It's been a while since I posted about cheap food, but I think it's time to do one of those!
I'm in the middle of a pantry/freezer clean-out (because I literally have not had time to shop much in over 2 weeks, except for a random makolet run) so I thought I'd share some of my 5 - 6 shekels per person meals.
Yup, 6 shekels per person and I think everyone found enough food.
Here's how it went:
1 dozen medium eggs (10.50 NIS)
oil for cooking them (less than 1 NIS)
pinch of salt (almost negligible. let's say 5 ag)
These I made into omelettes - 2 eggs per person
Brown rice (500g) (3.50 NIS)
sliced mushrooms (not a lot - 3.50 NIS worth)
oil, water, salt, spices (less than 50 ag)
Bag of frozen peas (bought on sale for 7.50 NIS)
2 yellow peppers
2 red peppers
1 light green summer squash
2 zucchini (found these in my fridge needing to be used up, I bought them a few weeks ago)
I bought the peppers and summer squash for 4.90/kg and the zucchini was a bit more. The total for all of these was probably under 6 NIS plus I drizzled olive oil on top, so let's add another shekel and half for good meausure. Total 7.50 NIS
Altogether this adds up to 34.5 NIS. Now I don't really know how to calculate my gas and electricity use, but that's not part of my grocery bill, so we'll let that slide and not add it in here! This fed 6 people dinner tonight, the youngest of whom is 12 years old!
When my kids were younger, cheap meals used to be doable for less, but that doesn't work now. Still, I think this dinner is pretty well priced for a variety of foods and offers something for everyone!
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Last night I had NO time to cook, so we made do with the following:
pasta (half a bag of whole wheat pasta - 2 NIS for a half a bag - plus a bag of white pasta - also 2 NIS)
cottage cheese (bought on sale for 3.33 - lately I've found cottage cheese on sale on Sundays for 3/10 NIS)
shredded cheese, about 250 g - 8 NIS
random soup (leftover pea soup - it was a super simple soup and I bought the split peas on sale for 5 NIS/kg, so I'd say it was 3 NIS worth of soup from shabbat plus random veggies (1 onion, 2 kishuim, 2 carrots, a couple of garlic cloves - 4 NIS, let's say) plus rice noodles (I used 2/3 of a package - 4.70 NIS) and some seasonings (under 50 ag)
Total for that meal was under 28 NIS, and we ate the rest of the soup for lunch today!
Anytime I manage to make quick homemade meals without spending a lot is a WIN!!
About those peas I found hiding in the freezer:
I'm hoping to clean out that freezer very soon. It's a bit embarrassing, but my freezer is a ROYAL MESS! I keep buying things on sale and shoving them in there. Only there, I must admit, is 3 different places. I have 2 fridges (with small freezers) and one large freezer. But it's time to get rid of one of those fridges - we got it secondhand, and it needs a repair (it leaks a lot of water) and it was useful for a long time, but I am ready to make it work without it... So it's cleanout time and then I can reclaim my mudroom! I'm excited because I really want to paint that room purple... AND I can't wait to lower my electric bill!
I'm not sure my family will let me paint our entryway purple, but I'm sure going to try!
Hope you found this helpful!
It's been pretty crazy around here lately, and my family has been eating a lot of sandwiches and pasta dinners. It'll do in a pinch, but I was getting pretty sick of this survival strategy, even if it does the trick.
So this week, I was determined to serve "real food", and I decided to try out that old method I'd abandoned a while ago - the "prep a bunch of basics on Sunday so I have things to work with during the week" strategy.
This week, I made a huge pot of rice, a pot of chick peas, a pot of black beans, and a large pot of split pea soup to start the week. These pots were all cooking while I was getting other work done.
Then, the challenge is to make simple meals using the food I prepped!
So far, we've had rice with chick peas and roasted veggies one night, and rice with black bean meatballs and tomato sauce, with corn on the side, another night, and both those suppers began with split pea soup.
I'll be making tomato-rice soup (using the rice, roasted veggies, and tomato sauce that is left from those other meals) for breaking the fast Tuesday night (I'm sure the family will want other food to go along with that, so we'll probably make scrambled eggs and some spelt rolls also. And fruit for starters...).
Wednesday night we'll have to use up whatever is left of the chick peas (chick pea fritters maybe?), and serve that with whatever else is around, say, the corn that is left, a salad, some baked potatoes...
And then, I can cut myself some slack and make pasta for Thursday night, right?
I definitely find it much easier to plan my meals when I've got a few basics ready to go! Do you ever do this?
I figured I'll share the recipes for those vegan meatballs - hope you like it!
Black Bean "Meatballs" (Vegan) Recipe
2 cups cooked black beans, drained
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
3 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
Flour to bind (optional)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients in food processor bowl, and pulse till you have a relatively smooth paste.
Line a baking pan with baking paper, and form the mixture into balls and place on pan. Spray with a fine mist oil sprayer.
Bake for 25 min at 200C (about 425F)
Serve hot, with your favorite sauce!
I'm running late this week - I forgot to post my 9 days menu!
Hopefully, it's better late than never (??)...
My family doesn't love it when I forget to cook for days at a time, so there's something of a mutiny going on in my house.
(NO MORE SANDWICHES! - the picket signs are being made as I write this. oops)
In my defense, I have a lot of projects going on right now, and my family IS capable of prepping their own meals. Just because they don't want to do it doesn't mean I always have to do it, does it? I hear their complaints that it's hot and they don't want to cook, but guess what? I can say the same thing!
And I will:
It's hot and I don't want to cook. There, I said it.
In any case, we still need to eat, so aside from the aforementioned sandwiches, here are some of my go-to foods for the 9 days (and actually, any weekday):
Pasta night
Sloppy Sams and sweet corn
Black Bean Burgers with all the fixin's
Black Bean Chili (recipe coming soon - I forgot to post it) - one of our favorite meals right now! (served with whatever makes people happy)
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and a salad
Tuna Patties with baked potatoes
Stir Fried Veggies with tofu (and rice)
Chick Pea Fritters and a salad
Breakfast for Supper
Pareve Quiche and fresh rolls and salad
Black Bean Salad and Corn Bread
What are your favorite meatless meals? I'd love to hear from you!
Shabbat is almost here again!
We are trying out making early Shabbat here this week. We figure that an extra hour of rest can't hurt, and in the winter we manage to have everything ready for Shabbat WAY earlier than is required for early Shabbat in the summer! It's gotta be manageable, right?
I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like our days and weeks are so full and the things we need to do just never end, so an extra hour of worry-free Shabbat time sounds AMAZING. Also, there's the added bonus of not being able to check the news on Shabbat, so we can believe we are really living on our little secluded island of serenity for all of Shabbat (hopefully)...
Speaking of little islands, I have this little pull out cart in my kitchen. It stays tucked away most of the time, acting as storage for potatoes and onions.
But on Fridays, it morphs into a mini kitchen island: it's a little tiny bit of magic. You just pull the cart out of its storage spot under the edge of the counter (it's on wheels), and set up the top surface by lifting the piece of wood that folds down, and slide the piece of wood underneath it into place to hold it secure so it is a small piece of counter.
(Um, please don't judge me that the contact paper I covered it with before Pesach is still on it!)
It is awesome, and gives me a little more space to set up some helping hands with a cooking or prepping job! Since I don't have space right now for a kitchen island, I feel like I really have the next-best thing! (And maybe it is, in fact, the best of all worlds!)
So this island is my savior on days when my counters become so cluttered I wouldn't dare share a picture of them here (ahem, that is most days, honestly)! I know that there is always a small surface, free of clutter, to use for cooking.
I do clean my counters at the end of cooking on Friday, I'm just not good at cleaning as I go along. I'm sure some of you out there can relate!
Anyhow, so this cart allows me to do things like make challah and cakes along with other things on my Shabbat menu!
So here's what I'm making this week, using mostly foods that were already in my pantry and freezer:
Spelt and Oat Bran Challot
Vegetable Soup
Black Bean Cholent
Date Honey-Ginger Chicken
Spicy Turkey Breast (there's been this turkey breast in my freezer for a while - I figured it's high time we used it!)
Brown Rice
Broccoli Kugel
Potato Kugel
Salads
And we have watermelon and cherries for dessert! Lovin' the summer fruits all around! (Did you notice that watermelon making a cameo appearance earlier?)
Shabbat Shalom, everyone!
I haven't blogged a Shabbat Menu in a really, really long time.
I don't even know if I should be blogging Shabbat menus... but one of my children said it was really good back when I blogged menus, because it helped them prepare. (My kids don't exactly like surprises!)
And this week we had enough things that threw us off and disrupted our routine, even though we didn't actually have sirens in Katzrin, just lots of commotion. We had just enough tension in the air that no one felt like anything was normal and everyone was just waiting to find out what surprise awaited ahead...
So I'm having some mercy on my surprise-averse, need-to-know-what's-coming children, and I'll give them the Shabbat Menu. Since it is, after all, one of the very few things I can actually control in life. Despite the fact that kids often ascribe superpowers to their Moms, I have come to realize that there is almost nothing I can control around here...
Like: I cannot control when there will be a siren alerting us to incoming rockets (read: missiles) headed our way, and I cannot control the fact that the skies sometimes get filled with military aircraft... and on a more normal level, I can't control my kids' friends, who can sometimes act in a not-so-friendly way, and I can't control who wins a contest, or who missed the bus, or who caught a cold, or who got a mosquito bite in THE most annoying place.
Heck, I can't even control the a/c - it died a sudden death last week. And it took a bit of time to get it fixed and even then, for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to reset the remote control! (Talk about not being able to control things...)
So, back to the one thing I can control.
The Shabbat Menu
This week's Shabbat Menu is heavily influenced by whatever we happen to have in the house, as it was a "not doing much shopping" sort of week. Because last week I may have bought too much food, and as a result, I minimized the shopping this week.
Spelt Challah (using a variation of this recipe, only I'm going to use White Spelt Flour, because I cannot control my family's preference for White Challah AT ALL, and I am giving in - they can have whole grain breads during the week and I'll indulge and make them White Challah for Shabbat!) - and some challah rolls for seudah shlishit
Orange Vegetable Soup I scored a piece of pumpkin and butternut squash and carrots for 2 shekels/kg, so why not?
Spicy Roast Chicken with Rice (for Fri. night and for lunch. Who needs variety on a week like this anyway?)
Vegetarian Rice for my favorite vegetarian teenager
Roast Sweet Potatoes - probably the spicy kind (for Fri. night)
Potato Kugel recipe here (for Fri. night and for lunch. Because despite what our friend Shimshon says about kugel, because he has something against kugel, MY kugel does not give people heartburn! And for certain members of my family, kugel is THE flavor of Shabbat - not zchug, Shimshon. Just not! Yeah, I guess that makes us very, very Ashkenazi. But I think you might have known that already!)
Cut Veggies
Cabbage Salad
Black Bean Cholent vegan, but non-vegans like it too! (to be served at lunch)
Cinnamon Cake made the easy, vegan way (for desserts)
Banana Coconut Cake the best way to use up overripe bananas (this will be served at kiddush - we host a minyan in our house - and yes, it's the Ashkenaz minyan. Don't tell me you're surprised, please!)
I usually also make hard boiled eggs, a pot of pasta or a pot of boiled potatoes, for turning into egg salad and pasta or potato salad for seudah shlishit. If I don't get around to that, we'll have whatever we can find (peanut butter and jelly, anyone?)!
What's on your Shabbat menu? Anything exotic? Or are you also sticking to the familiar to make sure you feel like your feet are on the ground?
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It's November,the rains have begun (but it's not yet cold in the house), and the leaves are even changing color on a few of the trees around here, so we're fondly thinking of autumn in America...
Even in Israel, lots of Americans like to celebrate Thanksgiving, but, since we don't have a day off, most of us do "Thanksgiving Dinner" for Shabbat.
(This also makes a lot of sense for budget conscious people - who needs a big celebratory dinner on Thursday right before Shabbat, anyhow?)
So, that's what we're doing - Thanksgiving themed Shabbat. I opted not to make a whole turkey this year, as we're not hosting a very big crowd. If you are roasting a whole turkey, I hope you found a roasting pan! If you don't have one, consider buying this one for next time you need to roast a turkey! It should fit in a standard Israeli oven, but it's a great size for a turkey!
Here's my menu plan:
Spelt Challah
Orange Vegetable Soup
Turkey Wings and Turkey Breast
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce (I bought some, as it was easier for me this year than it normally is. Though I considered buying this product when I wasn't sure what to do... another time!)
Potato Kugel for all my die-hard potato kugel fans
Roasted Yellow Zucchini (I couldn't resist when I saw them!)
Spicy Sweet Potatoes
That should be enough, and we probably won't need dessert, but I have fruit for dessert if anyone insists on it!
Shabbat lunch will be whatever is leftover - there are sure to be plenty of leftovers!
If you love Thanksgiving, too, please share your Israeli-American Thanksgiving menu in the comments! I'd love to hear what you're doing!
This week, we're mostly doing Freezer Take-Out, as it's a pantry challenge week for us. It's good for me to make sure to use up the random things that have found their way into the freezer!
We'll be having:
Spelt Challot
Split Pea Soup (made fresh)
Turkey Wings
Spicy Chicken Breast
Black Bean Cholent (made fresh) with Kishke (for lunch)
Rice and Kugels that are in the freezer
Lettuce salad with honey-cinnamon oranges (picked up a 2 shekel head of lettuce!)
Here are some of our favorite kugel recipes:
Potato Kugel
Sweet Potato Kugel
Roasted Vegetable Kugel
What are you making for Shabbat?
This week, we have another family of 6 (they are vegetarians) joining us for one meal, and tentative guests for both meals as well. Here's what I plan to make tomorrow:
Whole Spelt and Oat Bran challah (can be made with Whole Wheat, as well)
Mushroom Barley Soup for Friday night
Black Bean Cholent for lunch
Chicken with Date Honey, Garlic, and Ginger. So delish, but I don't have a recipe written up, since I just eyeball it... (there are also lots of onion slices and black pepper in that dish)
Potato Kugel
Broccoli-Cauliflower Kugel
Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers (there will be lots of vegetarians around the table! And as a bonus, I got lots and lots of peppers for 2nis/kg!)
Roasted Kishuim
Salads (guests bringing)
And for dessert, baked apples (guest bringing)
Cinnamon cake and Banana muffins for treats
What's on your family's Shabbat menu this week?
It's raining - and that means Israeli winter has arrived!
So here is this week's winter Shabbat menu:
Spelt Challah
Split Pea Soup (I know, it's lentil soup week, but my crew likes split pea soup better than lentil soup!)
Chicken with Rice
Potato Kugel
Noodles with stir fried veggies
For lunch, we'll have Black Bean Cholent (made in the trusty electric slow cooker) instead of the soup!
We'll also have a few salads. We have a purple cabbage, kohlrabi, cucumbers, red peppers, pickles, and olives and other random ingredients. I'm sure we can make a few yummy salads!
For dessert, we'll have Chocolate-Crispy Rice Squares (and tea!)
This week, we're switching to winter mode - I'm moving the slow cooker and platta into the main part of the kitchen. They'd been living in the kitchen alcove, so as not to heat up the whole house unnecessarily, but now, we will appreciate the extra heat!
What are your favorite winter shabbat foods? Any special tips and tricks for staying warm through an Israeli winter in these cold, concrete houses?
This week, we plan to do sandwiches and fresh vegetables for most lunches. Simple and no fuss. It is far too hot for fussing.
Also not doing much shopping that I know of! We'll need some milk,eggs, a few fresh fruits and vegetables, and chicken for shabbat. That's all I plan to buy.
Suppers will be:
Sunday night: Pasta night! (+ a salad)
Monday night: Shabbat leftovers
Tuesday night: Scrambled eggs, hash browns, and vegetable sticks
Wednesday night: Rice with stir fried vegetables and cashews or tofu
Thursday night: Sloppy Sams on fresh rolls, whatever cheap veggies we find
I try really hard to buy veggies for less than 5 shekels/kg, and definitely favor the ones that are 2 shekels/kg or less. Hoping I luck out this week! Right now we've got purple cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, and kohlrabi in the fridge, and tomatoes on the counter. It should get us through the first half of the week!
This week we have a few guests coming over, and it's supposed to be "above average temperatures" here, so I guess that means super hot instead of hot! And I am not really in the mood for cooking, so I'll just put everyone on vegetable chopping duty and keep the house relatively cool (I'll cook things like hard boiled eggs, potatoes, beans, and quinoa late Thursday night so we won't have to warm the house too much during the day! But I really like to do the Challah on Friday, so I may still do that.).
So here's my summer Shabbat menu for this week:
Homemade Spelt and Oat Bran Challah
Salads - tomato-basil salad, carrot salad, kohlrabi salad, classic American garden salad, potato salad, quinoa salad, maybe a black bean salad...
Chicken - oven fried chicken, which can be served hot or cold
I don't think it's kugel weather, unless I can think of one that can be served cold.
There may be a need to make cholent, since certain people in my house think that's needed year round. If they insist upon it, I'll put a Black Bean Cholent in the slow cooker!
Hopefully we'll pick up some watermelon for dessert!
Seudah Shlishit will be more challah (or rolls), leftover salads, and egg salad and other spreads
*lots of the veggies mentioned above were purchased for 2-4 shekels/kg. If you look hard enough, you CAN find them!
Menu for the week:
Sunday night - Break the fast - we had a pasta dinner
Monday night - Embellished Shabbat Leftovers
Tuesday night - Baked Potatoes, Vegetable "Quiche" (recipe soon - it's wheat free and pareve), tomatoes and cucumbers
Wednesday - Rice, Stir Fried Veggies, Spicy Lentils.
Thursday - Omelettes, Hash Browns, Gevinah Levana, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes
Lunches have been and will continue to be totally random - leftovers, sandwiches, cottage cheese, etc.
Do you do menu planning? Do you think it helps with your budget?
So, this week we did practically no grocery shopping. We figured we're well stocked at the moment. All I bought was 11.50 worth of veggies from the sug bet rack earlier in the week, and tomorrow I will buy milk, lettuce, and maybe some tomatoes.
So using what we have in the house, here's what I'll cook for Shabbat:
Challot (Spelt and Oat)
Black Bean Cholent
Roast Chicken
Rice
Big Salad (lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, kohlrabi, seeds, rice croutons...)
Potato Kugel
Roasted Cauliflower
Eggplant with peppers and onions
Egg Salad
We've got cake in the freezer, and plenty of popcorn and apples for snacking.
Hope this doesn't feel overwhelming in the morning!
This has been a week. A week of dress rehearsals, recitals, birthdays, trips to far away cities; a week of too many kids coming down with colds, a week of exhaustion. A week of a horrific terror attack that is so horrific it has the whole country reeling. A week of answering questions and a week of too many questions left unanswered.
So it has been a WEEK. A week that snuck past me.
And I'm ready for Shabbat.
My house is not ready, though, and the food is not cooked. So now I am sitting here writing up my Shabbat menu.
These are all the foods I'm going to make, they'll be served as needed at each of the three meals.
Homemade Spelt Challot (with Oat Bran and flaxseed)
Chicken wings in a few different sauces, and some chicken breast as well
Potato Kugel
Black Bean Cholent
Roasted Cauliflower
Brown Rice with Wild Rice
Stir-Fried Tofu with Date Honey/Ginger Sauce
Lettuce salad with honey cinnamon oranges
Carrots, Cucumbers, and Red Peppers
Egg Salad
Chocolate Crispy Rice Squares
Popcorn
If I get around to it, I'll make some sort of muffins, maybe even Pumpkin Muffins since I picked up a large piece of pumpkin-like squash from the sug bet rack today! (That pumpkin was fine except for one bit I had to cut away. An amazing deal at 2 shekels/kg - it weighed almost 2 kilo. It'll go far!)
Shabbat Shalom
Time to plan our weekly menu! When it's this warm, I have a hard time getting motivated to cook, unfortunately, so it's actually more important than ever to have a PLAN. That way I don't have to think much, instead I can just look at the list and just.do.it.
Tonight we had Polenta Pizza (with Cheese for the dairy eaters, with Nutritional Yeast for those who don't eat Dairy, Steamed Broccoli, and Cherry Tomatoes
Monday: Embellished Shabbat Leftovers
Tuesday: ?? Still up in the air with our plans for Tuesday, so we'll just have to "wing it"
Wednesday: Scrambled eggs, French Fries, Whatever veggies need to be used up
Thursday: Baked Ziti (+ a wheat free, dairy free alternative for me), Salad, Balsamic vinegar Roasted Red/Yellow Peppers (I got a lot of peppers really cheap on Friday, and while I can wrap them well to make them last, they will need to be used up on Thursday)
Lunches will be completely totally random whatever we are in the mood to pull together. I'm counting on my kids to help me out here! (we had tuna and egg salad sandwiches and salad today, we'll probably have more sandwiches or rice and lentils most of the week...)
I am going to try out something new though - I'll make a huge batch of pancakes tonight that the kids can warm in the toaster oven for breakfast tomorrow and maybe Tuesday... oatmeal doesn't have lots of takers, lately, and some of my children have taken to eating very little for breakfast. Gotta fix that, because they do get hungry!
What do you feed your family when it's this hot?
