The holiday weekend has come and gone; the leftovers are eaten; and it's now time for me to start studying for finals.

Overall we had a fabulous (and delicious!) Passover and Easter. Saturday night we dined with the Melnick family, and enjoyed a seriously abridged seder. My favorite part was singing "Dayenu" and clapping, which completely freaked out their adorable Newfoundland so that he started barking along. Very cute.

Otis and I brought a faux chopped liver, which is essentially a veggie pate that visually mimics chopped liver, but (thankfully, to me at least) doesn't taste like it.

On Sunday we enjoyed another wonderful meal hosted by Leslie. The group was amazing, and the food was fabulous. The babies are all grown up-- welll, at least walking around and not really interested in being held-- but happily there are now smaller babies to hold, although the minute I got hold of Bea she started crying. Sorry I forgot to take photos!

There was also a lovely family with the most adorably hip pre-teen boys-- one of them modestly told us that he met David Bowie! So cool.

I made a very complicated but insanely delicious potato kugel recipe-- except I used non-dairy spread instead of schmaltz for kosher-related reasons. I really cannot say enough about the recipe-- everyone loved it. A++++ I would make again!

Here's the veggie chopped liver. It's a little different from the one my friend Jamie makes.

Faux Chopped Liver

Olive oil
3 large onions, chopped medium
3 cloves garlic
1 cup green beans
1 large can lentils, drained
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
1 matzah
2-3 t salt (depending on saltiness of can of lentils)
1-2 t black pepepr
2 hard boiled eggs
Splash balsamic vinegar (I swear!)

1. heat the oil in a pan; fry the onions and garlic until soft and light brown.
2. In the meantime, steam the green beans until soft but not too soft. (You'll know it when you see it.)
3. Place the matzah in the food processor with chopping blade and pulse to break up.
4. Add the green beans, onion & garlic mixture, lentils, walnuts, salt & pepper.
5. Pulse until well chopped. How chopped will be your preference.
6. Turn into large bowl. Add splash balsamic to taste to bring up acidity. (Seriously, just a little. You won't taste the balsamic, it will just heighten the dimension of the flavors.)
7. Chop the hard-boiled egg and fold in.

Enjoy!