S'more Meringues

Shula had this idea and we found a fun recipe by Jamie Geller. It worked perfectly. We did have leftover melted chocolate and graham cracker crumbs, which we combined and spread out thin. Here's our double recipe.

4 egg whites
2/3 c sugar
1 c graham cracker crumbs (smash in a bag if you don't have them already ground.) - for Passover, sugar and matzah meal would probably be good
6 oz Hershey's chocolate bars

Heat oven to 215 degrees. Spread a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. These don't spread much at all, so just leaving a little space is enough.

Beat the egg whites, slowly adding the sugar, until stiff an glossy.

Drop a tablespoon of batter and pull up the spoon so it has a nice twisty top. Shula took a butter knife and made shapes and designs.

Bake for 90 minutes. Leave in the oven overnight if you do these in the evening.

Melt the chocolate on the induction burner set at 2. Stir while melting; it goes fast.

Set the cracker crumbs on a small plate. It's fine if there are some bigger pieces. Dip each meringue in the melted chocoate and then set it on the crumbs. Put them on their sides to harden. You can refrigerate.

For Passover, just leave off the crumb layer, or try sugared matzah meal for some crunch.

Very pretty! 

Throw in Lots of Tomatoes Sweet Potato Soup

I make a lot of soups with tomatoes, and lots with sweet potatoes, but this combination is a little lighter, not using any coconut milk. 

It's great for a glut of tomatoes like this fall, thanks Micah! 

Loosely based on this recipe. The sweet potato thickens the soup when blended, and packs it with nutrients.

2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
Afew cloves chopped garlic
A bit of grated ginger

2-3 stalks chopped celery

3 peeled carrots, chopped
1 t. cumin
1 t. turmeric
1 chopped hot pepper like jalapeno (use a plastic glove when mincing)
2 peeled large sweet potatoes, diced
4-6 chopped tomatoes, diced
8 c. vegetarian broth

Optional: In a small container, take a few tablespoons broth to a chunk of peanut butter, mix to loosen, and add to soup.

Pour oil into large soup pot and add onion, garlic, ginger, celery, and pepper, saute until soft.

Add chopped sweet potatoes, tomatoes and broth. Boil for about 40 minutes. Use an immersion blender but leave some vegetables chunked. Add thinned peanut butter for a protein boost.

Chocolate Orange Cake

I found this on the net - there are multiple posters. It's a version of the clementine cake. Like that cake, it is gluten-free by chance, and without the baking powder it will be great for Pesach. I wouldn't even bother separating and beating the eggs. It is dense, moist, and EASY. 

It makes a big heavy cake in the springform; next time I might make two smaller springforms.

For Passover: one big one will move!

Chocolate Orange Cake

2 oranges
6 large eggs
1½ c granulated sugar (David says, use more!)

2 c almond meal/flour
1/2 c cocoa
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Glaze
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Cointreau or Grand Marnier

    (or a jar of ready-made!)

Or - 

1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 c. cocoa powder, sifted

A little brandy or whatever Kosher for Passover liqueur you have

Finely chopped pistachios are a nice extra on top.

Gradually add water, a few drops at a time, until you can spread it. This isn't stiff enough to frost the sides but makes a nice chocolately top.

• Place oranges in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 1-1½ hours, until fork tender. 
• Cool, cut open and remove pips/seeds if any. Cool.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Place oranges in a food processor and puree until pulpy. Add remaining ingredients, and blitz until completely incorporated. (if your food processor is too small, just do the eggs and orange and move it to a bowl to add the rest. Or use an immersion blender).
• Grease a 9" springform. Pour batter into pan, and place in oven for 50-60 minutes, or until middle of cake is firm to the touch.
• Allow to cool to room temperature before un-molding.
• Pour glaze over cake, and garnish with orange zest.

Glaze

Place ingredients for glaze in a a saucepan on low on the induction stove-top. Stir until completely melted.

Pasta Grannies Lemon Pudding

 I love watching Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel produced by a British food ethnographer, Vicky Bennison, who interviews elder cooks all over Italy to learn their regional specialties.

I never make anything from their brief vignettes but this lemon pudding really spoke to me, and it's delicious. Low sugar - basically eggs and lemon. Double it for this quartet of pictures - baked for Passover 2022 in Chestertown.

3 eggs, separated in bowls you can beat in 

2 to 3 T sugar

1 lemon

option: add 1/2 cup of berries. I tried blueberries and it worked.

Boil the lemon until it is soft, and puree in a food processor. Let it cool. (Since you mix it with the egg yolks, if it's hot it will cook the yolks.)

Spray an 8" springform or souffle pan. The grannies also sugar the pan.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar, and mix in the puréed lemon.

Beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the yolks until the batter is uniform in color. Add berries if you like.

Bake at around 365 for a half hour or so in the Breville. Cover with foil if the top browns too fast.

It puffs up and deflates, making a nice concave holder for fresh berries. The nonnas serve it with whipped cream. Not my thing.

(The boiled citrus is like the clementine cake, but this is very light, hence more like a pudding.)

This would be fun to make on Pesach - refreshing, not too hard, and even parve/ gluten free.

Check out Claudia Roden's yogurt cake, which is the same basic idea with the addition of, you guessed it, yogurt. You can also add blueberries.

=======================

Almond Flour (Parve) Brownies

Not vegan, but really good. And super easy. Pesadik! From the King Arthur flour website. These are Abba's favorites and I like them straight from the freezer for an after-dinner shot of fudgey deliciousness.

Heat oven (I use the Breville) to 350. Spray an 8" or 9" square pan. 

DO NOT DOUBLE THE RECIPE IN A LARGER PAN! I tried this in 2023 and it made a big mess - the brownies were not baked through, and impossible to get out of the pan.

5 T melted butter or parve margarine. (1/2 cup if you use vegetable oil, also fine)
1¾ c sugar
½ t salt
1 t vanilla extract
¾ c cocoa powder (Fairtrade!). Dutch-process or natural; sifted if particularly lumpy
3 large eggs
1½ c. almond flour
1 t. baking powder (It's optional and omitted for Pesach)

Melt margarine in large bowl. Add sugar to absorb heat (so it doesn't cook the eggs) and then add everything together with a spoon, whisk, or spatula. It's more like a paste than a batter.

Bake 33-36 minutes. Test with a toothpick.

Easily doubled, but DON'T BAKE IN ONE BIGGER PAN. These are hard to cut neatly. On Passover 2020, I made a double batch and froze a lot. When they were slightly defrosted it was easy to cut them into very small, neat squares. They are so rich, I recommend this strategy!

Gluten-Free Fairtrade Chocolate Covered Strawberries/Figs

These are fun and beautiful. A specialty of Laurie Hertz.

1 lb strawberries, washed and patted dry
(or another small fruit, like fresh figs or prunes)
1 chocolate bar (Equal Exchange Fairtrade preferred)
3 oz parve chocolate chips

Break chocolate bar and place in double boiler over boiling water along with the chips. For some reasons, the bar alone is a little too thin. The chips seem to have a thicker consistency. 

With an induction cooktop, but the chocolate directly in a small frying pan and set to 2 or 3. It will take 5-10 minutes to melt. 

Put a sheet of parchment paper on a flat tin. Dip each strawberry, holding it by the green stem. Shake off excess chocolate.

Set on the wax paper. If you  have extra chocolate, you can dip matzah, prunes, or add slivered almonds + raisins or craisins and make "haystacks". Or just dip matzah!

This was enough to dip 1 lb of strawberries + 1 lb of fresh figs.

It takes about 20 minutes for the chocolate to harden. You can speed it up by refrigerating.

Eyal dipping strawberries - last week of 4!

Mustachados - Walnut Macaroons

These lasted about 5 minutes - 2021

Mustachados are Sephardic cookies from Gloria Greene's original cookbook, The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. It was a gift from Judy Herzig-Marx and I used it a lot, and still go back to look for ideas. It's less complicated/pretentious than Joan Nathan and some of the other more recent Jewish cookbooks.

These are similar to Italian "Ugly but Good" cookies, which are hazelnut. These are not vegan, since they have an egg, but they are gluten free. I don't generally bake cookies but these are good, chewy, not-too-sweet cookies that pass the Passover test: I would enjoy them if it WEREN'T Passover.

Unlike a lot of Pesadik recipes, this doesn't require beating egg whites, so you don't need a hand mixer or egg whip.


1 large egg (does not need to be separated!)
1.5 cups (about 6 oz) ground walnuts.
      Food processor is fine, or you can buy them at Passover already ground.
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. cinnamon

pinch of salt

Optional: chocolate for dipping

Shula - 3rd grade, 2024

Grease one large or two small cookie sheets very well. It makes about 20-24.

Heat oven to 325.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg with a fork. Add the other ingredients to form a thick paste.

These spread. Wet your hands and shape into scant teaspoon sized balls, about 3/4", flattening into domes.

Bake for 20 minutes or so until the edges have browned.

Pry under them with a spatula to cool. You can stick two together when they are just removed, they way they are served in Istanbul.

Using the induction setting of 1, leave the chocolate in a frying pan for 5-10 minutes and it will melt. Dip away. (In Philly, at 1 it says MELTING.)

Green Doula Soup

I like the sound of this, Green Doula Soup, named for the day I handed off some of this soup to Micah to finish it before Passover, and your doula was coming for dinner.

This soup is from a plant-based diet advocate, the Happy Healthy Long Life Librarian, whom Nancy turned me onto. The original of the recipe is called Healing Cream of Greens Soup, a recipe by Chloe Coscorelli. I modified it some.

2 T olive oil, divided
1 onion, diced
1 apple , peeled and diced
4 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 t. grated ginger
5 cups (1 pound) broccoli florets
3 cups (5 ounces) baby spinach or kale

4 cups vegetable broth

Freshly ground black pepper, salt to taste

• [option: add a grain like cooked quinoa or rice]
  
  1. In a large saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat and, add the onion, apple, ginger, and garlic . Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, until the vegetables have softened.
  
  
  2. Add the broccoli, spinach, and broth . Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the broccoli is tender and the spinach has wilted.
  
  3. Remove the pot from the heat and purée directly in the pot using an immersion blender; return the soup to the pot. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of oil.
  
  4. Serve in bowls topped with some pepper. 
  This soup is also tasty chilled.

Throw-It-Together High Protein Passover Pancakes

I made this up many years ago.
No measures on this one, it is a concept. Eyal and Nadav liked it in 2026, so much that they asked for it for breakfast and again for lunch. It's quite healthy, and of course with Nutella melted on top, who wouldn't like it?

Butter, for large frying pan
2 eggs
Salt - sprinkle
Cinnamon - generous amount, like 1 t.
Sugar - modest amount
Milk (or cream)
Matzah meal (can be part cakemeal if you have it)
Almond flour
Mashed ripe banana (there's usually a few in the freezer)

Melt the butter over low eat so it doesn't burn.

Beat the eggs.
Stir in sugar, salt and cinnamon.
Add matzah meal, almond flour, and some milk until it's a nice batter consistency.
Turn up the heat in the frying pan to medium/high and drop rounded spoonfuls of batter which you can flatten.
Fry til browned, and flip to brown the second side a bit, as well.

These are good with jam, fruit, cottage cheese, syrup, but mainly Nutella -- things you would have around at Passover. They are very nutritious.

Drop the Nutella on in the pan with the heat turned off, let is sit a minute, and you can spread it thin.

Spanish Potato Omelette - Tortilla Espanola

I read about this dish, a classic tapas in Spain, and gave it a try. There are many versions with various add-ins, but this is the basic. You can increase the quantity. This made 4 portions. The tricky part is flipping the pancake so the eggs set and it's browned on both sides.

2 large russet/baking potatoes
1 large onion
generous amount of olive oil
4 eggs

Peel the potatoes and slice in fine chunks.
Heat olive oil at medium heat in a large fry pan, and add the sliced potatoes.
Chop the onion and add to the frying pan. 

Stir occasionally until the potatoes start to brown and the onions become transparent and start to brown. The potato slices stick together so break them up when you stir.  This takes about 10-12 minutes.

Crack 4 eggs into a large bowl and beat.
Mix in the cooked potatoes and onion.

Heat more olive oil in the frying pan, or in a smaller frying pan that will hold the mixture. Pour in the egg/potato/onion mixture at medium heat until the bottom browns and the eggs start to set. Don't leave it for too long (like, for example, to go light Hanukkah candles 

😊) cuz it can burn.

Now for the trick.  Flip it onto a flat surface with the cooked part face up, keeping it intact.
Then slip it back into the frying pan to brown the bottom. There are other methods of doing this, but this one worked well. Invert to serve. It's very filling, and attractive. 

Serve warm or at room temperature.  This is a very solid, hearty, tasty dish.

And very aesthetically appealing. And kosher for passover!

Chocolate Mousse Pie/Torte

This recipe was a Baker's Chocolate ad in a magazine decades ago. I noticed it would easily adapt to Passover, which it does. You basically whip up a big batch of chocolate mousse and bake half of it. It solidifies and creates a base, and when it cools, you poor in the rest of the mouse, chilled. It is not a hard cake to make, and you could think about making it any old time. Also, while not vegan (8 eggs!), it is gluten-free.

1 pkg. (8 sqs.) semi-sweet chocolate or 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 c. water or coffee
8 eggs, separated (use clean eggs with no cracks in shells)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla (substitute cinnamon on Passover if you can't find vanilla)
2/3 c. sugar

Heat chocolate and water/coffee in a large glass bowl in the microwave in 30 second increments stirring until smooth. If you've switched to an induction, put in the chocolate and water, using a large sauce pan set at 1 or 2, and be patient. Some have a melt setting.

Stir in egg yolks; add vanilla. 

Beat egg whites in a large mixing bowl gradually adding the sugar,  until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes.

Stir a small amount of the egg white mixture  into chocolate mixture to lighten it; then fold the chocolate mixture into remaining whites.

Pour 4 cups into a well-buttered 9" springform pan. Chill remaining mixture. (you can make it in a pie pan but I think the spring form gives a better presentation.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until just set. Cool slightly; then chill 1 hour. Center will fall, forming shell.

Spoon chilled chocolate mousse into chilled shell. Chill 3 hours (or overnight.) [Sometimes the mousse just doesn't set; then it is a chocolate sauce!]

It's a cake that could use some garnish - grated pistachios, a dollop of whipped
cream if it's not a meat meal, some berries. Or maybe all three.

Also - this is really good frozen. You could intentionally freeze it, but for us we (surprisingly) had some leftover once and discovered it is great frozen.

Turns out the original recipe, though much more complicated, is Maida Heatter's, in the New York Times, a cake guru of the 70's-80s. Helen Feinberg makes some of her recipes. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/05/21/82224385.html?pageNumber=430  The main difference is she says to beat the egg yolks before adding them to the chocolate mixture. 

Cranberry Sweet Potatoes

This was part of the Resnick/Rosen/Teutsch Thanksgiving, Shulamit's very first. She was considerably smaller than the turkey.
What I like about this dish is that the colors are really beautiful. Would be nice for a vegetarian potluck - it is vegan/gluten free and both yams and cranberries are extremely nutritious superfoods.
For the 1323 feast, I used freshly cooked cranberry sauce, though the recipe calls for canned.  It is so easy to make, and so much better, but not essential - canned is fine.
It is easily doubled.
I clipped it out of a newspaper decades ago. The onion is an interesting addition.

Note, I don't microwave the yams first.  With a Santoku knife they are not that hard to cut.

Carrot Apple Ginger Soup

We bought an apple slinky cutter in Norway but you
can get them anywhere.

We all loved this soup for our Erev Rosh Hashanah 2014 gathering. It is from Joy the Baker - modified a bit.  It is gorgeous orange!

Carrot Apple Ginger Soup

3 T olive oil
1 large yellow onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 medium to large apple, peeled and sliced (maybe with the apple slinky!)
1.5 lbs or so sliced, peeled carrots
6 C vegetable broth
Pinch of nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: dill or parsley for garnish

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onions and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add ginger and garlic and cook for one minute, until fragrant.  Add sliced apples and diced carrots and cook for 3 minutes.

Turn flame to medium-high and add vegetable broth.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce flame to low and simmer for about a half hour. 

An immersion blender doesn't really do the job - blend it in a blender. Taste, and add a dash of fresh ground nutmeg, as well as salt and pepper to taste.  The soup won’t need much pepper, as ginger is pretty spicy.

Good to make a day ahead and let the flavors mellow. We liked it hot, but bet it's also good cold.

Ricotta and Almond Flan

This cake is great chilled. It is drier than a cheescake, and not as cloyingly rich. Plus, it's gluten free. It is theoretically Kosher for Passover but you'd need substitutions for quite a few of the ingredients, so focus on Shavuot.
The only hard task is the citrus zest. Otherwise, easy.

1 c. almond flour
1/3 c. ground almonds (to give the cake more texture)
6 eggs
1 15. oz container part-skim ricotta
¾ c. sugar
¼ c. dark rum
1 t. vanilla
Grated zest of 2 oranges or lemons ( or one of each) - microplanes are perfect to do this
½ t. grated nutmeg (nice if it's freshly grated but I've never done that.)

Fruit for accompanying it - your choice.  Raspberries are nice, but really, anything. Great when local strawberries are in~

Preheat oven to 325°

Spray or butter a 9" springform pan or two smaller pans.

In large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients. A hand mixer is good for this.

Spoon in the batter and bake until lightly browned on the edges and set in the center, about 40-45 minutes.

Remove the rim of the pan and set this on a lovely footed cake plate :-).  This would be a nice addition to a tea.  

- Just googled it and found out it is from The New York Times Jewish Cookbook, and the recipe is Regina Schambling's.  The original  says toast 1⅓ c slivered almonds for 3-5 minutes until just browned, at 300, and then grind them in a blender or food processor.

Clementine Cake or Meyer Lemon Torte - Kosher for Passover, Gluten Free

10" bake, 2018

This recipe was in the New York Times, not for Passover.  A little research gleans it is a Nigella Lawson recipe.  There are many reviews and versions around on line. [subsequent update: Nigella Lawson is friends with Claudia Roden, and she has an earlier verysion of this cake: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/3251-claudia-rodens-orange-and-almond-cake].

I modified it by omitting the baking powder and separating the eggs, and beating the egg whites. Very similar to Grandma Bunny's famous Carrot Torte which was a Seder staple in Salt Lake City.  (just boiled carrots rather then clementines.)

Preamble: you must boil the clementines for 1 hour. Then they need to cool.
Don't make this at the end of a busy day!! And it improves with a day's mellowing - good to make it in advance. I prefer it chilled.

*Almond flour is very fine. I run some whole almonds through the food processor and then added enough almond flour for 2 cups, to add some texture.

Preheat oven to 350.

5 medium clementines ( 1 lb.)
spray oil or margarine (or butter if it's dairy)
6 eggs [separated if it's a cake for Passover]
[2 t. baking powder - if it's not Passover, you can skip the egg separating and beating and use the baking powder]
1 c. sugar
1 t. salt
2 cups ground almonds or almond flour - *a mixture would be nice

Spray a 8", 9" or 10" spring form pan with oil. A smaller diameter makes for a deeper cake, which - all things being equal - I think is better. 8" works really nicely, and it's easier to plate and transport.

Place unpeeled clementines in water and boil for 1 hour. Watch them, especially if you aren't familiar with the stove. I burned the whole batch in Chestertown 2021, our first Pesach there, as the gas burner's lowest setting was still quite high. All the water boiled off. [Fixed that with the 70th Birthday Induction Stove!]

Cool clementines, slice, take out the seeds. Run through the food processor or blender in one or two batches, and it becomes a pulp.  Set aside.

[Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large bowl and the yolks in another LARGE mixing bowl.

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.]

Beat the eggs (or yolks, if you're separating) and add the sugar, salt, clementines, and almonds. If you're not separating, just put all the eggs right in the blender.

[Carefully fold in the egg whites until the batter is uniform.]

Pour into the greased spring form and bake for an hour.  Check after about 40 minutes and cover the top with a tin if it is over-browning. The sides might burn first.  The cake is very dense, so it does need the hour.

This year, 2026 (when the 412ers have headed to Maine to be with Avrum) Jo brought Israeli chocolate spread. It's pareve. I used it to frost this cake. If you do it while the cake is still warm, it is easier to spread.

I spoke up for this large duck plate on Buy Nothing Group. It's perfect for one whole Passover cake. When you take it out of the springform pan (a tricky maneuver) and slide it onto this serving tray, it will go a little concave. This makes a perfect depression to add berries. This year (2020 - year of the plague) we filled it with blackberries. It was both beautiful and delicious.

This can be baked in the Breville oven.

Serves at least 12.

This cake is really good chilled. Yummy breakfast, too.

Meyer Lemon variation:
This recipe is the same, but with Meyer Lemons. Same idea, and same way to convert it for Passover by beating the egg whites and eliminating the baking powder.

   5 meyer lemons (approx. 500g total, or 1.1 lbs)
   1 to 1.5 c. sugar (meyer lemons are less sweet than         clementines)
   2 cups almond flour finely ground
   5 large eggs
   1 tsp baking powder

Here are measurements for 2/3 of the recipe above.

2 to 3 meyer lemons (10.5 oz)

3/4 to 1 1/8 c sugar

1 1/3 c almond flour

4 eggs

3/4 t baking powder.

An easy chocolate glaze:

1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 c. cocoa powder, sifted

Gradually add water, a few drops at a time, until you can spread it. This isn't stiff enough to frost the sides but makes a nice chocolately top.

I have collected smaller pans. This is one recipe divided between a 7" and a 5" pan.
Grease/spray the pan, and bake it for ~50 minutes at 350. In the Breville.
This is becoming my favorite cake, and I've baked them to give as gifts for people.

Mini Vegetable Kugels

These are from a cookbook Susie Marcus once gave us.  They are very cute, which I think adds to their appeal, as does the fact they each have a nice crust.  The pans need to be VERY WELL OILED or they don't come out.  [or use silicon bake pans.] You could use other vegetables.  Now that chestnuts are around, Kosher for Passover, they are a nice addition.
Like all recipes calling for frozen spinach, thaw it in advance.

6 T. margarine
1 c. chopped onion
½ c. chopped celery
1½ c. grated raw carrot
10 oz. frozen spinach (thawed)
2 eggs, beaten
1½ t salt
dash pepper
½ c. matzah meal - if you're out of matzah meal, just take matzah and run it through the food processor.  Texture is fine for this purpose.  (if it's not passover, probably plain old WW flour)

Saute onion, celery, and carrot in margarine in a large frying pan.
Add thawed spinach.
Add eggs, salt, pepper and matzah meal.
Spoon into a well-greased muffin tin, yielding 12 muffins.  Or skip that altogether and just put it in a WELL GREASED flat pan.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Cool a few minutes before removing them.

Cinnamon Almond Macaroons

I clipped this recipe out of a very strange catalog which arrived a few weeks before Passover, loaded with electric appliances for Easter and Passover.  Some of the items were for very frum folks, so I looked at the address and the company is based in Lakewood, NJ.

I baked these and wow!  They were great.  Avruhm said they were the best macaroons he'd ever had, though the recipe doesn't call them macaroons.

The oddest thing about this 4 ingredient recipe is that when you add the confectioners sugar to the eggs, it takes FOREVER to get to the peak stage, like 5-10 minutes.  But it did eventually.  These spread a lot, so next time I will make them smaller, like a teaspoon each.

½ lb. ground almonds
1 c. confectioners sugar (not usually available during Passover, though)
2 egg whites
½ T. cinnamon

Beat egg whites until frothy, gradually add confectioners sugar, and beat until firm peaks form.

Preheat oven to 350. Line sheet pans with parchment paper.

With wet palms, take a small ball of dough.  Place them about 2" apart.

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until they look dry.  Cool completely before removing from the paper.

Would be nice with fresh fruit salad, or berries.

Matzah Stuffing

I have the real recipe for this somewhere, but in the meantime, you don't really need a recipe.  You can make it vegetarian, and use some for a turkey and some for a veg side dish.  You could leave out the egg and make it vegan, too.

One box matzah, crumbled into small pieces, or a box of matzah farfel.  I use whole wheat matzah

Onion/s, chopped

Celery, chopped
mushrooms, chopped

Margarine or oil

Apples, chopped (don’t need to peel them)

Walnuts, chopped
Chopped chestnuts would be an awesome addition.

Egg

Broth

Seasonings

In a large frying pan, sauté  the onions and celery in either melted margarine or oil until soft.  Add the rest of the ingredients to create a moist mixture.  I usually bake some and stuff the turkey with the rest.  If you are a stuffing regular, you can figure out the proportions and seasonings you like.  

Chopped chestnuts would be an awesome addition.

Rustic Cream of Parsnip Soup

This was just added to my pantheon of great soups.  Parsnips are one of my favorite side dish vegetables, more interesting than potatoes.  Uncle Steven came to expect them at our house.  They are good roasted, a nice addition, chopped, to motzah ball soup, and good mashed, too.

This soup is creamy without using half-and-half like most recipes do. One important thing is having a good sudoku knife - without that leverage it is really hard to slice and chop parsnips.  This recipe makes about 8 servings.

1 T olive oil (or butter)
one medium onion
2-3 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 medium sized parsnips 
2 carrots, optional (they make it a more appealing color)
4 c. broth (vegetarian powdered is fine)
bay leaf
salt, pepper
dash of nutmeg
other optional herbs - parsley or dill for garnish

• Heat oil (or butter) in a deep pot with a lid.  
• Peel and chop the onion and add it with the garlic and saute at medium.  
• Chop the celery [or leeks] and add.  
• Peel the parsnips and dice, cutting the long way and then crosswise.  Add to the sauteing vegetables.  
• Add chopped carrots, if you like.
• Pour in 4 cups of broth, salt, pepper, the bay leaf, and a pinch of nutmeg. 
• Simmer for about 20 minutes, covered, until the vegetables are soft.  
• Using an immersion blender, process until smooth.  It's fine if some of the vegetables are still a little chunky, which gives a nice texture.

It's a fairly bland color (a good reason to add carrots), so chopped parsley helps! This gives a lot of flavor and depth for a vegan dish.

Daniel Rosen's Green Shakshouka Via Jo

We have an abundant kale crop over at the Sterns - I planted a row of kale for George when he was post-knee surgery, and now - 4 months later - these monster kale plants are super prolific.  Really, I can go pick a whole basket full and you can hardly tell any is missing.
Jo made this with me when she visited for my birthday and I made it again a few days later - very easy.  You could make it more complicated with hot pepper, tomato sauces, et al, but this worked really well.

onion, sliced
1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced
lots of  fresh kale
2 to 3 tomatoes, chopped
4 to 6 eggs
pepper, salt
optional: feta cheese to sprinkle on top when you add the eggs

Chop an onion and saute it, with minced garlic, in olive oil in a large deep fry pan over medium heat.  Make sure it has a cover, which you will need.

While the onion and garlic and cooking, chop up a lot of kale.  (Spinach would work, too.)  Add it to the pan, and let it cook down.  If you have fresh tomatoes, chop and add them, as well.  Season with salt and pepper.  After about 5 to 10 minutes, they will have cooked down to a dense consistency. Crack 4 to 6 eggs, one at a time , and drop each on top of the mixture.  Cover and poach the eggs. [a sprinkle of feta cheese would be good at this point.]  This takes just a few minutes, and you can turn the heat off for most of it.

It is a great brunch dish, and or lovely for a light dinner.  We used eggs from the Rosens' coop, quite a treat.