The past ten days, I have been fairly invisible here, on Facebook, on Twitter, and anywhere else online. Why? Well I can answer that in one short word: Passover. The eight days of matzah beginning with the seders began on Friday night and will continue until Saturday at sundown. I absolutely love this holiday. I love the food, I love the seders, and I, oddly enough, love being able to clean out my kitchen.
Brian and I change everything over for Passover. We are not allowed to eat leavened bread, rice, corn and various legumes for the duration of the holiday and are supposed to change our dishes and cutlery to those that have not touched these types of foods. So before Friday, we packed up our regular dishes, our foods from our pantry and brought out all our Passover accoutrement. My counters were thoroughly cleaned, my fridge was washed out, the pantry shelves were cleaned, and the Passover food went in.
What I love about the holiday, is that the dietary restrictions imposed means I get to flex my creativity in the kitchen. Not being able to use traditional ingredients means I have to think outside the box, especially when baking. This year, I made Sephardic Charoset Truffles and lemon meringue pie for our parents' seders, with varying degrees of success. My way of making a pie for Passover usually requires a bit of cheating for the base. Basically I buy a box of Manischevitz Passover moist coffee cake mix. I bake it, cut it into pieces and pres it into a pie plate. But my real discovery this year is Passover Lasagna. It is awesome. I have placed my recipe below. I have adapted it from a recipe I got from Great Auntie Linda. Try it out for yourselves.
Passover Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 jar tomato sauce
2 lbs ground meat (I use chicken)
6 large portobello mushroom caps
1 box of matzah (I use spelt)
2 teaspoons of pureed garlic
salt, pepper, oregano to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350.
Heat olive oil in skillet. Gradually add the ground meat and brown. Add 1 teaspoon of the pureed garlic, some salt, pepper and oregano. Put aside for later.
Cut portobello mushroom into small pieces and place in the skillet. Add the rest of the garlic, some salt, pepper and oregano. Lightly brown. Put aside.
Take a large pyrex baking dish. Take whole pieces of matzah and lightly wet them. Place them so they cover the bottom of the dish. Cover them with some of the ground meat. Cover the meat with some tomato sauce. How much you use is up to your discretion. I like a lot of sauce. Place another layer of wet matzah on top of the sauce. Cover this with the cut up mushrooms and some more sauce. Continue alternating layers of matzah, meat, sauce, and mushroooms until the dish is full. Make sure you end with a top layer of saucy matzah. Place the pyrex into the oven and bake at 350 for a half hour to 45 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy!
Note: You can make this a vegetarian lasagna if you switch out the meat layers for cheese. I like a mixture of old cheddar and mozzarella.
Brian and I change everything over for Passover. We are not allowed to eat leavened bread, rice, corn and various legumes for the duration of the holiday and are supposed to change our dishes and cutlery to those that have not touched these types of foods. So before Friday, we packed up our regular dishes, our foods from our pantry and brought out all our Passover accoutrement. My counters were thoroughly cleaned, my fridge was washed out, the pantry shelves were cleaned, and the Passover food went in.
What I love about the holiday, is that the dietary restrictions imposed means I get to flex my creativity in the kitchen. Not being able to use traditional ingredients means I have to think outside the box, especially when baking. This year, I made Sephardic Charoset Truffles and lemon meringue pie for our parents' seders, with varying degrees of success. My way of making a pie for Passover usually requires a bit of cheating for the base. Basically I buy a box of Manischevitz Passover moist coffee cake mix. I bake it, cut it into pieces and pres it into a pie plate. But my real discovery this year is Passover Lasagna. It is awesome. I have placed my recipe below. I have adapted it from a recipe I got from Great Auntie Linda. Try it out for yourselves.
Passover Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 jar tomato sauce
2 lbs ground meat (I use chicken)
6 large portobello mushroom caps
1 box of matzah (I use spelt)
2 teaspoons of pureed garlic
salt, pepper, oregano to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350.
Heat olive oil in skillet. Gradually add the ground meat and brown. Add 1 teaspoon of the pureed garlic, some salt, pepper and oregano. Put aside for later.
Cut portobello mushroom into small pieces and place in the skillet. Add the rest of the garlic, some salt, pepper and oregano. Lightly brown. Put aside.
Take a large pyrex baking dish. Take whole pieces of matzah and lightly wet them. Place them so they cover the bottom of the dish. Cover them with some of the ground meat. Cover the meat with some tomato sauce. How much you use is up to your discretion. I like a lot of sauce. Place another layer of wet matzah on top of the sauce. Cover this with the cut up mushrooms and some more sauce. Continue alternating layers of matzah, meat, sauce, and mushroooms until the dish is full. Make sure you end with a top layer of saucy matzah. Place the pyrex into the oven and bake at 350 for a half hour to 45 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy!
Note: You can make this a vegetarian lasagna if you switch out the meat layers for cheese. I like a mixture of old cheddar and mozzarella.
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