Happy New Year!

To all of my Jewish friends, happy new year!  I hope this year is filled with sweetness and joy.  To celebrate the holiday, I decided to use my new kitchen to its fullest.  I made a wonderful--if I do say so myself--Rosh Hashana meal.  Here was the menu:

• Challah with golden raisins
• Apples and honey
• Roasted chicken with baby potatoes
• Steamed veggies
• Mom's noodle kugel
• Chocolate babka

It was a pretty ambitious menu for a couple of reasons.  First, this kitchen is much bigger than the last temporary house, but it is still tiny!  The fridge is a mini-fridge and the oven is basically an Easy Bake Oven.  Secondly, we have no proper cooking equipment.  No measuring cups or spoons, no real pots and pans or even baking sheets.

With all that said, I think it turned out pretty well.  There were a few moments of doubt.  Like when I had to third the babka recipe because it wouldn't physically fit in my oven otherwise.  And, once I thirded the recipe, I completely misread the directions and put all of the sugar and butter in the dough, when really more than half of it was supposed to go in the filling.  I also didn't have a rolling pin to roll out the dough to 1/8 inch, so I just used my hands and did the best I could.  Neither Dan nor I seemed to mind one bit though.

Here's to many more home-cooked meals to come!

Raisin challah

Chocolate babka