Chewy or fluffy? And does size really matter?

It's almost Passover, and this will be the first time in many years (maybe 25 years!) we aren't sharing a Seder with two vegetarian families in Wisconsin. We've been getting together for such a long time, I don't even know how to do it without them. When we first started this tradition, there were 14 of us, including small kids, plus extra people who invariably got invited. And as the kids got older and went to college, they sometimes brought friends. We used to put tables together that extended from the dining room into the living room to accommodate all the guests. Over the years as our kids moved away, the group grew smaller, but still we always got together. Now we've moved away, and things will be different this year.

This year we'll have all the members of our immediate family plus my husband's mother and sister. I'm starting to think about the menu, and how to divide the cooking. And I'm trying to get a handle on vegan matzoh balls, since matzoh balls are traditionally dependent on eggs. Not all the members of our long-time Seder family were vegan, and the person who always made the soup made traditional egg-based matzoh balls. At home for my family, I made a vegan version with varying degrees of success.

The first time I made vegan matzoh balls, I used the recipe from the PPK and it worked beautifully. They disintegrated a little but I still managed to have some very tasty dumplings in the soup. But for some mysterious reason, the next two times I made them, they completely fell apart, and I had nothing. I swear, I followed the recipe exactly. (Yes, I know you have to refrigerate the dough.) Yesterday I tried a recipe from "The Vegan Table" that depends on ground flax seeds to replace the egg. The balls didn't fall apart, and they tasted OK but were small, slightly gummy and weird when they first came out of the pot. I put them into the freshly made, hot soup, and left them for a couple of hours. When we ate the soup for dinner, both my husband and I thought the matzoh balls tasted delicious. The taste and texture had improved dramatically, though large and fluffy they were not. I loved their chewy texture, but wonder what the non-vegans and non-vegetarians will think. (Note: The matzoh ball dough is rather stiff and dry, and that's the way it must be for a successful result.)

The soup stock was based on a simple dashi (using 6 cups water, 8 dried mushrooms, 1 piece kombu, soaked four hours) to which embellishments were added with abandon — a splash of this and a little of that. Mirin, brown rice vinegar, tamari, granulated onion, granulated garlic, two large cloves of minced fresh garlic, salt and pepper, dried dill, a pinch of turmeric and four large carrots went into the soup. It looked like chicken soup, and tasted fantastic. I just hope I can create something similar for our family gathering.

I intend to try Isa's recipe again to see if I can get it to work, and then decide which matzoh balls to use for the Seder. Any suggestions?

For vegan Passover macaroons, click here.

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Day-glo bread insides revealed

Get out your sun glasses. Several people wanted to see the inside of the too-yellow bread from my last post, so here it is in all its golden glowing glory.

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52nd Street Tofu House

This is a plate of take-out Korean food from 52nd Street Tofu House. They have a vegan menu (as well as the regular menu) but just because a place has vegan food doesn't mean you should go there. The food was OK but not great. We had two combo plates — tofu and veggies and gyoza with broccoli. I actually prefer the frozen gyoza that my son buys at the Asian market near his house. The tofu dish was decent but the potato dish that came with it was sickeningly sweet, and neither my husband or myself chose to eat it. We may give this place another chance and actually eat there, since take-out isn't always the best way to judge a restaurant.