April 3, 2015 – First Seder

Our first Seder is strictly a small family affair – just John, Jon, Sarah and me. I want to try out some new recipes that I got from Food and Wine for Passover. One of the recipes calls for a whole piece of short ribs with three ribs. We get the meat from the butcher at Raley’s. It is enormous.

John with giant piece of meat
John with giant piece of meat

John strips the meat of silver skin and extraneous fat while Sarah and I make a rub. Then it goes in the oven to roast for four hours followed by an hour’s braise.
Meat in the oven
Meat in the oven

While it is cooking Sarah and I also tackle a potato kugel, a from-scratch matzoh ball soup, and macaroons. The result of all our work is so-so. The meat is good but our 7 1/2 pound piece of bone-in short ribs ended up weighing about two pounds afterwards. We’ll buy boneless short ribs from Costco next time. Due to an error setting the temperature correctly the kugel is way overdone, the soup is fine and cookies that Sarah makes are great as usual. For our big family Seder next Saturday we will stick with our tried and true menu.

In any case we have a lot of fun. After dinner we recreate a picture taken in 1984 of Sarah and Jon at our Seder then. (Shared with the Kendalls!)

Jon and Sarah before our Seder in 1984. Jon is 7 and Sarah is 4.
Jon and Sarah before our Seder in 1984. Jon is 7 and Sarah is 4.

2015 recreation!
2015 recreation!

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