Pesach Food

So Pesach is coming again, way too fast.

Mother-in-Israel said that I should post my favorite recipe, so here it is. It's a recipe for apple kugel that's so good that I would make it with matza even during the year. My mom says that it's from an out-of-print cookbook. It's not easy to make, unless you have a kosher for pesach food processor, but it's soooo worth the effort! I generally don't like sweet kugels, but this one's a real winner. I confess, though, that I have been known to eat it with vanilla ice cream...

Apple Kugel

3 matzot
6 eggs
½ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ c raisins
½ c chopped almonds
4 tart apples, peeled and grated (this is where you'll wanna use the food processor)
cinnamon sugar mix (1/4 t cinnamon and 1 T sugar)
¼ c oil

Crumble matzos into water and soak until soft. Squeeze out excess moisture. Beat eggs. Add sugar, salt, & cinnamon. Continue beating until well blended. Stir crumbled matzos, raisins, almonds, apples, and orange rind into the egg mixture. Place in well-greased 1 ½ quart casserole. Sprinkle with sugar cinnamon mix and pour oil over all. Bake at 175 C degrees until firm and nicely browned. (about 45 minutes.)

Hopefully, I'll be writing some tips on how to stay sane for Pesach cleaning, and how to keep within budget over the next few weeks, but I have to get my legos out of the laundry (just kidding. We don't generally EAT our lego.)


For more great recipes, check out Spice and Spirit.

Monopoly!

I looked at all the blogs that I ordinarily read. Guess what? Nobody's posted anything new in a few days! They're all too busy cleaning for Pesach. Fortunately, I had coffee tonight, so I'm raring to go, and my back hurts enough that the bendy work is completely out of the question...

So... it's time to blog! And I have the monopoly. My readers have no other blogs to read!

So I can bore you all with details about how I washed out my microwave even though we have a whole other microwave for Pesach... Or I can warn you that it's not a good idea to pour water into the oven to clean it. I could even tell you about the amount of stuff that I still have to do tomorrow.

But I think I'll relate a nice story instead. Many many years ago (I think 6 or 7), my mother ran her wonderful self-cleaning oven and it self-cleaned. The next day, she wiped it out. Then she left her shiny, clean oven waiting for Pesach cooking. The morning of Erev Pesach, she turned on her oven to start her roast, and... it didn't work. She quickly called the first repairman whose number she could find. Claude (yes, that's his name) amazingly was there within about 30 minutes, isolated the problem quickly, and within another 20 minutes, the oven was working again.

We've had Claude repair other poorly behaved appliances since. He fixed a fuse on my oven a few years back, and declared my dryer dead about 8 months ago (he said he could fix it, but the price of the repair wasn't enough less than the price of a new dryer.) So, when my washer stopped wringing out my clothes - leaving everything sopping wet, I said "0k, I'm going to call Claude." Yaakov, in his best Tim Allen imitation, decided that he was going to fix it. Which meant that he somehow got the entire floor soaked, and then declared that he needed more tools, so he'd have to do it the next day. Well... this is the week before Pesach. I really couldn't do without a washer while he was at work the next day. So I woke up and called Claude. I started to describe the problem...

"Wait, what kind of washer do you have?"
"Spectra, I think"
"Front or top load?"
"Front"
"Okay, there's a panel on the bottom right. Open it. Turn the round thing. The filter should come off. Is it dirty?"
"Yeah, filthy"
"Okay, empty it out into the trash, put it back in, and have a chag sameach!"

I was in shock. I mean, firstly, who knew that washers have filters?! I knew about dryers, but washers?! Second, that was just REALLY REALLY nice of him. He could have come out and "fixed" the machine and charged for labor, and been completely honest about it and I wouldn't have felt ripped off. So now, I know exactly who to call tomorrow morning about the oven that shorted out the whole house... I don't think there's an electricity filter in the oven...

Ten Things NOT to Say to Your Wife During Pesach Cleaning

10. Watcha doin?
9. What's for dinner?
8. Why is there stuff on the bedroom floor?
7. We don't need to fix the washer this week.
6. Sure, I'll just make something to eat and take it into the other room and I'll be out of your way.
5. But I'm not in the mood for pizza.
4. But we ordered in/ate out last night too.
3. If you want, you can get a maid (when it's clearly too late to find one).
2. Why do you need to kasher the oven. I'm not going to be here during chol hamoed? (but wife is...)
and the number one thing not to say to your wife during Pesach cleaning.
1. Well, if you'd kept things cleaner, you wouldn't have this mess.

Avoiding Pesach Cleaning

Last year I didn't post about Pesach cleaning until later in the process. The following are the triLcat stages of Pesach cleaning, in case you're curious:
1. Eating up the chametz.
2. Procrastination
3. Desperate procrastination
4. Cleaning gestures
5. Extreme procrastination
6. Laundry and bedrooms
7. Ultra-Procrastination
8. Kitchen Cleaning
9. Collapse
10. Seder

Last year, I didn't write until I was at stage 7. This year, I'm only at stage 5. Fortunately, it turns out I was tagged on a Meme last year, so I have a great way to procrastinate.

Thanks Biur Chametz.

Here it is. The A-Z meme:

Accent:
American in English, just slightly funny in Hebrew. Americans think it's Israeli, though.

Booze:
Red wine and cocktails. These days, I'm sticking to Kedem grape juice though

Chore I Hate:
Washing dishes and floors both destroy my back. Everything else is just unpleasant.

Dogs/Cats:
Love dogs, especially MY dog. Cats are ok. I'll pet them if they ask.

Essential Electronics:
All electronics are essential! except the stupid tetris game I used to have. It never worked right anyway.

Favorite Perfume/Cologne:
I like most of the Dali ones, except the red one. It smells like candy.

Gold & Silver:
I prefer gold.

Hometown:
Modiin.

Insomnia:
High sleep latency.

Job Title:
Housewife

Kids:
1 Stepson and one baby on the way.

Living Arrangements:
Rental apartment.

Most Admired Trait:
Ability to be very empathetic.

Number of Sexual Partners:
Get your head out from under our covers!

Overnight Hospital Stays:
Entirely too many, but looking forward to my next one being in July and ending with me taking home a whole new person.

Phobia:
spiders, especially big yucky ones

Quote:
"Well, I like you. You're nice, and you're funny, and you don't smoke, and okay, werewolf but that's not all the time. I mean, three days out of the month I'm not much fun to be around either."

Religion:
Jewish

Siblings:
1 sister, 3 brothers

Time I Usually Wake Up:
Whenever Poofy can't wait any longer for his walk.

Unusual Talent:
That's Private!

Vegetable I Refuse To Eat:
Eggplant

Worst Habit:
Talking when I should shut up.

X-Rays:
I'd LOVE to have X-ray vision!

Yummy Foods I Make:
Everything I make is yummy. Yaakov likes my chicken with potatoes. People generally devour my lasagna. I always make too much stir-fry, but people like it.

Zodiac Sign:
I don't know, but my birthstone is a diamond and my Hebrew birthday is 2 days before Pesach. A good gift would involve help cleaning or the doggone covers for my couches!