On Tu B’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees, Boys Town Jerusalem students look forward to two holiday highlights: planting new saplings on the campus grounds, and enjoying a festive meal of fruit delights prepared by BTJ chef Avi Chamal.
“Each one of the 3,000 meals we cook and serve each day for our students includes plentiful varieties of vegetables and fruits,” Avi notes. “We know that nutritious, wholesome meals are of the greatest value to ‘our boys,’ some of whom have no food whatsoever at home. On Tu B’Shvat we take a special opportunity to pay tribute to the fruit of the trees and to the power to grow and blossom.”
This year’s Boys Town Jerusalem Tu B’Shvat table will feature easy-to-prepare, colorful and scrumptious sweet potato cups filled with a bounty of dried fruits and couscous:
Ingredients:
5 slices of sweet potato, each 2” thick
5 Tbsp date honey (or regular honey)
3 Tbsp roasted almonds slivers
3 Tbsp prunes, cubed
3 Tbsp dried apricots, cubed
3 Tbsp dried cranberries
6 dates, sliced
2/3 cup cooked couscous, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 onion, sliced into small cubes
Olive oil
Brown sugar
Preparation:
Using a teaspoon, scoop out the middle of the sweet potato slices to form a cup. Spread olive oil over the sweet potato “cups” and sprinkle with brown sugar. Place in 350° oven and bake till sweet potatoes are golden and soft.
Sauté the onion in a small amount of olive oil. Add the dried fruit and stir-fry for around five minutes. Add the couscous.
Remove from pan and spoon the filling inside each sweet potato cup. Drizzle with date honey, and serve.
Boys Town Jerusalem is one of Israel’s premier institutions for educating the country’s next generation of leaders in the fields of technology, commerce, education, the military and public service. Since its founding in 1948, BTJ has pursued its mission of turning young boys from limited backgrounds into young men with limitless futures. From junior high through the college level, the three-part curriculum at Boys Town—academic, technological and Torah—is designed to turn otherwise disadvantaged Israeli youth into productive citizens of tomorrow. Boys Town’s 18-acre campus is a home away from home for its more than 900 students. More than 7,000 graduates hold key positions throughout Israeli society.
