helicopterina

Passover 2014 - from soup to nuts (or from gefilte fish to chocolate puddle cookies).    Mom traveled up from Pennsylvania with her delicious chicken soup and matzo balls, her special faux chicken liver spread that everyone loves, and the kid’s personal favorite - gefilte fish & beet red horseradish.  Plus all the makings for the seder plate.   I experimented with this amazing tangy spiced brisket recipe via the smittenkitchen blog, my favorite charoset formula via Nigella from ’Feast’ involving loads of dried fruit, chestnuts, pine nuts, sweet wine, spices, applie, citrus zest & juice and loads of slow cooking.   Roasted potatoes.   And an asparagus salad with lemon vinaigrette from ’American Masala’ by Suvir Savan.   A friend brought the perfect crunchy chopped salad.   We had fun with desserts including chocolate puddle cookies, buckwheat almond chocolate cake from Bea Peltre’s wonderful book (but since she doesn’t have original recipe online, here’s a tribute to it, and a rhubarb-strawberry compote with marsala wine & balsamic vinegar.   Of course there was ice cream and candied fruit slices (yum) and other nibbles.   A friend commented to me that she always makes two entrees for Pesach because, god forbid there’s not enough to eat.  Well we do that in spades on the dessert side of things in my house, it seems…

But nothing beat the leftover brisket the day after – mixed with egg noodles – for lunch.