veggiebites: A Foodie on Passover

Today has been the first day of Passover and I'm doing pretty well. For breakfast I had raspberry soy yogurt, for lunch a salad with tomatoes, carrots, radicchio, romaine, avocado and cucumber with Amy's Goddess Dressing, a cashew cookie Larabar and two macaroons (I brought a container of them to my photo critique for all of the Jewish kids in my class, I think I made some new friends today), I ate a piece of gefilte fish with beet horseradish while studying for a test that I just finished (woo hoo!) and I just ate the last piece of a bad banana.

Right now I am sitting in the American University TV office waiting for our bi-weekly producers meeting to start. I just told everyone that my banana was under-ripe and they were all like "What? Who says that? You do do 'Veggie Bites....'" hahaa. After the meeting I am coming home to eat dinner and then going out to celebrate two of my friend's birthdays!

Before I tell you about my Passover dish (which is great for all of the raw foodies out there!) I've got to tell you about the rest of this seemingly-endless family weekend that ended two days ago... but I'm still blogging about it....we ate a lot. On Saturday we went to the National Mall and headed directly to the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum. We saw 30-minute film about stars in the planetarium (very cool!), and my cousin Michael ate these rocket ship gummy things:

After Air and Space we were pretty hungry. When I think of food on the National Mall I think of pretzels, hot dogs and ice pops, so I was legitimately worried about what my family would eat in between museums. Thankfully my Aunt Barbara had a suggestion:

Mitsitam is a food court separated by region. Each station serves native food from that area of the United States and I was entirely blown away that this place existed on the Mall. Next time you go to see the monuments you have (have) to check this place out. They have everything from stews to cornbread to corn beverages (not high fructose corn syrup or corn syrup, real corn). Here's a look at Mitsitam:

I ordered a squash and black bean tamale with avocado cream . It was seriously unbelievable:

I also ordered chips with citrus and tomato salsa to share with my brother (he ordered shredded chicken on a puffed flat bread):

Finally, I got an apple tart to share with my dad for dessert, but ended up splitting it with a few others as well :)

After walking around the American Indian museum for an hour or so and hearing authentic native music, we headed over to the monuments. Here I am with my parents by the reflection pool:

Here I am with my Aunt Barbara, cousin Mary, mom and Aunt Cathy on the American University quad:

After a weekend of eclectic foods, I emptied out the two "Passover bags" that my mom brought me. Its contents:

The sesame crunch is awesome Passover or not (bottom right), but my favorite Passover food is Charoset.

1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup crushed walnuts
1 cup grape juice
2 apples, peeled and shredded
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. sugar

Combine all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor until thick.