Skip to main content

Moving right along

Today I cooked lots of meat. How much meat you ask? Three briskets and two giant London broils. All of them got the same coffee/spice rub

SAM_4073

All of the meat is now sliced up and in the freezer all three gallons of it.

SAM_4075

I also made a gravy out of the pan drippings.

Now it’s time to think about dessert. My nephew is joining us for the first Seder. He is severely nut allergic. Passover desserts tend to be chock full of nuts, if they are good. If they are bad they are made with lots of matza meal.

I made some of these coconut apricot balls for my nephew.

SAM_4076

I could only find Turkish apricots which are missing that tang that in necessary for good apricot flavor. I cheated and added a couple of shakes of citric acid. The smashed apricots and coconut is all that’s in these apricot balls, or as my kids call them, apricot turds, or doodies.SAM_4077

Despite my kids’ name for them, they are delicious.

Claudia Roden’s excellent Jewish cook book has a recipe for Sephardi fruit and nut cookies that are made out of dried fruit and nuts that have been run through a food processor and baked.

 

I suppose I could have actually consulted the cookbook. But instead I just added pecans to the smooshed apricots and some dates plopped them on a baking sheet and added a pecan to the center of each one and baked them.

SAM_4078

These aren’t the most elegant looking cookies, but I have seen worse. They do taste good though.

 

I have a mess of baked sweet potatoes, pears and apples baking in the oven right now. I guess I could call it a baked tzimmis.   I also need to make another side dish. My daughter’s boyfriend is allergic to potatoes. Between the no nuts and the no-potatoes  it’s making some of this meal planning something of a challenge.

I think tomorrow I will start baking cakes. Tonight I have to iron a bajillion tablecloths and napkins.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Betsey KuziaApril 1, 2015 at 6:49 PM

    Sarah, everything looks wonderful! I have,been to senders and love both the traditions as well as the food. Enjoy the time with family.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

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...
2 comments
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...
9 comments
Read more