Pesach Hits and Misses

chocolate moose

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:01 pm

Let's share what worked and what didn't work !

For example - years ago I bought a cheapy set of pots and silverware for Pesach and never used them. This year, instead of unpacking them, rinsing them, and then repacking them up again after yomtov, I took some for chometz and threw the rest away.

The pesto was great, I'll repeat it IYH; howevre none of my baking turned out - again - and doesn't pay to repeat next year, buying the ingredfients and pans, etc.

I think the precooked (gef) fish didn't freeze well...I think that boiling so much stuff (potatoes, beets, eggs) before yomtov doesn't pay. I think that squeezing all the lemons/juices before yomtov is too much work.

Grinding a whole apple is wasteful for the charoses. We dom't need that much.

And you ?

grin

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:13 pm

Instead of giving someone a shopping list for fruits and veggies and estimating how much I need, I went myself - and the amounts were just right, B"H!
(the cons - it took tons of my koach to do it and there was such a balagan in the store that I ended up weighing the entire batch - enough for a family of 11 that doesn't eat anything processed - twice!!!)

Mama Bear

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:28 pm

I need to make more beets salad, and squeeze mroe lemon for juice.
Dh doesnt like the pesachdik chicken patties.
next year IYH I want to invest in a hand blender/hand mixer, and an oven-within-the-oven to use in my current oven. I also need to buy a few new pots.
the pesachdik cookies and cakes go tot he garbage.
My son really likes potato stix.
the carrots/pineapple salad was really delish.
3 pounds of shmaltz is enough.
Make more lukshen.
potato kugel does not come out good on the electric burners.
Putting the electric burners on with a shabbos timer was an excellent idea.

boruchhashem

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:36 pm

oven-within-the-oven to use in my current oven

MB, are you referring to the one that is aluminum that you put inside the regular oven? Cuz if you are, I can sell you mine, which I bought this year, and couldn't use, bec. my oven is also a convection oven, and has a fan in the back, so the door to my oven didn't close. It is still brand spanking new, and I paid like 30-35 dollars for it. Would you be so kind as to take it off my hands, if this is what you are gonna get next year anyway? Thanks.

cindy324

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:44 pm

I bought horrible potatoes, which in turn produced a green potato kugel.

I learnt that if I only separate 2 less eggs than the cake recipe calls for , and add the last two whole to the yellow mixture, marbe cake comes out moist and fluffy, not at all like the saw dust I produced with my first attempt LOL

I discovered the thick slicing blade on my food processor, and slicing up 30 cucumbers for cucumber salad was a snap!

My store bought cookies also mostly ended up in the garbage. Note to self: Bake more marble cake (the ONLY thing that was finished within a half day) buy more chocolate.

Found a new apple kugel recipe, which was a big hit , and I think I'll be sticking with from now on.

freidasima

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 3:57 pm

Learned that the stores are emptied out during chag, both in EY and America...once upon a time they imported mother's olive oil KLP spray (like Pam) to EY, they stopped this year and only import Pam which has a hechsher but didn't make any KLP. So I spoke to my MIL in NY during chol hamoed and asked her to pick up some for us and save it until one of dh's brothers come here, and we will have it for next year...she went to several stores and said that by the second day of Chol Hamoed nothing was left!

Learned that kids will eat any type of latkes as long as they are made with potatoes and eggs and oil. Learned that the kids won't eat sweet potato latkes even if they are made with eggs and oil. Learned that we all hate matzo and that all we need is a big box of hand shmura - 2 kilo - to last for most of the week including the seder unless we have lots of guests.

Learned that the most important thing is to plan a delicious meal for the day after Pesach. Today we splurged as if it were someone's birthday. We got three pieces of steak which we cut up for all of us and pangrilled, made rice noodles and onions and mushrooms, baked a quick cake (all this in one evening) and had a green salad and a delicious meal..yeah I know except for the rice noodles we could have had all of it during Pesach, but we don't do that kind of thing...this was the isru-isru chag meal...we did it last year as well and it was a hit...like going on vacation and knowing that you have a one night vacation waiting for you when you get home just to tide you over to get used to real life again.

grin

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 4:00 pm

chocolate moose wrote:

Grinding a whole apple is wasteful for the charoses. We don't need that much.

of course you don't need that much. But the kids certainly enjoy eating it all up the next morning, no matter how much I make!
(actually, this year I added some charoses to my chocolate cake the next day, instead of nuts. It was a real hit, too!)

bashinda

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 4:35 pm

the way I make charoses is that it's not very appetizing at all. I also threw out most of it. Next year I will use 1/3 of an apple and cut up the rest into pieces and give to the kids.

for me juicing is work but once I got my dd helping, and she even enjoyed it, it was worth while. I made extra lemon juice but I'll use it up.

buying a sieve is much better than using cheesecloth. This year DD actually drank my juice. (Last year I couldn't get the pulp out)

I only need to make ~32 oz of liquid sugar.

I need to set aside a day to get the staples done before I start real cooking: the tomato sauce, juices, nuts etc

I'm seriously contemplating using potato starch. I'd like to figure out a way to make the stuff. This year I tried with the remainder of the grated potato but I really had no clue what I was doing.

I don't miss chometz at all during Pesach. I was very happy to put my pepper grinder to use this morning but with so much leftovers I'm still eating Pesach style!

That food processor is so helpful. I used it for so much. It makes me want to get a bigger one for regular year use. If I had the room for it.

next year I want to make two cakes. It come out like ultra moist brownies

Nobody likes the finger cookies and even I don't like the store bought loaf cakes. Maybe next year I'll remember this before I waste my money on them.

making mayo isn't that hard and it tasted really yummy on salmon.

ChavieK

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 9:18 pm

I made crispy cookies, recipe from Mishpacha last year that they finished both years. They had a recipe for cinnamon cookies this year that were also really good. I made a total of 3 batches of each. My ds makes potato chip chicken that everyone always likes <breads chicken pieces with chips, & oven "fries". Loads of choc bars, & desserts like choc mousse, ice cream with choc truffle, creamsicles. All the foods that are very limited all year except for Pesach whenwe try to make the foods extra special.

TzenaRena

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 9:55 pm

We made too many desserts for the last days. some were completely extra, also extra kugel that nobody ate. I bought a roast twice the size of what we needed. I bought two extra pineapples that I never cut up.

There is a limited amount of peeling and cooking that someone can do without losing out on the rest of YomTov.

I was in the kitchen for eighteen hours before the second days, and it wasn't all necessary. OTOH, maybe it was, since for most of Friday I didn't have any help. So if I had help, maybe it would have been faster. To make the almond dipped schnitzel, we made our own potato starch from grated potatoes, and ground a zillion almonds, a simple turned elaborate recipe.

I wouldn't do it again, except if we have guests. My own family is perfectly happy with sweet potatoe orange chicken, which imo is far tastier, and easy.

next year, I plan to spend less on food, if possible. we could skip the meat, and the salmon, Gefilte fish and chicken will be fine. The fruits and vegetables alone were more than three hundred dollars. It's just a incredibly expensive YomTov, this year I had to take a loan, to cover most of the costs.

Mishie

Tue, Apr 29 2008, 5:47 am

Note to self:
Don't forget to buy a new hand-mixer for next year!!!
(Mine died during Chol-HaMoed, just as I was about to add the eggs to the bowl....)

Used up 2 pks. of Potato-Flour
1 Box of Matzah-Meal

Need to buy at least 5 kg. of Apples, kids were eating them like they were going outa style....

I made these cookies, and all were a big hit:

Brownies
Orange-Choc'Chip Macaroons
Chocolate-Choc'Chip Cookies
Orange-Strawberry Bars

P.S. Just so I don't forget.... We bought 3 boxes of Hand-Matzah, and 1 box (2 kilo) of Machine-Matzah, and it was PLENTY!!!