In the Sukkah We Shall Sit for 7 Days...

As the Jewish New Year holiday season continues into it's final stretch we are in final preparations for sukkot.  I procrastinated planning our sukkah with a sense of overwhelm.  Most of my holiday focus is generally on menu planning, food shopping, cooking, baking and finding enough freezer space. My husband took care of building the structure, electrical wiring and some back-up fans as protection against the impending heat wave. I was tasked with interior design. 

I felt a certain amount of pressure for the decorating of our sukkah to be a great experience for my kids and me together and at the same time a desire for it to be elegant and welcoming home for the next 7 days.  Childhood memories crept in with what seemed like hours of standing on ladders, cutting string, hanging and re-hanging all of the shiny decorations until they were correctly fastened and I quickly realized having my kids share this process with me from start to finish would be fun for nobody.  

I finally felt the inspiration today, (there's nothing like the last minute- the holiday begins after a full work day tomorrow) and ran a quick errand to Michael's Crafts. They had some fantastic floral arrangements, really pretty silk hydrangeas in fall jewel tones that would be perfect.  I caught a roll of burlap twine in the sale bin on the way out and the best little hint, translucent, elastic fish wire meant for jewelry making and voila our elegant sukkah awaits...my kids will add the finishing touches in the morning, putting their personal stamp on it and making this a great experience for all.

And because I can't resist, a sample menu for the holiday.
Chag Sameach!

Round Cinnamon Challahs

Chicken won-tons with apricot dipping sauce

Prime Rib Part Deux

Braised Honey Mustard Garlic Chicken Thighs with Shallots

Roasted vegetable platter: beet Fries, brussel sprouts, squash

Mashed Parsnip Soufflé with Caramelized Onions

Cherry Tomato Crisp

Shitake Asparagus Green Salad 

Chocolate Caramel and Pecan tart

Berries

The Sweet Smells of the New Year

As the Jewish New Year approaches I am reminded of the year I started this blog and the preparations that inspired it.  The weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the first of the Jewish holidays that begins at sundown this Wednesday, are a flurry of menu planning. Meals are full of the old world recipes that come courtesy of my Mom and remind me of the tastes and smells of the holiday which I always celebrated with my grandparents. In addition, I have begun to repeat some of the recipes I have discovered over the last few years, and am eager to try some brand new combinations that will inject just enough original flavor to mark this as the New Year.

I feel especially accomplished this year as I take stock of some of the more recent recipes that have become part of the holiday tradition in our family. I feel as though the smells and tastes I’m creating will live on for decades as our children grow and reminisce about the holidays of their childhood.  

This all became clear to me right after school started. My son saw me gathering recipes for Rosh Hashanah and asked after his favorite holiday ingredient, Heirloom Melons, which I use to make Heirloom Melon Gazpacho. These specific melons can only be found at this time of year, and have quickly become a family favorite.  

The gazpacho, originally appearing in a Los Angeles Times Rosh Hashanah menu by Tierra Sur’s Chef Todd Aarons, is the perfect mix of savory and sweet.  I made my yearly trip for Heirloom Melons at the specialty produce market and brought home the aromatic melons that fill my house with the sweet smells of the approaching holiday.

Another tried and true staple of our Rosh Hashanah table is the date and cranberry soda bread adapted from this Martha Stewart recipe.  We’ve taken to calling it our Rosh Hashanah Bread, which I serve as a complement to the traditional round raisin challahs. I’ve replaced the milk with soymilk and the butter with Organic Buttery Sticks and added chopped pitted dates.  Served slightly warm and dipped in honey, it is like beginning the meal with dessert and guaranteeing a sweet New Year.

This year I’m adding some new recipes to my holiday repertoire:

• Braised orange ginger short ribs with driedapricots made with meaty cross cut short ribs are just the right consistency, tender and delicious.
• Roasted Butternut Squash & Red Onion withTahini & Za’atar from the renowned new cookbook Jerusalem is a great mix of flavors to suit most tastes. 
• Persimmon Pomegranate salad, which I will likely substitute with nectarines given the early date of Rosh Hashanah this year -- it’s not quite Persimmon season yet.

Here are two sample menus I’ve planned.  Hoping to inspire your New Year – May your kitchen be filled with sweet smells and timeless traditions!

Rosh Hashanah Dinner:

Raisin Challah

Rosh Hashanah Date Cranberry Bread adapted from Martha Stewart's Irish Soda Bread

Apple and Honey

Chicken Soup

Fish Head and Gefilte Fish

Standing Rib Roast

Pomegranate Honey Chicken

Roasted Butternut Squash & Red Onion with Tahini and Za'atar

Traditional Cabbage and Carrots

Persimmon Pomegranate Salad Adapted with baby spinach, and pumpkin seeds

French Green beans with Roasted Garlic and basil garnish

Individual baked apples cooked with wine and sweet crumble topping, recipe courtesy of Miriam Mark

Vanilla ice cream

Berries

Rosh Hashanah Lunch:

Raisin challah

Rosh Hashanah Date and Cranberry Bread

Heirloom Melon Gazpacho

Guacamole

Braised Orange Ginger Short Ribs with Dried Apricots

Panko Curry Chicken Tenders with Dijon Shallot sauce

Roasted Garlic Parsley Asparagus

Yellow tomato, avocado and basil salad

Salad with Fig Vinaigrette, blood oranges, hearts of palm and roasted red onions

Shlishkalach

Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with brownies served in waffle cone bowls adapted from this recipe 

Chocolate Chip and sea salt cookies

Berries

Why is This Night More Fun Than All Other Nights?

With Passover quickly approaching most of us are so focused on spring cleaning and menu planning that we often forget about some fun ways to prepare for a family Seder that can be the real highlight of the holiday.  

My children spend weeks in Jewish day school preparing for Passover.  They learn the order of events, scour their classroom cubbies for bread crumbs, and sing every known tune about frogs in Pharoh's bed.  They come ready to the table with their personalized projects and the evening usually culminates with their performance of the Four Questions. Nothing is unexpected.

This year I challenge you to turn the tables.

Instead of sitting back and waiting for them to bring all the excitement to your table, surprise your kids with some fun Seder activities that bring this holiday ritual to life and keep them engaged even after they secure their Afikoman prizes.

These fun Seder ideas will delight your kids with the knowledge that you did more to prepare for commemorating the Exodus from Egypt than grind the apples to make the Charoset:

On My Way Out of Egypt, I Couldn't Live Without My... 

Gather some random items around the house and place them in an old suitcase or funny looking bag.  Make sure the other adults at your table dont see what you have selected. Items you put in the bag can range from obvious to ridiculous; some examples are sunglasses, stuffed animals, band aids, plunger, comic book etc. The prep for this game is particularly fun to do with the kids; they'll love being the ones to select the items and force the adults to do some improv.  

Pass the bag around the table at various points throughout the Seder and have the person who gets it dig in to pull out an unidentified item and quickly come up with a reason to explain why they couldn't leave Egypt without this essential item. The fun of having no idea what object you are going to get and the spontaneity of having to perform in front of your company will no doubt generate big laughs.

Seder Bingo

What better way to capture all the details during the seder than to turn it into a Bingo Game?  My sister ingeniously created this Passover Bingo Board for her website FunInJerusalem and suggests playing it with marshmallows as Bingo markers (reminiscent of the marshmallows our father distributed to us anytime we participated in our childhood seders- while sneaking a few of his own).

Bingo can be played by young and old and include everyone at your seder table. The kids will love competing with their grown relatives and friends.  The board is filled with Passover images that appear throughout the story of the Haggadah, and is a great way to get the kids into it long after the Four Questions are over.

Passover Personalities 20 Questions

A backward version of charades, each person at the seder is cast in the role of a Passover character, but the catch is they don't know who.  Create paper crowns with a card attached to the front facing the crowd so that the table can see the players character even though he cant see it himself.  The player then gets the opportunity to ask 20 questions he can come up with in order to figure out which Passover character he is playing that night.  


Some obvious ones include Pharaoh or Moses, but you can also add some fun ones, like wild animals from the 10 plagues or the wicked child of the Four Sons. Kids love guessing and leading each other with clues to figure out their Passover characters.

Frog Finder
What's the Passover story without a recounting of the frogs that plagued Egypt and found their way into every crevice of Pharoh's palace?  Buy a simple sheet of green stickers such as these circular labels made by Avery and quickly stick them in various hidden and obvious spots all over the house.  Wait until the kids get antsy and announce that the plague of frogs has taken over the house. As the Egyptian clean up crew, they are challenged to see how many frogs they can collect on a plain white sheet of paper.  


The winner with the most frog stickers collected wins some special honor at the table or a replica of Moshe's staff, anything to keep them proud.  This one can go on for quite a while and give them some time to stretch their legs, though the warning of course is that you may find little green frog stickers for months to come depending on how meticulous your little sleuths are.


Most importantly have fun, it's the best way to show your kids how much you care about the day.


What are some of your best Passover Seder hints to liven up the festivities? 

Ok Kids, Time to Play With Your Food!

Thanks to my sister for sending along this fun dinner idea she saw on the web. I’ve recently been inspired to  try some of these more outlandish culinary experiments, a great diversion for kids on a long Sunday afternoon.

This one in particular looked pretty self-explanatory.  After the requisite hand washing, I put a bowl of raw spaghetti and a bowl of cut hot dog pieces in front of my kids and told them to go to town.

It took a few minutes to get the right system down and prevent the spaghettis from snapping.  But after some practice, (and intervention from Dad’s analytical brain) we started to place the hot dog pieces on a bunch of spaghetti all at once, making for the perfect kebobs.

Sweet Sunday Soiree

Introducing guest blogger Suzanne, a fellow foodie, friend and consummate hostess. Enjoy for the scrumptious contribution...

Thanks to LifesSweetLemons Entertaining inspiration for helping me decide to throw a brunch-- for 12, on a recent Sunday morning at my home.

Brunch food is always a favorite, and these foods did not disappoint! I've collected brunch recipes for a while, and was happy to put them to good use. The best and worst thing about brunch is that there's not a lot you can prepare in advance, since these foods all taste better right out of the oven, so Sunday morning ends up being hectic, to say the least.

On the table, set with a created runner made of white tea towels with red borders, white ceramic plates piled on either end of the table, and small bunches of yellow seasonal flowers scattered about we dined on many local delicacies: 5 types of bread from Fairway (one thing the East Coast has over the West, in my opinion!) including cranberry walnut, Ciabatta, 7 grain, and lavash, accompanied by strawberry butter (http://www.marthastewart.com/318755/strawberry-butter), homemade tomato jam, and sweet orange marmalade. 

Light Up the Nights

I've thoroughly enjoyed this week of Chanukah celebration.  The kids were thrilled to bring home their personally crafted Menorahs, each with their own individual flare.  We've lit them each night with pride and celebration of the miracles we commemorate on Chanukah and appreciate in our daily lives.


Of course any celebration wouldn't be complete without a festive meal, for which I tried a few new, and some very successful, recipes. 



Chef Todd Aarons of Tiera Sur at Herzog Wine Cellars, Oxnard, California published a holiday menu on Epicurious some of which I am sure to include henceforth in my yearly repertoire.  His Yukon Gold Potato and Jerusalem Artichoke Latkes were spectacular and a big hit for those who are bored of the traditional deep fried latke of old.  The Jerusalem artichokes, though not easy to find in stores (I found mine at Whole Foods) added a savory flavor to the potato pancakes that was easily recognizable and delicious.  The latkes were perfectly complemented by Aarons' Apple-Horseradish Mayonnaise, a really unique dipping sauce with a great mix of flavors that can easily be used year round to complement roasted meats or fish dishes.  

I was somewhat less successful with my attempt at the Pavlova with Cranberry Orange Compote as seen on ABC's daytime cooking show, The Chew.  Carla Hall made it seem easy to whip up the meringue and bake it to perfection, when my actual trials (yes plural), failed miserably when I tried transferring the beautiful whipped confection from the baking sheet to the wire cooling rack.  Nonetheless, the cranberry orange compote was perfectly tangy and tart with the complement of fresh mint garnish.  Served in individual bowls with the meringue base, nobody ever would have suspected it was supposed to be otherwise.

It's been a fantastic holiday- despite the endless array of new trinkets that made their way into our home- those who know me well know that our toys fear for their lives when I enter the playroom with my giveaway bags--- ready or not, here I come! 

It's Party Time

This past weekend, I had the great fortune to jointly host a post wedding celebration for our good friends Ian and Sharona.  Apart from the obvious nostalgia I shared with my husband for being a newly married, young couple in love -- for those in need of clarification, we are still very much in love, still young, and most definitely a couple, but somehow not quite the same -- it was such a fun opportunity to plan a great party at our home from soup to nuts.  We jointly hosted our evening soiree with friends Miriam and Ari and shared the responsibilities for party planning and execution, making it both more manageable and a great shared accomplishment.

Though it would be hard to determine which aspect of the party experience was most enjoyable, perhaps the greatest satisfaction came from seeing our home transformed from its regular living layout to an open space filled with the sounds of celebration.

The food wasn't bad either. We went with a dairy inspired menu: Hors d'oeuvres of bruschetta, polenta and crudite; Appetizer of french onion soup; Main dishes of almond and herb crusted salmon, caprese, quinoa salad and portobello parmesan lasagna; And a finale of caramel chocolate torte and white chocolate cheesecake... No doubt a food enthusiast's delight!

For more photos of our evening and at-home party planning inspiration check out the full album slideshow after the jump...

And Next, An Internship with Frank Lloyd Wright

Coming up with an activity to entertain my 4 year old is often a challenge during her brother's homework time.  After school there's lots to accomplish -- dinner to eat, showers to be taken, relaxation to be had, and of course the ever important bedtime.  But this year, homework has made it's way into our nightly rituals and it's staking a claim on a good percentage of the evening routine.

While I'm working on establishing our own household best practices on homework (for another post), I often find it hard to entertain our pre-schooler during this time.  Turning to anything media related is too much of a distraction for the 1st grade scholar, and I often need the time myself to pull together our dinner after a full day at the office. In comes my beloved Pinterest to the rescue.  Whether it's Design, Spaces or Provisions, I love using this site for cataloging fantastic ideas- virtual inspiration at my fingertips. 

On a recent perusal through my Pinterest muses, I noticed a photo of a great activity, perfect for entertaining my 4 year old while improving her innovation skills.  And the best news was that it wasn't something that would send me to the store for a long list of random crafts.  All I needed was a colander and some pipe cleaners.  I gave them both to her and was quite impressed with the modern architecture she produced, and yes the homework could be completed without interruption...