Rosh Hashanah Feast

Passover is my favorite holiday, followed by Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I'm usually planning a weeks worth of Passover food upwards of a month in advance, but Rosh Hashanah is just one feast meal, so the planning might begin a week ahead, maybe a few days again. I gotta say, sometimes the planning and the cooking is more fun than the eating.

Traditional Rosh Hashanah food is based on the phrase "May you have a sweet year. May God inscribe you in the book of life". So lots of sweet foods (for a sweet year), hand shaped foods (for the Hand of God that inscribes you in the book of life), round foods (for the never ending circle of life), lots of apple and honey, sweetened bread, fruit filled meats and sweet sauces. Having had apples and honey and apples and honey and bread and honey as the "Rosh Hashanah snack" my entire childhood, it was time for apples and honey and bread, just not in the same bite.

For any Jewish Holiday involving food, you gotta have Challah. Just a few minor changes to a regular Challah make it extra sweet and pretty for Rosh Hashanah.

Rosh Hashanah Challah (makes One Challah)

1 pkg dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 egg + 1 egg white for later
1/8 cup honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 oil
2 - 3 cups flour
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in warm water for half hour, then drained

dissolve yeast in the water, with a little bit of honey. let sit 10 minutes or until frothy. beat one egg in a large bowl, then add honey, salt & oil and beat again. now add yeast mixture, and mix well. Add the flour, a little at a time, you shouldn't need all of it, until a soft dough forms. flour your hands, and knead the dough for about 10 minutes, adding more flour if it gets too sticky to handle. put a few drops oil in the bowl, and turn dough to coat. cover, and let rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours. after first rise, punch down, and knead the raisins into the dough.

Sabbath Challah is braided, and Rosh Hashanah Challah is round. Grease a cookie sheet, and pull the dough into a long rope, one end being fatter than the other. put the fat end in the middle of the cookie sheet, and wrap the rope around it. If it resembles a cinamon roll when you're done, you did it right. cover, and let rise for one more hour. half hour before your going to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 400. right before baking, brush the top of the loaf with egg white. bake at 400 for about 30 minutes, or until top is browned.

Let cool completely before eating. Eat hot bread and you'll get a tummyache!

CousCous Stuffing
I wanted to do a stuffed turkey, but i didn't want to go the normal route of stuffing, and i wanted some sweet and filling in there. I also have an unholy love for fried onions.

1 onion
pinch sugar
2 cups prepared CousCous (make it with broth, not water)
1/4 cup chopped dried cherries
5 or 6 chopped dried dates
3-4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp dried cardamom
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
salt & pepper

Slice the onion, and fry in a little oil over medium heat. add the sugar if you want, it will help the onion color faster. after onion is fried and browned to your satisfaction, blend all ingredients and refridgerate at least one hour. after an hour, taste and add more spices as needed.

that's gonna go great in this delicious fruity
Apricot glazed Turkey
Whole Turkey
Apricot preserves- how much you need depends on how big the bird is
salt & pepper
tarragon
olive oil

A little like the famous Bacon Wrapped Turkey Roll, but i didn't feel like deboning the Turkey. make sure the Turkey is completely thawed! put cotton stuffing bag in the cavity, and gently stuff with cooled stuffing. close bag, use toothpicks to keep the opening closed. flip the bird breast up, and gently pull the skin away from the flesh, pulling towards the spine. If your able to pull the skin away from the legs as well, that's even better. Don't completely pull the skin off, it's going to be the "blanket" to keep all the moisting and flavors in. rub the flesh with oil, and season with salt and pepper. brush with apricot preserves and tarragon. now fold the skin back over, and secure down with toothpicks. rub oil over the skin, and season with more salt & pepper. cover with foil, and bake at 350 approx 15 minutes per pound. check with a meat thermometer before you eat it! Not sure how long to cook your turkey, or how to know when it's done? call your Mom or Grandma, they'll know. And they'll be really proud of you for cooking a whole turkey!

Sides:
Sweet Potatoes w/Honey soy glaze
I got this out of a Japanese Cookbook from the library a few years ago. and you just can't go wrong with sweet potatoes.

4 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/4 olive oil
salt
3 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dried ginger

toss potato peices in a bowl with oil and some salt. pour onto a greased rimmed cookie sheet, and roast at 350 for 30 minutes, or until edges are browning. drizzle sauce over, and broil for a minute or two (beware of smoke!! Our smoke alarm almost went off!).

Green Beans with breadcrumbs
Had this at a friends house, and it was love at first bite. Cuz ya'll know I love greenbeans!

1 lb green beans
oil
1 tbsp italian breadcrumbs

saute green beans in oil over medium heat. you want to get a little browning on 'em. when they are bright green with bits of charring, they're done. takes about 8 minutes. combine in a bowl with the breadcrumbs, serve immediately.


Dessert was the deliciously magnificient Cardamom Apple Cake. Again, what a pain in the nect to make, but so delicous it's worth it. we had it with strawberries on the side.

So that was the Rosh Hashanah feast, and it was beyond delicious. Can't wait till Thanksgiving!

downloaded your brain. . . now what?

I read Charlie Stross's Accelerando when it first came out, and it was love at first read. Just recently, I finally bought a trade paperback version. And the fear set it. That I wouldn't like it as much. That maybe it was crap, and I loved it at the time because I just really really wanted to like futuristic cyberpunk.

I'm maybe 150 pages in? Pamela has converted to Islam in an effort to get her daughter, Amber, back (you know, out of context that makes no sense whatsoever). And Manfred is trying to make the economy obsolete, and doing a damn good job of it. Manny rocks my world. Although Pamela scares me.

And I still love it. For completely different reasons. The first time through, I was so enthralled by my future-culture-shock that I missed nearly everything having to do with human rights. Ever read a news story about someone who had their head (or entire body) frozen at the time of death, to have their brain (or entire body) revived at some later date? What kind of rights to they have after they wake up? If their brain is put into someone else's body, does that body have all the rights of the original person? Now amp it up some. You upload your brain into a computer right before you die. Then your brain is downloaded into someone else's body. Are you now that person? What kind of rights do you/they/them/it have? Are human rights attached to a physical meatbody, or to the brain/soul/person who is in that body at that moment?

Here's the beautiful Stross kicker, i'm paraphrasing because the book is across the room and I don't feel like getting up. He quickly discusses a religious group that is arguing the following: if a Muslim downloads their brain into a computer and then dies, is the computer now Muslim? Why or why not? This could hold true for any religion. If you download your brain into a computer, and then you die, does your soul go to heaven? If your soul is hanging out in heaven, and your brain gets downloaded from that computer into someone else's body, what happens to your soul then? Does it get yanked out of heaven and back to earth, into a meatbody? Does that body now have your brain, but not your soul?

How can spirituality work when the mind, body, and possibly soul be three seperate, and seperable things?

And oh, by the way, Accerlerando really isn't about human rights. Well it is, but it's about everything else too. And I still love it.

Also, i'm lazy. I didn't finish decoding the end of Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen. It's due back at the library 2 two days, and I don't think I can finish decoding by then. I'm fighting with myself about just looking the answer up on the internet (damn you internet!!), or going to Kazoo Books and just purchasing the darn thing, so I can go through it and underline seeminly random words and phrases like “grey caps”, and “giant squid”.

Don't tell Mr. Stross, but if I had to choose one author's books to take to a desert island, I'd take Vandermeer's.

I'm even lazier in the kitchen. Had some beautiful green beans, and wanted to do something new with them. Tossed 'em in a skillet with some oil, minced garlic and ground ginger, and stir fried till done (bright green). They were healthy, surprinsingly non-oily, and really tasty.