Passover Brownie Bites!!

I really, really, really hate Passover brownies and cookies. I can't seem to find a decent recipe where it actually tastes like a brownie or a cookie. But this following recipe actually comes close to some of the best Passover brownies I have ever tasted, and not just because I made them!

I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com in their Passover section. This woman named Dara posted it and it actually has been rated by other readers very highly. It got 5 out of 5 stars...so I had to try it. I needed something to bring to my friend's house for her Passover Seder that was taking place Sunday night (yes, a day early, but she wanted to make sure people could come since most of us are always with family on the actual start of Passover...for example, my husband and I could never go the past 3 years she invited us!).

I kept the recipe pretty true to form, except I mixed white chips and semi-sweet chips instead of using all semi-sweet chips in the recipe. I also chopped the strawberries into smaller pieces even though the recipe did not say to. The result came out pretty moist (probably due to the strawberries) and decent for a Passover brownie. I recommend it!

They were very easy to make - once I had my ingredients measured out, it took me about 10 minutes to mix them all together and get it into the oven. It did take about 40 minutes of baking in the oven.

Ingredients: (serves 24)

6 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup matzo cake meal
1 (10 ounce) package frozen strawberries, thawed
6 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips
6 ounces of white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Grease 2 6x8-inch baking pans.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with a fork; beat in the sugar, orange juice, cocoa, and cake meal until thoroughly blended.

Gently stir in the strawberries and chocolate chips; divide the batter between the 2 prepared baking pans.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted near the center of a pan comes out clean, about 45 minutes.


This is the brownie as a whole cake:

Pesach Chicken Pie

I made the following recipe for Passover 2010 - this is actually my final Passover post for the moment...all the recipes I made last year have now been posted. If I make any before Passover starts for this year, I'll post them up quickly! Otherwise, they will be posted, but hopefully you will all come back looking for them next year!

Last March I was doing a LOT of Internet searching for different passover recipes. This one caught my eye. The original source for it is a booklet for Pesach from the Bar Ilan school in Rio de Janiero.

The recipe was decent...definitely nothing super special, and not the best thing I made. My husband enjoyed it more than I did. Maybe it will strike your interest!!

Ingredients:

5 to 6 pieces of matzo
1 pound minced chicken meat
chopped parsley and green onions to taste
2 eggs
1 medium potato, cooked and mashed
1 big onion, chopped
garlic, pepper and salt to taste
2-3 TBS oil

Directions:

Soak the matzo for 3 minutes in warm water with salt. Try to keep them as whole as possible while wringing out the water.

Oil a pie pan and place half the matzo inside.

In a skillet on the stove top, brown the onion and add the chicken. Add salt, pepper and garlic to taste, as well as parsley and green onions. Continue to brown the mixture.


Let it cool and add the mashed potato mixed well with 1 beaten egg. Put this filling over the matzo in the pan and cover it with the remaining matzo.


Beat the other egg and pour it over the matzo in the pan - bake 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

Lasagna for Passover!!

Last year was really the first year I put any effort into making "different" things with matzo for Passover. I never kept Passover growing up, but my husband did so now I try. I still hate it so much.

We made matzo pizza in the past (who doesn't), but this recipe on AllRecipes.com for Passover Lasagna caught my eye and was super easy to make. It was also REALLY tasty and my favorite dish from last year.

This recipe yields 12 servings.. I halved it.

Ingredients

* 1 (10 ounce) package matzo sheets
* 1 quart tomato sauce
* salt and pepper to taste
* 1 (8 ounce) package sliced Swiss cheese
* 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
* 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano

Directions

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray.

Break matzo sheets in half and run under warm water to soften. Pour tomato sauce into bowl, and season with salt and pepper.

Coat the bottom of the prepared pan with some of the tomato sauce, then begin layering with the softened matzo sheet, Swiss cheese, mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce.

Continue layering until the cheeses are used up, finishing with a layer of matzo. Top with the remaining tomato sauce, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and oregano.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cheese is melted, 25 to 30 minutes.

Hamburger Popovers

So, THIS recipe that I am posting below is actually Kosher for Passover. BUT, it can easily be made into a regular non-Passover recipe! These are really good, and fun to eat for dinner, especially for kids.

My husband told me his mother used to make these all the time when he was a kid, I personally just made and ate them for the first time last year when I made them for Passover. They were very tasty!

They are pretty easy to make but will take some time because you need to let the batter rest for about 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

For the Popover

2 eggs
2 teaspoons oil
2/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper (or black pepper, the only difference is color!)
1/2 cup cake meal

For the Hamburger

1/2 pound ground beef or veal
1 egg
1 tablespoon matzo meal
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion or 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
oil for muffin cups


Directions:

In a medium sized mixing bowl, prepare the popover batter by beating the eggs with the oil, water, and seasonings.

Stir in the cake meal. Blend well and let rest for 30-45 minutes.

Thoroughly blend the hamburger ingredients in a small bowl.

Shape the mixture into 12 balls and set them aside on a dish.

Grease and heat twelve 2 1/2 inch muffin cups. Pour the batter into the heated cups.

Put a meatball in each muffin cup.

Bake in a preheated 450 degree F. oven for 35 minutes.

This recipe serves 3-4.


Now, like I said, I could see making this as a normal, non-Passover recipe. In fact, I could TOTALLY see making this totally like non Kosher and adding some cheese into them, but that's another story. :-)

For the popover, you would use actual flour instead of cake meal, and maybe a splash of milk. In the meatballs, you would use breadcrumbs instead of matzo meal. I found THIS recipe online, just googling around for a regular hamburger popover recipe, so they are out there!

We like eating these with a little ketchup too!

Enjoy!

Passover Food - Matzo Pudding

Well, Passover is coming. My least favorite time of year, when many of the bagel stores around me are closed, and you aren't supposed to eat anything like bread, pasta, regular cookies, etc. I never kept Passover growing up, but my husband did, so now I do (at least in the house!). No, I try to keep it for lunch too, while at work. So last year I struggled to find decent recipes, and I did pretty well. I'm busy gearing up for this Passover season, so if you have any good recipes, send them my way!!

I apologize to anyone who doesn't celebrate this holiday...for the next few weeks there will be Passover recipes sporadically scattered in the posts.

I also apologize for the picture accompanying this post. It doesn't look appetizing at ALL - and I know that. It's partly due to the blueberry filling I used for the recipe, and also that I didn't have any "topping" on it. But trust me - it tastes GOOD. It was actually much prettier when I made it with apple pie filling the year before. But I wasn't photographing my work at that point!

I made the matzo pudding for the first time in 2009, one of the women I worked with gave it to me after I was telling her how I needed to find desserts my husband could eat during Passover. I'm going to post the original recipe below - it actually was for apple matzo pudding. But I am not fond of apple stuff, and didn't eat it the first year I made it - but my husband LOVED it. We decided that for 2010, we would make it blueberry so I would eat it too.

The recipe is very versatile with flavors, so it is easy to create something new and different every year. This recipe is also very easy to pack up and bring to wherever you are celebrating Passover. It can be eaten warm, or cold. If you take it out of the refrigerator, it's also easy to pop in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm it up slightly.

Ingredients:

10 pieces of matzo
4 eggs
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 or 2 tsp of cinnamon (to taste)
6 large Macintosh apples ****
1 small can crushed pineapples, drained - reserve juice for later
raisins (optional)

**** The woman I worked with told me to substitute a can of apple pie filling for the actual apples, which is where we got the idea to use different pie fillings for other flavors as well.

Directions:

Break pieces of matzo into small pieces and soak in colander until soft. Drain, but don't squeeze dry...make sure the matzo is moist.

Cut the apples into quarters, then peel and slice. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar, salt, cinnamon and melted butter.

Then add the matzo pieces, apples, pineapple and a small splash of pineapple juice.

Mix well.

Put mixture in greased tin or baking dish. Sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees F, uncovered, for 45 minutes to an hour.

Serves 6 (generous portions, could serve more).

In 2010, I made this to bring to our family friend's house for Passover dinner and someone suggested maybe making some sort of topping to make it look "pretty." It doesn't really need a topping because it does taste good, it would be more as an additional taste and something to make it eye catching.

As long as my husband likes it for dessert though, I am golden, especially since it is pretty easy to make and doesn't take much time to prepare. But maybe one year I will try it with fresh fruit!