Don’t worry about your Rosh Hashanah Menu

Rosh Hashanah is ten days away and the questions have started. What to cook? When to cook? How to cook for those guests with allergies? Other people have started to share their menus as the reality of a three-day chag gets closer.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I shopped at Shufersal the day before a three-day chag. It was pandemonium. The vegetable bins were bare; meat and poultry were running low; carts ran into each other as kids stood held the place in line (which stretched to the back of the store) while siblings, parents, grandparents formed a grocery grabbing tag-team to conquer the store.

Pandemonium.

I’m not in Israel for the three-day chag, I’m planning my menus from my kitchen in Kansas. My freezer full of meat and poultry gives me confidence that I will beat the last minute rush.

If you’re looking for a gluten free Rosh Hashanah, then you’ll find this blog post useful. I’ve been gluten free for two years and it’s been very easy to cook meals that are enjoyed by everyone.

My menu will probably change half a dozen times before the chag starts, especially after all of this happened in the same week, but as of today, it looks little bite like this.

First Night Rosh Hashanah

We start our Rosh Hashanah evening meals with a short seder of symbolic foods. We go beyond the apple, honey and round challah and have a total of eight symbolic foods. In recent years, I have worked all of these into a meze style appetizer course. If you want to see the seder we follow, feel free to download a copy here.

After our appetizer of Simanim the meal will look like this:

A tender and delicious alternative to brisket: Top of Rib Roast. Photo: This American Bite.

First Day Rosh Hashanah

I like to keep lunch light, with plenty of raw vegetables and salads. Especially if I know we’re having a large meal in the evening. If you made that rib roast for first night, the leftovers are delicious, hot or cold.