Passover Cooking
My Giant Passover File gives equal time to Ashkenazi and Sephardi Cooking; You will love the eclectic selection! Naturally Gluten-Free. Likewise, I have the meatless and the vegan diners prominently in mind.
Just the thought of Passover Cooking makes everyone shudder!
Let me start with my induction Boot Camp Crash Course in Passover Cooking, read my Passover Kitchen Diaries: Anatomy of a Week in the Home Kitchen Trenches.
I grew up in a very modest household, but I remember fabulous food at every meal at my home, especially my mother’s Passover Cooking. So much so that, fast forward more years than I care to admit, I actually wait for that time of year to showcase my culinary stars. So, what’s wrong with me? No, I don’t have one goodie-goodie bone in my body! Waiting for Pessach to be over and slavery to be back, we are all familiar with, but actually waiting for it to come around? Get real, right?
Passover Cooking is Outrageously Priced!
I can hear all of your concerns because they are often mine as well: “I have to cook with my hands tied behind my back; It is triple the price; this celebration of freedom is such slavery I barely survive it; I need a week’s vacation when Passover ends just to recuperate and get back to normal; I don’t have my regular amenities at my disposal”, and on and on…..
I have for the most part recovered from the dread of Passover Cooking, and I am thinking, with great glee: “This week is my gastronomic week; never mind the rarefied setting: the week of Passover CookingI can go for broke – a life-long habit I am not even trying to shake: why should I? I credit it in great part for making me the cook and hostess that I am; I am “stuck” with only the best and most seasonal; here is my chance to streamline in style recipes and ingredient selections; staying away from bread and rice and ice cream and pizza and other delicious nemeses is a given, because it is halachically verbotten”. And on and on….
My Whole Foods Cookbook has a Giant Passover Index!
On Passoverwe naturally turn to all fresh seasonal produce and fresh herbs. Many desserts hardly suffer from not being made with flour, if at all: In fact my new cookbook, The Whole Foods Kosher Kitchen: Glorious Meals Pure and Simple, bears this out in full: I should tell you it includes, in addition to a very extensive general index and a gluten-free index, a Passover index with more than 200 Passover-friendly recipes, all natural, naturally, what else, since I only have eyes for whole foods: It’s like having 3 books rolled into one!
Passover Cooking: Stuck with The Best
For instance, now that quinoa has been approved for Pessach, I make tabouleh and pilaf with it, which liberates me from the compulsory potato dish at every meal. Let me start by telling you something I hope you won’t be too disappointed about: I am afraid you won’t find a single recipe for Passover blintzes, lasagna, pizza and other gimmicky ersatz renditions of chametz dishes. I ask you: Who needs it?! Respect the seasons and give tribute to what each has to offer, then eat all the pizza and blintzes you want during the rest of the year! Deal with the usual suspects fifty one weeks out of the year and give them – and us – time out for one week, and pay special Thanksgiving to all the wondrous foods Nature has to offer in the spring, and every single day of our lives!
Oh, just one more thing before I get into the trenches: No Chametz-like food whatsoever served at any point during the Passover week in my kitchen or at my table. What for? Who needs it? After denouncing pizza, pasta, layer cakes and other starches as our year-round tormentors, why look for a way to make Passover Cooking knockoffs of these nemeses? I don’t think so! So long, see you next week, I will subsist beautifully on…. everything else, and then some. I love love love Passover Cooking! Just my One, Two and Turmeric Chapter on Tajines will give you more than three dozen dishes made in a snap.
Before you dig into your Passover Cooking
And I mean planning, every single step: Here is my Mega File again: The PassoverKitchen Diaries: Anatomy of a Week in the Home Kitchen Trenches. Please read it, you’ll be glad you did, it will make you a pro!
So: Still stressing about Passover? Here are my Passover Seder Menu ideas: pick and choose from several options. Just a few picks from my Cookbook more-than-200-Passover Recipes Click the links to view the full recipes. All recipes are Non-Gebroks! If you still don’t have the book, order the EBook: Beautiful, and a snap to download on any screen.
Attention Vegan and Vegetarian Passover Guests
You will certainly not be wallflowers with me! I am clearly marking all vegan and vegetarian dishes on the following list.
Salads
You will find no end of Salads on my blog. They are much too numerous to list. Simply skip the ones that look decidedly Chametz, such as barley salad or corn salad, and adapt some of the ingredients in all other salads for PassoverVegan
