Passover Prep – Order Your Meat

Week one of preparation for this epic holiday wasn’t so bad, was it?

Now that we are organized we can move on to taking on tasks for Passover. It’s time to order the meat. Now, you don’t have to have your menus prepared to know exactly what you need – sometimes you need to buy the meat and poultry that’s available, and work your menu around that. But buy now – by next week EVERYONE else will be stocking up and the selection will be much smaller. If you plan on using Gefilte Fish frozen loaves – get those now too. You don’t want to be scrambling at the last minute.

You know you are going to have 20 guests for each seder, and 10 at least for each meal. You will need chicken for the soup, chicken or brisket for the Seder, some meatballs for a meal or two, maybe even a turkey or some Cornish hens. Figure out how many people you have to serve for each meal and make your calculations accordingly. Generally I plan on one to two pieces of chicken per person per meal, and with a brisket type dish about 1/3 to 1/2 lb per person – remember, meat “shrinks” while cooking. If you are serving more than one meat dish at a meal, figure your serving sizes are a little smaller.

ACTION: Run into the Passover section of your grocery store and pick up some Kosher for Passover snacks for the kids – that way you won’t be chasing after them with the dustbuster all day long. Let them snack happy.

DINNER TONIGHT: This week we are going to try to start using up our pasta and our rice before the holiday. Tonight’s dinner is Salmon and Pea Rotini– but you can use any shape pasta in your pantry.