Chag sameach
Apr. 9th, 2020 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaYesterday I went to a couple of grocery stores (carefully masked, etc.), so I picked up a couple of apples and sweet marsala. I had walnuts from the farmers market already. I left the groceries to sit 24 hours. Today I made charoset, YUM! It is my favorite part of the seder meal. I didn't have a food processor last time I made it. Took all of 15 minutes using one! I could have sworn I had my mom's recipe somewhere, typed and in Spanish, but I couldn't find it. This one is close. We all need sweetness in hard times, and that's what charoset symbolizes for me.
Today I also vacuumed the upstairs, mowed the back yard with the push mower, and gave the Hood strawberry plants a bunch of TLC. Weeded, cleared back encroaching plants, mulched with compost, and watered. Hood strawberries all come ripe at once, so I usually don't encourage them too much, but this year I'm sure my neighbors will accept any excess. A friend who recently moved to less than a mile away came over on a walk, and we chatted outside from a distance. Nice to see someone in person!
Ashkenazi Charoset
Adapted from The Jewish Holiday Cookbook by Gloria Kaufer Greene
Ingredients:
Method:
Put apples and nuts into a food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade, and pulse- process until they are coarsely chopped. Add the remaining ingredients and process just a few seconds longer until the apples and nuts are finely chopped and the mixture forms a very rough paste. Do not puree it.
If a food processor is not available, very finely chop the apples and nuts by hand or put them through a food grinder. Then transfer them to a medium-sized bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients.
Makes about 2 1⁄4 cups
Today I also vacuumed the upstairs, mowed the back yard with the push mower, and gave the Hood strawberry plants a bunch of TLC. Weeded, cleared back encroaching plants, mulched with compost, and watered. Hood strawberries all come ripe at once, so I usually don't encourage them too much, but this year I'm sure my neighbors will accept any excess. A friend who recently moved to less than a mile away came over on a walk, and we chatted outside from a distance. Nice to see someone in person!
Ashkenazi Charoset
Adapted from The Jewish Holiday Cookbook by Gloria Kaufer Greene
Ingredients:
- 3 large firm apples, cored and peeled or not, as you prefer
- 1 cup walnut pieces (or other nuts)
- 1/3 cup sweet red Pesach wine
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 – 3 teaspoons honey
Method:
Put apples and nuts into a food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade, and pulse- process until they are coarsely chopped. Add the remaining ingredients and process just a few seconds longer until the apples and nuts are finely chopped and the mixture forms a very rough paste. Do not puree it.
If a food processor is not available, very finely chop the apples and nuts by hand or put them through a food grinder. Then transfer them to a medium-sized bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients.
Makes about 2 1⁄4 cups
Charoset is definitely
Date: 2020-04-10 11:23 pm (UTC)MyGuy found a truly lovely manual food processor, the OXO one stop chop system. Unlike most, this tool is easy to clean, quick to set up, and because it's hand cranked, very easy to control just how fine I'm chopping.
https://www.oxo.com/one-stop-chop-manual-food-processor.html
....so now I'm ready to make some for completely profane purposes.
Nosy question: recipe is Spanish and Ashkenazi?
Re: Charoset is definitely
Date: 2020-04-11 01:22 am (UTC)I have a wand blender with a food processor attachment, so I'm controlling the speed with my hand pressure on the blender switch. It's not too much hassle to clean. I've never owned a full-on food processor, and I'm really enjoying this smaller version.
https://www.braunhousehold.com/en-us/products/food-preparation/hand-blenders/multiquick-7-hand-blender-mq735-0x22111168
My grandparents were German Jews who fled Germany in the late 1930's and landed in Chile because that's where they could get in. My parents grew up in Chile and immigrated to the US when they got married. So the recipe is 100% Ashkenazi, carefully typed on a manual typewriter in Spanish in my parents' collection of recipes.
Before I left home, my father took the recipes to his work and made copies of the ones I requested. I was thinking as I paged through them, he wasn't *all* bad...