Pbuttover

I'm full and exhausted! :-)

I cleaned and prepped all day, put the chicken in at 4:30. Guests were due to arrive between 6-6:30-ish.

I decided on a simple roasted chicken. 5.5 lb roaster. Salted and peppered inside, generous sprinkle of Ozark seasoning, stuffed with lots of garlic, an onion, a cut up carrot and fresh dill weed. I also put some dill under the skin, along with some garlic cloves, between the breast and thigh. Then a good pat down with lots more Ozark seasoning....tied the thing up (so the wings and legs were close to the body) and sat it on a bed of celery in my favorite shallow 9x9 Corningware dish. Into the oven at 350 at 4:30pm.

Around 5:15, every hostess' worst nightmare occurred!!! I was vacuuming the dining room, when suddenly, no vacuum, no lights, no radio, NO OVEN! The power went out. My first thought was that I blew a circuit breaker but no, the oven is on a separate breaker...so it couldn't be. I yelled upstairs for my neighbor and she was in the dark, too.

So I called my guests, one by one, and told them "If the lights don't come back on by 6pm, dinner is off." I was panicky. I nearly cried. But I persevered. I set the table, ever hopeful, but knowing full well that dinner could be ruined.

I went down with a bag of trash and saw neighbors outside, I asked if they were in the dark, they said their lights had JUST come back on! I went in the house, happy!!! Called my friends, they showed up by 7 and all systems were go.

The soup was sublime. I had actually made a pot full of chicken stock a few months ago and froze some of it, with just this purpose in mind. I added some additional water and some soup base to it, (about 50% of the total volume was soup base, half was home made) along with some sliced carrot and celery, and some fresh parsley, along with some green onion for good measure. It simmered for about 3 hours (including the 45 min or so that the electricity was off and it was just sitting with a lid on). The matzo ball mixture sat for 4 hours in the fridge, they were light as a feather in the soup. I think they cooked for....45 min or so. SO delicious. And they were made strictly with eggs, schmaltz, onion powder, salt and pepper, a bit of garlic powder and of course, matzo meal. No water, no seltzer. No separating eggs, no leavening. Just a sticky batter, very little handling and a good long rest.

With the soup and the chicken we had a "dressing" made with crumbled matzo. Just the way I made bread stuffing, only..with matzo. I sauteed some sliced celery, diced onions and sliced mushrooms in schmaltz, seasoned it well with fresh parsley, salt and pepper, added in some broth and an entire box of matzo, crumbled. Added more broth, until it was the texture I wanted. I have no idea how much, I had the soup simmering on the stove, I just ladled it from one pot to the next. I covered that and kept it warm. At one point it went into the oven when the chicken came out.

Veggies were simple roasted asparagus and I felt like we needed something red so I opened a can of baby beets and warmed them up, and then sprinkled them with Sunny Paris. They were delicious, if you like beets. We do.

For dessert, my friend made a flourless chocolate cake taht was TO DIE FOR! OH MY GOD, it was sooo good. Really rich, really decadent, and pareve, too, not like that mattered, but she was so proud that it didn't have any dairy in it. It was a fudge cake bottom and there was some type of ganache-type stuff on top...all I know is, it had two different textures, cakey and creamy and it was one of the best desserts I've ever eaten!

We had to laugh when we got to the part of the seder where you read off the 10 plagues...when we got to "darkness" I said a special thank you to the Big Guy for alleviating that one tonight!

It was an amazing meal and I had the best friends a woman could ever have around the table with me. The only thing that would have made it better was to have had my parents here in body, rather than "just" in spirit.

But we used Mom's dishes and crystal and silver flatware, and the pan I cooked the chicken in had been hers, so Mom's presence was definitely felt. And Dad, well, I wore a Red Sox championship shirt, which he would have LOVED, so they were both there in spirit, anyway. They loved the foods of Pbuttover and I made all the stuff that we would have had if they'd been here.

And Margaret, thanks for your advice about the seder tray! I have a small Mikasa crystal relish dish in the shape of a Star of David (6 points) that I piled the charoses in, put that in the center of my "silver" tray, and I arranged 4 little dishes from the china set in each corner, which held the parsley, lettuce, sliced hard boiled egg, and horseradish. Then I just set the shank bone right on the platter, where it would fit in. It was very pretty and worked out nicely.

And now, I need to find my bed...... Happy Pbuttover everyone!