Pass the Kugel!

Friday was the beginning of Passover for Rich and his fellow Jews so to make his Mama proud and to share his religion with me, Rich decided to prepare his first Seder. He spent over three hours in the kitchen!! Can you believe it and everything (sans one sauce) was made from scratch. And even with multiple offers to be his sous-chef, he kindly declined. I was so proud of him!

It was nice to watch as he invited me to take a walk with him back to the history of the Israelites. What is so nice about our faiths is that we share the Old Testament so as he retold the story of the Israelites it wasn't like I was hearing a new story.

So...given that it was my first Passover meal, I wanted to share it with you all. Plus, did I mention that I was so proud of Rich for all of his cooking?? Come, come, join me as we tour a Seder dinner.

Matzah bread. This is unleavened bread. When the Israelies had to suddenly leave their homes they didn't have enough time to bake their bread so they took raw dough with them. They would bake the raw dough in the sun to make Matzah.

Ok - this plate has haroseth (mixture of wine, cinnamon and apple to represent the mortar the Jewish slaves used to assemble the Pharaoh's bricks), parsley with salt water that represents the tears of the Jewish slaves and horseradish to reflect the bitter affliction of slavery. We were unfortunately missing a shank bone (symbolizing the sacrificial lamb offering) and a roasted egg (symbol of Spring).

Matzah ball soup! Rich made the matzah balls out of crackers that he soaked in water.

Potato Latkes - basically little potato pancakes that were YUM!

Rich made his Grandmother's meatballs with sauce.

And my favorite - Kugel!! Baked goodness made from matzah. Tastes kinda like a strudel but better. Soooo good!
ps - Rich and I giggled as we tried to find the correct spelling of Kugel. His suggestion was to "Google Kugel". Haha - what a rhyme!!