Rosh Hashana - Part Two: The Food

If I've learned one thing since becoming a mom, it's that when you entertain, you should keep things simple.  So when it came time to planning the menu for our Rosh Hashana dinner, I stuck with dishes that were really good, but also really easy to make.  I also used my chafing dishes to keep the warm dishes warm so that I didn't have to wait to the last minute to put everything out (and I didn't have to keep reheating the dishes before guests went back for seconds and thirds).

The Dinner Menu:

• Gefilte Fish

•   Israeli Salad

•  Butter Lettuce Salad with Beets and Corn

•  Round Challahs

•  Green Beans with Tomatoes

•  Israeli Cous Cous with Lentils

• Sweet Potato Apple Bake  

• Brisket

 

The Dessert Table 

A Rosh Hashana dinner is full of sweet symbols for a sweet new year.  So I figured it was appropriate to have a sweet table, full of sweet things.

 

 

• Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries (I doubled the recipe that I found here).  These were a huge hit, and so simple to make.  The only thing I would do different next time, is that I used a ziplock bag with the corner cut off to fill the strawberries and it was really messy.  Next time, I would use a real piping bag or a spoon.

 

• Chocolate Lacies (store purchased)
• Meringue Cookies (store purchased)

•  Grapes

• Carmel Apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - We sliced them to make it easier to eat and share. 

• Chocolate Moose
• Chocolate Covered Strawberries
• Apple Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream
• Apple Pie Pops (from a recipe I found here - I used frozen Pillsbury pie crust and they came out great). 

Rosh Hashana - Part One: The Tablescape

One of my favorite parts of planning for a holiday, is figuring out the tablescape.  This year, I wanted something elegant and simple, so I stuck with silver, white, and green.

I found really inexpensive silver satin tablecloths (here), and I made simple centerpieces out of white hydrangeas and roses with some green accent flowers.  I had planned on using green orchids, but couldn't find them.  The smaller filler flowers worked just fine.

For the seating cards, I found small apples at Michael's and I cut out little leaves with everyone's name on them.  I punched a hole in each leaf and hung it on an apple.  (I am a big fan of seating cards for a formal holiday dinner - I don't have to deal with everyone asking me where to sit while I'm trying to get the food ready, and I can also arrange the seating in a way that ensures good conversations around the entire table).

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Halloween Playdate

 

I don't think there is anything cuter than a bunch of babies dressed in adorable Halloween costumes!  So it seemed like a no-brainer that I should throw a Halloween Playdate.  The challenge - maternity leave was over, and I didn't have much free time.

Decor:

I tried to keep it really simple and baby friendly - nothing too scary.  I mainly stayed with black and orange, and happy pumpkins and such.  I curled black, orange, and white ribbon and hung it from the ceiling at the edge of each room.  I also hung ribbons and small pumpkins from the chandelier that was over the food table.

Menu:


The party was between meals in the afternoon.  I decided to just do desserts to keep it simple.  If I were to do it again, I would have had another table with snacks.  I think a lot of people skipped lunch and having substantial snacks would have been better.  Lesson learned! 

• Cupcakes
• Worms in dirt (just chocolate pudding, crushed oreos, and a gummy worm)

• Chocolate spiders
• Fruit Kebabs
• Halloween Oreos
• Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
• Pumpkin Pie (from Costco)
• Candy!

I also had a small spread out for the babies (who were mostly between 5 and 9 months):

I didn't have time to make any personalized labels for the soda bottles, but I found these premade labels from Party City for $1.99, and they worked great (it probably would have cost me more to make them). 

My favorite part was the skull and bones ice that I made with these ice trays

Activities:
I spread blankets on the floor, and I spread my son' toys around the blankets for the babies to play with.  I also set up a coloring station for the older siblings.  I printed free Halloween coloring pages from the Internet and I put crayons in a pumpkin treak or treat pail.  The best activity of all was seeing the kids all together in their costumes.

Valentine's Day Feast

As much as I enjoy heading out to dinner on a fake holiday and waiting over an hour for a table (even though I have a reservation), this year we decided to spend Valentines Day with an economic-friendly night at home. For a quarter of the price of a fancy dinner, I made my husband a four course meal in the comfort of our home and pajamas.

The Menu:

Citrus Salad

This is a popular salad in our household. I usually just mix together baby spinach, apples, oranges, sliced almonds, and Brianna's Homemade Dressing, and it's a huge hit every time.

For Valentine's Day I tried to fancy things up by shedding the apple in a food processor.

Lentil Soup

I first came across the recipe for this soup when I wanted to make a lentil soup for New Year's Eve a couple of years ago. It is one of my favorite soups. I follow the recipe exactly as written, except: (1) Before I add in the pasta I puree two cups of the soup in a blender (and hopefully I remember to expose the whole in the blender top and cover it with a towel - trust me, you don't want to forget to do this); and (2) I throw in the pasta 10 minutes before I am ready to serve the soup (even if it is ready before then) because the pasta absorbs the liquid in the soup very quickly.

As an added bonus, this soup is great for leftovers. I either eat it later as a stew (I wasn't kidding about the pasta absorbing the liquid quickly), or when I reheat it, I add chicken broth to turn it back into soup.

If you didn't believe me about that pasta, above is proof of the stew leftovers.

Chicken Picatta

This is one of my husband's favorite dishes when we eat out, but I've never made this dish myself before. I thought I would give it a try, and it turned out great! I even made a "healthier" version by using margarine instead of butter, but you could not tell. Another bonus: It turns out chicken picatta takes about 9 minutes to make. This might end up on our weekly dinner menu rotation.

For a fun Valentine's Day touch the entree was heart shaped.

Mashed Potatoes

The grocery store didn't have the potatoes I usually use for making mashed potatoes, so I grabbed baby red potatoes instead. My secret to making them is that I heat the milk and butter before I add them to the potatoes, and I mash the potatoes with the skin still on the potatoes.

For a special touch, I packed the mashed potatoes into an egg ring (thanks to my bridal registry) and packed them down with a spoon. After I lifted the egg ring, I had perfect round patties of mashed potato.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Raspberries

It was probably just as fun making these as it was to eat them. Although the original plan was to sprinkle white chocolate stripes across each of them, the white chocolate did not cooperate.

I had some extra chocolate after dipping the strawberries, so I dipped a couple of raspberries in the chocolate (why should it go to waste?). The raspberries were great. I think I might make them again as a bite sized dessert.

Next time, I also might experiment with milk chocolate (and, I will do proper research about how to properly melt white chocolate).

Raspberry Tartlettes

I bought frozen filo dough tart shells, and I filled the shells with a mixture of vanilla pudding and fat free cool whip. I topped each tartlette with a raspberry. They were OK, but I would make some adjustments if I made these again. I probably would have spread melted chocolate on the bottom of each tart to fix the texture and to make them a little less bland.