Passover Recipe Roundup from the Happy Go Marni Archives

I've posted a handful of Passover recipes since this blog's incipience, and with Passover just getting going, I thought I'd remind you all of the past deliciousness. Here are my Passover recipes from days gone by, pulled from The Happy Archive! Now you'll have no excuse to go hungry on Passover, or at least, here's proof that Passover doesn't have to taste like cardboard.


Surprise Meringues --> Recipe


Strawberry Sponge Cake --> Recipe


Caramel Matzoh Crunch --> Recipe


Matzah Meal Pancakes --> Recipe


Passover Rolls --> Recipe


Pistachio Macaroons --> Recipe

Spinach Matzah Quiche for Passover

I decided that for Passover this year, I was going to make one casserole-type dish that could last me the week so I wouldn't have to cook again. I sifted through several Jewish holiday cookbooks and ultimately decided on this Spinach Matzah Quiche by Marlene Sorosky. I went vegetarian because I still haven't recovered from the barbecue overload of my recent trip to Austin, Texas.

The original quiche recipe called for 10 eggs and I wanted to cut back on all that cholesterol. Since the quiches I'm used to have milk in them, I replaced some of the eggs with a cup of milk. The result was brilliant. I gave myself a big pat on the back. This is a FABULOUS quiche! I would make this any time of year it's so good. Plus, what a great way to use up leftover matzah after Passover.

Happy Passover to you!


Spinach Matzah Quiche
Adapted from a recipe by Marlene Sorosky in Fast and Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays

3 matzot, broken into 2-inch pieces
3 large eggs
2 egg whites
1 cup milk
2 cups regular, low-fat, or nonfat cottage cheese
2 cups shredded jalapeno Jack cheese or regular Jack cheese (about 8 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pound trimmed and stemmed spinach, baby leaves preferred (I used frozen baby spinach and defrosted it)

Place oven rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease or spray with nonstick spray a 9-inch square baking dish.

To Make Quiche: Place matzot in a colander in the sink and pour boiling water over. Let soak 2 minutes. Squeeze out liquid. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and whites together with the milk. Stir in cottage cheese, Jack cheese, matzot, salt, and pepper. Stir in spinach. Pour into prepared pan. It may seem like too much; just pack it in tightly.

To Bake: Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour, or until puffed and golden. (Quiche may be cooled and refrigerated, covered, overnight. Before serving, bring to room temperature. Reheat at 350 degrees F, uncovered, about 10 minutes, or until heated through.

Makes: 8 servings.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Pour boiling water over the matzah pieces and let soften for 2 minutes...

Squeeze out the excess liquid from the matzah; set matzah aside...

Combine eggs and milk in a large bowl...

Add the cottage cheese and Jack cheese...

Add the matzah, salt, pepper, and spinach...

Spread the mixture compactly into the prepared baking dish...

Bake for about 1 hour at 350 degrees F...

Almost-Like-a-Bakery Traditional Hamantaschen

For Purim this year, I made chocolate-peanut butter hamantaschen, which you saw in my last recipe post, but I also made these more traditional ones by Marcy Goldman. That's because Purim wouldn't be complete without a little poppyseed filling and jam filling. Plus, since part of the fun of making these cookies is giving them away to family and friends as mishloach manot care packages, I wouldn't want my grandfathers on either side to miss out on the flavors they grew up with as little kiddos in Youngstown, Ohio, and New York.


Two years ago I blogged about traditional hamantaschen by Carole Walter. They were delicious and I will absolutely be making those again. But this year, I wanted to try a new recipe and so naturally I found myself sitting on the carpet in front of my cookbook bookcase studying Marcy Goldman's Jewish baking book. She had more than one option for traditional versions, but I was drawn to the title of this one, "Almost-Like-a-Bakery." They were true to their name and turned out yummy!


Almost-Like-a-Bakery Traditional Hamantaschen
Recipe by Marcy Goldman in A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking
Makes 4 to 6 dozen pastries

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter or unsalted margarine
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup orange juice or milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Approximately 4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Golden egg wash (see recipe below)
Fillings: chocolate hazelnut paste, cherry, apricot, prune, or poppy
Regular or coarse sugar (optional)

In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening, butter, and sugar together. Add the eggs and blend until smooth. (If the mixture is hard to blend or seems curdled, add a bit of the flour to bind it.)

Stir in the orange juice or milk and the vanilla. Fold in the flour, salt, and baking powder and mix to make a firm but soft dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat the dough into a smooth mass. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into 2 or 3 flattened discs and work with one portion at a time.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured board to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter and cut as many rounds as you can. Brush the rounds with egg wash. Fill with a generous teaspoonful of the desired filling. Draw 3 sides together into the center. You should now have a 3-cornered or triangular pastry. Repeat this process with the remaining dough and filling. Brush the pastries with additional egg wash. If desired, sprinkle with regular or coarse sugar, and bake in the center of the preheated oven until golden brown (18 to 25 minutes). Cool on the baking sheets.

If you prefer, this dough can be made ahead and refrigerated, wrapped in plastic, for up to 2 days, or frozen (either as a disc of dough or as already formed and filled pastries, for a couple of months). If refrigerating, allow the dough to warm up before rolling out. For frozen pastries, bake without defrosting.

Golden Egg Wash
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1-2 tablespoons milk or water
Pinch of sugar

In a small bowl, whisk together all the ingredients. Use a pastry brush to glaze or brush on prepared, unbaked hamantaschen.


Step-by-Step in Pictures

Cream the shortening, butter, and sugar together...

Add the eggs, milk (or orange juice), and vanilla...

Fold in the dry ingredients until the dough comes together. Then let rest before shaping or wrap up and chill...

To shape, cut circles out of the dough, then brush the rounds with egg glaze and fill with poppyseed filling or jam...

Fold the sides up to form triangle cookies. Poppyseed filling here...

Apricot-jam filled with egg glaze and rainbow coarse sugar, ready to go in the oven...

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 25 minutes, then you're done!

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Hamantashen

I know I've said before that I'm a fan of cookbook author Marlene Sorosky. But what I haven't told you is that I own every single one of her cookbooks now. Last weekend, I searched online for the missing ones from my collection, and ordered all of them in one giant credit card blow. I was tired of staring at the void in my cookbook bookcases, knowing that some of her books were not there. I had had enough! Some people collect vintage Barbie dolls, some collect stamps or coins, I collect cookbooks. It's not about having every single cookbook that was ever written. But it is about having every single cookbook by my favorite authors. Over time, I'll complete my Beatrice Ojakangas, Lou Pappas, Carole Walter, Beth Hensperger, Marcy Goldman, Lori Longbotham, and David Lebovitz collections, and a few others.

My Marlene Sorosky collection

This recipe immediately stood out to me because it's not your conventional hamantashen (which I do really like, too). It's a chocolate dough, and a winning combination of peanut butter-strawberry filling to go with that chocolate. It looks really neat to include in your mishloach manot care package to give your friends and family on Purim along with more traditional hamantashen, fruit, and snacks. Since I'm going through a fancy salts phase/obsession and newly purchased Maldon sea salt, I sprinkled a few flakes on the just-out-of-the-oven cookies to finish the look. You certainly don't need to, but my taste buds were very happy with the result!


Chocolate-Peanut Butter Hamantashen
Recipe by Marlene Sorosky in Fast & Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays

Chocolate Dough
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped, melted, and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Peanut Butter Filling
Scant 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup strawberry jam or preserves
3 Tablespoons whole or low-fat milk
Strawberry jam for topping (optional)

Place rack in upper third of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease or spray 2 heavy-duty or cushioned baking sheets.

To Make Dough: In mixing bowl with electric mixer, cream butter and powdered sugar on medium-high speed until very light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and vanilla until well blended. Mix in melted chocolate. Add flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed until incorporated. Mix on medium speed 1 minute. Shape into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold enough to roll. (Dough may be refrigerated up to 2 days. Leave at room temperature until soft enough to roll but still very cold.)

To Make Filling: In a medium bowl, stir peanut butter and jam together. Stir in milk.

To Shape Hamantashen: Divide dough in half; cover 1 portion with plastic wrap. Roll other half between 2 sheets of wax paper into an 11-inch circle, about 1/8 inch thick. Using a 3-inch round cutter, cut out circles. (A clean, empty tuna can with both ends removed makes an ideal cutter.) Spoon 1 1/2 teaspoons filling in the center of each circle. Press 3 edges together to make a triangle, leaving a small opening in the center for the filling to show. Place 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Reroll scraps, cut out, and fill. Repeat with remaining dough.

To Bake: If not baking on cushioned baking sheets, double-pan by placing 1 baking sheet on top of another. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until tops are firm. The cookies will firm up slightly as they cool. If you like them soft, bake the minimum time; for crisper cookies, bake longer. If baking 2 sheets in one oven, rotate positions halfway through the baking time. If desired, top each with a small dollop of jam and return to oven for 1 minute to set. Cool 2 minutes and remove to racks. (Hamantashen may be stored, airtight, for several days or frozen.)

Makes: about 24 hamantashen


Step-by-Step in Pictures

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and powdered sugar...

Mix in egg and vanilla...

Mix in melted chocolate...

Add flour, baking soda, and salt...

Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate...

To make the filling, stir together peanut butter and strawberry jam...

Add milk to the filling...

Stir filling until all ingredients are incorporated...

Roll out the chocolate dough and cut circles...

Spoon a dollop of peanut butter filling in the center of each round...

Shape into triangles and place on cookie tray...

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees...

When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven and drop a tiny bit of strawberry jam on top of each one, then return to the oven for 1 minute...

Enjoy!

Rosenfeld's Babka

Last night I had a great Shabbat meal at a friend's. He's a meat fanatic so all the time he spent in the kitchen prepping was on the main course (or rather, the several main courses because there were so many meat options). But when we were already stuffed to the brim and rolling in delicious meat gluttony, he cleared the table and presented us with a Rosenfeld's babka. It had been in his freezer since his last trip to Boston. And we made room in our tummies for it.

Photo credit: Rosenfeld's Facebook fan page

Rosenfeld's is a kosher bagel shop in Newton, Massachusetts, that also happens to make these incredible loaves of chocolate babka. There's a thick layer of chocolate glaze coating the top, plus chocolate filling, and a powdered sugar glaze also drizzled on top. The babka is pareve, making it perfect as the last taste in your mouth after a nice Shabbat meat meal.

Best of all, my friend sent the rest of the loaf home with me!


Next time you're in Boston, be sure to visit Rosenfeld's Bagels and pick up a loaf of their babka. It freezes nicely so you can pull it out for special occasions. I hear the challah is out-of-this-world, too. And Yelpers give this bakery a whopping 4.5 out of 5 stars. That's impressive. Of course one bite of the babka, and now I see why all the Yelper love.

Photo credit: Boston's Hidden Restaurants

The Details:
Rosenfeld's Bagels
1280 Center Street
Newton, MA 02459
(617) 527-8080

Baking Bread in Jerusalem

The baker carefully pulling the baked bread out of the oven with tongs

As I mentioned in my last post, I just returned from 2 weeks in Israel. I traveled all over the country and took over a thousand photos and an hour and a half of video on my HD Flip Mino. Much of the footage is of my meals, or of restaurants or markets. I'm a little obsessed with food. And the food of Israel is delicious and amazing.

On my very last day in Israel, my friend Joel, who moved to Jerusalem about 10 months ago, took me to a bakery in Jerusalem just outside the shuk (outdoor market). It was my birthday. Joel thought I'd get a kick out of the unusual way this bakery bakes its bread. He was right. I was fascinated by the bizarre oven pits and baking method. You stretch out the bread dough on what looks like a round pillow cushion, then carefully hold the edge of this cushion with your hand, stick your arm in the oven, and slap the cushion against the oven wall so that the dough sticks to the wall. It bakes for 3 minutes.

The baker saw how interested I was in what he was doing, and kindly invited me into the kitchen. He showed me the whole process, then showed me the scars on his arm from several burns, and then asked me to try my hand at slapping dough into the oven. Um, in that order. Let me repeat that. First he shows me his battle wounds, then says it's my turn. Suffice it to say, I was scared to death.

Without further ado, here's my 5 minute video of bread baking in a Jerusalem bakery. Enjoy!


Video: Marni and Joel Go Inside a Jerusalem Bakery Kitchen




Photos: In the Bakery Kitchen!

The baker preparing the portions of dough

The baker and Marni hanging out in the kitchen

Dough baking against the oven wall

The bakery sign as seen from Agrippas Street

My friend Joel and me enjoying the just-baked bread!