Fifth Night Passover Seder

Last night we had a seder at the house in Reno. We invited our rabbi and her husband as well as Rob's mom. We had such a good time! It was the fifth night of Passover, and you don't usually have a fifth night seder, but we had a great time. Rob has always wanted to make gefilte fish from scratch, I must explain I guess, about gefilte fish to the non-jew. This is a not really a fish, there is no such thing as a gefilte fish. But, Rob had been listening to NPR last week and found a recipe. It was a little labor intensive, but turned out to be really good. I'm not going to type out the recipe, but if you are interested go to www.npr.org and put in gefilte fish in the search bar. It'll bring up an article about making it or you can go to this web address: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125170590. Here's a picture of what it looks like, maybe not the most appetizing visually, but really tasty.



After the gefilte fish appetizer, I made a salad and forgot to put it on the table. But it was quite tasty, Fennel and Strawberry Salad.

1 fennel bulb chopped roughly,
2 tbs of fennel frond
8 - 10 large strawberries, quartered
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
3 tbs of balsamic vinegar
2 tbs of olive oil

Mix it all together and it's a very refreshing salad.

We also had roasted red potatoes and roasted asparagus. Check out the blog, there is a recipe for the asparagus.

So totally simple.

1.5 lbs of small red potatoes
a large drizzle of olive oil
3 or 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 or 4 spring of fresh rosemary
1 tbs of course kosher salt
1.5 tsp of fresh ground pepper.

Preheat the oven to 450. Cut up the potatoes in to quarters and put on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, remove the leaves from the herbs and sprinkle on the potatoes, and then salt and pepper. Roast in the oven, turning once for 35 minutes, or until they reach your desired crispness.

We had baked cod as the entree. It was very good. This was a Rob creation and he did well. Put some white wine in the bottom of a pan with onions, lemons, and carrots. It's better if this has been already cooked, so that the onions and carrots are soft. Place the fish on top of this mixture and then sprinkle some thyme, rosemary, and salt and pepper on the fish. Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. What a flaky, tender fish!

For dessert we had chocolate almond cake. This recipe came from my mom. It's great.



1 cup of almonds toasted for 10 minutes at 375 put through the food processor with 1 tbs of sugar.

5 eggs separated. Mix the yolks with 3/4 cup of sugar until pale yellow in color. Mix the whites with 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

Melt 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter and then add 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. Mix.

Now, grease a springform pan, 8 or 10 inches. Mix the almond mixture into the egg yolks, and then add the chocolate mixture, once you have completed that, add the egg white in two parts, folding so you don't deflate them too much.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes. I decorate mine with strawberries, but you could put any kind of fruit on it.

Here is a picture of Lili, Rob, Doris and myself at the Seder.