Passover 2007

Ahh, the Passover seder, that wonderful meal in which we stuff ourselves and recline languidly while recounting a story of slavery, oppression, plague, woe, and dead children. All in all I was pretty happy with how our seder came out, especially considering none of us had ever led one before. It was good to see that my slapdash haggadah (prayer book) didn't entirely suck, and it felt great to stumble through pages and pages of Hebrew again... reminded me of my childhood.

Of course, the food was spectacular. I wish I'd gotten more pictures of it all, so by all means those who took pictures put up what you got. Peter's deviled eggs were wondrous, as was Jen's tsimmes, and Blake's macaroons, and really everything. So for God's sake let's start upping some recipes, I'll throw up my two desserts pretty soon too.

The whipped cream gets some lovin'.

Ashkenazic charoset in all of its winey, Manischevitz-ey glory.

God wants us to recline, who are we to argue?

My desserts... looked alot better in person, I have a shitty camera.

Blake’s Bevy of Bodacious Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup chilled buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.)
Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)
Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

Having made these three times in the span of about 12 hours, I have the process pretty burned into my brain. It's really easy, and produces a damn fine biscuit.