The Holiday Marathon!

Firstly I would like to thank you for hanging in there, it has certainly been a while since I last posted. But I do have a good excuse. The day after Yom Kippur, Efi and I flew to Israel for the Sukkot holidays, so I was off cooking duties, but that did not stop me from eating any less!!!

It was a rather spur of the moment break and was not planned well in advance, with just a month to book and plan everything. For me this was a great trip as I had never celebrated Sukkot before and had no idea what it was really all about and what better place to learn than in Israel itself!!! So what did I learn? Well there is a LOT of eating!! LOL which holiday is there not! But funny how Shabbos and first and last day of Sukkot fell so close to each other which resulted in a lot of cook meals with lots of friends and family. This is what I love about the Jewish faith is that these holidays brings everybody together.

Now I did not pick up any particular dishes that is served purposely to celebrate the Sukkot holiday but just very similar to the Shabbos dinner. What was great is all the different and many Sukkots that were erected for the holidays all over the country in peoples gardens at home, at restaurants and coffee shops and the very elegant one at the Kotel. 

Some beautifully decorated with lights, tinsel, hand made decorations from the children and fruit ornaments.

And then we witnessed and experienced the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit!! What celebrations!!!!!

We were also present for 2 births in the family and of friends, so really a great vacation with much celebrations!

So now we are back in Cape Town and I have been put back on cooking duties, but after every such vacation I have always a motivation to prepare new dishes I had experienced while in Israel.

However like many of you after cooking and cleaning after the holiday marathon, and then too getting back to work have very little energy to spend hours in the kitchen. Many of us have full time jobs, children - another full time job, however the children I do not have, but I am studying which I am very near at the end of my course and so I wondered how we do it we can prepare a spread on the dining room table without it looking like we have not put much work into it. This is how I felt this past Shabbos. Somewhat defeated after trying to catch up on lost work in the office, preparing my course assignments and still catching up on lost sleep from the travelling, but yet it was the first Shabbos back home, this is what I came up with...

Roast Chicken and vegetables in a flash!

This will barely take you 20 minutes to prepare the vegetables before it all goes in the oven and it is great as you can use which ever and what ever you have available in your kitchen.

1 whole chicken cleaned and washed well

5 small baby potatoes cut in half  with skin on

1 sweet potato cut up

2 small onions cut in wedges

3 carrots cut in big rings

2 Celery stalks chopped up

Seasoning of your choice

Arrange all the ingredients in your roasting dish and place in an oven heated to 200 C. Start roasting with the roasting dish lid on and remove after 20 minutes. Turn the grill up to 220 C and grill for a further 15 minutes.

While the oven was on I slipped in an Aubergine and some sliced butternut to roast.

This was all served with a tomato and cucumber salad and Tahini dressing.

And there you have a delicious spread for Shabbos with minimal effort when we all need to give ourselves and little bit of slack J

Shabbat Shalom and Good Shabbos! 

Rosh Hashanah 5772

So it has been an eventful Rosh Hashanah for me. This was the first time that I prepared for Rosh Hashanah. And I must be honest; I have not had much, wait let me rephrase that, had no experience. I have not yet celebrated in Israel before nor with any Jewish family so you can see the challenges that were facing me, someone new to this Jewish festivities and the traditional food that symbolizes these holidays!

However, I have come prepared (if you can call it that?)! I had been researching as much as possible well ahead of time with books, online articles and blogs and boy its amazing how much a person can learn if you possess the passion to learn!

So there I was armed, most determined to make it be the best darn Rosh Hashanah celebration possible while being on our own! And I was most excited! I actually felt like it was the holidays, something that tends to dissipate the older we get. But this year was so different for me, in fact Efi mentioned that he had that feeling too which made me very happy! I grew a bit concerned when I popped in for some last minute shopping to find that the supermarkets shelves were practically empty since we live in a large Jewish community, streets were empty, neighborhood quiet. I thought that just maybe I was in over my head.

So it started off with a chicken, from what I understand I would need to make something sweet from it, and so my first real Rosh Hashanah experience begins…

Grilled pomegranate chicken

1 whole chicken

100% Pomegranate juice

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp date syrup

Pomegranate perils

Sweet carrots (the gold coins)

4 carrots

Honey

½ tsp cinnamon

Grilled Sweet potatoes

2-3 Sweet potatoes

olive oil for brushing

½ pine nuts

Baby spinach or Rocket leaves

Sweet couscous

5-6 Prunes

5-6 Walnuts

Plain couscous

½ Tbsp cinnamon

½ Tbsp icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Pomegranate seeds

Sweet Potato and Apple rostti

1 Sweet potato

1 Apple

1 Egg

Start by preparing your sweet potato, peeled, cut chunky and lengthways, brushed with olive oil and put under the oven grill for approximately 45 mins.

Your chicken can be cleaned and just brushed with a little olive oil and also placed under the grill till crispy.

For the sauce, gently boil the pomegranate juice with the rest of the ingredients, carefully taste and adjust to your taste.

Carrots peeled and cut in rings to resemble that of coins, boiled till soft in water, drained . Put back on a very low heat and add the honey and cinnamon and stir around till all mixed through, approximately 5 mins.

For the rostti, peel both the sweet potato and apple, grate and mix together with the beaten egg. Heat a pan with a little olive oil and drop a tablespoon of the mixture and let brown and gently turn over to brown on the other side and once cooked through place on a paper towel.

Instant couscous prepared as per package instructions, tossed with a fork and a little butter, cinnamon, powdered sugar and pomegranate seeds. Decorate with the prunes which are first pitted, stuffed with the walnut and boiled in a little water till it almost turn to syrup.

Shana Tova!