Practice the Four Questions!

Click here to sing along with Shira..

I smile at my memories of Pesach as a child. . . counting the books in the shelves as I dusted, the mysterious search for chametz with the candle and the feather, sitting at the big grown up seder following attentively as he led us through the journey challenging everyone with questions and queries, negotiating with my dad over the afikomen (for world peace of course), the hilarious drunken singing at the very very very end of the seder night "An only kid an ONLY kid" we sang with such drama, chocolate candy bars, matzah cake, fluffy pankcakes. . . What a great holiday for a child. So much to do!

Spring Cleaning
We knew it was the season when we started eating beans and grains at every meal, coming up with more and more creative ways to eat up our chametz. And then the deep spring cleaning began. Each one of us had a very specific job assignment in addition to cleaning out our bedrooms. My favorite job was addressing the rows and rows of bookshelves. I was to take out each and every book, dust it and put it back in. I remember letting the subjects and titles of the books swirl around in my imagination where I made up stories and songs to entertain myself.

B'dikat Chametz
As we got closer and closer to the 1st night Seder, the tables filled up with our regular dishes to be exchanged for Pesach dishes, Haggadot out of the attic, and the yummy smells of Pesach food filled the house. The night before Pesach, we did a big b'diKAT chaMETZ. This is the official and final "Search for chametz." As the youngest in the family, I hid about 10 pieces of bread (the very last in the house in this point) throughout a few rooms. Being a savvy and adventurous child, I had an excellent sense of bread hiding places. Then my family would gather, with a small paper bag, a long feather, a wooden spoon, and a tall candle. First my dad would lead us in the blessing,

"Blessed are you God, Rule of the Universe, who makes us holy with the commandments, and commands us to remove the leaven."

And then, by candle light (at least thats how I remember it) my family searched for the hidden bread. When someone found a piece they called out and every gathered around for my dad to pick up the chametz with the feather and spoon and brush it into the paper bag. Eventually we would always have to resort to the "hot and cold" game for searching and usually I would actually forget where I hid all of those little pieces. But we would get them all eventually. And then with all of the chametz in the bag my father would declare,

"Any kind of leaven which remains in my possession that I have not seen nor removed or about which I do not know shall be regarded as non-existent and considered as the dust of the earth." Mishneh Torah: Hilkot Hametz u-Matzah 2.1-3; 3.6-7

Oh the drama! And the fun! I'm very excited to follow this tradition with my young niece and watch her join in the excitement.

Celebrate this wonderful holiday with all of your senses!
Listen to the story…
Taste our sweet, bitter, and salty history…
Smell the springtime…
Touch the flat, crunchy matzah…
See your friends and family around the seder table!

Click here for a Seder Plate coloring page

There are many many different kinds of Haggadas. What does yours look like?

Click here for a Haggadah coloring page

Can you find the last crumbs of chametz in your home?

Click here for a Passover Coloring Page

How is this night different from all other nights? Practice the Four Questions with ShirLaLa Pesach, track 11!

So many questions… What other questions come up for you this Passover?

Click here for a Four Questions coloring page

Make Your Own Matzah - Its much tastier and more fun!
Instructions based on my Dad's. More info on his blog, Good-To-Be-A-Jew

"MAKE Matza???" You ask. Yes! It's probably one of the easiest things you'll ever bake in your kitchen. The experience and the unique taste of home-made matzah is enough to make a family ritual out of it every year. My father is a master bread maker. So for him, the story of the Israelites speedily making unleavened bread and carrying it out of Egypt is especially interesting. He started baking matzah twenty years ago and today has perfected the process. Its most fun to do it in a group of about 8-10 people. This is an activity for ALL ages.

Ingredients:
1 part cold water
3 parts flour (approximately)

Now here's the fun part: The entire process from when the water touches the flour to putting the matzah in the oven must be done in 18 minutes! Personally, putting in the added effort to make kosher matzot is what makes this such a fun activity. A few extra steps adds all the meaning.

Step 1: The Supplies
plenty of butcher paper and tape*
squares of sand paper*
rolling pins
hole puncher - anything from a plastic fork to a "dough docker" used for pizza preparation
1 large mixing bowl
2 measuring cups (I use styrofoam cups)
something to get the matzah in and out of the hot oven (I use a "pizza peel," a large flat wooden or metal plate with handle used for taking bread out of a brick oven
hot hot hot hot oven, as high as it goes
a timer

*You'll want to do a few 18 minutes sessions of matzah making, so between each round (a) sand your rolling pin clean of old dough and (b) remove a layer of the butcher paper from your counters.

Prepare your kitchen and supplies.

Cover your kitchen counters or table with butcher paper and tape it down on the sides and corners. Put several layers of paper down to make it easier to change between sessions.
All bowls, measuring cups, rolling pins, hole punchers, peels, tiles are reserved for Pesach preperation. (You can use disposable stuff.)

Step 2: The Dough
Preheat the oven as high as it will go. My dad lines the oven shelves with tiles, plain red or brown bricks such as are sold for floors. This makes for some amazing matzah, but he's hard core.

Place the flour in your bowl. Everyone should be at the ready with rolling pins in hands.
All together, recite "L'shem matzah shel mitzvah" in reference to the matzah we are commanded to eat at this time of year.
Set the timer for 18 minutes and add the water! GO!

One person (or many little hands at first) should knead the dough into a firm ball. If it seems too dry, sprinkle in a little more water at a time. Do the same with the flour if it seems too wet. Practice makes perfect.
Distribute smaller balls of dough (a little larger than a walnut) amongst the matzah makers. Roll and roll and roll out that dough until it as thin as you can get it. And then, roll it some more. Sprinkle plenty of flour onto the surface and the rolling pins to avoid sticking.
When you are sure it is as thin as you can get it, (we want our matzah to be crunchy instead of chewy, right?) punch tiny holes all over the matzah.

Step 3: Bake the Matzah
Carefully place the matzah on the floured peel and get it into that hot oven! Bake for just a few minutes, until it is browned but not burnt. It will get crispier once its taken out of the oven. Place finished matzah in a pile on more butcher paper so that it is kosher and ready for Pesach eating.
You have the remaining 18 minutes to finish using all of the dough you made and anything left over gets thrown out.
Once it's cooled, wrap your matzah in fresh butcher paper and tape shut.
Your home-made matzah is going to blow that boxed store bought matzah out of the water. So be sure to use it during your seder and remember that its very fresh so eat it up quickly! During Pesach if your matzah feels a little stale, a few minutes in a hot oven will re-crispify it.

Enjoy!

Barbara Kline's Charoset, Sephardic Style:

1 lb pitted chopped dates
Sweet Kosher for Pesach wine
Ground cinnamon
Chopped walnuts

Cover dates with water in a saucepan and cook over moderate heat until the dates break down into a smooth mass. The results should be like a thick jam. Mix in enough wine to loosen the consistency slightly. Put through a Foley Mill to take out any lumps. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. Cover with a layer of finely chopped walnuts.

Pesach Brickle (thanks to Delores Gross who calls it a Pitzel Brickel, with slight variations by Barbara Kline)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Ingredients:
Matzah
1 C butter
1 C brown sugar
Almonds - whole or chopped coarsely
2 packages Kosher l'Pesach semi-sweet chocolate and 2 packages milk chocolate chips

Grease a cookie pan with butter. Cover the pan with a layer of broken matzah pieces. Don't leave any spaces. Sprinkle the matzah liberally with the nuts. Toast in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes being careful that the matzah doesn't burn. Boil together the butter and the sugar for 5 minutes, creating the toffee mixture. Remove the matzah and nuts from the oven and pour the toffee over it. Let cool to room temperature. Melt the semi-sweet chocolate and spread over the mixture in the cookie sheet. Melt the milk chocolate and swirl through the dark chocolate. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens. Break into pieces and enjoy.

Barbara Kline's Kubeh

Ingredients:
Ground lamb
Finely chopped onion
Finely chopped garlic
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Cumin
Turmeric
1 egg
1 recipe of matzah ball mixture adding chopped parsley and ginger

All of the seasonings are to-taste. We make it quite spicy. Make matzah ball dough and refrigerate for at least one hour. Mix together the lamb and the following eight ingredients. Form a ball with the matzah meal dough and making an indentation at one end, stuff the dough with the meat mixture until the dough just coats the meat. Deep fry until the dough is lightly browned. Drain on paper towel and serve hot.