Kiss Me, I’m (1/4) Irish!

Living in Boston means that St Patrick’s Day is a true holiday. There’s the parade in Southie, the green beer everywhere and the long standing tradition of corned beef and cabbage. I’ve heard, though I am not sure it is true, that there are more celebrating the day here than in Ireland itself.

In my younger, before children days, I’d go my favorite Irish bar, conveniently located a block from where I lived at the time. The Hippo and I spent many an afternoon there, talking with Mike, the older Irish bartender, who would tell us we were too pretty to put up with crappy guys or that we were too cute to stay single for long. St. Patrick’s day there was like any other day but more crowded and more green.

Now that I have two kids, three jobs, two pets and assorted other responsibilities, my bar days are pretty much over.  I am ok with this, as I never really took to green beer anyway.  I’ll be spending the day of the parade at the ballet (talk about a 180!).  Tonight, however, I celebrated through food, making corned beef and my own version of colcannon.  I share it with you in case you, too, have moved past your green beer days.

Corned Beef and Colcannon, 1/4 Irish style

Corned Beef

1 first cut brisket (I use the Wellshire Farms one) with the seasoning packet

Enough water to cover

1/2 cup brown (or dijon but brown is better) mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup water

Directions:

Throw the corned beef along with the seasoning into a slow cooker. Cover with hot water so that the meat is submerged by about an inch.  Cook on high for 8 hours.  Take it out and put it on a sheet or broiler pan.  Let it start to cool a bit and heat your oven to 350.  In a small saucepan, combine the mustard, water and sugar.  Cook over medium high heat for about five minutes, so that it starts to reduce a bit.

Brush some over the top of your meat and put the meat in the oven.  Cook for about half an hour, basting every five to ten minutes.  Take the meat out and let it rest for about five to ten minutes before slicing.

Colcannon (sort of)

Ingredients

4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into even pieces

1 stick of butter (yes, I said a stick)

2-3 tablespoons sour cream or plain greek yogurt

1/2 onion, chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

several handfuls of fresh spinach, washed and dried

Directions

Place potatoes into a saucepan and cover with water.  Add a generous amount of salt.  Boil over high heat until potatoes are soft.  Drain and add the potatoes back to the pot.  Mash them.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter.  Add the onions and garlic and cook until soft, taking care not to let the garlic burn.  Add the spinach and mix until it wilts.  Dump the whole thing in with the potatoes and mix well with a large spoon.  You may need to add a bit of milk or more butter or sour cream/greek yogurt to get the texture you like.

We also made brownies, at the toddler’s request.  They were great- fudgy and sweet and just the right amount of crunch on the top. We used this recipe.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Don’t forget to wear green and be safe!!

 

Chag Semach!

Chag Semach!  It’s Purim or what I think of as the Jewish Halloween.  When my husband asked me what the story was, I will confess that I had to go look it up.  I could only remember a few key words… Queen Esther, Hayman, gallows, the annihilation of the Jews (again) and a three pointed hat.  Click here   for a better explanation.

The upshot of it is that we spent Saturday making Hamantaschen, the traditional Purim cookie.  I used the recipe posted on one of my favorite Jewish websites, Kveller.com.  No photos as I made it but I did get one of the finished product.  We made strawberry, apricot and (untraditional) chocolate.  I wanted to make the poppy (mohn) filling but it was too complicated.  Maybe next year.

 

Not Your Bubbe’s Latkes

It’s still Chanukah so I wanted to give you one more holiday recipe to try before the holiday that celebrates all that is oil is over.  (For an interesting take on what Chanukah truly means, read this NYT article, written by a high school friend).  The basic potato latke can be found here.  I thought I’d try to jazz it up with a sweet potato version.  I was in a hurry so some of the measurements are a bit sketchy but if you’ve made the white potato version, you have an idea of the texture you need.

Sweet Potato Latkes

Ingredients

1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes

3-4 eggs

1/2 cup- 3/4 cup flour

1-2 teaspoons baking powder

salt, pepper and cinnamon to taste

oil for frying

Directions:

Peel your sweet potato.  I had an abnormally large one which also looks kind of…phallic.

Grate your sweet potato.  I use the cuisenart but you could do it by hand.  Be careful of your fingers.

In a bowl, mix the potato with the eggs, spices, flour and baking powder.  You want to make sure the potato is coated well and that the mixture is spoonable into a pan.  It won’t be a batter like for true pancakes but it will still work, trust me.  Heat some oil- a tablespoon or so- in a frying pan over medium high heat.  Not so high that the oil will burn but hot enough so that the oil is sort of shimmering and the batter will sizzle when added.  Add about a tablespoonful of batter and flatten it with the back of the spoon.  Cook until browned and then carefully flip.

Cook until browned and eat immediately.

So, these were delicious.  I didn’t add onion, which is used in traditional latkes, because I wanted the sweet potato to be the star.  I experimented with the flour throughout and realized that I prefer mine with less flour- it makes them more crispy and potato-y.  Regardless they were great- I didn’t even need sour cream or applesauce, though both would have been good.  Bonus?  Sweet potatoes are better for you than white- more fiber, antioxidents, folate (for those of you trying to conceive or currently gestating) and a lower glycemic index.  Plus, as stated above, just damn delicious.

As we head into this crazy holiday season, I wish you and your family love, joy, laughter and stomachs full to the brim with delicious, comforting, satisfying food.

 

Happy Halloween 2012

Around here we’re recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  We were lucky- we didn’t lose power, no trees came down and our basement is only mildly damp.  Others weren’t so lucky- I have friends both near and far without power and with no hope of it returning for some time to come.  Wherever you are, I hope that you are safe, dry and ready to celebrate Halloween.

For some scary food ideas, try these posts from my Halloweens past:

Halloween: Eyeball Cupcakes, Ghastly Ghosts (potatoes), Green Gruel with Eyeballs, Mummified Meatloaf

Scary Dinner: Carrot Fingers, Frankenpeppers, Tarantula Cookies

Halloweeeen: Ghastly Ghosts (cookies)

Scary Dinner 2:  Blood Soup with Eyeballs, Pumpkin Grilled Cheese, Spiderweb Eggs, Worms In Dirt

Halloween Snacks:  Vampire Apples, Cheezy Monsters, Owl Cupcakes

 

Halloween Snacks

If you’ve been reading along here or if you’ve browsed the recipe index (which is totally due for updating….one of these days), you’ll know that I love the food part of Halloween.  For the last few years I’ve tried to make a “scary” dinner each Halloween.  You can see what I’ve made before by clicking here, here, here, and here (included there are ghastly ghosts, mummy meatloaf and eyeball cupcakes, among other things).  This year, because I suddenly have both less time in the kitchen and a somewhat picky eater around, I went for less of a dinner theme and more of a snack kind of thing.

The recipes I used can be found via Dinner: A Love Story blog (my new favorite) and Hungry Happenings.  You’ll also note that this is the most processed I get in my cooking.  While most of the time I bake from scratch, this year I opted for both cake mix and pre-made frosting.  Hey, it’s a once-a-year kind of thing.

Vampire Apples

Ingredients

apple, peanut butter (optional), slivered almonds

Directions:

Slice your apple into lip shaped wedges.  I used an apple corer/slicer and then cut those wedges in half.

Spread a little bit of peanut butter across the bottom apple (or you could use cream cheese or nothing, up to you- I was hoping to get a little bit of protein into the toddler).

Shove a few silvered almonds into the other half of the apple, to look like teeth.

Put this half on top of the peanut butter half.  Repeat.

Cheezy Monsters

Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese

8 oz shredded cheese (I used a taco cheese mix)

1/2 cup bacon bits

more shredded cheddar cheese

a few slices of white cheese

food markers or black olives

Thin pretzel sticks

Directions

Mix together the cream cheese, shredded taco cheese and bacon bits.  I used the food processor because I’m lazy like that.

Make sure it’s all combined well.

Let it sit while you prepare the rest.  Slice eyeball shapes from your white cheese.  You could use a fondant cutter but I used a corer of some kind- not sure if it was meant for apples or strawberries or what- it was Grandma’s- but it worked perfectly for this.  I then colored in the eyeball with a food marker.  You could also use thin slices of olives, I think.

I see you….

Break the pretzel sticks into halves or thirds.

Pour your shredded cheese onto a plate.  Using your hands, scoop out small amounts of the cream cheese mixture and roll into balls.  Drop them into the shredded cheese and press gently so the cheese will stick.

Place on a platter. Dab a little bit of the cream cheese mixture from the bowl onto the tip of the pretzel stick.  This will be the glue for the eyes.

Place an eyeball on the stick – gently!

Stick this into the cheese ball.  Repeat as many times as you like- some of mine had one eye, some had two and one had three.

I struggled with the mouths.  In the end, I tried an almond sliver, colored with a food marker, a pretzel stick, a piece of green olive and cheese colored with a marker.  The original post used black olive slices.

I think they’re pretty cute, if I do say so myself.  And rather tasty, if you like cheese.  Which I do.

Owl Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes (any flavor.  I used boxed chocolate)

Chocolate frosting (a buttercream type, if you’re making from scratch)

Oreos (or other chocolate sandwich cookie)

M & M’s – orange and brown (eyes and beak)

Directions

Make your cupcakes.

Make sure that someone is around to help you lick the bowl.

Once they’ve baked and cooled, frost them.

Separate your cookies so that you have two with white filling for each cupcake.

Place two cookies on each cupcake to be the eyes.  This would have worked better if I had made the tops of my cupcakes flatter but I didn’t have the time to be nit-picky.

Add one orange M & M between the cookies for a beak.

Dab a tiny bit of frosting on the back of two brown M & M’s – put it right over that “m”.  Place them on top of the white part on each cookie, for eyeballs.

Try not to die because they’re really, really cute.

5773

L’shana tova!  It is once again Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year.  We celebrated on Sunday night with our usual Big Dinner.  I tend to make the same foods each year- mashed potatoes, brisket, roasted chicken, steamed green beans and squash soup.  This year I also made honey-ginger glazed carrots, spinach with pine nuts and raisins and noodle kugel. More on the kugel later.

We had many of our regulars and a few new faces. Some came from the next town over, one came from across the ocean. One person announced a pregnancy (not me, thank goodness!  I’m all set for now!), another reflected on family bonds.  One of my dear friends from high school arrived with a notebook full of memories that made us laugh and miss another friend who is no longer with us.  Overall, it was a wonderful night, full of laughter, wine, love and yummy food.

I spent all day cooking.  Plus juggling the two kids. It was not the easiest meal I’ve made.  Usually my husband helps a bit but he was otherwise occupied this year.  I have some pride that I got it all done!  I even remembered to provide after naptime snacks.

I can’t believe it, but I did remember to take some photos.

Carrots, peeled and waiting for slicing.

Potatoes.  They look so healthy.  Just wait until I boil them and then add gobs of butter and cream.  The result?  Delicious and decidedly not healthy.  At least for the body.  I’ve been told that my mashed potatoes heal the heart and soul.

Chocolate, at the ready for….

…these strawberries, washed and waiting.  When they meet?  Heaven.

The main course wasn’t pretty but, oh, it was tasty.  Every year I buy a bigger and bigger brisket and every year, I am left with nothing but the sauce.

Not pretty at all. But so, so yummy.

Ok, so the kugel recipe.  Kugel is a traditional Jewish dish.  It’s a kind of noodle pudding.  Sometimes it’s sweet, sometimes savory.  If you use dairy in it, it’s often served to break the fast on Yom Kippur.  The thing about kugel is that is it deceptively heavy.  As you eat it, you think, “hmm, ok, this seems to be noodles and some cheese or some sort of creamy something.  It’s ok, kind of yummy.  No biggie.”  However, it sits in your stomach and later you are left with a fullness that can only come from kugel.

After my grandmother died we sat shiva for quite some time.  People brought us food, as is the tradition.  Someone brought kugel and one of my cousins liked this particular type.  She ate some.  Over the course of the day, she had a few more servings.  That night, as we were getting ready for bed, she was overcome with the heaviness.  The kugel had sort of expanded in her stomach, taking up more room than it should.  All she could do was sit in one spot and sort of grunt/moan, “kuuuuuuuuuuu-guuuuuuuuullllllllllll” over and over until it had digested a bit and she could go to bed.  This has become a family joke.  Try it- saying “kuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-guuuuuuuuuullllllllllll” in a sort of low, moaning way- it really does embody that over-full feeling.

So I had to make kugel, of course.  I morphed a few recipes to make mine this year.  I went with sweet rather than savory.  The Rosh Hashanah meal is associated with honey and other sweets, eaten in order to ensure a sweet year to come.  I give you my sweet kugel.  Eat it sparingly, lest you have the kugel moans later.

Kuuuuuuuuuuuu-guuuuuuulllllll

Ingedients

1 package of egg noodles

1 cup of dark brown sugar, with 1/4 cup set aside

1-1/2 sticks of butter, melted

3/4 cup pecans, chopped

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 cup cottage cheese (this is not the place for low fat)

1- 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch or two of salt

Directions

Boil water and cook your noodles.  The package suggests 8-9 minutes.  You’ll want them to be on the less done side- al-dente.  They’ll cook in the oven with the custard so they’ll get a bit of liquid there.

While the noodles are cooking, melt the butter.  Pour about 1/3 of it into a baking dish.  I used a 9×12 dish.  Spread it around the bottom and sides.  Sprinkle 3/4 cup of the brown sugar on the bottom, covering evenly.

Press the pecans on top of the sugar, again, covering evenly.  I may toast the pecans before I do this step the next time I make this, just for some added crunch.

Drain your noodles (did you forget about them?) and then mix them with the rest of the melted butter.  I do this in the cooking pot since it’s big enough to hold everything.

Drained and waiting for butter bath.

In a medium bowl mix the eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, cinnamon and vanilla. If you like that sort of thing, a bit of lemon or orange zest might be nice here.

Mmmmmm. Dairy.

Mix the diary into the noodles and make sure it’s all incorporated.

At this point, if you can stand it, you should taste (for those of you with an aversion to raw eggs, don’t taste this.) and adjust the seasoning.  Mine needed a little bit more salt.  It also needed a little bit more sweet so I added that last 1/4 cup of brown sugar.  Once it’s all mixed, spread it into the pan, on top of the butter/sugar/nut mixture.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour and fifteen minutes. You want it to be crispy on the edges but not overdone- if it gets too dry, it’s really gross.

Let this cool for about fifteen minutes before you cut into it.  The sugar/butter/nut mixture will sort of harden and become sticky.  If you know that everyone is going to eat it at once, you can flip it over onto a platter and have a very pretty dish.  Otherwise, cut into squares and serve from the pan.

It was such a wonderful night.  All the kids were really well-behaved and had a great time playing together.  They didn’t want it to end- neither did I.

I went to bed feeling full of hope for the new year.  I wish you all a wonderful year to come, filled with sweetness and… as a loyal reader is fond of saying…enough.  Peace.

Leftovers, Passover Style (or, how to build a recipe)

One of the things I most admire about professional chefs is their ability to know what flavors will work well together.  Like on Chopped, for example.  A recent episode featured ground lamb, Stilton cheese, eggplant and birch syrup.  Now, if you gave me those, I’d have an idea that lamb and eggplant might go together since they’re both featured in middle eastern cuisine.  And I know that Stilton is like blue cheese so it’s stinky and powerful.  But birch syrup?  No idea about that one. Put them all together in one cohesive plate?  No way!

But if you’re a professional and/or experienced chef, then you know that the sweetness of the birch syrup (which is apparently like maple but “with more pine and wintergreen notes”, according to Aaron Sanchez) will pair nicely with the savory cheese.  You would also know that ground lamb will make a good meatball, particularly if you cook it in something like red wine in order to keep it moist.  You’d know that eggplant needs to be seasoned just so and that to put it all together you definitely need a starch.

I can not claim to be a professional chef but over the years, I have been able to learn what goes together well, partly from eating at restaurants, partly from reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows and partly from experimenting.  I have a sense of how to build a sauce, how to add flavor, how to fix mistakes (too much salt?  add a potato to absorb it) and how to re-purpose leftovers.  Cooked chicken goes well into soup, casseroles, tossed with pasta or with salad.  Lemon, garlic and rosemary are good flavors for chicken.  Apple cider and apple cider vinegar go well with pork.  Bacon makes everything better.

As a result, when I needed to use up leftovers from the big Passover meal, I was able to combine them in a way that made sense, was delicious and was pretty healthy, as well.  I’ll try to talk you through my thought process so you can see how I, a home cook, made it happen.

I had lots of peppers left over since I had intended to make a salad but didn’t.  (Hippo, I am so sorry but this post will have peppers as a main ingredient (and some zucchini as well) and I know how you feel about those.  You could always use cabbage leaves or Portobellos or another vessel.)

I also had leftover roasted balsamic veggies, cooked chicken and matzo. When I lived in Israel, we’d often make stuffed peppers with rice and vegetables.  I’ve also made and have eaten stuffed cabbage as well so I knew that I could chop the chicken and veggies and use those as part of the stuffing.  Crumbled matzo could be substituted for the starch element (usually rice).  I would just need some sort of binder like cheese or egg, to help hold the mixture together.  I peeked into the fridge and, lo and behold, I had some leftover ricotta that needed to be used. I also found some parmesan cheese that could be melted on top.

Thus, a dish was born.

I give you stuffed peppers, passover style.

Stuffed Peppers

Bell peppers (one or two for each person, depends on how hungry you are)

Some sort of protein, cooked: chicken, pork, beef

Some sort of vegetable mixture: mine was a mix of roasted onions, summer squash, tomatoes, garlic and zucchini.

Some sort of starch: rice or couscous would be good; for passover I used matzo

Some sort of binder: creamy cheese like ricotta or an egg or two

Salt, Pepper, other spices to taste, maybe a little cheese for the top

Directions:

Wash your peppers and cut off the tops.  Scrape out the seeds and ribs.

I sliced just a little bit off the bottom so that they’d stand up but you must be careful not to slice so much that you make a hole- your filling will leak out if you do.

Place them into a steamer basket and steam them over boiling water for a few minutes, just until they start to soften a little.  Mine took maybe 5-8 minutes.  They’ll be going into the oven later so don’t worry about actually cooking them.

Meanwhile, chop your vegetables and your protein into small (minced even!) pieces.

Veggies roasted but not yet chopped

In a bowl, mix the veggies, protein and starch (in this case, chopped chicken, crumbled matzo and chopped roasted veggies).

Add your binder- eggs and/or cheese- and mix well. I used ricotta and an egg.

Season with salt and pepper and whatever else you like (go italian with oregano and basil or try something more middle eastern like cumin and turmeric).  Place your peppers in a baking pan and set your oven to 375.

Stuff each pepper with the mixture, topping with cheese if you so desire (I almost always desire cheese).

Bake at 375 until heated through and the cheese on top is melted and lovely.  About 15 minutes for me.

 

Pass – (is) -Over

Another Seder has come and gone.  As you know, if you read here, Passover is one of my favorite meals to make and one of my favorite holidays to host.  In years past this has been due to the traditions I’ve been able to pass on and the people who’d been around our table.  This year, it was no less true.  We had a smaller number this year and while those who are usually in attendance were missed, it was also nice to be a bit more intimate- I can’t remember the last time we all fit in the dining room.  We also had more children this year which made my heart full in a way it hasn’t been before.

That's Miss M down at the end and Miss C over on the left. They were two of five children in attendance.

Not to turn this into a mushy sermon on how having children has changed my life (it has) but it made a difference to look around the table and see the next generation seated there.  My cousin, my best friend from elementary school and my best friends from high school were all there with their children.  I still think it’s surreal that we all have kids because it seems like just a few hours ago we were late for Latin class.  This year we even had the next generation in pets, brought by none other than Lady Gouda’s sister, who is a dear friend of ours.

Not only did she bring a cute dog, she also brought an adorable and perfect gift for my little sous chef:

But, the food.  Let me tell you about the food.

I tend to serve big dinners family style.  Composed plates are all well and good in restaurants but when you’re at home and serving a large group of people, make them work for it.  Pass those platters, pass those plates, make people get up and move around.  Keeps things exciting and, frankly, much easier for the cook.

Big platter of balsamic roasted veggies. Yum.

So, our menu was hard boiled eggs, matzo ball soup, charoset, mashed potatoes, roasted chicken, brisket, roasted balsamic vegetables, apple matzo kugel, roasted asparagus, chocolate caramel matzo and fudgy passover brownies.  Also some ice cream.  Whew.  Oh, and wine.  Lots of wine.  In the words of Lady Gouda’s Sister, “I didn’t know you got drunk at passover.”  (For those of you not in the know, you are supposed to drink at least four cups of wine during the pre-dinner service.)

Prepping took two days.  I actually cooked the brisket for a day and a half.  It was good.  So good.  So good that I’m angry I didn’t buy a bigger brisket as it was all gone in about five minutes.  No exaggeration.

Brisket top right. It was SO. GOOD.

The new recipes I tried, balsamic roasted veggies and apple-matzo kugel were delicious.  The vegetables were simple but flavorful.  It was a simple recipe- just chop the vegetables, mix up the dressing, combine and roast.  Easy and simple.

The vegetables waiting to be washed and chopped.

The apple mazto kugel was sweet and not dry at all.

Apples, chopped and ready for a mix with brown sugar and OJ.

It was filled with apples, raisins and apricots- which I thought I wouldn’t like as I’m not a huge fan of dried fruit in my food but, somehow it all worked well together.

Kugel on the left. Yum.

Everyone loved the food and there was lots of eating, laughing and general merriment.

A plate full of food (and therefore, love, right?)

So.  Another Seder ended, another spring beginning.  As we say at the end of the seder:  next year in Jerusalem.

Chag Pesach Semach!

 

Not Pass-ive

It’s Passover again!  I was looking back over the blog and was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted much about Passover last year.  I showed you our Passover Plate (here) and how I organized my menu and planning (here).  But I didn’t talk much about the food!  Strange.

Each year at Passover, I think about traditions. (I also think about the playwriting class I took as an undergrad. One of the students wrote a play called, “Passing Over.”  It was a family drama about a son coming home for Passover, bringing his girlfriend.  The mother was the main character and it was about her letting go.  The scenes alternated between present time and the son’s childhood from the mother’s perspective.  I thought it was incredibly well written and I loved the title.  No idea what happened to this student or the play but I think of it every year.  But anyway, traditions.)

Some of the traditions I think about are food-related (shocking), while others are family-related.  Each Passover we make sure to have some non-Jews at the table.  Each Passover I serve hard-boiled eggs after the service, before the soup (My grandmother always did).  Each Passover we make certain to call our family in Israel.  Each Passover we serve Mama’s Sponge Cake (Even though we tend not to eat it).  For me, these large holidays are all about passing on traditions- using the same plates, cooking the same foods, telling the same stories- so that we can pass down a bit of our family through the generations.

It means that I can tell stories about my great-grandmother, even though I don’t remember her.  It means that I make my matzo balls the same way my grandmother did and, by extension, so will my children.  It’s a way of connecting us over time, through generations, across geographical borders.  Which is true of food in general- when I make the tuna salad that my cousin in Israel makes, I’m bringing a bit of her to my table- but becomes more true when it’s a traditional food at a traditional holiday time.

Which is what Passover is all about for me.  Traditions and connections.  When we open the door for Elijah, I know that many families that live on my street, and the next street over and the next town over and the next state over and the next country over (well, you get the idea) are all doing the same thing.  When we giggle and look for the afikoman, I know that other families are doing it at the same time we are.  It’s a connection.

This year we’re celebrating Passover a day late in that we’re having our first seder on the second night.  Some families do a seder on the first and second nights but we’ve always just done the one on the first night.  This year, what with me going back to work this week and with two young kids, I decided to not aim for perfection but instead to relax and have dinner on the second night. It feels just slightly wrong but I’m mostly over that.

I spent some time today cooking and will the majority of the cooking tomorrow.  When I can, I’ll have my daughter help me (she’s a good stir-er for a few minutes at a time) and this year, because it’s on a Saturday, my best friend from elementary school will be joining us and has offered to help cook.  That is the other piece of the holiday for me- the friends.  Standing side by side in the kitchen, chatting and cooking, is something I value.  Some of my best conversations have happened that way.

At any rate, this year we’ll be having chicken and brisket.  Holiday mashed potatoes, of course, and Chocolate Caramel Matzo.  And no Passover meal is complete without matzo ball soup.  Plus the seder plate. I’m trying a few new dishes as well- balsamic roasted veggies and apple matzo kugel.

Here’s the state of my fridge, the night before:

Hard boiled eggs are cooked and peeled (white bowl on bottom left); brisket is cooked and ready to be put back in the oven to be warmed (middle left).  Veggies are waiting to be prepped (in two bottom drawers), and the chicken is waiting to be roasted (bottom left).

My daughter discovered the seder plate today.  She is a bit obsessed with birthdays now and spent a good twenty minutes stacking, counting and arranging the smaller plates on the bigger one, while saying, “Happy to you….happy to G-”.  I think she thought they were small cakes.

Hopefully I’ll remember photos tomorrow and will be able to post a bit more next week about the new dishes and the tried and true ones.

Chag Pesach Semach (happy passover holiday) and Happy Easter!

April Fool

In honor of April Fool’s Day, I give you this:

Burgers and fries, right?

Nope!  Cupcakes, brownies and sugar cookies.

Food masquerading as other food.  What better way to trick on April 1st?  (For the record, I despise practical jokes.  They’re usually mean and I just can’t get behind mean.)

Easy to do, especially if you use mixes.  Which I did, at least for the cupcakes and the brownies.  And some of the frosting.  (Thanks to Bakerella for the idea)

Basically, bake the brownies and the cupcakes.  Then cut out rounds from the brownies, slightly smaller than the size of the cupcakes.

Get your frosting ready- you’ll need red, yellow and green. You can purchase said colors or make a basic buttercream and color that.  I did both:

Slice your cupcakes in half and place a brownie round on top of the bottom half.  Frost a bit of yellow and red frosting (mustard and ketchup) on the brownie, near the edge.

Then use the green to represent lettuce- sort of on top of the red and yellow and in a wavy kind of pattern.

Top with the upper half of the cupcake, at a bit of an angle so you can see the colors underneath.

You could get really fancy and put sesame seeds on top of the “buns”- brush with a little bit of water and sprinkle the seeds on top.

Make sugar cookies (I like the Hippo’s recipe) and roll the dough out pretty thin.  Slice it into fries- don’t worry too much about them being even as all fries aren’t. Bake and when you take them out of the oven sprinkle them with sugar (to emulate salt).

Assemble and serve- see if you can fool others.

Happy April Fool’s Day!