Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah

The final Jewish holidays to celebrate in September are Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.  In Israel and among liberal Jews these two holidays are combined into one holiday on the day after the end of Sukkot.  For more traditional Jews these two holidays are observed separately on two consecutive days.  Shemini Atzeret means the “Eighth Day of Assembly,” while Simchat Torah means “Rejoicing in Torah” or "rejoicing in law."  Simchat Torah seemed the more prominent of the two. This holiday is for celebrating the Torah (which is the Religious text of Judaism) and is a day for all members of the temple to come in contact with and celebrate the Torah and affirm the centrality of Torah in their lives.

 In many synagogues on Simchat Torah, each member of the congregation is called to the Torah for an aliyah (going up, which refers to the honor of ascending the bimah to recite the blessing before and after the Torah is read). Other synagogues may call all children who have not yet reached the age of bar or bat mitzvah to the Torah. Before the entire congregation the children receive a special blessing from the rabbi. 

During these holidays many Jewish families will still take their meals in the Sukkah (more information on Sukkot can be found here)  In addition to celebrating the Torah this festival is also a time for gathering and celebrating the harvest.  

I talked to the boys about Judaism again- there are a lot of Jewish holidays in September!  This time I told them the holiday was to celebrate the holy book that contains all the important information for the religion.  I said it has all the important stories, laws, and customs explained.  For our craft we made our own "Torahs"

Supplies:  Tape, popsicle sticks, construction paper.

We used tape, popsicle sticks and construction paper.  My Middle son helped tape the ends and ran away.  So I rolled his up and put a secret message in it.  Then my older son who said he didn't want to do the craft was intrigued.   So I showed him the secret message and he asked why it looked that way.  I explained this is kind of what the Torah looks like in a Synagogue.   He opened the "Torah"  and decided that his would be a treasure map.  So he enthusiastically made his into a treasure map.

Taping the sticks to the paper.

Holding our "torah"

Turning his into a treasure map.

For our recipe we made "stuffed cigars."  There were many recipes for foods that resembled the torah but this one sounded delicious to me.  They had me at feta.  My middle child loves all food so feta was great for him too.  However my oldest is the picky one of our family so I made him some with cheddar instead of feta and they were pretty decent too.  However some of the cheddar "cigars" exploded while baking.  We had extra phyllo dough so I did a quick dessert of melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and wrapped those up and the boys went crazy for those.

We used the recipe from here.

Our dough casing

8-10 sheets phyllo (filo) dough, about ½ of a 16-oz. package

Potato-feta filling

• 3 medium potatoes, peeled or just scrubbed, and cut into ½-inch cubes 
• 1 Tablespoon butter, olive oil, or margarine 
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced 
• 1/3 cup milk 
• 1 egg, beaten 
• 3 oz. feta cheese (about ½ cup), crumbled 
• Pinch nutmeg 
• Salt to taste 
• ½ stick butter or margarine, melted 

Cheddar potato filling:

• 3 medium potatoes, peeled or just scrubbed, and cut into ½-inch cubes 
• 1 Tablespoon butter, olive oil, or margarine 
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced 
• 1/3 cup milk 
• 1 egg, beaten 
• 3 oz. feta cheese (about ½ cup), crumbled 
• Pinch nutmeg 
• Salt to taste 
• ½ stick butter or margarine, melted

Cinnamon sugar filling: 

• Melted about 2 Tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• sprinkle of cinnamon

METHOD: 

We made the cigars by first peeling then boiling the potatoes for about 20 minutes. 

After they were soft I removed the potatoes. 

In two different small pots I heated oil and then added crushed garlic cloves.  Immediately after I added the potatoes and cheese and mashed together.  While mashing I added the milk, egg, nutmeg, and salt. 

My oldest has lately been extra silly whenever the camera comes out.  Here he is spreading butter on the dough.

After cooking we got to work by "painting" oil onto the phyllo.  Be sure to cover the phyllo dough that you are not working with because it dries up really fast.  The boys both saturated their sheets and layered them with two layers.  Then we added the filling and rolled up the "cigars" and folded the ends under and placed them on a parchment lined baking sheet.  We then did an egg white wash over the tops of each "cigar"   We cooked the "stuffed cigars" for about 20 min at 350F.  

Middle rolling the "cigars"

I then made the desserts while the boys were off playing.  I melted the butter and stirred in the sugar and cinnamon.  Then I went to work by "painting" the sheets with another dish of melted butter and layered two sheets of phyllo and put the mixture in and rolled them up and topped with an egg white wash- same as the cheesy filled ones.  These only cooked for 8 or 10 min and they were done.  These also exploded a little but that was not a problem for the boys they ate them up anyway.

 

Plate full of cheese "cigars"

Mabon

On September 21st the Autumn equinox will be celebrated in the Northern hemisphere with the Wiccan or Pagan holiday of Mabon (in the Southern hemisphere it is the holiday Ostara).  Since we are in the Northern hemisphere we focused on Mabon.  Mabon is the mid-harvest festival when Pagans and Wiccans honor the changing season and celebrate the second harvest.  This holiday is about giving thanks for crops and other blessings.  This is also a holiday about the balance between light and dark.  Mabon falls on a day when there are equal amounts of day and night and is about celebrating the earth but also accepting that the cold is coming and while there is an abundance of food from the crops they are about to turn brown and dormant.  The warmth of the summer is ending and cold lies ahead.

There are several blessings that may be performed at this time.  Most of them have to do with giving thanks.  There are some Wiccans that pay their respects to the "Dark Mother" or the Crone goddess.  The Crone is death and she controls the natural life cycle. 

This was a fun one to do with the boys.  First of all the whole idea of "real witches" was exciting albeit a bit confusing concept for them.  I assured them that Wiccan witches do not turn children into mice like in the "The Witches"  which we have just recently finished reading.   Once we got over that, it was an easy holiday to explain.  It was also a good time to discuss that the days will be getting shorter as we move towards winter. It was also fun because this holiday celebrates with fall foods and we were happy to warm up some cider to sip on while making our "God's eye."  It was also nice to have another holiday focusing on being thankful for what we have.

The mythology of Demeter and Persephone came up on a few sites while I was researching.  A good recap for those of you who may not be familiar with the story or have forgotten can read about it here.  I read this to the boys because it went with the holiday and I've always been a fan of mythology.

As I mentioned above, for our craft we decided to make a "God's eye."   The original source for the craft can be found here.

Thin colored yarn in Autumn colors

For each "God's eye" you will need two sticks of equal length.  We used popsicle sticks but you can use anything.  The website we found the craft on suggested cinnamon sticks or regular sticks. 

We had 8 different colors of yarn to wrap around the sticks.  The middle color I just kind of wrapped with no real plan except covering the stick.  So I went around the sticks and over the middle. 

When it came time for the next color I was more methodical.  I wrapped the yarn around one of the sticks and then moved diagonal to the nearest clockwise stick.  Did a full wrap around that stick and move diagonally onto the next stick- around and around until I achieved the look I liked and then changed to a new color. 

Two equal length sticks with the middle starting to be wrapped

My 4 year old's wrapping technique

One and a half of the finished products.

My oldest's pose- an eye over an eye.

Our food for Mabon was apple cake.

The recipe we were inspired by can be found here 

Our ingredients for apple cake.

We used:

• 6 apples (I know I only had four above but we snagged two more from the refridgerator)
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 1 1/4 almond flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan or tube pan.  Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Mixing the apples

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Sometimes baby's need to help too.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean. 

Pouring apples into the pan

If you clicked on the link that sends you to smittenkitchen.com you see that we switched about half our flour to almond flour-this is pretty much an automatic substitution whenever I bake anything- I like the protein and how moist it makes everything.  If you have a nut allergy just use regular all purpose flour.  I also switched one of the cups of sugar to brown sugar because I'm kind of a brown sugar addict and it was super yummy!

Finished apple cake stuck in the pan.

I had to leave for "back to school night" so final baking was up to my husband.  He and the boys watched the cake and it baked great.  However, he couldn't get it out of the pan.  I told him to snap a pick before it was eaten.  So hopefully you can remove yours from the pan and it will look as good as it tastes.  We devoured the cake in a 24 hour period.  Even my oldest and husband, who often complain about fruit in dessert, ate it in record time and had seconds!  My husband even skipped his ritual of evening ice cream for this cake.  We will be making it again and I hope you do too! 

If you choose to celebrate Mabon, give thanks for the things you have, and take time to reflect on or find balance within your own life.  

Sukkot

Five days after Yom Kippur is the festival of Sukkot.  Sukkot is a joyous holiday and is refered to in Jewish prayer as Z'man Simchateniu (the Season of our rejoicing).  This holiday is the only festival associated with an explicit commandment to rejoice.  It is the last of three pilgrimage festivals, the others being Passover and Shavu'ot.  Sukkot commemorates the 40 year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert and living in temporary shelters.  Sukkot is also a harvest festival and time to give thanks for the bounty of the earth.  The word Sukkot means "booths".  For this holiday followers of Judaism may stay in a Sukkah or build a Sukkah for eating, entertaining, or even sleeping during the seven days that Sukkot lasts.

When I explained to the boys that Sukkot is a festival to celebrate and give thanks- my boys said "Again?!"  There are a lot of religious festivals in September about celebrating the harvest and being thankful.  They weren't complaining though- autumn foods and the weather starting to change is a nice combo and they are happy to help with the baking. 

My boys are always up for building a fort so we built our own Sukkah, which was a much smaller version to what would actually be used, and made paper lanterns to decorate it.  We were inspired by this craft here.  When I saw these paper lanterns I knew we had to make them.  I used to have a huge craft book when I was little and these lanterns were one of the crafts I would always make.  I would make these with my siblings and we would hang them from a paper chain across the room.   The boys and I made a few and attached them to the top of our Sukkah and had a snack.

Supplies:

To make them you will need construction paper, scissors, and tape.  

Directions:

Fold a piece of construction paper in half.  At the folded end cut a slit until about an inch from the open end.  Do this about an inch apart down the whole piece of folded paper.  When finished unfold and take the ends and join them together so lantern forms a cylinder (the folded line will be at the middle of the lantern-my middle son said it was at the equator of the lantern).  Attach the ends and add a "handle"  We just cut a small strip of black construction paper to be our handle and attached it to the top of the lantern. Viola-paper lantern!

Fold paper in half. 

Cut slits into the paper from folded end  until about an inch to the open end.

Tape each end.

Proudly displaying his lantern.

In our "Sukkah"

For our food we made pumpkin challah.  Our family loves to eat challah so I was happy to have a chance to make it and also liked the twist of making it an autumnal version with the addition of pumpkin.  I definitely did not knead the dough long enough (my 17 month old managed to crawl unto the table knock the flour down and went for my camera- all about 5 minutes before I needed to leave to pick up my 6 year old from the bus stop.  Time management is obviously a skill I am still mastering)  so our challah was a bit lumpy- and I'm thinking maybe somewhere I went wrong- perhaps too much yeast?  I don't know something was off.  It tasted a little better when we made it into french toast the next evening (I'm a big fan of breakfast for dinner).  The recipe we followed can be found here.  I won't give our step by step because I don't want you to end up with so-so challah.  But not all was lost.  The boys enjoyed making it and I am determined to try again hopefully with tastier results.

Stirring- notice the flour on the nose from his extreme scooping technique

Painting on the egg wash so our lumpy challah could be shiny.

Our lumpy challah.

Holy Cross Day

September 14th is The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, The Triumph of the Cross, or Holy Cross Day.  It is celebrated in different Christian denominations, including Greek Orthodox, Anglican, and Catholic.

According to legends that spread widely, the True Cross was discovered in 326 by Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, during a pilgrimage she made to Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery, by order of Helena and Constantine. 

"The date of the feast marks the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335. This was a two-day festival: although the actual consecration of the church was on September 13, the cross itself was brought outside the church on September 14 so that the clergy and faithful could pray before the True Cross, and all could come forward to venerate it. "(http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/243.html)

Cross

For observance of this holiday Catholic and Anglican's will hold services with red vestments worn.  In Eastern and Oriental Orthodox practices there are fasting and feasts around the holiday.  The Ethiopian Orthodox also celebrate the finding of the Cross however they follow the Ethiopian Calendar and celebrate Holy Cross day on Meskerem 17 which corresponds to September 27.

The Cross today is a symbol of Christian belief.  Christians believe that Jesus, was the son of God and died for the sins of man on the Cross.  Therefore, for Christians, the significance of finding the Cross of Jesus's crucifixion is great.

For our craft we made a "stained glass" cross using tempera paint, parchment paper, and construction paper.  A stained glass looking cross seemed like a good nod to how the inside of churches are typically decorated.  To make this I drew a  cross onto the construction paper and cut it out.  

Cross cutout of the construction paper

I then got out the tempera paint and let my Middle son finger paint and mix the colors on a piece of parchment paper.  It was a fun way to review what happens when you mix colors too.  

Color mixing finger painting.

When he was done I taped another piece of parchment on top of his work of art and sealed in the sides.  Then I taped his masterpiece on the back of the construction paper with the cross.  When we taped it up on the window the light shone through showing his paint swirls.  I used red construction paper since that is the color used to decorate the church on Holy Cross Day.

Finished product- our "stained glass" cross

For our food I didn't see any obvious food connection to the holiday so we made hot crossed buns.  While this is a recipe that is often associated with Good Friday or Easter I thought it fit well for Holy Cross Day.   Recipe found here

Our version of the recipe was:

For the buns:

• 2 cups 2% Milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable Oil
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 package (2 1/4 Teaspoons) Active Dry Yeast
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup (additional) Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
• 2 teaspoons Salt
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• If you want -raisins, dried cranberries, or currant

For the glaze:

• 1 whole Egg White

For the Icing:

• 1 whole Egg White
•  Powdered Sugar
•  Splash Of Milk

Preparation Instructions

BUNS

Combine 2 cups milk, vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan. Stir and heat until very warm but not boiling. Turn off the heat and allow to cool until mixture is still warm, but not hot--about 30 minutes.

Sprinkle yeast over mixture. Add 4 cups of flour and stir to combine. Mixture will be very sticky. Cover with a towel and set aside for 1 hour. (I got distracted and didn't add the flour right away it still rose but not as much as I think it would have)

Pouring yeast into milk, oil, and sugar mixture.

Add 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir till combined.

Combine 1/4 cup sugar with cinnamon and whatever other spices you want to use.

Lightly flour surface. Press to slightly flatten dough. Sprinkle a couple tablespoons of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Then fold the dough over on itself and flatten again so the dough is "plain" again. Repeat the sugar process, then fold the dough again.  This is also the point where you would add raisins, currants, or cranberries if you were adding them.  We didn't add them because my oldest doesn't like them and we didn't have any in the house at the time.

Adding sugar to the dough

Pinch off ping pong or golf ball-size bunches of dough. With floured hands, quickly roll it into a ball, then turn the edges under themselves slightly. Place on a lightly greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for at least 30 minutes or if you are approaching bedtime like we were put on the glaze and throw them in the oven:)

Putting on the glaze

PREHEAT OVEN TO 400 degrees

GLAZE

Take  egg white and brush onto each roll.

Bake for 20 minutes, give or take, or until tops of buns have turned nice and golden brown.

Remove from pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Waiting for the buns to get done baking.

ICING

Mix 1 egg white with enough powdered sugar for icing to be very thick. Splash in milk as needed for consistency.

Add icing to a small Ziploc bag and snip the corner. Make icing crosses on each roll, making sure they're completely cooled first.

Finished product

Before the first bite. 

These went over very well in our house.  The boys could barley wait for them to cool so we had a few hot and the icing melted and dripped but was delicious.  More were enjoyed at breakfast the next day.