Baked Spinach Omelette for Passover

Baked Spinach Omelette for Passover adapted from the newspapers adaptation by me of the recipe in Joyce Goldstein’s book The New Mediterranean Jewish Table.

This just caught my eye and I knew it must be mine. I want to redo it now with Italian seasoning, chopped onions and peppers and maybe chicken pieces. As well, I'd like to add mozzarella, and it could become a  lasagna type of dish. In the meantime, it's wonderful just as it is!

Ready in 1 hour   Serves 8

1 tbs unsalted butter

2 pkgs frozen chopped spinach thawed

4 plain matzos

8 large eggs lightly beaten

1 cup ricotta

½ cup freshly grated parmesan

3 tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 ¼ tsps. sea salt

½ tea freshly ground pepper 

Sprinkle of nutmeg.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 2-3 qt. rectangular glass casserole dish.

Squeeze spinach to remove excess water and pat dry with a paper towel.

Break matzos into 2” pieces and place in a bowl with warm water for 2 minutes.

Drain matzos in a colander pressing lightly.

In a large mixing bowl combine eggs, spinach, matzos, ricotta, parmesan, olive oil salt and pepper.

Mix until evenly distributed.

Transfer to baking dish and even out the top with a spatula. Bake on the middle rack until set and a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Grind some nutmeg on the top.

Oops, I did it again....

In December 2014 I wrote:

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Sort of like falling again but not so bad….

I was asleep a few days ago when something woke me up. I started to turn the wrong way I guess. The next thing I knew I rolled out of bed and onto the floor! The pillows stopped my head from falling at the same rate and I ended up on my knees! 

They hurt!

The house shook, and my wife was sure it was like the scene in Jurassic Park where we see the water ripple as the Tyrannosaurus Rex comes closer. 

The only sound was my moaning…and laughing! Who else would fall again, but manage a 28” fall from bed onto a carpet.

I got up feeling a bit silly, with sore knees and promised, as always, not to fall again.

Now here it is, 2016, and I did it again! My wife was not as sympathetic and I was caught by all the covers and was chocking at the neck while hurting at the knees! Arthur, don't fall!!!

My Daughter, the Mechanic

OK, my daughter is not really a mechanic, but when you function as one, and meet with historic results, you must be a mechanic. It’s sort of like if it walks like a duck…etc.

I had been scooting around the last year in my new car, feeling quite smug about how well it was doing. The instincts were there with the purchase, and everything was great except for my new $300 headlight, but sometimes stuff happens.

It is also quite speedy, and takes off like a bat out of hell when it needs  to. However lately, between you and me, something was wrong.

In the “old days”, I would have checked out the linkage between the gas and the carburetor, because we had carburetors! Now, not so, so I didn’t even bother to look. It costs about $70 to get the computer to tell me what’s wrong and so much more to fix it so I was shy about asking.

I kept noticing I could not easily get up to speed, and passing was becoming hard. I had to floor it but was meeting spongy pressure. I kept it all bottled up inside of me rather than admit maybe I had a serious (money) problem to deal with.

My youngest daughter has been home for Reading Week, and the car has been running just fine. I guessed it just magically got better somehow. The other day, while taking her somewhere as I needed my car, she said,”I don’t know how you were riding around with the floor mat stuffed under the gas pedal like that!”

Thus, my daughter the mechanic was born!

Mystery Doctor

In the early 60’s through 1970, I taught at Waterloo Junior High School on Howard County, MD. This became Waterloo Middle School somewhere along the line and dropped the 9th grade and added the 6th.This is another story from that time.

The young girl came home from school and told her mother that the doctor at school said she needed glasses. Rather than say “I’ll take you to the doctor”, the mother asked, “what Doctor?” The young girl explained that many of the kids were all examined and she was told about her eyesight. The mother got upset and demanded more information.

The next morning the mother called school and spoke to the principal and asked about these examinations by the doctor and the principal said, “what examinations?”

The parents met with the principal and the police later that day and the teachers were all called to an emergency meeting to see if we saw anyone suspicious in the school and we all said,” what Doctor?”

The girl told the police that she was examined with some other kids, in an empty classroom, but she didn’t know the kids names. She said she could recognize them if she saw them again, so the next day a policeman and the student  stood outside of the cafeteria and watched each lunch shift come in, so she could see all the children and identify the other ones. 

In looking back at it now, they may have been looking at every male teacher as well to see if any one of us was the doctor.

She was unable to identify anyone.

When questioned a bit harder, she admitted she made the whole story up because she wanted to get glasses. 

We had another teachers meeting that afternoon to assure us there was no problem and that we could all calm down.

The Kodak Moment

“A Kodak Moment was defined as a phrase used when taking a picture of someone at a particular moment that will never be forgotten. Kodak cameras used this expression as part of their advertising many years ago.”

This is either a case of the time of year being Christmas, my general look of old and disheveled or some magical moment in time that happened by circumstance, but it all was real. I stood in disbelief….

In the mornings, usually at 8:00 a.m., I take Max, our dog, for a walk. I use the same route every day so I am patterned which works for me, and the timing is always the same. When I reach the elementary school, there is a path and a dotted line across the street and usually, cars will stop and let me cross. This is sometimes precarious; as I can’t start out until I am sure they will stop. I am always thankful and wave at the cars and smile. They have usually been very good about stopping.

On the way back, there is no dotted line at my crossing, and I will wait until there is a break in morning traffic to cross.

Last week, when I got to the final cross over, traffic was moving along and we waited quietly on the corner. Suddenly, the man coming down on my left stopped dead! All traffic behind him had no choice but to do the same. Immediately, the traffic on the right, speeding down the hill, saw the guy had stopped and not wishing to kill this old guy and his dog, stopped dead!

For a brief moment I stood still, and suddenly realized they were waiting for me to cross! Max and I hurried across the street, waving and thanking everyone and tears running down my cheeks realizing that two lines of morning traffic had stopped dead to let an old man and his dog cross the street!

Lemongrass....

The top of my to do list today told me to go to the market and get lemongrass for making dinner tonight. Not a usual thing for us, but this morning I went to supermarket get the lemongrass and they were out, and a woman who worked there told me they usually have it but were out just now. I decided since I had the time, I’d go downtown and go to the Asian market as they would surely have some.

When I went in the Asian market there were about a dozen customers and a few employees, all of them Asian and all the signage was in Chinese. I had to come to grips with the startling fact that I had no idea what lemongrass looked like! In the supermarket the signage was in English so I wasn’t worried but now I had no idea what anything said.

The employees seemed to be conversing in Chinese, but I did my best to try and explain my situation, and was stared at until I said lemongrass.  The woman I was speaking to ran and showed me where the lemongrass was, and of course, what it was!

For my $1 I had a meaningful and purposeful learning experience.