Well, it’s that time of year again: the birthday of the trees. My 2.5-year-old loves celebrating birthdays, so I think we’ll have to do something special for all those trees. As usual, I look to the internet for my inspiration–and oh man, am I inspired! So inspired that I can’t decide where to start… but I’m determined that one of these (or more, maybe) will land on my Shabbat dinner table tonight. Nothing like starting the celebration early, right? (Tu Bishvat officially begins on Tuesday night, Feb 7.)
First of all, here at Kveller we have some delicious new ways to celebrate trees. Like these date-orange muffins from Ronnie Fein: 
Or this chocolate and fruit fondue from Leah Schapira at CookKosher.com–easy and kid-friendly.
There’s also lemon-almond-semolina cake, persimmon and pistachio cupcakes, and lemon-lavender cake. In case you needed more sweets, that is. For a walk on the savory side, try these fig and goat cheese sandwiches with caramelized onions. Dee-lish.
Oh, and did I mention that sangria is VERY Tu Bishvat-friendly? There’s a lot of fruit in that wine.
Our friend Tori Avey over at The Shiksa in the Kitchen made these Seven Species muffins, using all of the “seven species” mentioned in the Torah: barley, wheat, grapes, figs, pomegranates, dates, and olives. I’m kind of impressed that she got all of those into one muffin–and knowing her, it’s got to be scrumptious!
Joy of Kosher reminds us that you actually can make Tu Bishvat recipes not just from fruit, but from trees themselves when you use ingredients like cinnamon. I’m a little bit excited about this cinnamon chocolate cake:
And just in case you needed more Tu Bishvat deliciousness, over at The Jew and the Carrot they’re using almonds to celebrate the birthday of the trees, with a pomegranate and sour cherry mandelbrot (like a biscotti) and a quinoa pilaf. Enjoy!
