Recipes: Make these Rosh Hashanah dishes to usher in a sweet new year

"For the occasion, people wish each other a happy, healthy, sweet New Year. To highlight this wish, cooks in many households accent their holiday menus with sweet ingredients. Apple slices dipped in honey are the traditional beginning to the Rosh Hashanah dinner. On the second day of the holiday, a popular custom is to serve seasonal or exotic fruits; this year we plan to embellish ours with a sprinkling of a sweet Middle Eastern mixture made of sesame seeds toasted with nuts."

"In our menus we like to include touches of sweetness in every dish, such as our fruit cobbler dessert made with fresh and dried fruit. Our sweet flavorings are sometimes subtle, like the raisins in our picadillo and the pomegranate sauce that's spooned into bowls of our noodle soup. As an additional treat we are preparing sugar-free blueberry jam, which makes a deliciously sweet topping for yogurt, as well as a nutritious spread for our Rosh Hashanah challah."

Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Monday, Sept. 22, and is celebrated for two days. People wish each other a sweet, healthy New Year, and cooks accent holiday menus with sweet ingredients. Apple slices dipped in honey traditionally start the Rosh Hashanah dinner, and serving seasonal or exotic fruits on the second day is customary. Sweet dukkah, a Middle Eastern mixture of toasted sesame seeds and nuts, is sprinkled over fresh fruit. Menus include subtle sweet flavorings such as raisins in picadillo and pomegranate sauce in noodle soup; sugar-free blueberry jam complements yogurt and challah. A sweet dukkah recipe yields 2 1/2 cups and lists sesame seeds, pistachios, almonds, spices, coconut flakes and rose petals.

Read at Boston Herald