vegetarian, by that I mean the kosher version of that, fishatarians. I will be cooking tilapia in a bed of vegetables. These were the guests that had forgotten to show up the last time I had made noodles, so I decided to make noodles so they could have the home made version. I seem to associate noodle making with home made cheese making, so I made another batch of soft cheese.

Since I was on a flour using kick, I decided to make cream puffs for dessert. I made custard to fill them, more flour used in that . This is one case where having the right equipment really does make a difference. I have pastry bags and tips. By just poking the tip through the cream puff It was quick and easy to fill them with the custard. Had I any chocolate left, I would have frosted the cream puffs, but since we don't have any people will have to eat them unadorned.

People who are used to making Matza Muffins during Passover will find making cream puffs remarkably similar. Working with white flour, rather than matza meal makes for a much more refined puff. The cream puffs are really easy to make. I will teach my son how to make the Passover version so he can keep himself fed during the week.

When the time came to roll out the noodle dough I must have been struck by temporary madness. I decided to make tortellini. Yes, I cut all of the pasta into rounds. I used the lid of my spray starch for that. Of course I washed it first! Yes, with soap.

It took a while to get a rhythm going, But eventually I did. Yes, it is an obsessive meal.The pasta is all boiled. My wrists hurt but it had better be good.

The fish was easy.

Our guest is bringing the vegetable dish.

Comments

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...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog