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Getting ready for Pesach

I know.

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You don’t expect to see a batch of boiled bagels ready to go into the oven in a blog post about getting ready for Passover.

 

But I am going my best to use up a 10lb. bag of flour before we switch over the house. for the holiday.

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I live with two guys who live on bread. Tonight’s dinner and the rest of the meals we will be eating between now and Saturday evening will be in the category of festival of randomness.

 

Tonight we will be eating codfish cakes made with some salt cod I found in the freezer. We will be eating whatever vegetables are left in the freezer.

 

A friend invited us for dinner tomorrow. I made a berry pie to use up more flour and the rest of a bag of mixed berries from the freezer.

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It’s an oil crust. let me see if I remember what I put in it, 2/3 C of oil, 2 C of flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and some water and a bit of ginger booze.

 

The filling is berries simmered with tapioca, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cardamom.  I grated some  dark chocolate onto the crust before I filled it and over the top of the berries.A bit of chocolate is nice with berries.  I like the look of a rough and rustic crust.

 

Actually my plan was to make a free form pie. The filling was just to runny to attempt that this time. I realize that a free form pie would work better with sliced peaches or apples. The frozen berries were far too wet  to attempt a free form pie.

 

Well, with this batch of baking my goal was less excellence of product and more use of ingredients.

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