Passover is one of those Jewish holidays that I absolutely love in theory yet totally hate in practice. On one hand, you get to eat delicious food with close friends and family while re-telling the story of the Jewish peoples epic flight for freedom in ancient Egypt. And there’s wine, a lot of wine. Four full glasses of wine to be exact that have to be fully drained before moving on to the next one. And when you are using an abridged Haggadah like I did, the gaps of time between each glass is infinitely shorter than they probably should be. On the other, you can’t anything made with flour which seriously limits your daily food intake. But hey, I get to drink four glasses of wine in one go. Can’t really complain with that.
However, Passover is more about drinking until we are too merry to realize that we are slathering our matzoh with horseradish and not butter. Its about celebrating our freedom from slavery. WOOT! Of course there is a whole lot more to the story than just that but I won’t bore you with the details. What you should do is go out and either watch the film, The Prince of Egypt (which is kick-ass) or that episode of the Rugrats. Both do an excellent job of re-telling the story of Passover in a fun and colorful, but also represent an awesome time in 1990s animation.
The Prince of Egypt currently available on Netflix so do take advantage of the fact that it is out there for easy viewing. Just do not watch Dreamwork’s follow up film, Joseph, the King of Dreams. A cinematic master piece it is not!
Also, I had a professor who was used as a historic consultant in the movie which only makes the film more awesome!
Now that I’ve skirted around the topic of explaining what Passover really is, I can get to the fun part of this post: THE FOOD!
Believe it or not, Passover is not all about stuffing our faces with matzoh for eight days. Personally, I like to think of Passover as one big epic food challenge. How many dishes can you come up with that do not include any leavening agents? As it turns out, not every Passover recipe has to be a matzoh sandwich with cheese. There are other options out there.
This year for Passover, I decided to try my hand at making something new, haroset. What’s that? It’s an apple based spread that we eat with matzoh. Most commonly, people make a sandwich of matzoh, haroset, and horseradish. At the same time, I absolutely needed to make my mom’s Passover friendly macaroons, a recipe that my sister freaked when she heard I had it memorized. Seriously, they are that good.
Hope you enjoy and happy Passover!
Passover Macaroons
(Adapted from the always useful, The Joy of Cooking)
One 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg white
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
A pinch of salt
One bag of shredded, sweetened coconut
1 bag of chocolate chips, either normal size or mini.
Preheat oven to 325. Mix everything together in a large bowl until 100% combined.
Break out the cookie sheets and line with parchment paper. Scoop tablespoon sized portions of the mixture onto the cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the coconut has toasted on top and the sides have browned.
My Own Haroset Recipe
3 Fuji apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup of chopped walnuts
1 cup of golden raisins
3 tablespoons of honey
1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or however much you think is needed)
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 cup of either grape juice or a sweet red wine
Combine all together in a big bowl and chill until ready to serve.
The Foodie Librarian 