Passover challenge....

March 24, 2012 12:05 AM

Passover meal all planned for my family, I am making brisket, matzoh ball soup and gefilte fish. Only problem is I want to include two dear friends who are vegetarian and one of them is stictly no dairy! Since I will be so busy cooking everything else, I want to find a FAST EASY entree recipe I can make for them-- no meat, dairy or flour--would love a make ahead casserole like matzoh lasagna, but everything good seems to have cheese! If you have a recipe that fits the bill, PLEASE share!
posted by Lylo to food & drink (21 answers total)

Google gluten-free vegan lasagna. There are plenty of great recipes out there!
posted by erst at 12:17 AM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

It is not about gluten....it is passover, which means no flour or leavened breads.
posted by Lylo at 12:23 AM on March 24, 2012

A friend and I made this almost by accident a few nights back, and it was glorious (and fits your criteria, I think):

Take a field/Portobello mushroom and make a little alfoil boat around it. Put a dab of nuttelex/vegan butter substitute and some verjuice (sub for dry white wine if you like) in the bottom, then the mushroom. Put a few tablespoons of sautéed onions and garlic inside, then top with a breadcrumb, butter, and herb mix (I used sage, basil, rosemary and thyme). Put it in the oven for ~ 12 minutes and it’s delicious, flavoursome, with a nice crunchy breadcrumb top. Very easy and very nice.
posted by twirlypen at 12:32 AM on March 24, 2012

How about vegan dal makhani? If you prep the garlic and onion ahead of time you pretty much just throw the ingredients together and cook it. And it's very yummy. Might work with matzoh too.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:37 AM on March 24, 2012

It's not quite FAST EASY, but maybe you can combine a matzoh lasagna recipe with a vegan lasagna recipe, making cheese out of cashews and nutritional yeast, if everything's okay for passover.

You could also look into Daiya and Follow Your Heart vegan cheeses - I don't know if you require processed foods to be explicitly labeled Kosher for Passover, but Daiya at least is Kosher (not sure about FYH), and none of the ingredients jump out at me as contraindicated (disclaimer: I've been accused of eating like a Jew, but I am not one).
posted by WasabiFlux at 12:38 AM on March 24, 2012

Do you eat kitniyot? That would be a game-changer here.

The best I can come up with is quinoa + vegetable stir-fry, perhaps with nuts or egg for protein (perhaps tough to do without soy sauce, though). Quinoa is not considered a grain and not considered kitniyot, so it's a-ok for Passover.
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:44 AM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Vegan matzoh brei using tofu instead of eggs.
posted by devymetal at 1:13 AM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Google gluten-free vegan lasagna. There are plenty of great recipes out there!

It is not about gluten....it is passover, which means no flour or leavened breads.


Substitute slices of courgettes, aubergines or some other vegetable suitable for slicing for the pasta sheets.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:59 AM on March 24, 2012

Depending on where you fall on the kitniyot thing, you can use chickpeas or not. I've made a smashed chickpea salad based on the Smitten Kitchen recipe in the past. My variation is skipping the olives (which I love but my boyfriend does not) and adding chopped cucumber/carrots to increase the crunchy aspect, and adding chopped green onions.

I'll repeat the advice to do a quinoa salad. Make the quinoa, add chopped apple or pear, dried cranberries, various chopped veggies, chopped nuts if you want, the vinaigrette recipe from this recipe, and live happily ever after.

These are both make ahead kind of things - the chickpeas are better the second day anyway.

Hope you guys have a good seder. Now I have to start thinking about what to make for the two I'll be going to. So many possibilities.
posted by sciencegeek at 4:25 AM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

From Veganomicon, Sweet potato-pear tzimmes with pecans and raisins
posted by Jeanne at 5:54 AM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah, if you're good on kitinyot, you can do a black bean chili (also easy for the next day, and nice with rice) or a lentil salad or a tofu stirfry or anything at all with chickpeas or whatever.

Quinoa is, conveniently, not classified as kitinyot by most (but not all) rabbis, so you can make a quinoa salad without concern unless your personal rabbi or the rabbis of your friends disagree.

(While confirming tofu is not allowed, I just found out mustard is also kitinyot. Deciding to stop following those absurd rules made Passover so much easier.)
posted by jeather at 7:06 AM on March 24, 2012

Cholent!
posted by bq at 7:10 AM on March 24, 2012

Um, kitniyot? Nope, I am embarassed to admit i had to look it up to know what it meant! Just no leavened bread. The dairy restriction not even based on fact that i am serving meat, it is just their dietary restriction all year round. I would rather not use a recipe calling for special ingredients I am not familiar with or not available at the local mainstream grocery store. As said, I will be busy cooking my planned sedar meal and I just want an EASY make-ahead alternative dish that doesn't require much in the way of shopping, prepping or making. thanks!
posted by Lylo at 8:04 AM on March 24, 2012

Also from veganomicon and uncredited in this recipe that seems to be an exact copy: Spinach noodle kugel. Difficulty: you need thawed frozen spinach. Veganomicon says three packages, this recipe says 6 cups, whatever.
posted by LionIndex at 9:01 AM on March 24, 2012

@BQ: Cholent! Great suggestion, I am finding some great crockpot recipes for it, easy and make-ahead. Thanks!
@LionIndex: spinach noodle casserole would be great, except for the noodles (made with flour)
posted by Lylo at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2012

Found this (thanks bq!)
posted by Lylo at 9:53 AM on March 24, 2012

Whoops, link didn't work. >Here it is. (http://www.easyjewishrecipes.com/Vegetarian-Cholent.html)
posted by Lylo at 10:36 AM on March 24, 2012

Um, kitniyot? Nope, I am embarassed to admit i had to look it up to know what it meant! Just no leavened bread. The dairy restriction not even based on fact that i am serving meat, it is just their dietary restriction all year round. I would rather not use a recipe calling for special ingredients I am not familiar with or not available at the local mainstream grocery store.

I just want to make sure that you aren't misunderstanding kitniyot. It's not a food itself, but a classification among observant jews used to determine if something can be eaten at Passover. Some people will eat foods that are considered kitniyot while others will not. Or were you referring to quinoa or something else in the bolded portion?
posted by andoatnp at 10:57 AM on March 24, 2012

We usually make a matzah polenta with sauteed mushrooms, and a broccoli casserole with matzah meal, and some roasted veggies of all kinds (super easy to make). You can also just buy a nice organic veggie broth so they can have matzah ball soup, too.
posted by judith at 11:28 AM on March 24, 2012

Oh, also, you can make the spinach kugel (or any other kugel) with egg noodles instead - they're generally available in the kosher-for-passover section of any supermarket.
posted by judith at 11:29 AM on March 24, 2012

@ Judith: yes, I understood what you meant by KITNIYOT, and I KITNIYOT I'm not! However, I didn't know they sell egg noodles that are without flour, thanks for the tip!
posted by Lylo at 9:31 AM on March 25, 2012