Brisket Egg Rolls & A review of Passover Made Easy

I am a huge fan of cookkosher.com and Leah Schapira!  I loved Leah’s recent cookbook Fresh & Easy, which received rave reviews(especially from me!).  Leah is fun, vivacious, friendly, and great to know – and her recipes are fabulous.  I was incredibly psyched when I saw that she had come out with a new Passover cookbook with Victoria Dwek – Passover Made Easy.  I eagerly sat down with my handy-dandy multi-colored sticker tabs, and began to read.  I LOVE THIS BOOK!  Recipes aside (we’ll get to those in a minute) this cookbook is fun to read!  The “cartoon” like info bites – “tidbits” are very informative and easy to read.  Each section and recipe is supplemented with “dialog-bubble” stories and incredibly useful tips and recipe variations.    Did you know that “The largest Seder in the world is celebrated in Katmandu, Nepal whose 1,800 participants collectively consume 1,100 lbs of matzah?”  Thanks to Leah and Victoria, now you do!   There’s also a great tutorial on wine pairings and suggestions. Many of the recipes come with additional sauce recipes and suggestions which make the dishes go from awesome to super-awesome!  My only problem with this book was that using my handy-dandy, multi-colored sticker tabs ended up being a waste of time…it’s not so helpful if every page has a sticker tab on it – is it?

 

It was tough to decide which recipe to try from the book for this review.  I was tempted by the Crispy Crackers, Butternut Squash Salad, Seder Night Chicken, Shnitzel Nuggets (with apricot dipping sauce), Onion Rings, Cauliflower Gratin (pareve!), and Frozen Lemon Wafer Cake.  I finally settled on the Brisket Egg Rolls, which required making the versatile Basic Passover Crepes.      It was a good thing I doubled the recipe because my family went crazy for these egg rolls.  They were delicious!  The recipe calls for Brisket, but I ended up using a chuck steak – which I chopped instead of shredding, with great results.  I also wound up egging the edge of the egg rolls before sealing them after a few from the first batch sort of exploded.  No worries – even though they weren’t as pretty as the others they were still inhaled like the rest of them.  The Basic Passover Crepes were easy to make, and I stacked them between pieces of waxed deli paper as I made them.  According to Leah, the crepes can be made in advance and frozen until ready to use.  Considering the many suggestions that Leah and Victoria have for them it’s a good thing they can be made in advance.  I can easily see them becoming a staple in my Pesach preparations. 

 

 

What struck me as I was going through the Passover Made Easy cookbook was that it could easily be named “Gluten-Free” Made Easy.  With the exception of a few “Gebrokts” recipes in the book, most of the recipes are terrific for the GFE (Gluten Free Eater) year round.  I know that I’ll be keeping this book close by not only during Pesach but year round for healthy, easy to make recipes.  Thanks Leah and Victoria – nice job!!

 

 

 

For more information about Passover Made Easy go to artscoll.com or cookkosher.com.

 

 

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