Don't Pass this Over

Passover and Easter are a great time of the year for me, food wise. Well, okay, there is more to those days than just food. LOL. This year, we celebrated both Passover and Easter. We went over to my sister's in-laws for Easter and had a fabulous luncheon! Fabulous!! So much food, I thought we were having Thanksgiving. My dad was out of town for both of those, but we had a quiet Passover celebration with my mom, sister and brother in law. We didn't do the full on ceremony, which could take hours.  Even still, it took us about 1 hour before we ate and then about 15 more minutes for the after eating part of the ceremony. I blasted our Jewish folk music from when I was a child. My sister is not a fan, but I love it.  My mom made lamb stuffed with garlic on the grill. After she bought the lamb, we discovered you  aren't supposed to eat lamb for Passover. There are probably a lot of things you are or are not supposed to do that we did wrong, but we enjoyed it. It was still a special night of remembrance.
The reason the poached egg looks brownish is because my mom grilled it on the grill! Weird. We peeled it a few days later and this is what it looked like. We, of course, did not eat it because it stood out for a while. This is what it looks like after it has been peeled. 

 

Speaking of eggs, I participated in the Poway Easter Egg Hunt. We blew through about 23,000 eggs this year. Fun event!

 

 

Anyway, I made Tabouleh for Passover. Love that stuff.

 

Here is my recipe.

1 1/2 cups bulgur wheat (or couscous or quinoa)

1 bunch green onions, chopped (or chives or scallions)

1 cucumber, chopped

3 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 tsp. cumin

1 bunch of parsley, de-stemmed and chopped

1 bunch fresh mint, chopped

juice of 2 lemons or to taste

4 tbsp. olive oil

Or if you are in a hurry, buy the Near East box mix of Tabouleh.  Add in the vegetables, oil and lemon. I personally love the parsley and mint taste, but my sister uses cilantro instead of mint or parsley and that tastes great too!



Wilted Chard Salad

My dad grows a garden. Always has. It was nice as a kid because not only did we learn the meaning of prison labor, but we literally got to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I think I like vegetables now because I had a vested interest in them growing  up. Except lima beans. Hate them and always will.

Chard is sort of like spinach. I love it. I love all greens. I usually make a wilted spinach salad that involves feta cheese, but thought I would change it up a bit.

The stuff in the background is Orange Chicken, which I will provide that recipe at a later time.

For the chard, this is what I did.

Wilted Chard Salad

a bunch of chard, de-stemmed and sliced into manageable pieces (uncooked fills out a mixing bowl)
this stuff really cooks down a lot, so don't be fooled when you have a huge pile of it.
juice from 1/2 lemon
3-4 cloves of garlic minced
6 strips bacon (or can do bacon fat with no bacon)
salt and pepper to taste
green onions chopped

 

In a large skillet, fry to bacon. Pull out the bacon and leave the grease. toss in the minced garlic and mix around until golden brown. Break up the bacon pieces.

Put in the chard and cook down, about 5 minutes.
Mix in the bacon, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Toss in the green onions and mix around for another minute or so.

Makes about 3 servings.

Spoiler Alert: pretty much all future recipes will have vague amounts of ingredients. mostly because I toss in handfuls and pinches of stuff. I try hard to remember as I go, but I don't always remember what I did. I will use words like toss, slap, and pinch when referring to mixing in food.

Do, or do not. There is no 'try'.