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Celebrate Family Day September 25
Eating dinner together as a family. Such a simple concept. Yet such a powerful act.
We join our friends at CASA, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, as they gear up to celebrate Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children™.
Studies consistently show that the more that our youngsters eat dinner together with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Why? Because dinner’s a time when families talk and listen to each other—and parents can learn what’s going on in their children’s lives.
This year, Family Day is taking place Monday, September 28, which coincides with Yom Kippur. Parents Place will be observing Family Day on Friday, September 25, and asks you and other JFCS friends to consider recognizing it as well.
Prepare a meal or Shabbat dinner with your children, sit around the table and enjoy each other’s company, and catch up on what’s going on in your kids’ lives. Maybe it will encourage conversations about substance abuse.
Here are some recipes we’ve collected from our regional offices that might be fun to make with your kids:
From Parents Place Sonoma
Challah
Ingredients
6 – 7 cups bread flour
1 ounce or 2 packages dry or fresh yeast
1 egg
½ cup oil
1 tablespoon salt
½ cup sugar
2 cups warm water
Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar, salt, and half of the flour. Mix well. Add egg and oil and slowly add the rest of the flour. Knead until smooth. Put in lightly oiled bowl and let rise until double (about 2 hours). Braid. Let loaves double in size. Brush top with egg or egg yolk. Sprinkle with sesame or poppy seed (optional)
For Rosh Hashanah, consider making the challah round and adding about ½ cup raisins during the kneading process.
Bake 375 for 20 minutes
From Parents Place San Francisco
Amy’s Famous Matzoh Ball Soup
Ingredients
1 cut up chicken
2 quarts chicken broth
6 carrots
2 stalks celery
2 onions
½ cup white wine
1 bunch fresh dill weed
I package matzoh ball mix
2 eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Chicken bouillon
Cover chicken with water and boil for 40 minutes in a large soup pot. Remove chicken from water and cool chicken in fridge. Cut up onions in quarters. Add sliced celery (chop on angle in 1-inch pieces). Add sliced carrots (again, chop in angle in 1-inch pieces). Add chicken broth. Add wine. Add ¼ - ½ cup sliced cooled chicken. Add chicken bouillon to taste. Prepare matzoh balls. Boil matzoh balls for 20 minutes. Add chopped dill weed. Cook 5 minutes. Serve!
From Parents Place Peninsula
Chicken and Dumplings (Serves family of 4)
Cook 1 large whole chicken by boiling in a large stock pot with bay leaves and dried basil to season. Boil 45 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and save the water in the pot. Allow the chicken to cool and then remove the meat from the bones and separate the skin. Put the chicken meat back into the pot with the water used to cook it.
Dumpling Ingredients
4 ½ cups Bisquick
2/3 cups milk
Dried dill weed to season
Stir Bisquick. Mix dill and milk until soft dough forms. Drop by spoonfuls onto boiling chicken stew. Reduce heat. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover. Cook 10 minutes longer until the dumplings are cooked through. Makes plenty of dumplings. Serve the dumplings in a bowl and then spoon the chicken meat and some of the broth over the dumplings.
From Parents Place Marin
Easiest Noodle Kugel (from Bon Appétit magazine, November 1998, by Anita Hacker. Serves 8 to 10)
Ingredients
8 ounces wide egg noodles
1 cup dark raisins
5 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled
1/3 cup sugar 4 cups whole milk
3 cups cornflakes, coarsely crushed
¼ cup (packed) dark brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Butter 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Spread uncooked noodles over bottom of prepared dish and sprinkle with raisins. Whisk eggs, sour cream, butter, and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Whisk in milk and pour mixture over noodles. Let kugel stand 5 minutes.
Mix cornflakes and brown sugar in bowl; sprinkle evenly over kugel.
Bake kugel until set in center, about 1 hour. Cut kugel into squares. Serve warm or at room temperature.