Random tips and tricks for a creative and frugal Rosh Hashana and Sukkot

Here's a potpourri of my own personal assorted tips and tricks for Rosh Hashana and Sukkot.  I know you have your special list of Yom Tov tips and I want to open this post up to sharing them; please post them in the comments below! 

• Here's an idea I saw in an old Susie Fishbein cookbook:  on Rosh Hashana, put out a honey-tasting platter (I've already set up mine for this year; it's pictured above).  Different types of honey taste very different.  Wildflower honey has a different flavor from clover honey (the most common), manuka honey, blackberry honey, buckwheat blossom honey, and acacia honey.   You can pick all these different types of honey up from stores like Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, Sprouts, or sometimes even your regular supermarket. 
• Get creative with your honey serving dishes.  Last year, I used different sized and shaped blue glass bowls (our china is blue).  This year I'm using little cordial glasses that I got at the free Pier1 promotion.  A friend of mine uses assorted brightly colored ceramic jars.  Another one uses maple syrup dispensers.  One year, I hollowed out a bunch of nicely shaped apples and used them as honey dishes.  Just remember that you're not restricted to the ungapatchkit silver honey dish that you got as a wedding present from Aunt Ida.  

• A few years before I got married, (after some misadventures in unsuccessfully trying to make estrog jam) I started collecting etrogim after Sukkot.  I would just put them around the living room in various bowls (see photo above) and eventually, they would dry and harden and take on interesting colors and textures.  I have a bunch of them now, mostly from my husband, but a few from my father, z"l, from years gone by. (It gives me a nice feeling to know that I have some things that my dear father once used for a mitzvah.)  If you choose some interesting bowls, they make for creative centerpieces on your YomTov table in the Sukkah.
• Along the same lines, DailyCheapskate reader Daniella writes that she keeps her husband's lulavs from year to year (just the lulav part, not the hadassim or arovot). She dries them and groups them all together in a large floor vase.  Apparently. when they are very dry, the fronds separate and the effect is lovely. (I'm waiting for a picture Daniella!)  
• You are going to be serving a LOT of meals over the next few weeks with a bunch of guests.  Keep a running list of your friends with special foods needs on your computer.  We have vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free, diabetic, carb-free, pescatarian, nut-allergic, etc., friends in Colorado, and it's super-awkward when you find out these needs when your guests are sitting at your YomTov table and not eating anything.  (Flashback to a Sukkot meal about five years ago when I had three surprise vegetarian guests who couldn't even eat my green salad because it contained shredded chicken...what a nightmare.)  Ask your guests about any special foods needs they and their families might have when you invite them and record the information in a permanent file on your computer so that you'll have it the next time you invite them over. 
• In keeping with the Yom Tov theme, serve dishes like this honey-chicken recipe from Jason and Yael, or the apple-stuffed challah that I made with Rhodes dough (you can adapt it to your own homemade dough if you prefer). Honey cake is a classic, or you can opt for pareve vanilla ice cream topped with diced apples and pomegranates seeds or drizzled lightly with honey.  You can throw pomegranate seeds into any green salad for a nice twist.

• I've seen this in almost every Colorado sukkah I've been in, but not in NewYork sukkahs, so I wonder if this is an "out-of-town" thing.  Instead of a single ugly outdoor lightbulb hanging down the middle of your schach, hang up strings and strings of white outdoor Christmas lights.  It looks beautiful at night. Of course, the best time to buy Christmas Sukkot string lights is the week after Christmas, but you already knew that.

• This is an idea that I stole from my very creative artist sister-in-law, Ellen Filreis.  Since you can transfer flame on YomTov, buy an inexpensive candle chandelier like this one or this one and hang it in the middle of your sukkah. Fill it with safe tealights (or citronella candles, as noted in the comments below, which will keep away mostquitos) and light it at night for some wonderful dinner ambience.   This is the $16 one that I purchased two years ago, as well as this one from Cost Plus World Market.  
• Raid the Walmart crafts section and buy yards and yards of those "silk" floral and leaf chains and hang them all over your Sukkah.  They are colorful and pretty, ridiculously cheap, aren't hurt by the rain, and when they get dirty, you can just hose them off.  You can also get them Hobby Lobby or Michaels (make sure you use coupons at those stores).
• Are you intimidated by the idea of making stuffed cabbage?  I'm going to break it down for you.  Take your favorite Swedish meatball recipe meat mixture, add a cup of cooked rice and serve the mixture wrapped in green cabbage that has been softened either by boiling or by putting it in the freezer.   Boil your cabbage "packets" in a large pot full of tomato sauce, with a 1/2 cup of brown sugar, a can of cranberry sauce and a handful of raisins. I do this every year, and it's super-easy and delicious.  After the stuffed cabbbage is cooked, you can freeze it in aluminum pans, a reheat it in the oven.  If you're on a healthy kick, use brown rice instead of white rice; you won't even notice the taste difference.
• The best time to buy Sukkot decorations is the week after Sukkot.  Load up on half-price or heavily reduced Sukkot decor when they go on clearance at your favorite Judaica stores.  If you live near an Amazing Savings, (oh, how I long for an Amazing Savings in Denver) stock up on their incredible 99-cent Sukkot decorations.  Last time I was in New York, I bought two dozen of these and stockpiled them to replace torn and ruined decorations from year to year.
• Check out the recipes in this Kosher On a Budget Rosh Hashana Recipe Roundup.

Ok, your turn.  What tips, hints, tricks, easy recipes, methods, etc. have you learned over the years that help you have a creative and frugal YomTov? Please post in the comments below.

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