My version of Passover

Happy Passover to everyone observing Passover traditions with Seders over the next couple of nights.

Last year I celebrated Passover by inviting 3 of my friends over for dinner.  Not my original idea, but one of my friends wanted to do something for Passover.  At the end of it all I spent about 3 days preparing everything,  the food was delicious but my bar cart was a casualty at the end of the night and I spent the next couple of days cleaning up.  In total I spent about $200 on food for 4 people.

Well this year I just don't have that kind of money to spend on one meal, although my friend kept trying to justify it by saying I would have all the leftovers.  He was also supposed to chip in to cover a bit of the cost but that never happened.

So this year it's me alone but I will do my own version of Passover.   Although I have cousins who have their own busy lives I don't have my own family to spend Passover with but I am ok with this and if you knew my family you would understand why.

So this year I am going to do a combination of things I make and things I buy.  I know lots of people just cater their whole Passover dinners these days but there are some things that I just like to make myself that are better but some things are just not as cost effective to buy for 1 person.

For example,  I went to a Thornhill deli and picked up a small container of chopped liver.  Although mine is much better I always make too much and I can never finish it.  I also bought some sweet Gefilte Fish.  I never make this,  my mother would make it once every couple of years, it was never a regular thing and it wasn't something I was ever interested in making.  It's a bit of a long process and you have to search out special white fish.   For one person this is just a whole lot of time for a couple of pieces of Gefilte fish.  I also picked up 1 potato latke to try and realized that I like my latkes a whole lot better so I made a batch of them from scratch this morning.  You can see the difference in the photo of the 4 dishes all of those things were purchased at the Deli or other stores.  The latke photo on the top of the page are my own.  The one that I purchased was dense and greasy and it wasn't that flavourful either.  I add parsley flakes to mine and pepper and grated onion.  This time I also tried a trick I picked up from the Foodshare cookbook where they separate the eggs and whip the egg whites and then add them to the whole mixture.  This makes them a lot lighter than the usual latkes.   Most of the time I just make a Rostii style potato pancake that's crispy with no onions or eggs.  Just potatoes.

The other things I always make myself is Chicken Soup because it's really easy, it just takes a bit of time but I can control the amount of salt and flavour and I know there are no additives to it.  I use a package of Matzo balls though when I want matzo balls because it's just easier and it always turns out that way.  We always had a debate in our family,  my cousins preferred hard matzo balls while I like them light and fluffy.

I also make the Charoset which is a mixture of fruits and nuts.  I like to add Brandy and figs to the dates with walnuts and apples and cinnamon.  It's kind of like a chunky sweet spread that makes plain matzo's taste a whole lot better.  It's actually a great thing to have any time of day because of the ingredients, well you can skip the Brandy but it does infuse the flavour of it.  It would be a great thing to have with cheese even after Passover.  If you skip the apples and use only dried fruits you can keep it a lot longer.

I never buy Macaroons but I bought some to try and I think I prefer the ones I made myself last year.  I just didn't bother to make them this year.  A case of too much time and not worth making a batch just for myself.

One thing that occurred to me was that most of the foods seem to be either beige or brown.  I am not sure why that is exactly but I do know that my mother the color loving person that she was always made a special dish of roasted peppers with tomatoes that my cousins loved.  Yes it's not traditional but it tasted good on matzo's.

I am skipping the all day brisket making and will just make a piece of roasted chicken breast which is a whole lot healthier and more traditional for my immediate family.  My aunt would make a really dry brisket but my mother would make a roast chicken instead.  I don't think she knew how to make Brisket.  Probably better that she made chicken well instead of dried out brisket I suppose.

Well I am skipping any family drama and all the boring prayer books and other things that go along with the Passover traditions and I am just going to stick to eating some of my favourite Passover foods and honouring some of the things I learned from my mother and my aunts Passover dinners.

Enjoy your Passover dinners may they be tasty and stress free.

Passover the Seder

Last night.. friday was the 1st night of Passover, when Jewish families have a Seder usually over the first 2 nights of Passover.

In case you don't know what passover is this is how Chabad.org explains it:

The eight-day festival of Passover is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan. It commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. And, by following the rituals of Passover, we have the ability to relive and experience the true freedom that our ancestors gained. ( chabad.org)

I have a very small family with only one immediate family member alive still so I only have cousins left so the Holidays aren't a big deal for me generally. I am not religious at all and my family members aren't very religious either.

We had what I call a #SpeedSeder which means we skipped the religious traditions and just had dinner with most of the usual foods that are eaten at Passover. My cousin's wife cooked a beautiful meal this year.

We enjoyed Brisket which is cooked low and slow in the oven and accompanying it was roast potatoes, asparagus and zucchini. We started the meal with traditional chopped liver, gefilte fish, beets and matzoh ball soup. It's a pretty filling meal but it was all very tasty. We finished it off with some fruit and a chocolate cake for dessert.

For me I don't think you have to perform all the traditional lengthy prayers and rituals to acknowledge what has come before to allow you to be who you are now. I think just having a meal having the traditional foods keeps the memory alive. I never understood all the prayers and what they were for and all about anyway so I think a lot of it gets lost on the current generation anyway.

I think you should be free to keep or exclude any traditions that work or don't work for you.

The traditional Seder plate and foods include the following:


1) "Zeroa" - a roasted chicken bone with most of the meat removed. This will represent the Passover offering. It will not be eaten.
2) "Beitzah" - a hard-boiled egg, representing the festival offering.
3) "Maror" - grated horseradish (just the horseradish -- not the red stuff that has vinegar and beets added) and/or romaine lettuce, for use as the "bitter herbs".
4) "Charoset" - a paste made of apples, pears, nuts and wine. We'll be dipping the bitter herbs in this
5) "Karpas" - a bit of vegetable, such an onion or potato.
6) "Chazeret" -- more bitter herbs, for use in the matzah-maror sandwich.
We'll also need a wine cup or goblet for each participant, and plenty of wine (four cups each).

And a dish of salt water (in which to dip the Karpas).

I made the CHAROSET at home which was something my mother made once in a while which has wine in it but my mother never had the wine on hand so she used Brandy instead which I think makes it taste a whole lot more elevated and with a french feel. My mother was raised in Belgium, hence the Brandy/Cognac liberties.

In the Charoset I put a peeled apple, some walnuts, dates, the brandy and a tablespoon of honey. I also put in a few figs to give it some extra flavour. It's the easiest thing to make because all you do is food process the whole thing until it's a chunky paste. I suppose you would have fine chopped it making it the original way. It's really tasty when spread on a piece of matzoh. I will post the picture here............ once I pick up some matzoh's. I never realized how healthy it actually was but I think I will be eating some of it for breakfast this week.

Even if you don't celebrate Passover I encourage you to try some of the traditional Passover foods and get inspired to make them your own.