Here are a few special succot recipes to enhance your chag! These are perfect dishes to serve as fall starts to come in and we take advantage of the seasonal delicacies. Enjoy!

As we finish Rosh Hashasha, I get to thinking about succos and one of my favorite things. I love sitting in the chill autumn air, with the family, in a beautifully decorated sukkah. Every year my mother would make this delicious potato leek soup and it was the perfect thing to warm us up on the chilly nights. I loved it so much that it was the soup I requested to have on my Bat Mitzvah. However, due to it being spring and us being inside, it was not the same. This soup will never taste as good as it does when we are all enjoying it together in the sukkah.

I discovered this recipe about 13 years ago, labeled as a variation in the classic purple Spice and Spirit cookbook. I make it in bulk, without the pinch of sugar and keep it in the fridge. Spoiler: I use this on every kind of salad!!! Vegetables with green salad, cabbage salad, quinoa salad, you name it!

My husband teases me that I casually mentioned to him once while we were dating, “Oh, by the way. I don’t know how to cook.” Being that my mother-in-law is a fantastic cook, he simply responded, “Oh.” and politely tried to disguise his concern. 

When I was first married and went with my husband to his brother and sister in law for Shabbos, she made this delicious tomato dip to put on the challah, potato kugel and basically everything.  My husband asked me to please get the recipe and since then we have been eating tomato dip almost every Shabbos!

My mom would send me recipes all the time and when I became a vegan, she started sending me veggie only recipes. I have all her famous meatballs, salmon loaf and sorry Charlie tuna noodle casserole recipes but although those were some of my favorites I no longer make any of that. She was always asking what I was up to and what I would use to substitute ingredients. She’d joke all the time about what was substituted!

Many years ago when I was in college majoring in Chemistry, I got a wonderful lab partner to work with.  He had a great understanding of the actual chemistry behind the labs, and I was very strong in math.  So he helped me to understand the chemistry and I helped him with the math.  We worked together in the lab, and afterwards did the homework and documentation together. One evening we took a little break and he served me a piece of cheesecake that was amazing.

When my husband and I started becoming more observant and began keeping Shabbat, I barely knew how to cook. Fast forward almost 25 years and I've learned a thing or two along the way! Through the years we've hosted many Shabbat and Yom Tov meals, and have fortunately been invited to many as well. This is how I learned to cook. Lots of trial and error and many requests for recipes.