Passover, Easter and the Pandemic

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The What Vegans Eat daily blog officially ended in February but occasionally we’ll come back to share some news about food. We are following the stay inside order during this Corona Virus Pandemic.
 
For Passover, we spent time over Zoom with family as many did, conducting the traditional Seder. I made Matzohs! Here’s a video making them.

 
We put together a Seder plate very quickly. Traditionally it consists of a roasted shank bone representing the Pescah sacrifice, an egg representing spring and the circle of life, bitter herbs representing the bitterness of slavery, charoset (a mixture of apples, wine, cinnamon and nuts) representing the mortar used by the Jews in Egypt, and karpas (or greens, often parsley) to represent spring. Clearly a vegan seder plate will substitute for the shank bone and the egg. I steamed some dried shiitake mushrooms for the bone and used a potato for the egg. It’s similar in shape and we didn’t have much to choose from. We are not going out to grocery shop and we have limited options with food delivery. I used some raw kale and onion for the bitter herbs. Gary got to chopping and made a quick and yummy charoset. I used a few leaves of cabbage for the greens. It’s not the best image of spring but it was green!
 

 
For dinner, Gary made a Tempeh Brisket. It was tender and juicy. It was fun to eat with family even though they were only on our computer screen.
 
A few days later it was Easter. We decided we’d make an Italian meals since Gary’s family is from Italy and that’s what he is used to having for this holiday. It was a choice of Lasagna or Pizza or Pasta with Meatballs. Pasta with Meatballs was the winner. Gary made the sauce (or the gravy as Gary’s dad would call it) and then he made the meatballs. I soaked Almonds in advance to make ricotta for a mini Crostata di Ricotta, a recipe I created about 8 years ago and never made again. It was time to try it out. With the leftover dough for the crust I made a few apricot jam cookies.
 

 

 

 
Everything was delicious. We enjoyed our celebratory meal but only missed one thing. Greens. It would have been nice to have had a side of Broccoli Rabe with a little roasted Garlic. We were short on greens. Normally I order produce from GoOrganicNYC.com on Sunday evenings but because of the pandemic they were requiring orders be made by Friday morning. I missed the deadline and we were short on greens for a week. Can you imagine? We got our delivery a week late.
 
I am grateful for our produce delivery service from GoOrganicNYC.com. I am grateful for the beautiful, nourishing food we have to eat. I am grateful to have a comfortable home to stay inside of during this surreal time.
 
Wishing you all well.
 
 

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