When I last left you, I was about to cook strudel and stuffed cabbage, both which take awhile to make. The stuffed cabbage took awhile because you have to wrap the cabbage around the meat sauce, like so.And then it was carmelized in a pan and then put in a container with cabbage and sauerkraut. And then finally, homemade meat sauce was poured over to look like this.

The strudel, on the other hand, takes awhile because you have to make the dough the night before (but you have to do that with the potato knishes, the mocha tarts, and pretty much anything that needs dough). They also turned out delicious… especially the ones I made for myself which had less walnuts and more cinnamon sugar.

Then yesterday, we made the potato knishes, brisket, and chocolate covered matzah. Potato knishes are dough with an oniony mashed potato in the middle. I came up with the idea to put cheese in with the potatoes, and everyone thought that it definitely added a new dimension to the taste, so we made all four batches with it!

The chocolate covered matzah, on the contrary, is a very quick recipe. In fact, it is so quick that it is a process full of anxiety. You have to make the caramel to the right temperature, and then pour it over the matzah very quickly before putting it in the oven for 3 minutes. And then you have to take it out on time, and then pour chocolate over before putting it back in the oven for a minute. It is very easy to mess up, and we did in fact have to throw out the first batch because the caramel waited too long before having the chocolate added. My mom usually makes four to six batches of it, but we only made two this time. My mom has making this recipe since I was six, at the oldest. It is one of our Passover favorites.

We later cut this up to make a bite-size treat! The last thing we did yesterday was make the brisket, which we just finished today. My mom’s brisket is one of the most difficult things to make because, well there is no recipe. My mom created this dish when she was trying to make a Cajun brisket out of a cookbook. But it was so bitter that my mom added brown sugar, ketchup, and pretty much anything to sweeten it up. But she figured it out and now we have this brisket (which tastes different every time) but it is always delicious.

After that, you would think we would be extremely tired, but today we made matzah ball soup, mocha mini tarts, sour cream coffee cake, and cole slaw. The mocha mini tarts are almost like a souffle, and I am excited to try them for the first time!

And the matzah ball soup isn’t yet ready!

We are cooking up a storm to have a huge dinner tonight with all the food we have been making. I am calling it a “Fader,” but I guess you can use your own term for the fake Seder. We are going to have the conglomeration of all the food with my brother, Margo (my sister), my grandparents, my grandmother’s best friend, and my mother. But it sure seems like we have enough food for 30 people. I will let you know how it goes, but we are just going through the list of food we wanted to make at such a fast rate, we will definitely finish by the time my mom and I have to go to our next destination!