<p>stepping away from food…this has been circulating and you may have seen it but if you haven’t, take the two minutes and watch it!
[Google</a> Exodus](<a href=“Google Exodus - Aish.com”>Google Exodus - Aish.com)</p>
<p>I found this on Epicurious a few years ago. The crust is a bit dense, but tasty. I make this filling all year long, but sometimes I use a regular graham cracker crust.</p>
<p>Passover Lemon Cheesecake
Almonds and matzo cake meal make a wonderfully textured crust for this refreshing, citrusy cheesecake. After Passover, instead of pulling out the graham crackers again, experiment with other cookie crusts such as one made with shortbread.</p>
<p>Yield: Makes 8 to 10 servings
Active Time: 30 min
Total Time: 5 hr</p>
<p>3/4 cup sliced blanched almonds, toasted and cooled
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup matzo cake meal
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly slightly
3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract</p>
<p>Equipment: 9-inch springform pan</p>
<p>Garnish: julienned lemon zest</p>
<p>Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350F with rack in middle. Pulse almonds, sugar, matzo cake meal, and salt in a food processor until finely ground. Transfer to a bowl and stir in butter until combined well. Press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of springform pan. Bake until crust is firm and a shade darker, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool crust completely in pan on a rack. </p>
<p>Make filling and bake cheesecake:
Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.
Beat together cream cheese and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add eggs 1 at a time, mixing until incorporated. Mix in zest and vanilla. Put springform pan in a shallow baking pan and pour filling into cooled crust. Bake until filling is set 1 1/2 inches from edge but center is wobbly, 45 to 50 minutes (filling will continue to set as it cools). Transfer cake in pan to a rack and immediately run a knife around edge, then remove side of pan. Cool completely, 2 to 3 hours.</p>
<p>Cooks’ note: Cheesecake can be made 2 days ahead and chilled, loosely covered.</p>
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<p>If you’re so inclined, a lot of synagogues organize group seders. Or you might embrace the spirit of the holiday and invite “strangers” to your seder; if you’re near a college, there might be a Jewish student or two who can’t get to their parents for the holiday! I know in the past, my brother often traveled for business during Passover, so he called synagogues in the area and was hooked up with families who invited him to join their seders.</p>
<p>We have a small family, so some years we invite non-Jewish friends who have never been to a seder.</p>
<p>When it comes to cooking with limitations (pareve, KP, vegetarian, etc.), my philosophy is to aim for dishes that require little or no alteration and are just good in their own right.</p>
<p>In keeping with that, my best ideal dessert would be baked apples, poached pears with custard, or (ideal for spring) a strawberry-rhubarb crumble with a topping of ground nuts, brown sugar, and butter/marg. Homemade sorbet or coconut-milk ice cream is luscious. Macaroons are traditional and delicious on the side. I have rarely had a KP cake that was better than this kind of simple dessert.</p>
<p>Let me second this; saw it earlier today and it’s adorable. I consider it the best haggadah ever!</p>
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<p>This year we are having four of my daughter’s sorority sisters. None of them are Jewish. My daughter is terrified that we will do something “wrong”. I assured her that all families are dysfunctional. We just do it over matzoh balls.</p>
<p>And yes, the MIL is coming. Does she count in or cause the dysfunction? That is the philosophical question of the evening.</p>
<p>@PRJ, your almond/amaretto cookies sound much like our family favorites from Italian-Jewish traditions. I sometimes shortcut the food processor step by buying fine-ground almonds, sold in bulk at our grocery store.</p>
<p>The almond/amaretto combination is melt-in-the-mouth good, isn’t it!</p>
<p>@Ellebud, it’s so nice your D can bring friends home. What could you possibly do so wrong? I don’t know if it’s true but I heard a story about Marilyn Monroe first encountering matzo balls and asking if there was any other part of the matzo that the Jews eat.</p>
<p>^^^Too funny. Speaking of matzo balls, DH and I have recently become smitten with English bulldogs. Yesterday I learned that Adam Sandler had named his “Matzo Ball.”</p>
<p>ellebud, lucky you to have your daughter and her friends! Please tell me that you follow the sephardi custom of whacking people on the head with green onions when you sing “Dayanu”. :)</p>
<p>ST:</p>
<p>I just read your post as I was drinking a cup of diet soda…I started cracking up so hard I almost spit out the soda!</p>
<p>Never heard of that Sephardic tradition! What will they come up with next?</p>
<p>Ellebud:</p>
<p>9 times out of 10, the mil is deifinitely the dysfunction! I guess I better watch what I say since I will be a mil someday too!</p>
<p>I read this far before registering that this will be the first year I’ll be a MIL at a seder. I hope I don’t sacrifice my firstborn son to more dysfunction than he can handle, same year as his wedding of last summer 
Psychic overload! How often does one get a clean slate like this…hm? So far I’ve just wrapped the same big “kvel” blanket around her that envelops my bio-kids. It’s easiest.</p>
<p>p3t, shehechiyanu, v’kimanu, v’higiyanu l’zman hazeh. </p>
<p>And may He who makes peace in the high places, make peace in the low. :D</p>
<p>Hanging on to that almond cookie recipe.</p>
<p>To describe an Ellebud seder is a study in lunacy. I come from a secular background and husband was raised Episcopalian although there are Jews up the family tree. My mother “celebrated” all Jewish holidays as they should be done: a study in suffering. So, I take a different approach…gorgeous linens, silver and flowers. Then…well, one year my youngest led the seder as a Christian revival. We were all yelling…“with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm…lemme hear you say it”</p>
<p>Then are the guests: My best friend from high school who’s father made pornos. My uncle who is 91 and deaf…but occasionally hears when he wants to hear…and he is prone to making gastric noises at the most inopportune times. My MIL who is blind and antisemetic. Why do I say this together? Because she can’t see her plate. While she is happy for the invitation she is alternately yelling (she is 90) No Jewish food! (What she thinks is Jewish food does vary) Why are we reading? I love Jews…do you know I have my first Jewish doctor and I love him. And, from last year, Why don’t you invite your brother and wife?! I want them here!</p>
<p>Because, I said, they call Jews kikes. Maybe not in my house…</p>
<p>No, there is no dementia…just…well this is us. </p>
<p>So, there is a possibility that her sisters might have something to say…but we’re not boring and there will be lots of food. </p>
<p>Anyone ever read Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar? We don’t have the crazy cousin with the suitcase…but we’re close.</p>
<p>p3t, thanks for the ground almond shortcut suggestion. and I’m saying shehechiyanu along with ST for you :)</p>
<p>ellebud, your MIL stories are classic. truly unbelievable at times, but always entertaining. for those of us not seated around your table. you deserve great credit for taking her in stride.</p>
<p>that Google Exodus video on You Tube is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time!</p>
<p>OMG ellebud; your seders would make a great movie…!!! what a cast of characters; has your daughter “warned” the sorority sisters???</p>
<p>you have to promise to report afterwards…</p>
<p>In Boston, the dance party that various Jewish groups throw on Christmas Eve is called “The Matzah Ball.”</p>
<p>Need an easy, relatively fast vegetarian side dish or vegetable (no dairy) to make for a big group. We get back in town midday Monday and have to have the side dish made in the afternoon. Suggestions??</p>
<p>Has she warned her sisters? Probably…not. They have all met me and say that I am the Jewish mother from Central Casting. I think that my daughter is hoping that a dybbuk comes and takes over our bodies. A miracle. Or she is hoping that for one gorgeous moment we become a family from Central Casting.</p>
<p>Remember my MIL is 90 and the filters are gone. What she said (to my FIL) in private is now fair game. So, what used to hurt (and does hurt two of my kids) and make me upset and cry is now dealt with in surgical precision. Ignore or confront or get her drunk. Easy.</p>
<p>Oh, my favorite side dish (other than salad) is to cut up eggplant, tomatoes, sweet red peppers, onions…place in dish…pour olive oil on (and if this is kp sorry) use other oil, granulated garlic, salt pepper, roast until soft/caramelized however you like it. I like the Italian taste here (you can add herbs as well), but any vegetables will do.</p>
<p>Hi Jym:</p>
<p>Can you give more details? For how big of a crowd? A dish you can heat up or a cold dish?</p>
<p>My sister (who is married to a Cantor) always has a lot of Passover veggie options…I can ask her…</p>