Skip to main content

Very Veggie Pesach 2012: Mediterranean Medley

Yes, that time of year is coming up fast! Time to come up with some new Passover recipes for vegetarians.  I have one today, and I think there will be one or two more this week or next.


This recipe is based on one from The Healthy Jewish Cookbook, which my mother gave me last year.  It's a very simple recipe, well-suited for making after a long day at work: sliced zucchini and tomato over a layer of shredded mozzerella on a bed of sauteed onion and garlic. The original recipe uses fresh mozzerella, but I've never seen fresh mozzerella certified kosher for Passover, so I made some changes to make it work with shredded mozzerella.

This recipe is not vegan (contains cheese), but it is gluten-free and non-gebrochts (contains no matzah). I suppose you could make it vegan by substituting some chopped or ground nuts for the cheeses, but I haven't tried that, so I don't know how well it would work.

Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 cup onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
  • 4 plum (roma) tomatoes, sliced
  • 2 zucchini, sliced
  • 8 oz shredded mozzerella
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 6 fronds fresh dill

Kashrut Notes:

  • The OU website confirms that extra virgin olive oil is kosher for Passover without special Passover certification. In the past,  I have used Oliovita brand olive oil, which is Star-K certified kosher for Passover all year round.
  • Star K's website confirms that fresh supermarket produce is not a Passover problem, which covers the onion, garlic, oregano, tomatoes, zucchini and dill. Note that this covers only fresh garlic, oregano and dill! Dried, bottled spices and herbs require Passover certification.
  • Miller's Cheese sells shredded mozzarella in 8 oz bags, which is certified kosher for Passover. Miller's Parmesan is also certified kosher for Passover.

Preparation:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Saute onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onions begin to become transparent
  • Stir in the oregano and spread into the bottom of an 8" x 8" x 1" baking pan
  • Spread about 2/3 of the mozzerella over the onion layer
  • Layer zucchini, tomato and a pinch of mozzerella, alternating over the layer of mozzerella (see picture above)
  • Cover with foil and bake for about an hour
  • Remove foil and top with Parmesan. Bake for another 15 minutes.
  • Top with dill and serve
Note: This recipe should be eaten in one sitting; it doesn't hold up well in the refridgerator overnight. The original recipe alternated zucchini, tomato and fresh mozzerella slices, and that held up well overnight. The shredded mozzerella, which is available with Passover certification, is dried. Placing the shredded mozzerella underneath  the vegetables allows the juices from the vegetables to moisten the cheese, but that moisture tends to separate out when it gets cold, and the cheese becomes tough. It's not inedible at that point, but it's just not as good. I tend to make a half-sized batch (same amount of onion, garlic and oregano, but half of the rest) in a loaf pan, because I can't finish a full-sized batch in one sitting.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did Moses know he was a Hebrew?

It seems to be a common notion, perpetuated by movies like Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments  and Disney's Prince of Egypt , that Moses grew up as a high-level member of Pharaoh's household with no idea that he was a Hebrew. But does that notion fit in with what it says in the Bible, or what Jewish tradition teaches about Moses? This week's Torah portion is Shemot, the beginning of the book of Exodus, so it's a good time to examine this question. We actually know very little about Moses' childhood from the Bible. Pharaoh had ordered all male children to be thrown into the Nile River at birth (Ex. 1:22). While that order was in effect, a boy was born to a man of the tribe of Levi and his wife, also of that tribe (Ex. 2:1-2). The parents are later identified (Num. 26:59) as Amram an Yocheved (that "ch" is pronounced like a throat-clearing noise). Yocheved could not bear to throw her beautiful new son to his death, so she hid him away for three mont
Read more

Being Jewish at Christmas

Last March, I heard a DJ talking about March Madness, the annual insanity surrounding a college basketball tournament. She wasn't interested in it, but everyone in her office was obsessed with it. They had an office pool, a constant barrage of emails and parties to watch every game on TV. The DJ didn't want to be a part of it, but her co-workers pressured her to get involved. They tried to get her to participate in the pool, but she insisted that she didn't even know the names of the teams. Her co-workers assured her that it didn't matter who she bet on, it would be fun to play. They wouldn't take no for an answer. She wasn't trying to spoil their fun, but she wanted to be left alone. As I heard her talk about her frustration, I thought, "Now you know how it feels to be Jewish at Christmas." Think of something that you're not interested in but that everybody else seems to be talking about. Maybe it's a sporting event: March Madness, the Superbo
15 comments
Read more

Afterthoughts about the Blessing of the Sun

I know it's a bit after the fact, and it won't really be relevant again for another 28 years, but this recently came up in a newsletter I received, and I simply had to say something about it. The Blessing of the Sun (Birkat Hachamah) is a blessing recited once every 28 years, commemorating the work of Creation, and specifically the creation of the sun. It was observed this year, 5769, on the morning of April 8, 2009. Now, many have noticed that the year number 5769 is not evenly divisible by 28. Dividing 5769 by 28 leaves a remainder of 1. One explanation that has been offered for the discrepancy, which appears to be a traditional explanation, says: The Sages have already explained to us that during the year of the Flood, the natural order of the world was suspended. That may be so, but it has absolutely nothing to do with why the division leaves a remainder of one. A better explanation is simple mathematics, and should be familiar to anyone who remembers the whole
3 comments
Read more