Rosh Hashanah Recipes and Crafts

Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year) - Tishrei 1-2 - is the beginning of the Jewish year. Rosh Hashanah begins the ten days of self examination and repentance before Yom Kippur.

At the synagogue, the shofar (a trumpet made from a ram's horn) is blown. Traditional foods are challah, apples dipped in honey to symbolize the coming sweet year, fish heads to symbolize success (to be at the head and not at the tail) and pomegranates that symbolize fertility because of their many seeds. Greeting cards for the New Year (H: Shana Tova) are sent to friend and family.

Ingredients:
7 cups flour
1 1/2 cup cold water
2 packages of dried yeast
1/3 cup warm water
3 eggs + 1 for glazing
1/2 cup oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Sesame or poppy seeds

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast in warm water and sugar and let stand for 10 minutes.
Mix the yeast, eggs, oil, and salt in a large bowl.
Add flour and water a little at a time and knead well until the dough is elastic.
Cover the dough and leave in a warm place to rise for 4 hours until almost double.
Part to 3 balls of even dough, roll them to make three long rolls, pinch the tips of the three of them together and braid them. Pinch the ends together. If you want to make a round Challah, roll the braded dough in a shape of a snail.
Place the challah on a greased pan and let rise for another 1 hour.
Brush the top of the Challah with egg and sprinkle sesame or poppy seeds.
Bake in medium heat of 350 F for 40 minutes until golden brown.

Kids Corner
Kids love to make their own personal Challah. They can top it with any combination; chocolate chips, nuts, M&Ms, small candy, raisins, sprinkles, etc.

Ingredients for fish patties:
Matzo Meal to knead
1 kilogram of ground Carp fish
2 ground onions
3 ground carrots
1 ground celery root
2 ground hard-boiled eggs
1 uncooked egg
Pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
Ingredients for sauce:
Head of Carp fish
1 onion sliced
2 cut carrots
1 teaspoon of salt
Pinch of pepper

Preparation for fish patties:

Mix all ingredients and add Matzo meal so you can knead the fish patties.

Preparation for sauce:

Put all the ingrediates in a large pot, with enough water that the fish head is completely covered.
Boil the water.
Add the fish patties, if necessary, they can be in two layers. Make sure the water covers all the fish patties.
Boil again and lower the heat to minimum.
Cook for 2 hours.
Take immediately out of the water: the fish patties, fish head, carrots and onions, when they are done. Keep the sauce separately.
Arrange in a pan and refrigerate for 24 hours. You can add sauce on top of the fish when serving and decorate the fish with carrots and onion rings.

Ingredients:
1/2 chicken cut to pieces
2 onions
Celery root or 4 stalks of celery
1 bunch of parsley
6 peeled carrots
4 zucchini
1 tablespoons of instant chicken soup powder
A pinch or two of ground pepper. Use white pepper if available.
1 tablespoon of salt

Preparation:

Clean the chicken and remove the skin and as much of the fat as you can.
Put the chicken in water in a large pot and add all the ingredients.
Wash all vegetables.
Cut onions and carrots. Cut the Zucchini tips.
Add the celery root (in one piece) or celery stalks and the bunch of parsley. Keep the parsley in one bunch using a string.
Add salt, pepper and instant chicken soup powder.
Cover with water and boil, lower the heat and cook for an hour on medium heat.
When ready, take out the celery root or the celery stalks and the parsley bunch. Serve the soup with chicken and vegetables.

Ingredients for dough:
2 cups of flour
2 egg yolk
1/2 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Ingredients for meat filing:
1 tablespoon of breadcrumbs
1 chopped large onion
1 cup of cooked ground meat
1 egg
2 cups of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
A pinch of ground pepper

Preparation:

Knead the dough and cover with a towel.
Prepare the filling: fry onion and meat for a short time. Add all the filling ingredients.
Knead the dough again and roll the dough flat until it is very thin.
Cut to squares of 2.5 inch (6 cm). Put 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle of each square.
Wet the edges of the square and fold one corner of the square on the opposite corner to make a triangle and pinch all around each piece.
Cook the dumplings in boiling water with a pinch of salt. for 15 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 lb (0.5 kg) ground beef
2 dry bread slices
2 onions
3 celery sticks
2 carrots optional
1 egg
A pinch of salt
A pinch of ground pepper
A pinch of garlic powder
Ingredients for sauce:
1 cup of tomato Sauce
1/3 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of ground parsley
Pinch of ground pepper
Pinch of garlic powder

Preparation:

Grind the celery, onion, and carrots in food processor.
Drain the excess water.
Wet the bread, drain the water out.
Mix all ingredients together.
Knead to make beef patties.
Cut onion to small squares and fry in a pan.
Add beef and fry the beef patties on both sides.
In a large pot arrange the beef patties.
Mix all sauce ingredients with water to cover the beef patties. Put a little sauce then one layer of patties, add some sauce and lay the second layer of patties. You may need a third layer.
Bring pot to boil and then cook on low heat for 1.5 hours.

Ingredients:
2 lb (0.5 kg) potatoes
1.5 cups of flour
1 egg
Salt

Preparation:

Clean the potatoes and cook with the skin in a pot until soft.
Peel the skin and mash in a potato ricer.
In a large bowl mix the mashed potato, slat, eggs and flour to make dough. Add flour until the dough is not too sticky but not too dry also. Don’t put too much flour.
Spread some flour on a flat surface.
Roll the dough to long snack like thin rolls and cut small pieces of dough.
With a fork press on the piece to make a little indentations.
Drop the pieces of dough into salted boiling water and cook until it floats.

Ingredients for cake:
4 ounces (about 100 gr.) of poppy seeds
8 ounces (about 200 gr.) of sour cream
1 ¼ cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 ¼ cups of sugar
4 ounces (about 100 gr.) of unsalted margarine
5 eggs
1/4 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Ingredients for chocolate glazing:
4 ounces (about 100 gr.) of semi bitter baking chocolate
2 ounces (about 50 gr.) of powdered sugar
2 ounces (about 50 gr.) of unsalted butter
2 table spoons of hot water
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preparation of cake:

Soak poppy seeds in 3/4 cup milk 2 hours.
Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.
Bake in the oven in 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes. The cake is ready if you stick a toothpick in the middle of the cake and it comes out dry.

Preparation of chocolate glazing:

In a double boiler boil water.
Put all the ingredients and melt while mixing.
Spread on the cake when the cake cools down.
Refrigerate.

Materials:
1 cup of Flour
1 cup of salt
Water
Food coloring
Water coloring

Preparation:

Mix the salt and flour.
Add a little water at a time to the mix of flour and salt until ready to knead, but not too dry or too sticky.
You can add food coloring to the dough.
Sculpt the dough and bake in oven in 200 degrees Celsius until it hardens. Check after 5 minutes. These instructions are for flat sculptures, if you make a big sculpture, the length of the baking could be much longer even up to an hour.
To wear or to hang, put a hole at the top of the sculpture.
You can color with watercolors paints after the dough has cooled.

Ideas for Rosh Hashanah sculpture: an apple, a dove, or challah.

Materials:
2 pairs of panty hose (nylon tights)
Tissue or newspaper stuffing
Round basket
Scissors
Needle and thread
Large round decorative laced paper

Preparation:

Cut each pair of panty hose in two. We'll need a total of 3 legs.
Tie one end of each panty hose leg.
Stuff each pantyhose leg with tissue or newspaper. The tissue is easier to stuff.
Tie all three stuffed pantyhose together.
Braid them together. (For braiding you can refer to the diagram of the challah braiding earlier on this page.)
Coil them tightly and tuck the ends under them.
Sew them in place under the Challah.
Put the large round decorative laced paper in the basket and put the Challah on it.

Materials:
Construction paper
Ruler
Pencil
Scissors
Family member pictures
Glue stick
Markers

Preparation:

Draw a house with the number of windows that corresponds with the number of your family members. Use a ruler.
Cut the windows: cut the top horizontal line and the bottom horizontal line but not the vertical lines.
Cut the middle of the window so you can fold half the window left and half right to make flaps.
Glue another construction paper the same shape and size under the one with the cut windows.
Glue pictures of the family in the windows or draw them.
Write a Shana Tova message on the outside card, such as on the roof.

Materials:
Red Felt Tip Markers
Eraser
Pencil
White Construction Paper
Glue

Preparation:

Fold the rectangle construction paper to make a card.
On the outside fold, lightly sketch a big pomegranate shape outline with a pencil.
With a red marker write in small letters sentences or words that are connected with Rosh Hashanah such as: Happy Rosh Hashanah, Have a sweet year, Pomegranate, etc.
Carefully erase the outline.
On the inside fold write a Rosh Hashanah greeting.

You can also make an Apple Word greeting card.

Materials:
Dove template (open and print)
String
Glue
Scissors

Preparation:

Print the Dove template.
Cut the outline of the Dove and along the black lines.
Fold the Dove in the middle along the dotted line.
Cut out the wing, fold in half, and fold back along the dotted line. Glue the small part between the middle and the dotted line and glue on the Dove's body in the middle between the 2 black dots on the back.
Cut out the tail and fold along the dotted line. Glue to the backside of the Dove.
Punch 2 small holes on the back of the Dove and run strings through the holes so you can hang it. If you want to hang through a chandelier you can use longer strings.

Materials:
Blue and white construction paper
Scissors
Glue
Ruler

Preparation:

Take a large blue construction paper and fold it.
Use a ruler to mark lines, from the bottom folded part almost to the top page, but not all the way, and leave 1 inch (about 2.5 cm) not marked.
Start the makes 2 inches (about 5 cm) from the left and leave 2 inches not marked on the right.
Cut along the marked lines.
Cut 1 inch (about 2.5 cm) wide, long strips of different shade of blue and white construction paper.
Weave them between the strips of the large blue construction paper.
Cut the edges of the long strips so they are the same length.
Glue the edges.
The best way to protect the placemat is to laminate it in a copier store so it can be used for many more years.

Materials:
Flat smooth small rocks
Feathers
Acrylic paint
Googly eyes

Preparation:

Clean the rocks and dry them.
Paint the rocks as fish.
Glue googly eyes.
Glue feathers as tails.
Decorate the table.

Materials:
Flour
Salt
Water
Balloon
Strips of newspapers
School liquid glue
Watercolors

Preparation:

Dip strips of newspaper in glue and put them on top of each other to make a basic shape of a fruit.
If you want a ball shape you can inflate a balloon and glue the strips of paper to the balloon. You will need at least 3 layers of paper to hold the shape, but after 2 layers leave to dry.
After the basic shape of the apple is ready you can add smaller shapes with little pieces of paper, such as a leaf. After about 2 days when the paper sculpture is dry, you can paint it with watercolors.

You can also make a Pomegranate for Rosh Hashanah.

Rosh Hashanah Recipes and Crafts

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah Recipes

Challah

Minced Fish Patties - Gefilte Fish

Chicken Soup With Vegetables

Meat Dumplings - Kreplach

Beef Patties - Ktzitzot

Potato Dumplings - Gnocchi

Poppy seed cake

Rosh Hashanah Kids Crafts

Dough sculpture

Stuffed Round Challah

Family Rosh Hashanah Greeting Card (Shana Tova)

Rosh Hashanah Greeting Card - Word Pomegranate

3D Dove

Woven Placemat

Fish Rocks

Paper Mache Apple Sculpturing