Jewish in a Gentile World

If you don't want to hear the whole story and just want a quick answer, jump down to HERE  (after opening the full text because the link doesn't work in the preview!) . Trope Trainer was a fantastic piece of software to help you learn to read Torah with its traditional cantillation (music), commonly known as Trope (sometimes spelled Trop and sometimes pronounced "trup" to rhyme with "pup"). This software was extremely popular, giving you a wide variety of ways to see and hear things and providing a calendar of Torah readings. It was a miraculous piece of work, replacing the cassette tapes that bar mitzvah students in my time used to learn their Torah portion. For the young folks reading this: cassette tapes are what people used to record and listen to their own music before YouTube, MP3 or even CDs.  So why do I keep referring to this great software in the past tense? Well, Trope Trainer was the work of one man: Thomas Buchler. He wrote the code himself, wi...

Late last year, my friend and best taste-teste Rachel offered me some dairy-noodle kugel made by a woman at her synagogue. It was wonderful, and I needed to learn how to make it myself! Once I had made it a few times, got it the way I wanted it, I wondered if it could be made for Passover, replacing the noodles with matzah farfel (basically matzah broken up like bread crumbs). IT WORKED! And it's ridiculously easy! The main problem at this point is finding Passover certified yogurt. I used Greek yogurt in the noodle version (in place of the sour cream in the recipes I was working with), but I've never seen Greek yogurt certified for Passover in a regular grocery store. In the past, I've seen regular Dannon yogurt certified for Passover but I haven't seen it this year and it looks like it won't be available. There may be other Passover certified yogurts available (particularly in grocery stores catering to the kosher consumer), or you can fall  back on the original s...

I love Chile Relleno, a Mexican dish of Poblano peppers stuffed with cheese and batter fried. Poblano is a mildly spicy pepper, about halfway between the more familiar jalapeno peppers (2000 - 8000 on the Scoville scale of the "heat" of chili peppers) and plain old bell peppers (0 Scoville heat units). Poblano scores about 1000 - 2000 on the Scoville scale, enough of a bite to be noticeable but really quite mild and wonderfully flavorful.  Of course, batter frying is a bit tricky for Passover and in any case, I've never had much success batter frying vegetables at any time of year. But I saw some recipes for Chile Relleno Casserole that mostly didn't have any batter -- a plus for Passover! -- and no deep frying needed! I experimented with various recipes until I got something I like. It's a dirty job eating all those Poblanos but I'm willing to make that sacrifice for my vegetarian Passover recipes... This recipe is gluten-free and non-gebrokts (does not conta...

I found a recipe online called Amish Shipwreck Casserole. It was a hearty meal, easy to make, just two problems: beef and rice. Rice is traditionally avoided at Passover, and of course meat is not vegetarian! But when I substituted quinoa for the beef and rice, it was a very good meal! And so easy to make, the ingredients are mostly vegetables, readily available for Passover! It's also vegan and gluten-free. And it passed an early taste-test at the home of my longtime Passover tester Rachel and her family! Thanks again, Rachel! This recipe is basically just a bunch of common vegetables, cut up and layered, and baked for a very long time. That's the main difficulty of this recipe: it bakes for two hours! So don't expect to make this for dinner after you get home from work at 7PM! But on a work-at-home day, you could easily cut up and layer the vegetables in a pan in the morning, leave it in the fridge until you're ready, and stick it in the oven two hours before you want...