Countdown to Passover Week 1: Getting Started on Passover Prep

Posted in Countdown to Passover 2010

Getting ready for Passover? Now is the time to clean out those closets, think about menus and start shopping!

In case you’re just tuning in, we are counting down to Passover with tips from Professional Organizer and Passover expert, Rivka Slatkin, and recipes from yours truly. Here’s  a rundown of the first week’s tips and recipes:

Tip #1: Order Passover meat now before prices go up
Recipe #1: Classic Gefilte Fish

Tip #2: Get your closets in order
Recipe #2: Sweet and Sour Salmon

Tip #3: Create clothing size charts and  start hitting the sales
Recipe #3: Classic Chicken Soup

Tip #4: Establish a Passover Center and start  cleaning
Recipe #4: Un-Stuffed Cabbage Soup

Tip#5: Take a Passover kitchen inventory
Recipe #5: Baby Spinach and Portobello Mushroom Salad

Tip 6: Designate a separate pantry and start Passover food shopping
Recipe #6: Sweet Carrot Salad

Okay, that’s it for this week, but remember to check back next week for more. Here’s a bonus recipe to keep you well fed while you prepare: Speedy Coq au Vin

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Countdown to Passover Tip #6: Start Your Passover Food Shopping

Posted in Countdown to Passover 2010

Now is the time to start shopping for Passover non-perishable foods.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve been counting down to Passover with tips from Professional Organizer and Pesach phenom, Rivka Slatkin. And, if you’ve been following along, you probably have your “Passover center” designated and ready to go.

Now it’s time for the sixth tip.

Tip 6: Designate a separate pantry on the main floor to store non-perishable Passover grocery items so you can start Passover shopping early. If you don’t have room to create a separate pantry for Passover food, start to move your chametz foods out of your newly-assigned Passover food area. It is best to do this step close to Purim, so, instead of putting all of the food you received over Purim back into the pantry, you put it aside. Keep some grocery bags lined up in a hallway or dining room to store chametz so that everyone knows this food is not going back into the pantry. The pantry is now reserved for Passover non-perishables like matzo, which you should buy now. Now is also the time to familiarize yourself with items and brands that are kosher for Passover year-round, so you are not limited to expensive Passover brands.

For my recipe, I have a another gorgeous salad that is as good looking as it is tasty.

Recipe #6: Sweet Carrot Salad

Filled with all kinds of yummy stuff that is super good for you, the pineapples, cranberries and apricots in this salad sparkle like jewels. For Passover, please substitute olive oil for the Canola oil called for in the recipe.

Remember to come back tomorrow for a full recap and a bonus recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Butterflake Nut-Free Kosher for Passover Bakery

Posted in Passover

Jamie talks with Richard Heisler of Butterflake Bakery, the only kosher-for-Passover bakery that is also 100% nut-free.

By: JAMIE GELLER

I would imagine getting a bakery ready for Passover is a major job. Do you prepare your kosher-for-Passover items in the same location as your year-round products?

Our year-round products are made in our Teaneck location and the kosher-for-Passover products are made in our New Rochelle store. But both stores, as well as Kosher.com, carry our kosher-for-Passover items.

Let’s face it, Passover is huge for kosher food sales. How far in advance do you have to start baking for Passover?

A lot of bakeries start their kosher-for-Passover lines around Chanukah. We start three weeks before the holiday so everything is as fresh as possible. Even if the base of a cake is prepared a few days in advance, like a seven layer cake, it isn’t frosted or covered with chocolate or jam until the day the cake is sold or ordered. Our customers know they are getting items that are baked and finished fresh.

That’s amazing! How do you keep up with all the orders?

Things get so busy; it’s crazy! But, thank G-d there are 24 hours in a day! This time of year we work around the clock.

I hear about so many kids and adults who suffer from nut allergies, how do you accommodate that?

Last year, we became the only kosher-for-Passover bakery that is also 100% nut-free. Passover baked goods typically have a lot of nuts so we revamped our recipes and took out the nuts. Still, we maintained the delicious taste and high quality that has become our bakery’s trademark.

What are some of Butterflake’s kosher-for-Passover products that I should look for?

There are so many things. Where do I start?

We make classic jelly rolls, seven layer cakes and nut-free brownies, which are on special at kosher.com. We make fudge and macaroon layer cakes, and a knock-your-socks-off decadent, flourless chocolate torte. This year we are featuring bundt cakes in white, apricot or marble flavors. And that’s just the beginning.

For those of us shopping early, how should the baked goods be stored?

To ensure longevity, most things should be refrigerated. A lot of the cakes are covered in chocolate or jam. The covering helps keeps them fresh but you should still refrigerate them. The cookies and macaroons can be kept at room temperature.

Non-gebrokts is another trend in Passover eating. Are your Passover baked goods non-gebrokts?

Absolutely!

More than before, there is a demand for high-quality, non-gebrokts bakery, especially in the New York tri-state area. So, instead of matzah meal or cake meal, we use potato and tapioca starch. There is a big difference when you bake with starches instead of matzah meal but I think that we do a tremendous job. Every year we get rave reviews.

I agree, the cakes are fabulous. How do you prevent the non-gebrokts products from being dry or bland?

Great ingredients that help keeps products moist and fresh are available to the baking industry. We use certain sugars that hydrodscopically retain moisture. We also use potato syrup as a sweetener which acts as a kind of moistener. Making high-quality, great-tasting, non-gebrokts baked goods is a skill my family has perfected in the 100 years that we’ve been baking.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

- JAMIE GELLER is a best selling author (Quick and Kosher Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing, 2007), an internationally syndicated food and lifestyle columnist, an award-winning television producer, a motivational speaker, and the host of popular Internet cooking shows “Quick & Kosher” and “Simply Kosher.” – Read more…

Countdown to Passover Tip #5: Kitchen Inventory

Posted in Countdown to Passover 2010

Okay, we’re almost through the first week of Passover prep. It’s time for a mini recap of Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin’s first four tips. To get out of the starting gate on Passover, Rivka suggests you begin by ordering all your Passover meat. Then clear out all your old clothes and start your Passover clothes shopping. When that’s done, start your cleaning and establish a “Passover center” to store all your Passover gear.

Here’s Rivka’s next tip.

Tip#5: If you have prepared for Passover before, look over your Pesach kitchen inventory and determine what kitchenware and cooking tools you need to buy or kasher for Passover. If this is your first Passover, everything that you purchase now will go into your Passover kitchen inventory. Designate a separate place in your basement or kitchen cabinets to store all your Passover wares.

Now for my recipe. We’ve already done fish and soup, so salad is our next stop.

Recipe #5: Baby Spinach and Portobello Mushroom Salad

This quick, easy and delicious salad combines tender baby spinach with the bold, earthy flavors of sautéed portobello mushrooms. For Passover, substitute fresh or frozen garlic for the prepared crushed garlic called for in the recipe.

Please come back tomorrow for tip #6 and another recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Passover Chocolate: Matzel Toff! Premium Confections

Posted in Passover

Jamie speaks with Abigail Hendel Levy, co-founder and CEO of Matzel Toff!, makers of a gourmet confection featuring matzah covered in delectable toffee and dipped in the highest quality chocolate.

By: JAMIE GELLER

I have to say, I’ve never had such a yummy treat made with matzah of all things. What inspired Matzel Toff!?

My co-founder, Phillip, made toffee-chocolate-matzah as a boy, inspired by a treat his paternal grandmother, Bubbie Edith, used to make. He fine-tuned his recipe in graduate school. In 2006, I started making toffee-chocolate-matzah and had the vision for Matzel Toff! A year later, we started the company together. This year we partnered with Streit’s. If Bubbie Edith were alive today, she’d be shepping nachas (proud) to see that so many people are enjoying her delicious Passover-inspired treat.

Wow, what a great story. There are so many kosher-for-Passover chocolates and chocolate-covered matzahs on the market that you’d think the holiday was all about candy. How is Matzel Toff! different?

We’re a premium, gourmet product. Matzel Toff! uses the finest ingredients available and our product is much more delicious and certainly more hip than anything else available today. We’re so excited to give people a new gourmet option for the Passover holiday. We also love making a scrumptious matzah treat for people to enjoy year-round.

It is clear that Matzel Toff! is dedicated to quality. What kind of process does it take to make the chocolate-covered toffee matzahs? Are they handmade or machine-made?

Everything is done by hand, except the chocolate enrobing. The process is very labor intensive, but well worth the effort.

You have a number of different varieties of Matzel Toff! each one more yummy than the next. What is the difference between the parve and milk chocolate varieties?

The parve variety contains no dairy products and is only available for Passover, so buy them while you can get them! Our year-round varieties—”Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt” and “Milk Chocolate”—are dairy because we use butter in the toffee. The cooking process is the same for all the varieties, just the ingredients are slightly different.

The Matzel Toff! packaging is adorable! It’s such a hip, retro style. Tell me about it.

Yes, we’re really proud of the new gift box packaging for this Passover. We wanted to give matzah a makeover on the inside with our delicious products and on the outside with our fun, festive packaging. It makes a perfect Passover gift to bring to a seder or to send to friends.

How cool is it that you were featured on national TV last year!?! How did you get onto the Martha Stewart Show?

It was very cool and a great way to kick off our first Passover sales. We got onto the show because Martha loved our product and because we were very persistent (and charming!). We are working on some other great press and national TV spots for this year, so wish us luck. And, of course, we’ll keep you posted!

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

- JAMIE GELLER is a best selling author (Quick and Kosher Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing, 2007), an internationally syndicated food and lifestyle columnist, an award-winning television producer, a motivational speaker, and the host of popular Internet cooking shows “Quick & Kosher” and “Simply Kosher.” – Read more…

Countdown to Passover Tip #4: Establish A Passover Center

Posted in Countdown to Passover 2010

Believe it or not, now is the time to start your Passover cleaning. That way you can set aside a chametz-free area to store all your Passover purchases.

Tip #4: According to Professional Organizer, Rivka Slatkin, now that your Passover meat order is in, you’ve cleared out your closets of old clothes and you’ve started your Passover clothes shopping, the next step in preparing for Passover is to start  cleaning. This first phase of Passover cleaning begins in the living and storage areas—bedrooms, guest rooms, closets, etc. Clean the upstairs rooms from back to front starting with the closets and storage centers in each bedroom, such as drawers and bureaus. This way you can be certain that these areas are chometz free and they can potentially be used to store items as you clean other rooms in the house.

Recipe #4: Un-Stuffed Cabbage Soup

This hearty beef soup classic is a real crowd-pleaser. One note, though, this is a sweet recipe. If you like things more savory, use a less sugar and/or add a teaspoon of black pepper for some kick.

Remember to come back tomorrow for tip #5 and another recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

And the winners of the Hamantaschen Giveaway are…

Posted in contests

Kosher.com would like to thank everyone who participated in our Hamantaschen Giveaway last month.  In the spirit of Purim we gave our favorite bloggers dee-lish tins of irresistible, chocolate-covered Hamantaschen from Kosher.com to giveaway to their readers.

The rules were simple – The bloggers post the contest on their blog or on Twitter and their readers must leave a comment with a link to Kosher.com. Easy right?

And the winners are:

M.J. – Bronx, NY
Elisheva – Jacksonville, FL
Pat – Charlemont, MA
Melissa -Toronto, ON
Rabbi Josh – NY, NY
Jessica – Elizabeth, NJ

Please be sure to check out some of our favorite blogs!

Kosher Cookbook
Primetime Parenting
In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens
The Kosher Foodies
Kosher Eye
Jewish Treats

And don’t forget to follow Kosher.com on Twitter!

Countdown to Passover Tip 3: Start Shopping for Clothes Now

Posted in Countdown to Passover 2010

Now is the time to shop for new clothes for Passover 2010.

Tip #3: If your Passover meat order is in and you’ve cleared out your closets, according to Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin the next step in preparing for Passover is to create clothing size charts for yourself and your family members and then start hitting the sales. Shopping for clothing now will save you money and the headache of rushing around in the days before the seders.

Now for my recipe.

Recipe #3: Classic Chicken Soup

This recipe is remarkably easy to make and tremendously satisfying. Besides, no Passover seder is complete without a little chicken soup!

Remember to come back for tip 4 and another recipe tomorrow.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Matzo or Matzah? Passover is All About the Crumbly Stuff

Posted in Passover

Passover is here again. Eight days of unleavened fun starring everyone’s favorite flatbread, matzo!

A little schmear of this, a little spread of that. Try some chopped liver, or finish your charoset. And the rest is a yummy balancing act as we try to eat an open faced matzo sandwich or squish a food of choice between two pieces of the crumbly matzo.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when we rejoice in our ancestor’s hasty retreat from Egypt and do without leavened products for the whole Pesach holiday.

You say matzo, I say matzah, but you can also write matzoh, matza or any other combination of similarly sounding letters. And whether it is plain matzo, whole wheat, spelt, machine-made square or handmade shmura round, it all pretty much crumbles the same way. But how much do we really know about why we eat these flat “breads?”

Well, most people know the Passover story. No time to let the traditional bread rise, so a quick throwing together of the main ingredients instead: Ladies and gentleman, introducing … matzo! On one hand, eating matzo reminds us of our deliverance from a formidable adversary (Mr. Pharaoh—booh!) and getting out of Egypt. But, like many other Jewish celebrations (think wedding), we are not only rejoicing, but must also be reminded to remember our suffering and remain humble, lest we forget what it was like to be slaves. Some folks refer to matzo as the “bread of affliction” because it represents our suffering as slaves, or as lechem oni, “poor man’s bread” in Hebrew.

As Rabbi Pinchas Stolper of the Orthodox Union writes: “Bread is the staff of life, but matzah is the most basic bread, the simplest food made by man. Matzah involves the amalgamation of the three most basic elements which define civilized man; grain, water and fire. Matzah is a food which man makes and bakes, no external element beyond flour and water defines or influences its form.”

The commandment to eat this unleavened bread states that Jews must eat matzo prepared from one of the five types of grain. Most folks know about wheat and many now recognize and enjoy spelt, barley, oat and rye (attention gluten-intolerant or celiac disease sufferers, these are still no-nos; they don’t contain wheat, but they do have gluten). Apart from matzo form, these grains are NOT permitted during Passover. Remember guys, it is only eight days! (Seven if you go to live in Israel ….!)

Matzo will not be considered Kosher, or acceptable for Passover use, if the “dough” is not put in the oven before 18 minutes has elapsed. Leave the mixture longer than that and it will start to rise and bye-bye matzo. Some matzo connoisseurs eat special shmura (“watched” or guarded from the Hebrew word “to guard”) matzo, which is made from grain that has been supervised, watched, guarded—the whole shebang—from the time it was harvested in order to make sure that absolutely no additional moisture contaminates the grain.

However you slice it (Don’t even try!), matzo is representative of everything we have come to know, love and yes, admit it, often just tolerate during the annual, Passover celebration (listen, no one said redemption was going to be easy). And if we didn’t have our matzo, we wouldn’t have a need for those cute, table-crumb-sweeper things and dried fruit to ease our tortured insides!

Matzo pizza anyone?

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

DIY Kosher: Fresh Fruit Topiary for Your Passover Seder Table

Posted in Passover

After all that cleaning and cooking, why leave your seder table looking  drab? Easy-to-make fresh fruit topiaries are perfect centerpieces.

By: FELISA BILLET

Topiaries are multi-dimensional “mini trees” fashioned from flowers, fruits and greenery. These gorgeous centerpieces herald spring in all its beauty while adding a unique touch of elegance to the Passover seder.

Topiary, the art of ornamental gardening, dates back to the 18th century. Often found in colonial and Victorian decor, it is easy to re-create with Styrofoam, real or dried greenery, fruit and flowers. Lemons, limes, oranges, apples and pomegranates work especially well, although use whatever you feel will look best on your table.

As the holiday progresses, keep your topiary alive by exchanging the fruit for flowers and other decorative touches.

Materials:

A large decorative vase with a round opening
2 floral moss blocks or Styrofoam balls, spray painted green
1 2-foot thin round wooden pole, spray painted green
Willow vine sprays
Spanish moss in the color of your choice
Box of U-pins
10-20 green hydrangeas, depending on the topiary’s size
Green floral wire
Green floral tape
Various pieces of fruit, such as 20 lemons or limes, 10 oranges or apples, and smaller accenting fruit and nuts such as purple grapes, cranberries, strawberries, chestnuts;
12 inch wooded sticks, such as shish kabob skewers
Box of toothpicks

How To:

1. Choose your decorative vase in proportion to the size of the floral moss blocks or Styrofoam balls. Cut the moss block or Styrofoam to fit the inside of the pot. If needed, tape it in.
2. Choose your wooden pole so that the height of the “tree” will be 2-1/2 times the height of the pot. Insert the stick into the foam in the pot to make a hole for the “trunk,” and remove the stick.
3. Tuck Spanish moss into the pot to cover the moss block or Styrofoam, and fasten it down with U-pins. Stick some of the hydrangea on the moss to add color and texture to the base of the “tree.”
4. Insert the stick in the original hole in the now-covered moss block or Styrofoam. Glue, if necessary. Place the second moss block or Styrofoam on top of the stick to make a hole and then remove.
5. Working in concentric circles from the top of the moss block or Styrofoam, attach pieces of willow vine sprays, using floral wire to secure the vine sprays in place.
6. After half the foam is covered with greenery, attach the foam on top of the stick and completely cover the rest of the ball. Stick in hydrangeas to enhance the topiary ball shape. Embellish the stick with vine sprays, moss, and using floral wire, secure the remaining hydrangea, if desired
7. Bring the topiary comes to life by adding the fruit. Cut all but four or five of the fruits in half and attach the whole and uncut fruit to wooden skewers. Arrange the cut fruits, cut side down, around the upper portion of the topiary by carefully pushing each stick into the moss. Place the uncut fruit around the perimeter of the base of the topiary by carefully pushing the sticks into the moss.
8. Attach the accenting fruit to toothpicks (strawberries work well with lemons, purple grapes with green apples, blue berries with limes) and arrange them all over the topiary by carefully pushing the toothpicks into the moss.

Note:

To increase the life of the fruit, choose slightly under ripe pieces and store the topiary in a dry place, as moisture will cause the fruit to decay faster. The fruit should stay fresh for 4-5 days, depending on the type (oranges will last longer than berries) and the quality at the time of purchase. When the fruit needs to be changed, gently twist the U-pins free and pull out the fruit. Replace with new fruit or change the look by adding flowers. The willow vine sprays do not need to be changed, as they will dry in place.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Author Bio:

- FELISA BILLET is a freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines, including USA Today, Jewish Action, American Jewish Spirit, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Pregnancy, and My Midwest. Felisa is at work on a cookbook, The DIY Kitchen, which explains how to make supermarket staples from the comfort of home. She is a mom of three kids and lives in South Florida. – Read more…