Celebrating Passover in a Christian community

Encouraging questions and open communication

 

 

We live in a neighborhood with a very active Christian community. This means that every Easter, we are surrounded by community egg hunts and lots of Easter excitement. Now that our children are older, they no longer mind missing the trappings of Easter, but they are very sensitive to being perceived as different. As we prepare for our Passover Seder and study the meaning of our rituals, our kids naturally ask lots of tough questions about Easter. 

When the kids were little it was easy to emphasize the similarities between our celebrations. Because Passover requires us to rid our house completely of bread, we had elaborate "bread" hunts as we cleaned, complete with prizes to reward the effort.  Our crafty daughter decorated beautiful afikomen bags to use during the seder, which we dutifully hid for the children to search for during the long meal, and we even boiled eggs to include on our seder plates.  Any questions about Easter egg hunts and decorating eggs were easily answered with "you get to hunt for bread and then later hunt for the beautiful afikomen bags you've made." 

 

Now that they are older, they've started to ask about the connections between Passover and Easter. We've told them the Christian story, but they ask some interesting questions. For example, "why is it traditional to eat ham on Easter when Jesus would certainly have kept Kosher and shunned that meat?" I suggested that it might be to emphasize that Christians have broken away from their Jewish roots, but I don't actually know the answer. Fortunately, our kids like the discussions as much as the answer so these questions always lead to lively debates in our house. 

Fantastic Recipe for Bailik

This recipe is an easy and delicious way to make chicken with a Jewish kick. Bailik (pronounced buy-lick) is chicken breast battered and breaded with matzo coating which is seasoned with Hungarian paprika for an unforgettable flavor. This recipe requires 20 minutes of prep time, 20 minutes of cook time and is ready in 40 minutes and yields 4 servings. The nutritional information includes 468 calories per serving with 12.9 grams of total fat and 54.7 grams of total carbohydrates.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of Hungarian paprika

2 tablespoons of yellow mustard

1 cup of oil

2 cups of matzo meal

3 eggs

4 skinless chicken breasts pounded to ½ inch thickness

Salt and pepper

Directions:

The first step is to whisk the three eggs in a bowl. Next, add 1 tablespoon of the Hungarian paprika seasoning, salt and pepper and mustard. Then, in a separate dish stir together one tablespoon of paprika and three cups of matzo meal.

Once this mixture is complete, heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. While the oil is heating up, carefully dip each chicken breast into the eggs until full coated. Then, dip each chicken into the matzo meal until evenly covered. You want to ensure that you cannot see any part of the chicken breast through the matzo meal or it could fall off while frying. Next, fry each of the chicken breasts in the oil for approximately five minutes on each side or until the juices run clear. If the chicken begins to brown too fast, slightly reduce the heat.

Classic Challah Stuffing

Due to the thick nature of challah bread, the stuffing created in this recipe is incredible. Challah stuffing is perfect for you favorite stuffed turkey or chicken dishes. Make sure to judge the amount of stuffing by the weight of the bird. This recipe yields 6 servings and incurs 20 minutes of prep time and 1 hour of cook time for a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

·         1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

·         1 pound loaf of sliced challah bread

·         1 chopped onion

·         2 chopped carrots

·         2 chopped stalks of celery

·         3 eggs

·         Salt and pepper

Directions:

The first step is to head the vegetable oil in a skillet on medium-high. Once you hear a nice crackle, stir in the chipped onion until it turns translucent. This typically takes around 10 minutes. Once the onion is complete, set it aside to cool down. Then, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven is heating up, grease a 9x13-inch glass baking dish

Then, fill a large bowl with warm water and proceed to soak the challah one slice at a time. If there is any excess water, make sure to squeeze it out of the bread slices. Next, place the damp challah in a large bowl and mix in all the remaining ingredients: carrots, celery cooked onion and eggs. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Then spread the stuffing evenly across the baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Finally, toss this in the preheated oven and set the timer for around an hour. 

Keeping Kosher

Tough Choices for a Busy Family

 

Our family keeps conservative kosher. This means we eat in restaurants and at non-kosher friend's houses but we keep kosher rules in mind with each food choice. I find that bringing G-d into mundane tasks, like eating, reminds me to think outside of myself.  Even when I choose to eat a non-kosher meal, I pause to think and that keeps G-d in the equation despite my choice to "break the rules." 

 

As our children have gotten older, these choices have gotten harder. 

Kosher food costs more than non-kosher, the kids get pressure from their friends to try new things and school lunches offer an appealing alternative to busy mornings. Despite these challenges, our kids choose to follow the rules most of the time and when they break them they do so in a thoughtful manner that I am proud of.

 

For those who don't know, kosher is more than avoiding pork and shell fish. The rules of kashrut, or keeping kosher, require that milk and meat never touch or be included in the same meal, that animals be treated humanely in life and that they be slaughtered painlessly. The rule necessitating the separation of milk and meat reads that "the calf shall not be cooked in the milk of it's mother." It is literally understood as the requirement to keep the two types of food separate at all times, but the underlying imagery is one of kindness and compassion toward the animals we eat. This especially speaks to our children and while they are sometimes curious about the tastes of forbidden foods, they have not been tempted by cheeseburgers. 

 

A Czech Twist on a Jewish Dish

Bramboracky is a classical pan-friend potato pancake that is typically washed down with a good beer. The below recipe is one that can be tweaked to your liking and is fun to make. Potato pancakes are usually associated with Yiddish cuisine with Ukrainian, German, Hungarian, Indian, Korean and Polish variations. This recipe has a prep time of 30 minutes and cook time of 30 minutes for a total of 1 hour which will yield 3 servings.

Ingredients:

·         1 pinch of dried marjoram

·         2 teaspoons of caraway seeds

·         1 tablespoon of milk

·         3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

·         2 eggs

·         3 gloves of crushed garlic

·         4 large potatoes

·         Salt and pepper

·         Oil

Directions:

First, peel and grate the potatoes while squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Then transfer those potatoes to a mixing bowl where you will stir in the marjoram, caraway seeds, garlic, salt and pepper.

Next, beat the eggs with milk and combine the mixture with the potatoes. Then, gradually mix in the flour to form a thick batter. Meanwhile heat the oil in a skillet. The oil should be approximately ¼-inch deep. Next, add ¼ cup of batter into the oil and flatten. Fry this pancake until golden brown (typically 3 minutes). Drain any excess liquid on a paper towel. Make sure to taste this first pancake and make adjustments if necessary.

Other Options

Other options include adding ham, bacon or cheese to the pancake prior to frying. Also, oregano can be substituted for the marjoram and cumin seed for the caraway. These are excellent with beer and topped with cheese or ketchup. 

Torah Study for Kids

One-size Doesn't Fit All

Fascinated by Torah study, our 9-year-old son delves deeply into each story. He asks questions about how the miracles could have happened and why each particular story was included when so many others were omitted. This deep curiosity is actually what has frustrated him about religious school and has led us to decide to fully homeschool his religious education. 

 

The last time we attended services at our synagogue, we kept him with us instead of sending him with his peers to the Junior Congregation most attend. He read the entire Torah portion along with the associated Midrash, or explanatory stories, included in the text.  He was so engrossed that he refused to participate further in the services with the exception of listening to the Rabbi's drash, or sermon, about what we had just read. At the conclusion of the service, he asked us if he could stay and read the Torah every Saturday in the future instead of going with his peers.

 

Herein lies our dilemma. 

While it is wonderful that he is so deeply interested in this aspect of his Judaism, it does nothing to help him find a place within our community unless he chooses to become a Rabbi. Since his heart is set on becoming a chemist or a marine biologist, I seriously doubt that ordination is in his future. But there are no deep and meaningful Torah study groups for young children in our neighborhood. Religious school is focused on building a Jewish identity in terms of observances, ritual and a connection with Israel. He is thought to be too young for Torah and Talmudic study, which frustrates him and actually alienates him. Our Rabbi invited us to start a group, but assured us that no one she knew would come. I wonder if that is true. For now I'll do my best to satisfy his curiosity. But I'd like to find a few peers for him as well.

 

Passover Pizza for the Kids

Kids and adults love this easy recipe for pizza during Passover. It is an excellent selection for the fourth or fifth day of Passover when you begin running out of recipe ideas. The beauty of this recipe is you can add any vegetables you have on hand for a delicious meal. This recipe yields 2 servings. The nutritional information includes total fat of 9.7 grams, 28 mg of cholesterol, 714 mg of sodium, 33.9 grams of carbs and 14.7 grams of protein.

Ingredients:

·         1 pinch of garlic salt

·         1 pinch of dried oregano

·         ¼ cup of pasta sauce

·         ¼ cup of sliced black olives

·         ¾ cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

·         1 sliced tomato

Directions:

Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F. As the oven is heating up, spread the pasta sauce onto pieces of matzo. Once the matzo is adequately covered, sprinkle the garlic salt and oregano across the sauce. Then cover with cheese, tomato slices and olives (or your vegetable of choice). Next, place the individual pizzas on cookie sheets. Finally, bake the pizza for 5 minutes at 350 degrees F or until the cheese has noticeably melted.

This Passover pizza recipe is a quick an easy meal that the kids or your guests will love without requiring you to be in the kitchen cooking for hours at a time. The recipe can easily be modified in many different ways. Alternatives to the olives include eggplant, onions peppers or anything you have around the house. Other delicious cheese alternatives include goat, feta and cheddar. 

Purim Play Disaster

Teaching kids about anti-semitism

My daughter loves being Jewish so much that when we decided to send her to public school for Kindergarden she got angry with us for denying her a Jewish day school experience. So we were shocked when, after a Purim play, she declared that she was done being Jewish. 

For those who don't know, a Purim play is a traditional reenactment of the Biblical story of Esther. In it, an evil advisor named Haman persuades the king to kill all of the Jews in his kingdom. The king agrees until he finds out that his favorite wife, Esther, is Jewish at which point he rescinds the order and the Jewish community is saved. Our daughter was so horrified at the idea that people were mean to Jews that she declared herself "not-Jewish." Interestingly, Purim is a happy, silly holiday. It is one of the few occasions when Jewish adults traditionally get drunk. For the children, there are Purim carnivals and costumes to look forward to, but our daughter fixated on the cruelty rather than on the fun.   

 

As you can imagine, we were terrified by her potential reaction to Passover's detailed description of the Exodus, but she didn't get upset. So what was it about Purim? I think it was the casual attitude. Passover deals dramatically with anti-semitism while Purim addresses it with humor. I wonder if this isn't by design. In both cases the emphasis is on overcoming adversity and maintaining our Jewish community, but the approach is different. 

 

Great Traditional Jewish Coffee Cake Recipe

Based on a traditional recipe using sour cream, this coffee cake is a delicious dessert that is a perfect treat after dinner or to bring to a gathering. The recipe yields 12 servings so there will be plenty to pass around. The 12 servings bears 363 calories with 21 grams of total fat, 40.2 grams of total carbohydrates, 5.4 grams of protein,69 milligrams of cholesterol and 236 milligrams of sodium.

Ingredients:

·         1 teaspoon of baking soda

·         1 teaspoon of baking powder

·         1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

·         2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

·         2 tablespoons of melted butter

·         ½ cup of butter

·         ½ cup of confectioners’ sugar

·         1 cup of white sugar

·         1 cup of sour cream

·         1 cup of chopped walnuts

·         2 cups of all-purpose flour

·         2 eggs

Directions:

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F. While the oven is heating up, grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan. Then combine the baking powder, baking soda and flour in a bowl. In a medium bowl combine the sugar, butter and eggs. Stir the ingredients until they are smooth then add the sour cream and vanilla extract. In another separate bowl combine the confectioners’ sugar, nuts and cinnamon.

Take half of the batter and spread it into the 9x9 inch pan. Next, sprinkle a layer of the nut mixture and spread all remaining batter into the pan. Top with the remainder of the nut mixture and melted butter. Finally, bake for approximately 1 hour in the oven or until the cake springs to touch. 

Quick Recipe for Jewish Crackers

Crepes are delicious but extremely tedious to make. This recipe is a delicious alternative to crepes and is ready in only 25 minutes with 15 minutes of prep time and 10 minutes of cook time. The recipe yields 10 total servings which is the perfect amount to complement lunches, as finger foods or as a snack while watching television.

Ingredients:

·         ¼ cup of matzo meal

·         ¼ cup of white sugar

·         ¼ cup of vegetable oil

·         ½ teaspoon of salt

·         1 8 ounce container of cottage cheese

·         40 saltine crackers

·         2 eggs

Directions:

The first step involves stirring the cottage cheese, matzo, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Next, place 1 tablespoon of the cottage cheese onto a crack then place another cracker on top and press down. Set these cracker sandwiches aside until later. After, thoroughly beat the eggs in a bowl.

The next step is to heat the vegetable oil in a skillet with medium heat. Next, dip both sides of the filled cracker sandwiches into the well-beaten egg and place onto the heated oil. Finally, pan fry each of the 20 cracker sandwiches on both sides until they turn golden brown. This will take approximately 1 to 2 minutes for each side of the cracker snack. This recipe is meant to be served hot but can be refrigerated and served cold for later.

Other types of cheese can be used as an alternative to cottage cheese for a different type of filling. Ricotta mixed with honey is an excellent substitution or mixed fruit into the cheese. Also, bread crumbs can be used in place of matzo meal. 

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