Can you believe it? Week 2 of our Countdown to Passover 2010 with Professional Organizer and Passover expert, Rivka Slatkin, is over. Here’s a wrap up of this week’s tips and recipes:

Tip #7: Build up your inventory of Passover kitchen wares and non-perishables
Recipe #7: Crispy Rainbow Trout

Tip #8: Create a mini Passover kitchen
Recipe #8: Veal Stew with Apricots and Prunes

Tip #9: Make all of your personal and house-related appointments
Recipe #9: Cod in a Light Lime Sauce

Tip #10: Clean the rest of the house
Recipe #10: Baked Oniony Chicken

Tip #11: Kosher-for-Passover snacks only
Recipe #11: Roasted Turkey

Tip #12: Finish shopping for holiday clothes and shoes
Recipe # 12: Roasted Cornish Hens with Fingerling Roasted Potatoes

Please come back next week for more great tips and recipes as we Countdown to Passover 2010.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

5 Finalists Named in the 4th Annual Manischewitz Cook Off

Here’s an update on the Man-O-Manischewitz 4th Annual Cooking Contest. As I might have mentioned in passing (you know, real casual-like), I will join host Jacques Pépin as a guest judge for the  Man-O-Manischewitz Cooking Contest grand finale. This year’s ingredient is Manischewitz all-natural, no-MSG canned broths (there’s even a low-sodium version). These are the  5 finalists:

Rachelle Lapidus, a stay-at-home mom from Lawrence, NY, who is cooking Creamy Tarragon Chicken.

Harold Cohen, a retired reconstructive plastic surgeon and a Vietnam War veteran from Hollywood, FL, who is cooking Ethiopian Chicken Stew.

Julie DeMatteo, a retired high school English & French teacher and mother of two from Clementon, NJ, who is cooking  Hungarian Chicken Spaetzl.

Jamie Brown-Miller, a wine and dog lover and Humane Society volunteer from Napa, CA, who is cooking Rosemary Duck Cassoulet.

Sarah Freedman-Izquierdo, a lifelong food industry insider from Miami Beach, FL, who is cooking Mandarin Dumpling Soup.

Congratulations to all the finalists and good luck!!!

The Grand Prize Winner will be selected in New York City on March 18th at the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan. Until then, please check out my video interview with Manischewitz at Kosherfest 2009, which features their awesome all-natural broths. Or try these great recipes; they’re perfect for Manischewitz broths:

Avgolemono Soup

Asian Steak

Italian Bean Soup

Buy Manischewitz All-Natural Broths at Kosher.com

Tip #12: Finish shopping for holiday clothes and shoes.

For my recipe, I’m sticking with poultry but I’m choosing something a bit different.

Recipe # 12: Roasted Cornish Hens with Fingerling Roasted Potatoes

For Passover, you might need to substitute fresh sage and rosemary for the dried herbs called for in the recipe.

Come back next week for Tip #13 and another new recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Worried about weight gain this Passover? Here are 6 tips to help you shop for the healthiest holiday foods choices.

My patients are already starting to panic about Passover. Year after year, questions like, “How can I avoid holiday weight gain?” “How do you count matzo?” and “How do you counteract the constipation that comes from eating matzo?” need to be answered.

But this year there are lots of goodies that line the supermarket shelves to make Passover a little more interesting and even better … a little healthier. Although I cannot mention any particular brands, let’s go do some comparison shopping together:

Look for Higher Fiber and Fewer Calories When Choosing Matzo

Whole Wheat, High Fiber, Spelt, Thin, and Shmurah are just a few of the names you’ll see on matzo boxes this holiday. Be careful not to be fooled by some labels that may be deceiving. For example, “thin matzo” sounds like the leanest choice, but a closer look at the label showed 100 calories per piece, 2 grams of protein and only 1 gram of fiber. In comparison, another box called, “light whole wheat bran”, clocked in at 85 calories, 3.6 grams of protein and 5.4 grams of fiber. But be on the look-out for the best of the bunch, called “light high fiber” which contained only 78 calories, 3.2 grams of protein and a whopping 6.9 grams of fiber per board.

What’s the take-away message here? It’s that the word “thin” will not necessarily make you thin, and “light” is not necessarily the lowest in calories. All of the above choices, however, are better than matzo made with white flour only, because it’s hard to get enough fiber on Passover. And when it comes to calories, generally speaking 1 piece of bread is around 80 calories, so a board of matzo, depending on the brand, should be considered to be 1 to 1 1/2 breads per board. If you eat round shmurah matzo which may or may not come with a label, just try to picture the size of a commercial board of matzo as a frame of reference for measuring.

Choose Whole Grain Matzo Meal

When you’re able to swap whole grain matzo meal for the regular type, try to do so. One quarter cup provides 4 grams of fiber vs. 1 gram in the regular version.

Low Fat & High Protein, Gefilte Fish is Ideal for Passover and Year Round

Gefilte fish basks in popularity around Passover, but for some reason, not many people take advantage of this low calorie, low fat, and high protein dish throughout the year. On average, gefilte fish is only around 45-50 calories per piece, each with the same amount of protein as one ounce of chicken. It also comes in jars marked “low sodium” containing about 60 milligrams less sodium than regular types (270 vs. 330 mgs.) The horseradish that usually accompanies gefilte fish barely has any calories and really packs a punch. I eat horseradish all year long with chicken or a turkey sandwich. It’s has fewer calories than mayo and is a lot more memorable.

Read the Label for Sodium Info

Interestingly, this year I noticed “unsalted” matzo meal. Well guess what … of the 4 brands I looked at, there were 0 grams of sodium in each of them, whether regular, whole grain or unsalted.

Choose Quality Over Quantity When Picking Passover Treats

I’m not going to go into great detail about this category, because I could write a book on this one. My best advice is to proceed with caution and go for quality vs. quantity. Unless homemade, many Passover desserts just don’t taste like the real thing. If there is a sweet treat you enjoy, have it at a time when you can appreciate every bite and be sure the calories are worth it. Marshmallow twists, for example, weigh in at 200 calories for 3 pieces of which 108 calories is sugar (equivalent to almost 7 packets).

Passover Top Tip: Enjoy One Whole Piece of Matzo and Put the Box Away

My best diet tip to you so that you don’t tip the scales is this: Take a whole piece of matzo, put the box away, and then enjoy it along with your meal. Even broken pieces of matzo have calories … but they’re much harder to count.

I wish you and yours a happy, healthy Pesach.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Author Bio:

- BONNIE TAUB-DIX, MA, RD, CDN authors Kosher.com’s “Nutritious, Delicious and Kosher: Tips for Healthy Kosher Living and Eating,” providing nutritional insight to site visitors/users. She is a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and Director and Owner of BTD Nutrition Consultants with offices on Long Island and in New York City. She is also a specialist in behavior and lifestyle modification, nutritional psychotherapy, obesity and weight management. – Read more…

Whether you buy it in a jar or make it from scratch, gefilte fish is a Passover staple. West Coast cooks have found a new twist on this old stand-by—salmon!

Gefilte fish,  parve balls of ground up fish, which do not require deboning and thus can be eaten on the Sabbath, are traditionally made with a mixture of pike and whitefish. In many Jewish families, gefilte fish recipes date back to Europe and the shtetl.

“You have to remember where gefilte fish originated,” says Rena Isaacson, a foodie and blogger from Jerusalem. “It was in middle Europe and was made by poor Jews with fish they could afford and was easily available. Gefilte fish was ‘invented’, if you will, to stretch the amount of fish the family could afford to buy. By grinding it up and adding fillers such as onion, matzo meal and eggs the fish could be ’stretched’ to feed more than just a few people.”

Cooks living on the West Coast have reinvented the traditional recipe with salmon, a West Coast staple. “My family lives all over the United States,” explains Jenn Felmley, a California-based chef-educator.  “The West Coast side of the family, me in particular, is in charge of the Passover dinners and I make salmon gefllte fish.”

Known affectionately by her students as Chef Jenn, Felmley spent years honing her craft in some of the finest kitchens in Europe and America including the Deepak Chopra Center at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad.

“I like to keep Passover meals traditional, but, after trying my first batch of gefilte fish, I couldn’t get over the muddy taste.”

That is when Jenn decided to add a little West Coast verve to her dish. Building on recipes for salmon mousse, she incorporated poached salmon into her gefilte fish recipe. “I went to this great seafood place in Santa Monica to buy the salmon,” laughs Jenn. “I thought my idea was so original. I thought I was a genius. But when I got there I wasn’t alone. There were others buying salmon for their gefilte fish!”

Chef Jenn, believing she was breaking new ground, had stumbled upon a West Coast cooking tradition all its own—adding salmon to a time-honored Passover classic. “Even the older, traditional members of my family like it. I haven’t really changed it too much; I have just added a new flavor.”

Recipe: Chef Jenn’s West Coast Salmon Gefilte Fish

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

I admit yesterday’s tip was a doozy. Cleaning the better part of your house for Passover, even the lightly trafficked areas, is a big job. Today’s tip from Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin is easy by contrast:

Tip #11: Begin giving kids only kosher-for-Passover snacks.

See, I told you it was easy.

Now, here’s my recipe. I’m sticking with poultry and offering an all-time classic that I use on Passover and year round.

Recipe #11: Roasted Turkey

Turkey is easy to cook and one of the most affordable ways to feed a crowd. Plus, you can’t help but impress when you bring your mouthwateringly gorgeous roasted turkey to the table. You can watch a video of me making my Roasted Turkey if you want a little more detail.

Check back tomorrow when we drop Tip #12  and another Quick & Kosher recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Were in double digits as we count down to a perfectly organized Passover with Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin. Yesterday’s tip was to make all your pre-Passover appointments for things like dry cleaning and repairs. Today’s tip—Number 10!— is about, guess what, more cleaning.

Tip #10: Clean the dining room breakfront, the fridge and the freezer, designating one non-Passover food area. Stop shopping for chametz. Now clean other areas of the house like laundry rooms, offices, hallways, bathrooms and tape areas up to keep them chametz free. Many of these are low-traffic areas with little chametz contact, so deep cleaning may not be necessary.

Okay, here’s my recipe. I love the sweet-savory flavor of baked onions, so when my friend, Malki, told me about an easy-peasey chicken recipe using onion soup mix, I began to tinker. It paid off, because this recipe is a quick and terrific family-friendly supper favorite.

Recipe #10: Baked Oniony Chicken

Please come back tomorrow for Tip #11  and a new recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Who doesn’t love a jingle? You know, those catchy little tunes people write about their products that get stuck in your head for days on end until you’re on the brink of insanity? We sure do! That’s why we asked LoveJingles.com to write this snappy new jingle to remind our friends like you about the fresh food we offer on Kosher.com. Sing along:

Manhattan, Riverdale and Washington Heights
Bergenfield, Fair Lawn and New Jersey
Free Next Day Delivery by a cold, cold truck
With Kosher.com you are never stuck
The World’s Largest
Online Kosher Supermarket
We love Kosher.com

Now we know it’s been all of 5 minutes since our last $100 shopping spree giveaway but we love giving stuff away. ‘So, how do I win this fantastically free shopping spree’ you ask? It’s simple. Unleash your creativity and show us what a lyrical genius you are by writing the next four lines of our jingle. The rules are simple – reference Kosher.com and any of the fine foods found on our site and wow us with your talents! Seriously, we want to be so overwhelmed by your creative juices that it will be next to impossible for us to pick our favorite winning entry!

Time is of the essence. Entries must be in no later than end of day Sunday and we will pick our winning entry on or about Monday, March 15th, 2010. So gather your friends around, channel your inner Diane Warren, and get writing!

Now some fine print: Giveaway is open to US residents only. Good luck!

Now that we’re cooking in our Passover mini kitchen, it is time to get serious with cleaning, says Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin. Here’s her Passover prep tip of the day …

Tip #9: Make all of your personal and house-related appointments that need taking care of before Passover such as carpet cleaning, home repairs and dry cleaning.

For my recipe, I’m doing another fish dish. Again, like the crispy rainbow trout in recipe #7, simplicity is the key to this yummy cod. There are only 5 ingredients total and the fish takes about 5 minutes to prep and 20 minutes to cook. For Passover leave out the rice (it’s optional anyway) and serve with some nice veggies or other Passover sides.

Recipe #9: Cod in a Light Lime Sauce

Tomorrow is another day, so please come back for Tip #10 (double digits!)  and another new recipe.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping

Yesterday we worked on our Passover inventories of kitchen supplies and, today, were continuing on our Passover odyssey with Professional Organizer Rivka Slatkin by starting to cook. So here’s Rivka’s latest…

Tip #8: Create a mini Passover kitchen in the basement or laundry room with a slow cooker, a few knives, cutting boards, some spices, aluminum tins and a freezer. This way you can pre-cook some Passover meat dishes and freeze them for use during the holiday. You will need a sink, but you could even use the laundry sink for this purpose!

Now for my contribution …

Recipe #8: Veal Stew with Apricots and Prunes

This veal dish is perfect for the seder or whenever you hanker for a really tasty, no-fuss main course this Passover.

Please come back tomorrow for Tip #9 and a new recipe from yours truly.

For more detailed plans on how to make Pesach Perfectly Organized, please visit www.Jewish-life-organized.com and take a look at the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection, written by Rivka Slatkin, Professional Organizer.

Go to the Kosher.com Ultimate Passover Guide

Go to Kosher.com for all your Passover Shopping