Holy Thursday: In which we celebrate a Passover Meal

After a long hiatus, I am finally getting back to my poor neglected blog! So much to write about . . . but rather then going in any sort of chronological order, I think I will just begin with yesterday.

Yesterday we celebrated a modified Seder meal! Sometime last week, we decided that we would commemorate the Last Supper by celebrating the Passover Meal. Pat has been to a Seder meal in the past, but I have never been to one so I had A LOT of researching to do.

There is so much information out there and so many good ideas! But mostly, I was struck by the symbolism behind each and every food, and how perfectly the Passover prefigures the Passion.

After a lot of researching, we decided to go with the script from this page. It is beautiful because it has the richness of the Jewish traditions, and also incorporates elements of the Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist.  After a few small changes, we put the script in Word, and Pat even added some artistic touches:

(See the Last Supper picture in the background?! Very impressive. I never think of those things!)

I was a little worried it would last too long since it is about ten pages (!!), but it didn't end up feeling like it was interminable (probably because Kateri was content to drink her grape juice (most of) the time!

Each of us had a menu~

which outlined the Ritual Seder Meal Menu, AND the Actual Meal Menu.

That way we were all assured in writing that there WOULD be plenty of food for dinner! Ha! Even though I was the one making the meal, it was still comforting to me to know that there was plenty of food and it wasn't just horseradish!

So, probably anyone and everyone is already familiar with the traditional foods, but a lot of them were new for me, SO  here they are, but please feel free to SKIP!

Ritual Seder Meal Menu:
Matzoh: unleavened bread. WHY is it so important that it's unleavened? It reminds us of the great haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt, leaving no time for the dough to rise. And, only unleavened bread is used at Mass (unless you happen to go to Mass in the middle-of-nowhere CO like we did one time, and the little old lady after Mass regaled us with her recipe for the hosts {which did seem leavened) which included honey and other things . . . yep, never went there again!)

Maror: bitter herbs (horseradish or romaine lettuce roots) symbolizing the bitterness of slavery (I have ALWAYS wondered what bitter herbs were, and always imagined a mix of rosemary, thyme etc, but boy does horseradish do the trick, bitter and bleh! although Stephen did suggest wasabi would be a good alternative. Not sure if that is quite kosher, however!)

Charoset: mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon, honey, sugar and wine symbolizing the mortar used by the Jews in constructing buildings for the Egyptians. (I thought this tasted delish, but made WAY too much!)

Beitzah: roasted (hard boiled) egg symbolizing the temple sacrifice and continuing cycle of life

Zeroah: roasted lamb symbolizing the ancient Passover sacrifice and prefiguring the Lamb of God

Salt Water: to dip the Beitzah and Karpas, symbolizing the slaves tears

So, since there were four of us (plus two babes-in-arms), we put all the ceremonial food on the green platter in the middle of the table.

And the salt water in the white custard dish.

Did you know that traditionally four glasses of wine are drunk during this ceremony? And we can pinpoint when Our Lord instituted the Eucharist~ which glass it was? I found this so beautiful and fascinating. Each glass of wine (drunk at different times) recalls the four terms which describe God's actions in the Exodus~ "I brought out",  "I saved", "I delivered", "I redeemed". And it is with the fourth cup, the cup of redemption, that the Eucharist was instituted! The night before Our Lord was crucified and redeemed us! Mind blown. Seriously.

Anyway, once we completed the Seder, we went on to our actual meal. I have never made lamb before, so I was definitely a little worried how it would turn out. I ended up using Ina Garten's herb roasted lamb recipe, which was nice and simple, and included potatoes.

Here it is before it started cooking:

Ha, not the most appetizing thing I've ever seen!

We also had melon salad, deviled eggs, and green salad and cake + whipped cream + strawberries for dessert. Kateri gave the strawberries an A+.

All in all, it took me about 7 times longer than it should have to get everything set up (I am really trying to work on my cooking speed, but I am just. not. that. fast.) BUT it was so much fun and totally worth it! Hopefully, I will be able to do this again (maybe yearly?!), but we will see . . . something tells me once there is more then one kiddo it will be much much harder!

Recipe Review

Pat is healing up well post surgery, but he is still having a hard time chewing anything. So I decided to make some soup, and the most delicious sounding thing I could think of was loaded baked potato soup. Yum!

Loaded Potato Soup a la Betty Crocker, Pioneer Woman Style

Pat's rating: 4/5 Stars
Tee's rating: 4/5 stars. Total comfort food, full of deliciousness. Did take some time with all the peeling and chopping. May be able to come up with some shortcuts (i.e. use pre-baked potatoes, cream of mushroom canned soup perhaps. . .) This is a good soup, but not a super quick, throw together type of recipe.

Then I got inspired to take step by step pictures, like the Pioneer Woman. Unfortunately I thought of it too late to take a picture of the 'Cast of characters'. However, I will list the ingredients:

So ingredients:

1 package (12 oz) bacon                        

1 1/2  cups chopped onion                        

6  cups Progresso® chicken broth                        

2 lb baking potatoes, peeled, cubed                        

2/3 cup butter                        

3/4 cup all-purpose flour                        

4 cups milk                        

1 teaspoon salt                        

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper                        

1 cup diced cooked ham                        

1 container (8 oz) sour cream                        

2 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (10 oz)                        

 3/4 cup sliced green onions    

1. Cook the bacon in a skillet until it is crispy. Mmmmmm bacon bacon bacon. If only I could somehow attach the smell of this cooking deliciousness! Maybe one day . . . then, Drain and crumble bacon.

                    

2. Meanwhile, chop the onion. Once the bacon is complete, reserve a couple tablespoons bacon grease and cook the onions in the same skillet with the bacon grease until almost tender. Oh delicious bacon grease!!

3. In a Dutch oven, mix the broth, chopped potatoes and onion. Bring to boiling and then lower heat and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, in the same skillet (gotta love using the same skillet yet again, I love it every single time) Melt the butter.

And add the flour slowly while whisking continuously . . .

5. And then gradually stir in 2 cups of milk and stir until smooth

6. Pour Milk Mixture into potato mixture. Add the remaining two cups of milk, salt and pepper. And then cook over medium heat until it is deliciously thickened and rather bubbly. Mmmmm.

 

7. Stir in the ham, half the bacon, sour cream (mmmmm), 2 cups of cheese, and the green onions (I did not add any green onions because I'm going to test out the freezing potential for this soup!). Yum! Look at that mound of deliciousness!

8. Stir until cheese has melted. Add bacon, cheese, green onions and sour cream to each serving to taste . . .

Unfortunately this final picture was taken after sunset and the lighting is not optimal! I will learn with practice :) It is very filling, as you could probably guess!