Rosh Hashanah Dessert Recipes

Rosh Hashanah is coming up in a week and a half! Are you prepared? Have you cooked everything in advance? Or are you just now starting to scramble? (Here are some tips on cooking ahead!)

Homemade rice milk (to use in parve recipes), apple raisin muffins, apple cookies, and apple cakes for Rosh Hashanah! All of this took me only one morning to cook and can easily serve many people for dessert.

A friend recently asked for some easy Rosh Hashanah dessert ideas. Of course there is the classic and inevitable honey cake.  Now, I personally don’t like honey cake.  Every one I taste seems dry and flavorless.  Usually I only like cakes overflowing with decadent chocolate or full of fruit.  But since this year I have to make my own honey cake, I turned to one of my favorite cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen.  I made her recipe, which she got from Marcy Goldman, and it turned out to be delicious!  Next time I would cut the white sugar in half, but otherwise keep the recipe the same (we don’t like things TOO sweet).  However, taste tests reveal that even with all the other flavors inside, the cake STILL tastes like honey, with just enough spice to make it exciting. Yum! Check it out and try baking it yourself:  http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/09/majestic-and-moist-honey-cake/

Of course what goes with honey on Rosh Hashanah? Apples! Apples and honey! So you could always serve baked apples, but if that seems like the “easy” way out or you want something fancier, here are some good but easy ideas:

Apple cake is easy – here’s a recipe with good ratings.http://www.food.com/recipe/grated-apple-cinnamon-cake-183836 I like the ones with grated apple because I can just toss them through the food processor and not deal with chopping or slicing. I always double a recipe like this and use my grater blade for half the apples and my chipper blade for half (gives bigger chunks to bite into) but it’s not necessary if you don’t have a chipper blade. I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but I expect I will. I followed a different apple cake recipe last time and I can’t find it again.

You could also try making apple compote. I just peel & core all the apples & toss them with a splash of water into a pot on the stove and slow cook them, stirring occasionally. I use whatever apples I have lying around, but Granny Smiths are the best for baking (although because they are a bit more sour, you may need to add some sugar). (If you don’t feel up to messing with apples on the stove, you can just chuck a bowl in the microwave for 7 minutes or so – same effect, less time!)

Homemade apple strudel is easy to do with leftover or extra apple compote as filling and store-bought filo dough or puffed pastry dough.

Apple compote is really versatile, so you might want to make a LOT. Remember, apples cook down quite a lot! You can serve compote on its own or with some whipped cream. You can also use it as filling for apple strudel (use filo or puffed pastry dough – lay out one sheet, use a pastry brush to “paint” it with melted butter or margarine, fold in half lengthwise twice to form a long thin rectangle, put a spoonful of apple compote mixed with cinnamon & vanilla on the end, and fold it in triangles like a flag, paint the outside with butter, then bake on a tray in the oven).

Or use apple compote as a filling for apple pie! This is my grandmother’s recipe… YUM and easy!  http://caloriecount.about.com/memas-apple-pie-recipe-r1423869

I hope you enjoy these recipes.  There should be enough variety there to keep you enjoying a different dessert at every meal, but without having to overdo the cooking.

Shana tova and be’te avon!

Parshas Ki Savo: We Jews Are All Connected

Growing up in North America there was always one regular feature of summertime life: block parties. A block party is when all the neighbors on a street gather together to share food, music, fun, and even fireworks. The kids run amok and the parents talked and got to know each other. It was a great community builder. But it no longer seems to exist.

Since moving to Adelaide, no neighbors have come knocking to greet us. If not for the Jewish community, how would people in the suburbs meet each other anymore! When I recently walked past a next-door neighbor parking her car and stopped to chat, I asked why this is. “I guess we’re all just scared,” came the reply. “Everybody keeps to themselves these days!”

This might be all well and good in the secular world, but it won’t work in the Jewish world. As Jews, we are all intimately connected. In this week’s parsha we are reminded of the blessings and the curses G-d will give us if we obey (or disobey) His commandments. We are blessed if we do G-d’s will and cursed if we do not.

Yet how many times do we see great rabbis and tzaddikim living in poverty? Many times, we see that those who are most righteous seem to lead a life with fewer blessings. And those of us who fail each day in our mission to do G-d’s will seem to be far more blessed than they are. It doesn’t seem to make any sense!

The fact is that we are all interconnected. When one does a mitzvah, it’s not just the individual doing it for himself – he’s doing it for the entire community, for all the Jews. There are many stories of entire communities being saved from divine punishments just because one person who lived there did such a mitzvah it saved the whole group. Those who are truly righteous people often “give up” their spiritual reward so that we, who are not so holy, can instead have the benefits.

We cannot live isolated like so many people in the Western world do today. We cannot hide in our homes watching TV with no idea who lives around us. We are Jews. And we are all connected.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Parshas Ki Seitzei: How to Beat the Yetzer Hara (AKA How to Overcome Our Desires)

If there is one thing we have learned in our travels, it is that all people are fundamentally the same.  Of course, each of us is unique in our own special way, but at the core, we have more in common than we often realize.  We feel the same emotions, have the same range of character traits, and have the same strengths and weaknesses, to varying degrees.

As Jews, we are not immune to the same faults we see in others who are not Jewish.  Even Rabbis and Rebbetzins make some mistakes! (Except for us, of course! Just kidding!)  Sadly, we often see a Jew in a position of power or leadership make a mistake and, whether he is a wealthy businessman, a politician, or a rabbi, we are tempted to say, “But he is religious, he is Jewish – he should know and act better!”

Yet, how many of us are perfect?  Certainly not I!  And while we may each make different mistakes, we do all make mistakes.  Some people do not follow the commandments to keep kosher; others do not pay employees on time.  Some engage in forbidden sexual activities; others steal things.  Some speak badly of other people; others violate the Sabbath.  We really do not have room to judge because we are none of us perfect.   And yet, we can try to be.

This week’s parsha offers a compelling tip on how to overcome your forbidden desires.  A soldier who goes to war and sees a woman he wants to take for himself is told that he can take her home and… shave her head, let her nails grow jagged, and then wait 30 days.  It is funny how if the woman is forbidden, the Torah does not come out and right away tell the soldier he cannot have her.  Instead, he is told he can have her… later.

We can apply this principle to every temptation in life.  If we want to eat something not kosher, we can tell ourselves, “Yes, I will have it… later.”  If we get angry and want to yell, we can tell ourselves, “Yes, I will scream and shout… later.”  If we want to watch the footy instead of spending time with our kids, we can tell ourselves, “I’ll watch the second half of the game… later.”  Usually by the time later comes around you’ll find you don’t want it anymore… or you will have forgotten it completely.

You see, our evil inclination and our desire to do the wrong thing is challenged when we tell ourselves we can’t have something.  It’s why we crave chocolates on a diet and cheeseburgers when we try to keep kosher.  If we tell ourselves “NO!” we want it even more.  But if we tell ourselves yes, then that voice becomes quiet.  The trick is to tell ourselves yes… but later.

Hopefully this trick will help us all in our quest to become better people!

Shabbat shalom!

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Parshas Shoftim: Jewish Justice Means No Bribery

Earlier this week, a friend asked a question: “Why is it so hard for women to cover their hair once they are married?”  Cynically, another mutual friend responded to her: “Well, you can get permission from the rabbis to do anything – even uncover your hair – if you only have enough money!”

Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot Are Soon: Try Cooking Ahead!

The chagim are coming up and by my calculations, there will be 18 meals this year, during which we will entertain guests.  That means I need approximately 36 loaves of challah, plus all the other trappings of meals.  I know that if I wait until the last minute I’ll be in big trouble, so I want to make everything I can ahead of time, leaving only last-minute or fresh salads to make during the holidays.

The best thing to do is just to cook ahead.  The general rule of thumb is that if it has some form of fat in it, it should freeze up pretty well.  Here are some ideas of what I’ve got on the menu:

I’ve got a few soups frozen already. We eat hot soup year round, although you could do a cold soup (like gazpacho or vichyssoise) if you will be in a hot climate. Most soups freeze well, although chunks of potatoes don’t do so well & Mark Bittman advises to leave out any dairy ingredients (or faux dairy ingredients) until you thaw it. Right now I have a minestrone, broccoli/cauliflower, potato spinach, and some tomato basil soup in the freezer… parsnip soup on the stove to be frozen tonight. And by the way, French onion soup freezes beautifully.

I also freeze things like casseroles and kugels. I have creamy tuna pasta bake in the freezer right now, as well as potato kugel. Planning to freeze carrot kugel as well. But other kugels, like broccoli kugel or spinach kugel, will freeze up nicely.  So will quiches, frittatas, or Spanish style omelets. We usually have some of those in the freezer at all times just as backup for a hungry visitor (or husband!).

You can also freeze desserts. I have cheesecake, chocolate cake, and banana cake in the freezer. I’m planning on doing some apple cake as well… I’ll probably leave the honeycake my hubby requested until the very end. You can also do cold fruit compote for desserts and freeze them ahead – I have pear compote & apple compote frozen & ready to go, and I might make more apple compote soon, too. I’ve got too many apples!

I hope this little guide will give you a good idea of some things to start cooking.  Work on it now and hopefully the holidays will be no problem at all!

PS – There are other things that freeze well that you wouldn’t necessarily think of. Roasted capsicum (red bell pepper), for instance. Rice also freezes well.