Rosh Hashanah Simanim

The Simanim are a set of foods for the Jewish High Holy Days.  Like any traditional new year's food, they are symbolic of the hopes for a new year.  Usually, I just do a round challah and apples with honey and call it a day.  This time, I decided to represent as many of the foods as I could.

A lot of it was already in my garden or pantry.  I grow leeks, carrots, and chard.  I had just restocked my date stash.  I had some pomegranate in the freezer and pomegranate molasses in the fridge, but still bought one because it was cheap.  After being decoration, I opened it up for freezer arils.

The hard one for me emotionally was the head.  As in, the head of an animal.  It's supposed to be a lamb or fish.  I looked, and while cabbage is part of the simanim, it isn't generally recognized as a substitute for the head thing.   Super King had just salmon heads for the occasion, but I couldn't do it.  Fine, I got whole tilapia.  Then got home and looked up how to cook it.

This is the list I got off the Orthodox Union website:

• Apples dipped in honey
• Fenugreek or Carrots
• Leek or Cabbage
• Beets
• Dates
• Gourd
• Pomegranate
• Fish
• Head of a fish or Lamb

Not all of these foods need to be represented at one meal, or by themselves.  This isn't a Seder.  If you're having a dinner party, go ahead and fit them all in.  A salad with beets and a pomegranate dressing knocks out two.  Vichyssoise has leeks in it.  Carrots can roast alongside a whole fish.  I'm considering anything pumpkin spice as a gourd, but I did buy half a pumpkin pie because I was in the mood.  Trader Joe's is the only place I can reliably find delicata squash, as I didn't feel like peeling a gourd.  Swiss chard is botanically the same vegetable as beetroot, just bred for the leaves, so that's where I'm using it.  You get the idea.

The menu seemed simple on paper, and wasn't big on calories, but involved a lot more cooking than I had in mind.

• Challah with apples and honey
• Sautéed Swiss chard
• Roasted carrots and delicata squash with pomegranate molasses
• Baked Tilapia
• Date and raisin cookies
• Pumpkin pie

The tilapia and cookie recipes will be upcoming.  Challah is my regular #2 recipe.  The veggies weren't anything special, just salt and pepper.  Little minced garlic in the chard.  The nice part was not having to cook for the rest of the weekend.