passover casserole

Both my parents are artists. My Dad is a sculptor and my Mom painted for a long time and now works in textile design. This means growing up whenever my sister and I had craft projects, dioramas for school, or Halloween costumes to make, we had a team of excited RISD graduates brainstorming with us. I guess it's normal for kids' parents to help them on projects like that, but with mine I ended up with things like a working mini wooden pushcart for a book report on The Pushcart War, a full goldfish suit with foam eyes, and a series of tiny abstract paintings that made my dollhouse look more like the MOMA. So when my Aunt asked us to bring a vegetarian dish to passover this year, and I saw a recipe online that said to create a design with potatoes, I knew it was the one to pick.

I really have to give full credit to my Dad on the landscape. I was the one who suggested we use sweet potato as the background and make white potato pyramids, but after that he took it to a whole other level. "Should I make a moon? Grab some dill for trees! I'm adding cinnamon to make it look more archaic!" and the result is what you see above.

It was a hit at Sedar, and not just for how it looked. The recipe itself is essentially a vegetable tagine with shepard's pie crust. You could easily substitute any of the vegetables in the base for something else. I also noticed while cooking with my dad that my mad scientist approach to food might be genetic. He does not believe in following recipes or measuring anything either. Luckily with stews there's really no way to mess it up.

We are thinking of tackling the parting of the red sea next year. Too ambitious?

ingredients:

for the tagine--

3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 garlic minced cloves
2 onions chopped
3 carrots peeled and chopped
2 zucchini chopped
1 head of broccoli chopped
1 head of cauliflower chopped
1 large 28oz can of diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup slivered almonds

for the potatoes--

3 sweet potatoes
1/4 cup orange juice
salt, pepper, and cinnamon to taste

3 white potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In separate pots, boil sweet and white potatoes until soft. Drain and mash in separate mixing bowls with their respective ingredients above.

The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that it results in a lot of dishes. We're already using too many for my taste. Luckily when I made this I was at home with my parents dishwasher.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large frying pan with cover, fry onions in olive oil until soft. Add spices, stirring well to keep them from burning.

Add your vegetables, canned tomatoes with sauce, and vegetable stock. This is going to be pretty overflowing, but it will cook down I promise. Cover pan and cook on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally to give all the veggies a chance at the bottom of the pan.

Once the ingredients have cooked down a bit, stir in almonds and raisins. Keep cooking until carrots are soft.

Transfer tagine to a large 10x15 casserole dish. Pat down with a spatula to create a relatively smooth surface for your potato layers.

Now it's really up to your own design plans. We first separated out about a 1/4 of the mashed white potatoes and spread the remaining amount on top of the tagine with a spatula. Then we added a top layer with all the mashed sweet potatoes. My dad used a cutting board and knife to shape out the pyramids and moon before laying them on top of the sweet potato layer. The trees are springs of dill I plucked to look more tree-like. The pyramids have a dash of cinnamon to make them look older. Just use your imagination and try to see the things in your kitchen as more them what you normally use them for.

Bake casserole for 20 minutes or until its heated through.