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Smitten Kitchen has a few Passover recipes that looked good: http://smittenkitchen.com/recipes/#Passover
My favorite passover food is also haroset on matzoh. yummy!

Wow! MMinNYC you have covered most everything. The only thing I would add, is I try to get a catering menu from Zabars, Whole Foods or anyplace that offers Passover food. I get ideas from them.

I'm glad to help. Passover food was never my favorite. Though I don't keep a strictly Passover kitchen, I have family members that do, and I always pitch in with the cooking for seders and the days after, and I always do my best to accomodate guests.

@MMin - You rock! I definitely will try some of those.

My go-to Passover recipes are desserts. I adore David Leibovitz's chocolate toffee matzah crunch. I make it with either roasted cocoa nibs and fleur de sel on top or dried cranberries or cherries. Recipe is located here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/01/chocolatecovere.html

I also adore Cupcake Project's fabu flourless chocolate cupcakes, which are well worth the work. They are tasty either with or without the chocolate cream cheese icing, but sometimes I just top with whipped cream. Recipe is here:

http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2008/04/kosher-for-passover-chocolate-cupcakes.html

Finally, I always make my own sorbets and ice creams during Passover. They can be made a week or so in advance and soothe the dessert cravings. You can use almost any recipe that does not call for corn syrup (which is most of them). Strawberry is popular (I do it with frozen fruit this time of year), as is cinnamon, which I serve with cinnamon mocha merengue cookies.

Thanks for the compliments... I'm blushing. The David Liebovitz matzoh crunch and the Cupcake Project recipes sound excellent!

And I just found out another big Passover challenge I'm going to face - a Vegan friend will be coming over. The Matzoh Crunch will be great for the dessert, and my friend said she'd bring a fruit dessert. I'm going to stuff some Portobellos with either caponata or ratoutille and grill them, which will go over fine with 10+ non-vegans as a side, and steamed asparagus or green beans (we have some broccoli haters). I can make a few matzoh balls with egg replacer (I've found that you have to make anything with egg replacer in very small sizes or they will fall apart) and cook them in veggie broth. I'll also nuke some baked potatoes to serve along with kugel.

Any other ideas will be appreciated.

I made this Apple-Matzoh Kugel last year for the 1st time and it was fantastic! Definitely making it again this year.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Apple-Matzoh-Kugel-104862

And even though my sister is always in charge of desserts, my husband and I have been making these Martha Stewart macaroons for years. They are so good and they freeze really well, so they can be made ahead of time. We double the recipe. They go quickly!

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/chocolate-chunk-macaroons

MMinNYC -
Green beans are "controversial" during passover. . .just fyi:
The Kitniyot Controversy.

Since the Middle Ages, Ashkenazim, but not Sephardim, traditionally haven't eaten various foods known as "kitniyot" -- often mistranslated as "legumes" (the word itself comes from the root meaning "small," so "bits" might be a better translation) -- during Pesah. Kitniyot are not hametz and Ashkenazim who observe the ban on kitniyot are free to attend a seder at which they are served and eat food cooked in the same pot as kitniyot.

Which foods exactly are kitniyot is a matter of some dispute, but generally kitniyot are small fleshless seeds of annual plants that someone might make into flour, and more precisely you must consult the list of your preferred halachic expert. Usually, lentils and dried beans, dried peas, rice, corn, sesame seeds and caraway seeds are kitniyot; but quinoa, potatoes and coffee are not. Peanuts, fresh peas and fresh green beans are controversial.

The ban is considered a minhag -- a custom -- rather than a mitzvah and was called "foolish" by some early authorities, who note that it has no Talmudic basis, that the traditional justifications for the rule don't match what is actually classified as kitniyot, and that it distracts from the more important aspects of the holiday, such as, "do not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt." Most Ashkenazi Orthodox and traditional authorities disagree, on the ground that traditional stringencies should be accepted. However, due to these disagreements, some authorities say the kitniyot category should not be expanded to include:

new (or New World) foods (such as, e.g., peanuts, permitted by R. Moshe Feinstein, the leading modern Orthodox posek (legal decisionmaker)), or
derivative foods (such as oils made from kitniyot, permitted by Litvak poskim a century ago (e.g., the Netziv of Volozhin) but considered suspect in many Orthodox circles today).
Other authorities, as one might expect, go the other direction. For example, the Remah, Orach Chaim 464, bars mustard because it is "similar" to kitniyot (although he permits anise and coriander seeds, id 453.)! Corn, despite its New World origin, seems to be resolutely fixed in the kitniyot category on the ground that its name in Yiddish (korn) is the same as rye. (Click for a detailed discussion of the traditional commentaries and some modern (Orthodox) views, a detailed dvar on kitniyot including many citations, Aish HaTorah's explanation of the kitniyot rules or a funny description of the problems of frum Pesah shopping in Israel).

The Conservative movement in the US as a general principal accepts the Talmudic view that it is forbidden to create stringencies (humras). On this issue, however, it officially bars kitniyot generally, but allows peanuts and kitniyot-derived oils (see the RA Pesah Guide). The Conservative responsa's reasoning is not entirely clear (as is the case with everything regarding kitniyot): if the idea is not to expand a "foolish tradition," then presumably all the New World beans and grains - - including corn -- should be permissible along with all modern derivative products (oils, sweeteners). If the idea is that peanuts are not "legumes," as the Responsa states, the problem is deeper. First, unlike many other kitniyot, peanuts actually are legumes. More to the point, kitniyot is not a biologically based category (the traditional list of kitniyot includes grains (rice) and dried beans (peas, lentils), but allows fresh string beans). If the category is meant to reflect things that someone might confuse with prohibited flours (as the Smak contended in 13c France) or grains that are sometimes mixed with prohibited grains (as the Beit Yosef explained in 16c Israel), perhaps rice, corn and lentils ought to be barred, but why peas, corn oil or corn sweeteners? And, in a day and age when few people make their own flour, why bar whole rice, corn and lentils, none of which resembles flour at all? Indeed, is mixing really plausible in a modern inspected factory? Most importantly, why not ban potatoes, which Ashkenazim actually do use in pumpernickel bread?

The Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel ruled that the bar on kitniyot should not be observed in Israel at all (click for responsa text in Hebrew or English summary (Va'ad Ha Halakha, Vol. 3, R. David Golinkin)) because it is foolish and creates unnecessary distinctions between Sephardim and Ashkenazim and the majority custom (in Israel) ought to be followed. Rabbi Michael Lerner and Benjamin Mordecai Ben-Baruch urge the same result for the similar reasons in the US. Click for Lerner and Ben-Baruch opinions.

-- Daniel Greenwood

I don't know if this would be important to your guests. My parent's would never have green beans during passover.

Thanks so much for all the links above - I'm hosting a seder for the first time ever, and I'm a bit freaked out. Now that I've got Martha to guide me, I feel much better. =)

@bgweil - thanks for all that background! i grew up in a family that didn't eat kitniyot during pesach, but never talked about it, so now it's nice to know where that came from.

@mminyc: i'll have a vegan at my passover seder too! and she also hates onions and mushrooms, so it'll be interesting, but vegan friendly dishes i'm planning include a roasted root vegetable medley (parsnips, carrots, squash, etc. - whatever looks good at the farmer's market), a quinoa salad with fresh seasonal veggies (again, will probably be a game time decision what specifically will go in it), and either a green salad or maybe some broccoli. also contemplating grating some zucchini, mixing with a little mayo and some seasonings, forming into balls and coating in matzoh crumbs and frying (growing up we would sometimes get to have latkes for passover, because they're yummy and kosher for passover, so this is my nod to that). maybe there's another binding agent that could replace the mayo?

Thanks, bgweil! I didn't know about the kitniyot - my mother's family is Sephardic, and they also ate chickpeas and lentils during Passover, which I know is a no-no for Ashkenazi. I didn't know about green beans, which my brother-in-law's conservative Ashkenazi family served (my father's side was very reformed). I'll stick to broccoli or asparagus to be safe with company.

I use Food Network also - they have great recipes.
I got lazy this year and ordered my passover desserts as opposed to baking them. One of my favorite bakeries is Zelda's - see here:
http://www.someonespoilme.com/gift-review/passover-desserts/