4.29.11 Ride: Let the Cooking Begin

An interesting photo to start of the day (and blog).

 

No trickery, Photo Shopping or any other sort of manipulation was used to capture this shot. 

Since today was devoted almost entirely to preparing food for tomorrow night's Passover Seder, and my ride was devoted to riding down to the store for last minute groceries for the Seder, I thought pictures of the prep work was appropriate.  And, after all, my username for this site is BikeChef.

There are certain foods which are very traditional, such as matzo ball soup.  It took me several years to stumble upon a recipe for light and fluffy matzo balls which I actually found in the Joy of Cooking cookbook.  But, before the matzo balls, there needs to be a good homemade chicken soup.

I am storing the soup overnight and will make the matzo balls shortly before dinner tomorrow.

A not-so-traditional item is mashed cauliflower, a substitute of sorts for mashed potatoes.  I made this for the first time a few years back and Rachel really liked it.  No one else in the family was that crazy about it but a couple of months back, I modified the recipe and it has become a hit.

To save time, I cooked the cauliflower today and I stored it in a vacuum sealed bag.  Tomorrow, I will mix in the other ingredients (if I can remember them!) and bake it before dinner.

A VERY traditional part of the Passover Seder is what is called haroseth, a mixture of apples and nuts, seasoned with wine, cinnamon and a little sugar.  I save making this only for Passover so that it remains special.  It's part of the Seder plate and it is supposed to be a reminder of the mud that the Jews used to make bricks when they were slaves in Egypt.  But, it is also one of the best tasting foods of the night.

 

Haroseth is one item that actually taste better made the day before since that allows for the apples to absorb the flavors of the wine.

Another very traditional food item is called maror, which is horseradish.  Every year I have made it from scratch, buying the horseradish root and putting it through a food processor.  It is STRONG!  I will make a weaker version for the more timid ones at the table by mixing in the pure stuff with beets.  Alas, this year, I was not able to find fresh horseradish root and I had to settle for buying it in a jar, which stills has some kick to it.  The maror is eaten to remind us of the bitter time that the Jews had as slaves in.  (We also eat the maror BEFORE we eat the haroseth!)  I like to give our Seder a bit of a modern twist and make it a time of remembering all people who are not free.

I still needed to get my daily ride in and there were quite a few items I needed from the grocery store for tomorrow, so, with both panniers and my rear rack bag, off I went.

Along Hwy 45, something very interesting caught my eye in the grass just off the road.

This must have been the most intricate Easter egg I have ever seen.  The design reminded me of a Greek vase.

Even with the three bags, cramming in all the groceries was a challenge.  I was really pushing the envelope in terms of weight limit.  The bike felt very unsteady and, at one time, the rear wheel seemed to wobble uncontrollably.  The 20mph crosswind certainly didn't help.  When I got home, I weighed my cargo; no wonder I was unstable:  43lbs!  That was about what I carried going to Georgia and that was distributed in the rear and the front.  8lbs of that load were ice packs that I brought along to keep my perishables fresh.

The Matzo Mobile

Getting home, there was still dinner for tonight to prepare.  I do have one more food prep item from today.  Not a traditional food but definitely a favorite.

Salmon being marinated in preparation for being smoked tomorrow.

Plenty of cooking still ahead tomorrow.

Today's Ride: 1hr 20mins.  12.62 miles.  76 degrees.  20+mph winds.  Miles YTD:  2,437.82