Make Your Own Passover Feast

Passover, one of the Jewish High Holy holidays, is made even more special if you follow your family's traditions and make your own Passover feast. There are certain foods that Jewish people only have during passover - these foods can be eaten at different times of the year but they're generally saved for a Passover feast - much like turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce is usually reserved for Thanksgiving.

To make your own Passover feast, you will need:

• Gefilte fish (jarred gefilte fish is usually better than it's canned counterpart)
• Horseradish
• A jar of prepared chicken soup with matzo balls
• A box of matzo
• First cut brisket and potatoes
• Passover friendly desserts (more on that below)
• Parsley

1. Prepare a Passover feast appetizer course of gefilte fish and horseradish. You can easily 'doctor' up jarred gefilte fish by draining the jelly into a sauce pan and adding sliced onions and whole peppercorns. Boil for 5 minutes and let cool. Put the gefilte fish pieces back into the broth and refrigerate over night. Serve on a pretty platter with a side bowl of the hottest horseradish along with a plate of matzo. Garnish with parsley.
2. Follow the appetizer course with steaming bowls of chicken soup and matzo balls. Now, really, for the purposes of this article, we'll use canned chicken soup and matzo balls but it should really be homemade. Anyway, serve each person about a half cup of chicken soup and one matzo ball.
3. The main course for your own passover feast should be sliced brisket and potatoes. Since Passover feasts do not allow the use of regular flour, do not serve jarred gravy with the brisket. Instead, you can thicken the pan juices of the brisket with the addition of a bit of matzo meal.
4. Finish your own Passover feast with Passover friendly desserts. Again, you may not serve traditional flour desserts during Passover so you'll have to be creative. Flourless tortes are a delicious completion to the Passover feast. You can also look in your grocers Jewish food isle for some boxed mixes which you can prepare for Passover desserts.