Passover Friendly

Passover is now well in the past, but my pictures haven't been posted yet.  Yes, I am THAT far behind!

Passover started the night Ryan came home, and continued right up until that 6 course dinner we enjoyed.

Although I did not make this first meal during Passover, it would have worked, and in fact inspired a meal I did make during the holiday (and is also pictured below).

I started with some carrots and mushrooms.

Then I added in some bean sprouts.  I had never bought these before, but this bag was so cheap that I decided I needed to try them out.

The last veggie I added was some broccoli.

In the meantime, I was marinating my fish in some less sodium soy sauce and brushed it with some miso.

It made a really nice meal!  I am definitely making this again.

In fact, it was so good that I made a similar version during Passover, except I had potatoes and green beans on the side.

Last up is Matzo Brei, which is also called fried matzo, although I don't actually do any frying with mine.  It's more or less the Passover equivalent of French toast.

To start, you break up some matzo and soak it in water.

Then you dry it off and egg to beaten eggs.  It's a one to one ratio, so one egg for each slice of matzo.

Then you cook it in a frying pan, just like eggs.

Yum!  There are many ways to enjoy this dish, but I prefer mine dipped in jelly.

I could seriously eat this all year!

I didn't do too much else for special foods during the holiday.  Mostly I ate matzo ball soup, fruits and vegetables.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever tried matzo brei?  Have you ever been to a Passover seder?  What is your favorite holiday food?

Happy Hanukkah!!!

Hanukkah might be over, but I will be enjoying my gifts for years to come.  I would have posted earlier as the holiday was December 1-9, but I was trying so hard to get caught up on all the other pictures I had to share with everyone.  Now that the holiday is over and things are less crazy, I can fill you in on my holiday.

Actually, I almost didn’t have a holiday.  Somehow I forgot that I could not get candles here for the menorah.  At the very last possible moment, I had my dad send some.  We only get mail once a week, so if it did not get here the weekend before Hanukkah started, they would not be here until the very end of the holiday.  Thankfully, they arrived on time. 

 

I was able to light the menorah on the first night.

Usually there would be a nice traditional meal to go with the holiday, but I was planning that for Thursday, so we went out to dinner at an Italian Restaurant.

I love their Greek salad.

Ryan had the chicken vodka penne.

I had the spicy squid, which made my sister super jealous.  Sorry Rach!

Before I get to my pictures of my own holiday meal, I have to show you all of the wonderful gifts that my husband bought for me.

This was the year of kitchen supplies. 

Night 1: Now I have an awesome Japanese cookbook.  It is really amazing to see the beautiful color pictures inside of some of the recipes.

Night 2: This is a taco shell maker.  You take a tortilla and then place it in the holder.  Now you stick in in oil to fry it, yes I said fry, because how else are you going to make a taco shell.  Ok, I guess they can be baked, so maybe I will work on that idea.  I have never made taco shells before, but it is a funny gadget.  We figure we will find other uses for it too.

Lots of measuring cups.  I may have broken the 1 TBSP spoon we had and was using just the cup and not the handle to measure things.  It was sad.  Then I went to FNCE and grabbed as many 1 TBSP measurers as I could.  Even though I picked them up, Ryan had already ordered this for me, so he still gave it to me, and really, you can never have too many measuring cups.  These go up to 2 cups.

Night 3: I got a mandoline.  I am super excited to get to slicing around here.

  

Night 4: This is a heated towel rack.  No, I am not trying to be a spoiled brat.  We have no heat in this house, and it gets cold and shower time gets to be dreaded.  Actually, any time not in sweats and multiple layers is a dreaded time.  The towel rack also acts as a dryer for the towel, which is really needed around here because of the humidity.  Things do not dry.  I usually use wet towels to dry off, which makes me even colder.  This has really helped so far because I am enjoying using a dry towel to shower with.  Even towels that come out of the dryer, if they sit around a few days before you use them, they will be damp.  Don’t ask…remember we live on an island, and a very small island at that.

I really, really wanted a Dutch oven, so I am so happy that I got this.  I remember when I went to unwrap and I was thinking this is the heaviest thing I have ever lifted and could not even imagine what was inside.

 

Night 5: Ryan also gave me some more flexible cutting boards.  This was another one he found funny because he had already bought them before FNCE and I came home from FNCE with quite a few flexible cutting boards.  Oh well, you can never have too many cutting boards too.

 

Yummy!  Look at this cookbook.  I have already flipped through it and I am excited to start making some of these dishes.

This one was actually a gift to myself.  I spotted it on a lightening deal from Amazon and I had to buy it.  I had flipped through this too and you can’t find a more complete guide book to vegetarian food than this.

 

Night 6:  This is really my big, big gift.  The way we do presents here is random.  I just pick which wrapped gift I want to open, unless there is really one Ryan wants me to open first.  This year was just pick which ever looks good for the night.  I would say this was the biggie for this year.  I only have a mini food prep, and I should add that was one I bought Ryan when we first started dating, so it is really his, as in I never really owned one.  I felt I desperately needed a food processor.  Now I have the smallest and largest versions on the market.  I can’t wait to use this.  Ryan also bought me another blade for this that he gave to me with this gift.

  

Night 7: Heck yes, a tortilla press.  If you remember the time we made tortillas from scratch, this was what was missing.  Rolling them just did not work as well.  Maybe with practice, I would get better, but I am all for the gadgets and gizmos that will make things move faster.  Now I can make tortillas from scratch and then make them into taco shells.  We have not forgotten about From Scratch Weekends, they were just put on hold for a little because things got hectic, and I am OK with that.  More from scratch meals will resume soon, I promise.

This is a spiral slicer, which will be fun for making all kinds of curly things and rings and slices of things.  I need to get to the store and get some veggies so I can try out all my new toys.

Night 8:  This is the final night of Hanukkah.  I got these nice cutting boards.  They are different because they are not flexible and they double as serving trays.

Some spatulas in a pretty shade of blue.

 

Last, but not least, this very awesome cookbook.  Again, I have flipped through this and I am very exciting to make many of these recipes.

 

That does it for all my gifts.  the only thing missing for Hanukkah is some traditional Jewish food.  I made matzo ball soup because that is my favorite.  I always make it from the box mix because that is the kind I always ate as a kid.

This year, however, I discovered that I can add to my soup and really improve on the box mix.  I added some carrots.

 

Then I added some noodles.  I did this for Rosh Hashanah and it was a hit, so I decided from now on I am making my soup this way.

 

It was delicious.

Hanukkah is not Hanukkah without latkes, or potato pancakes.  This is the essential food.  Hanukkah is the festival of lights, and this celebrates the oil that was found after the temple was destroyed, and this small amount of oil burned for 8 days.  Therefore, oil is essential to this holiday.  Latkes are potato pancakes fried in oil.  Again, I use the box mix. 

It is like a power and you add some oil and water and then it thickens up.  Next year I think I will be shredding my own potatoes and making my own.  In fact, Cooking Light magazine had a few recipes for homemade latkes that I think I want to try.

 

Here they are.  Some got a little more golden than others.  This was only from my first batch.  After that I had to put the camera down and get to frying.

 

YUM!  I ate mine with apple sauce and they were so good.

 

QUESTIONS:  What did you get for Hanukkah (if you celebrate it)?  What have you asked for or hope to get for Christmas (if you celebrate it)?  Anyone else celebrating any different holidays this season?  What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Sweetness, From Scratch

While we were busy making all of those great spreads and pita bread, we also had a craving for some homemade chocolate chip cookies.  We made these Saturday night, and they went fast!

Usually Ryan makes them using the Betty Crocker cookbook, but this time we decided to just go with the recipe on the package of the chocolate chips.  Either way, how can you go wrong with homemade chocolate chip cookies!

Um, so about these cookies, well we must have really REALLY wanted to get them made fast.  Niether of us actually read the directions and so we mixed everything together.  In reality, the flour was to be mixed in last after all the other ingredients were mixed together.  The good news is that everything did manage to come together into one ball and we had some cookie dough.  As long as it tastes good in the end, I guess it is OK to mess up a little on the instructions, right?

Mmm, cookie dough!  Yes, I admit to eating some raw.  Yes, as someone with a degree in public health, and someone very concerned with food-borne illness, I do take my own risk at eating the occasional dough containing raw egg.

Ready for the oven...

Look how perfect they came out.

These wire racks for cooling are the best.

I love that they are stackable and all the cookies fit nicely on them and can cooly before being packaged up to eat later.

I also have some pictures from last week that I still didn't post yet, so I though before this week was over, I should just get these posted.

First up is this granola.  I mentioned Michele's Granola before in a post because I picked this up in Baltimore.  My sister actually bought this for me.  It is locally made in Baltimore.  She picked the chocolate cherry flavor because, well, I like chocolate and cherry together. 

The good news is that this made it all the way back to the island safely and Ryan and I opened it the other night.  Look at that.  It is weird, but there was a lot of granola in the bag and I have no idea why the bag looks so long and empty.  I mean I ate some, but not all of it!

Here you can see the nice chunks and the cherries, which are a good size.  It was great with the chocolate and cherry combination.

I was actually eating the granola because I was hungry and my dinner was still cooking.  I got the strangest craving for matzo ball soup, and I have tons of boxes of the mix here, so I made some.  I love matzo ball soup.  I was also cold and this helped to warm me up.

QUESTIONS:  What is your favorite kind of cookie to make from scratch?  Have you ever made granola?