We had a Passover dinner on Friday night, the 5th night of Passover, and good Friday. Like lots of other Jews, apparently, we chose the night for convenience rather than tradition, although I did do a little looking to see if we could go to a seder at a restaurant in Chicago on Monday. The one that appealed most was a 2nd night seder at the Oak Park Temple, but that was the night we had tickets for the National, so not a good option.
Anyways, we had a nice dinner – 14 people, 3 little kids. I tried to keep it informal and casual. Jane brought the charoset – 2 kinds, apple and date. Carol brought hummus and a really nice beet salad. Belinda & Stephen brought the chocolate covered matzoh – using up some of the vegan margarine that I gave her (I bought a box by mistake thinking it was the shortening, which is actually good; the margarine has a really strong soy taste and smell), but as she said, and absolutely right – real butter would’ve been much better. They also made stuffed peppers with quinoa – so we were so au courant, since the rabbis just declared quinoa a seed and therefore kosher for Passover – the recipe is linked to from the NPR story. Molly & David brought all their kids, and fresh horse radish for the seder plate, and garlic mustard pesto. I made matzoh ball soup, and roasted two of Matt Smith’s chickens with garlic, rosemary, maple syrup & balsamic vinegar, and I made farfel stuffing with spinach. The soup broth was a mix of vegetable, chicken, and turkey – I added what seemed to me to be way too much salt, but everyone loved it.
I was walking home Thursday and realized I hadn’t thought about dessert. I decided to NOT make a Passover sponge cake, with matzoh meal. By the time we have matzoh ball soup and farfel stuffing and eat matzoh, everything tastes like matzoh. I made chocolate chip meringues and Whole Foods had strawberries for $3.99 a box. I just rinsed the strawberries and put them in a bowl. So dessert was all finger foods – meringues, strawberries and chocolate covered matzoh. Just right.
