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So this year I'm in charge of cooking. Its 1:20 in the morning and I can't go to bed for a while due to the broth for the soup is still boiling. All in all, the recipe for our chicken soup takes anywhere from 12-17 hours of work and cooking till its ready to serve.


It would be sooo much easer to just buy soup and add the matzah balls but it seems wrong to use premade soup for Roshashana.

So I was wondering how many of you make your own soup and how long it takes for your soup or dose your family use premade soup.

Homemade. Store-bought, I can't control the sodium levels or the fat content.

All the time, when I cook, I've got bits of things that I can't serve. Carrot ends, mushroom stems, celery leaves, the fibrous end-bits of onions, and so on. Parsley stems, cilantro (coriander) stems, parsnip tips. The very little end bits that are still delicious and nutritious, but not very attractive. I always save those in a plastic tub or bag, and I can take a couple of months to fill that up. I've been filling up my current stock-supply since late June.

I start the food prep in earnest by roasting a chicken on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah. When I carve it to serve the meat, I leave a generous bit stuck to the bone, and then I roast the carved carcas for another half hour to an hour. Then I put that in the freezer.

This morning, I took out the freezer chicken and stuck it in my big stock pot, along with all the tip-ends in the stock bag. I covered all that with water and started it to boil.

While that was heating up, I prepared my spice packet. I got a little cotton re-usable teabag (you could just use cheesecloth, or any kind of easy, flow-through cloth bag) and filled it with whole spices: peppercorns, sage, thyme, allspice, a bay leaf, basil, oregano, and a few other whole spices, some dried and some fresh. Once the soup was boiling, I turned it down to simmer and then I just tossed in the spice packet.

While that's cooking on the back burner, I take two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts, wash them, and sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and a wee bit of garlic. I cook them in a hot skillet with only a very light spritz of nonstick cooking spray. It's okay if they're undercooked in the middle; all you really want is to get the outsides browned. Once it's cooked, cut it up into bite-sized morsels (maybe a centimeter square) and put it in the fridge; it'll go into the soup stock later.

After about an hour, I REMOVED the chicken carcass from the stock pot, but left the other stuff in. I cooled the carcass in the fridge, then picked it clean of meat. The meat tidbits went right back into the stock. It's important to cook the carcass for a little while to loosen the meat from it, but it's important to take it out, too, or the bones will turn to glue, and that's no fun to eat.

Another hour: I turn off the heat and drain the hot soup stock into a big mixing bowl, wash out the stock pot, and then pour the drained broth back into the stock pot, which goes into the fridge for safekeeping. Everything I've just cooked in the stock pot -- vegetable tip-ends, meat, spice packet -- I throw away. It was only there for flavor, anyway.

About a day ahead, I make matzah balls. I prefer to use Streit's Matzah Meal, but Manischewitz is good if you can't find Streit's. There's really no difference, except the recipe on the box. People seem to like my matzah balls better when I use the Streit's recipe. One special note: If you want your matzah balls to be sinkers (heavy, dense, likely to keep a perfectly round shape), use olive oil and water or broth. If you want them to be floaters (lighter, less dense, and a little bit harder to shape into perfect spheres), use canola or walnut oil and seltzer water. There's a complex chemical reason, but don't worry about it, just do it and you'll see I'm right. Also, use real eggs, not egg-beaters, unless you have a guest or family member with a health concern about cholesterol. It changes the texture slightly. Keep in mind that you need to let the matzah ball mixture rest for a full hour in the fridge.

Once the matzah balls are made and in the fridge, wait half an hour or so. Then cut a whole onion into quarters or eighths, or slivers, or however you like your onions best. Then about two carrots and two celery stalks, sliced nicely. This time, we only toss in the pretty stuff, because this is the stuff you'll actually serve. The tips and gnarly bits go into a plastic bag, for making soup stock later. Now the cooked, chopped chicken breasts go into the stock pot, and then the vegetables. Throw everything into the stock pot right away rather than waiting for it to boil; this will slow it down enough that it won't boil before your matzah ball mixture is ready. If it boils too fast, just turn it down to simmer for a bit, and only turn it up again when your matzah ball water is boiling (see next paragraph).

Heat up some hot salted water (about a tablespoon of salt per 2-quart pot). Roll the matzah balls and drop them in ONLY when the water is boiling ferociously. I like my matzah balls to be a little tiny bit raw in the middle, so I only put them in and wait maybe three minutes. Most people like them cooked fully, so leave them in for five or ten minutes. (If you make matzah balls a day ahead, store them in a glass jar in broth, homemade or otherwise.)

Once the matzah balls have been cooked for at least 3 minutes in boiling salt water, remove them and plunk them right into the hot soup stock. TURN OFF THE HEAT ON THE SOUP STOCK. Trust me, it'll stay hot until it's time to serve. Just put a lid on it. If you doubt, then turn the burner to the lowest possible setting; just keep in mind that once the holiday starts, that stove burner either needs to be off for the entire holiday (plus Shabbat, this year) or on for the entire holiday, so as to avoid lighting or extinguishing a fire, which constitutes work.

Serve, and await applause.

Same exsperance with pre-made matzoh balls in my house. That year we held off dinner just to make some more. Thank goodness we keep a box of matzoh ball mix in the pantry at all times.

That's really great. I normally entertain a lot of friends for Chanukah, but that's because they know about it...Or atleast as far as it being "The Jewish Christmas" However, I figured I wouldn't drag them into a high holiday, especially since they have school. I do like sharing it with them though. It makes me feel less alone, even though we're still all goyim sitting around a table. xp

This is the first year we haven't had homemade, as my mom is all out of her frozen homemade stuff and this has been a hectic month with my oldest brother being gone at college. sad

Normally she'll spend a day making some adding in veggies, chicken, etc. It's absolutely amazing.

I'm doin crepes for the circle thing this year.

My dinner went great. We have leftovers, amazingly. Only two people were there with me the entire time, but plenty came and snacked, chatted, and left over the course of the night.

The challah and matzo was a big hit with everyone, with the pomegranates less so (because they weren't quite ripe).

We didn't do too much that would be considered traditional, and I doubt even considered acceptable; we chatted about Jewish law (I explained some things), ate, played some jenga, and then settled in to watch the Stargate movie, and then V for Vendetta on the big screen tv.

For my first Rosh Hashanah celebration, I think it was pretty nice.

Happy new year!

May you all be written and sealed for life and goodness in the coming year.