Passover Eats

It might be the oppressive thought of a solid week, and then some, of being restricted to matzo as the main, bread-like option for the culinary experience, but Passover food gets a pretty bad rap among many of us. I've been making the most of my internet researching skills to hunt down new and exciting foods for a change of pace from the usuals during the holiday.

Passover desserts are often a disaster. Too many ingredients are substituted or altered to create things the are supposed to resemble cakes or something. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good macaroon and flourless chocolate cakes can be quite good, but I stumbled upon Caramel Chocolate Covered Matzo and I actually wanted to make the recipe and didn't have the usual fears. It was easy to make and came out exactly as described and expected. The only hard part is keeping it around for the duration of the holiday as opposed to eating it all after it cools.

My father operates under the principle that potato kugel ain't nothin' but a potato latke baked in a casserole format. While this theory is a good one, it leads me to some brief meditation on word origin. Did somebody first throw out the term as Kugel from germanic/yiddish roots for a scoop or did they mean Kegel which is more towards bowling pin? I wanted to find a different recipe to try to see if the potato Kugel could be different. I found this one in Food & Wine and I have to say the flavor was quite good. I would like to experiment with the recipe some to see if there is a way to lighten it up a bit and cut way back on the amount of oil since it is essentially still a giant latke fried in the oven.

I have made it halfway through the holiday without too much additional stress from hunting for KFP food. If I find anything else worth sharing, I will. It does appear, although possibly by accident, that Safeway has figured out that the holiday isn't over after the initial food purchase. There is still a shelf of KFP goods.