Meal planning (Shabbat, Pesach, etc.)

[magid]

Last night's dinner for $VegetarianCoupleWithNewBaby:

• savory bread pudding with spicy olive bread and roasted green peppers and onions
  
• green salad: red-leaf lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, baby spinach, cucumber, pecans, balsamic vinaigrette
  
• sweet potatoes

Shabbat dinner with an old friend; all the produce is from one farm share or another, except the nuts.

• rolls, golden grape juice
  
• hummus with roasted garlic
  
• tofu baked with cashew butter and Szechuan spicy sauce
  
• polenta topped with sauteed onions, dandelion greens, and feta, with a touch of pepper and nutmeg
  
• green salad with red-leaf lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, baby spinach, pink grapefruit, pickled red onions, and macadamias
  
• roasted onions, tomatoes, summer squash, and zucchini
  
• mashed sweet potatoes (from the Red Fire farm share)
  
• strawberries macerated with sugar (picked last summer)
  
• apples baked with maple syrup, Lyle's golden syrup, flaxseed meal, and cinnamon

And I'm hosting at least four meals on Pesach (three lunches and Shabbat dinner). Some ideas for dishes:
* gefilte fish baked with salsa
* chicken baked with root vegetables
* chicken baked with onions, dried fruit, and almonds
* roasted ratatouille, and other roasted veg combos
* quinoa pilaf with nuts and raisins, also caramelized onions
* cole slaw
* green salads of various sorts
* spiced walnuts (brown sugar and cayenne; ginger and cinnamon, etc)
* vegetable soups
* stir-fry of chard or bok choy with onions, carrots, fresh water chestnuts, ginger, and chicken
* turkey meatloaf
* potato(-rutabaga) salad
* vinaigrette salad
* potato gnocci with dill (using matza meal)
* baked matza pudding (similar to bread pudding), either sweet (chocolate, dried fruit, etc) or savory (cheese, herbs, olives, vegetables)
* dried fruit compote
* mini sloppy joes using lettuce as wraps with a hearty meat sauce
* crustless quiche
* baked brie/camembert with whatever fillings
* three-allium matza brei
* Shaker lemon pie guts baked in covered ramekin-equivalents

On my still-to-get list for Pesach: nuts, poultry, gefilte fish, sugars, possibly mayo, some extra eggplant-based spreads. And I should double-check for non-food items I could use.

The current plan: kasher / cover the kitchen motza'i Shabbat and/or Sunday, which leaves me with some laundry to do, and the car to clean out, plus the selling of the chametz.

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

How was the bread pudding? And what was the spice in the olive bread?

Quinoa to the rescue!

[avivasedai.livejournal.com]

It's nice that quinoa is so widely available, and so fantastically KP. Also, you have baked matzah pudding, but not simply matzahbrei. Now, I know you're doing lunches, but a good matzahbrei can be very brunchey. }:-> (It's also really dense and is very easily portable for lunch at work.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

The bread pudding was yummy; not sure how much of that was me just being hungry. I hope the couple liked theirs. (The challenge was making bread pudding in pie plates, since I didn't want to ask them to have to return anything.) The olive bread was spicy from cherry peppers, quite noticeably so, and salty from the olives (good olives, not fake canned ones.)

Re: Quinoa to the rescue!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I adore matza brei; I put the three-allium version on the list, but figured plain matza brei didn't need a reminder to self :-). I haven't made a baked matza pudding yet, but making bread pudding made me think it would be possible, and easily done. Plus reheatable even on Shabbat.

(And it would be lovely to have work to have lunch at... :-/)

eta: And quinoa is awesome, but I don't want to rely on it too much, re-sounding that single food note too many times is not appealing.

[(Anonymous)]

So much yumminess!

Is there a particular source for nuts for Pesach you'd recommend?

You often mention these eggplant spreads; which are they?

Have a good Shabbat.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Stop & Shop usually has 1-lb bags of walnuts and almonds a lot cheaper than at the Butcherie, but they were sold out last I was there.

Eggplant spreads are in the same section as hummus, with roasted eggplant either mixed with other veggies (tomato, garlic, etc) or pureed into vegetarian "liver," and so on. For some reason, I find these necessary for my Pesach :-).

Shabbat shalom!

notes on Shabbat dinner

[magid.livejournal.com]

The salad was spinach-only, in the end, and it was fine, except it would've been better had I chopped the macadamias up some.

I brought out the apricot liqueur.

And everything was outrageously praised, which was rather nice.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much for the information.

What brand are the bags of nuts at Stop & Shop?

The eggplant spreads are at the Butcherie?

I am having a pre-Pesach freak-out.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the brand of nuts; they're in a clear bag with printing on it, though.

The eggplant spreads are at the Butcherie, unless they've sold out (unlikely, but it has happened at least one year (guess how I know this?)).

Good luck with your Pesach prep. If it helps, remember it's all about (lack of) chametz, not dirt/dust/etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember as a child sitting on the porch steps in nice spring weather on the afternoon of Erev Pesach cracking whole walnuts. I'd crack them, pick out the meat and place it in the glass jar component of the hand chopper, then screw on the metal chopper and chop it.

Hmm, I guess I don't pay much attention to that area at the Butcherie, with all the kitniyot. I hope you are able to get all the eggplant spreads you desire this year!

Thank you so much for your encouragement. My current anxiety isn't actually so much about dirt not being chametz, though that is good to keep in mind. Rather, I have a lot of heavy feelings weighing on me, and I am also feeling that I've let time to not only get tasks done but also to find out things and make good decisions run out.

I hope the rest of your preparation goes smoothly.

[(Anonymous)]

I hope what I wrote about the section at the Butcherie didn't come across weirdly. I see now that it could have and apologize if it did come across as smug or something. I really did mean simply that I probably hadn't given that section much attention.

Thank you again for all your good information and good cheer. I appreciate your having taken the time to let me know where and for what to look.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I didn't think what you said came across oddly or smug; it makes sense that you'd skip the kitniyot section.

I hope you're able to find everything you want for Pesach.