Shana Tova - Happy New Jewish Year 5767

It has nothing to do with September , we have a lunar year that is adjusted to the Solar year, every several years , we go by the Moon , not the Sun, Every 19 years the Exact same Hebrew date will meet the Excact same General date. mirjam

True. You can doctor most cake mixes and get something much better than the original.

But, as I said before, doctor within reason. You're not going to get cake if you add way too much liquid without adding more dry stuff to soak it up. OTOH, you can put in two bags of choc chips and a pound of walnuts without ruining your brownies, because that's not altering the basic proportion of wet to dry. (Yes, chips and nuts are "dry", but they don't soak up moisture, so they're a different kind of dry than flour.)

I make German Christmas Bread (recipe previously shared here ... google "Stollen"), and every year Dad complains that I put in too much candied fruit. I don't like bread. I do like candied fruit. Hence, I put in as much fruit as I can, having just enough bread to hold it together. My experience in making this stuff for years and years is how I know I can "cheat", and how much fruit I can put in without getting so out of proportion that I have one bread crumb in a pound of fruit, for a loaf that falls apart. (I'm contemplating this year making half the batch "the right way" for Dad, and the other half with extra fruit for me.)

Divinity. I know that isn't baking but trying to make divinity on humid days is an exercise in frustration.

Tracey

Mirjam - I think the poster was asking with respect to the common use calendar date - not everyone keeps a Hebrew calendar or a duel calendar on hand. So, when th someone asked about Sept 23, Cheryl nicely explained that Erev Rosh Hoshanah is Sept 22, with the holiday running thru Sept 23 - on the common calendar.

Thanks for the explanation that we use the lunar calendar for the Hebrew calendar. Interestingly enough - our New Year also coincides with the Hindu New year - some big holiday starting now, as well _ I've forgotten the name

- but a Hindu friend was discussing this with me yesterday. They also use a lunar calendar.

ellice

Or you can bake from scratch and really have something good. The cake on the back of the Hershey's cocoa can doesn't take any more time than a boxed cake mix and is a zillion times better.

Elizabeth

I'll it is a lot like making fudge the way my grandmother did!

Cheryl

True, but that 99c brownie mix is hard to beat, price-wise. And when you're providing a pan or two of brownies for the volunteers every day for a week-plus, the savings really adds up.

The recipe on the back of the cocoa tin calls for 2 sticks of butter (a couple bucks at current prices) instead of a little oil (pennies per batch), 4 eggs versus 2 for the mix (thus, an extra dozen over the course of a week), and 3/4 cup of cocoa (eyeballing it, maybe 1/3 of a $3.35 can of cocoa). So, the cocoa alone would cost more than the 99c mix.

My favorite scratch brownie recipe runs $15 a batch. Could you imagine the reaction of the treasurer if I'd turned in a request for reimbursement of over $100? He was much happier with a receipt for $10 in mixes, $2 for a small bottle of oil and $3 for 18 eggs, total $15 for the week.

Probably either sponge or angel food cake.

Tara

The recipe I'm talking about uses no butter and 2 eggs, some oil, milk, and a cup of boiling water with flour, sugar, cocoa, vanilla and is worth every damned penny it costs. Best chocolate cake you'll ever eat and one of the easiest you'll ever make. You dump all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then mix in all the wet ones and you're done.

3/4 cup of cocoa is about 1/4 of the can (which claims to contain 45 tablespoons), which here costs $2.89.

Elizabeth

$3.35 is today's price from Safeway.com when logged in with my zip code. I didn't comparison-shop at other grocery websites. Mom has noted that our regular prices for groceries are 15-25% higher than she pays in the NY Metro area.

I agree that if you're baking for yourself, damn the cost, but when you're baking for an organization on a tight budget, you feed people as cheaply as possible. Our volunteers were there to earn money for the organization's charitable purposes, not to spend all our profits on food. We also fed them PBJ and bulk-pack "processed cheese food", not roast beef and shrimp cocktail, which is not a trade-off I'd make at home.

My answer was exactly to her question , Rosh Hashana [ Head of the Year ] isn`t timed by September , it is Timed by the Lunar Sighting. in Israel. And there are two days to the Holiday , because in Older times, the Way to tell people the MOON was SEEN , was by Firing big fires on the tops of high mountains and thus post from Israel all the way To Babel Or Rome or even Spain, or North Africa.,, That the First New Moon was seen, as sometimes . clouds or something stopped the news from spreading all the way it needed to go. It was decided that Head of the year will be celebarated 2 days. Once they had this Date , all other Holidays could be easily counted...Since all this happened Before America was found.... They had to adopt new measures for that, But by this time knowledge about earth have been more developed.

By the way This Year Ramadan also started yesternight.

Yerushalayim Municipilaty , bought special Canon Balls , for the Holy Cannon , which is shot every night , to anounce when the Muslim fasting people can stop the daily Fast and eat. mirjam

Thanks to all the people who returned my New year WISHES for all . mirjam

I've made it once. Boiled over honey syrup makes a very impressive mess. Use a big pot.

Sara

Elizabeth - you'd amazed at the difference in cost across the country in something as everyday as a gallon of milk, a pound of butter or a can of Herseys cocoa.

Cheryl

Thanks for the tip. Isn't it amazing that our grandmothers never thought of anything being a mess if it was a goodie for a grandchild, while this generation with all the different things available to us that are supposed to make our lives easier, worry about that kind of thing?

Even in the same city. In my neighborhood, I have two major American grocery chains, which charge $1.09 for a can of Del Monte whole potatoes. If I'm willing to sit on a bus for a while, and carry my groceries further from that bus route, I can go to the Asian supermarket, which charges 59c for the exact same item. Ditto for canned carrots, $1.09 at my nearest grocery, 59c at the Asian supermarket south of town.

And if you're in one of California's extremely rural areas where it's

30+ miles to the nearest chain supermarket (and inaccessible in winter because the mountain pass is closed), you might pay 50% more at the local mom-and-pop grocery than we're paying here in the city.

Well, duh. I wouldn't be amazed at all. I spent 15 years in the Mid-West, don't forget.

But what amazes me is the speed with which some people manage to shift the terms of a discussion as soon as someone says something different than what they said. I didn't see cost or feeding volunteers in the original post, just recipe doctoring. You'd think I'd learn.

Elizabeth

I said "I have regularly had people beg for my brownie recipe and refuse to believe that it's the 99c Safeway house brand mix." I did not say WHAT people, or for WHAT purpose I was baking the cheap brownies, only that they taste better with more water than the box calls for.

You apparently read into that, that the only way that I bake brownies is from a 99c mix, because you countered "Or you can bake from scratch and really have something good. The cake on the back of the Hershey's cocoa can doesn't take any more time than a boxed cake mix and is a zillion times better."

I never said that this is the only way I bake brownies. I never said that I don't make them from scratch. I never said that I thought scratch baking takes more time. You felt the need to criticize not baking from scratch, without bothering with accurate facts (like that I have posted a very involved, very expensive scratch recipe here in the past that proves it was unnecessary for you to suggest that my only goal was getting brownies made as quickly as possible).

You assumed facts not in evidence, and then got annoyed when I pointed out your assumption was wrong by filling in facts that were unnecessary to the original comment, in order to correct your false assumption that I think a mix is as good as scratch.

I know perfectly well -- as does almost everyone else here -- that if you want something really good, you bake from scratch. There was no need to point that out in a discussion that centered on *doctoring* recipes, unless you were going to tell us HOW you doctor the recipe on the Hershey's can. Which you didn't, so the only reasonable interpretation of that comment was that you were criticizing the use of a mix for any reason, instead of constructively contributing to the discussion of how recipes can be doctored.

I hadn't spotted that, but so be it!

Actually, I still like the Jiffy mix corn muffins better than just about any other method, including scratch, non-sweet ones.

Cheryl