Shabbat Menu!

Time to get my act together and cook for Shabbat!

 

Here's the plan:

Friday night:

Spelt Challah
Turkey Wings in Silan/Ginger
Tofu with Silan/Ginger
Potato Kugel
Apple Crisp 
Carrot Kugel
Cucumbers, Carrots, Red Peppers

Shabbat Lunch (us plus a family of 6)

Spelt Challah
Black Bean Cholent
Oven Fried Chicken (now I make it wheat-free, if I have a chance, I'll post an updated recipe!)
Potato Kugel
Spicy Corn
Broccoli Kugel
Various Salads

Dessert: Cinnamon Cake, Chocolate Rice Crispy Squares

Seudah Shlishit

Challah Rolls
Egg Salad
Chumus
Vegetable Platter
Cheese if we're milchig...

Shabbat Shalom!

Menu for the week!

Hi everyone, it's that time again. The time on a Sunday when I wonder what I should make for supper... and then I realize it's time to make a menu for the week so I don't do this every day! It's so much easier for me to feed my family when my menu is already planned out! That way I can go about my day, and when I need to cook, I just cook! Without having to rummage thru the freezer and pantry and wonder what to make. Instead, I do all that rummaging on Sunday at some point and then I plan out my menu based on what I see I have (or what I plan to buy).

So, here's the plan:

Sunday night: Black Bean and Tomato Soup, Quick Garlic Bread

Monday night: Shabbat Leftovers

Tuesday night: Split Pea Soup, ???

Wednesday night: Steamed or roasted veggies, Macaroni and Cheese

Thursday night: Scrambled eggs, ???

OH MY. I really haven't figured out my menu very well. I guess it will be ok, there are always going to be days when I don't feel inspired to cook, and I guess this is just one of them. It doesn't help that there are hardly any vegetables in the house, I think! If I pick up some vegetables tomorrow, maybe I'll be more inspired and I'll update this menu. (Watch this space for updates!) 

And now, I'm off to bake some muffins with those bananas I threw into the fridge before Shabbat so they wouldn't get moldy!

Shabbat Menu Planning

It's Thursday night again! I can't believe how the weeks keep flying by and before you know it you're staring Shabbat in the face - and with Shabbat starting at 4pm-ish, well... even I feel like I need to start getting ready Thursday night! But I was so happy that last week I was able to cook so quickly, so I'm going to try to keep everything super simple again!

Here's the plan

Homemade Challah  (set the dough up already tonight, used Spelt Flour this time - I'm avoiding wheat for the time being...)
Vegetable Soup (or Split Pea Soup, depends on my mood tomorrow)
Spicy Roast Chicken with Rice
Vegetarian Rice and Tofu Shnitzels (shnitzels from the freezer, I made a large batch last time) for the resident vegetarian
Apple Crisp
Butternut Squash (not sure what I'm doing with it yet)
Lettuce Salad with Honey-Cinnamon Oranges
Vegetable Sticks (cucumbers, peppers, carrots, kohlrabi)
Black Bean Cholent for lunch 
Kiwi or other fruit for dessert

How are you handling these early winter Shabbatot?

Weekly Menu Planning

 
Time to plan my weekly supper menu, before we run into some crisis and the kids start bugging me to order pizza on a random night (they try that pretty frequently but I try not to give in...)!

So here's the plan. It might be a little boring, but I'm trying not to shop much this week:





Sunday night: Whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce and cheese, fresh vegetable sticks

Monday night: Shabbat leftovers

Tuesday night: Homemade dinner rolls or bagels (depends how much energy I have), cream cheese, mushroom-barley soup 

Wednesday night: Black bean and tomato soup, baked potatoes, whatever fresh vegetables need to be used up.

Thursday night: Split pea soup, random leftovers from the week

Lunches will be leftovers or sandwiches or pancakes...

What's your plan for keeping your family fed for the week?

Shabbat Menu

This week flew by! I can't believe Shabbat is almost here already, this week did not seem to have enough days. Isn't it strange how that happens?

This week we are having 5 adults plus a baby for our Friday night guests, I hope I have enough food - this really just sneaked up on me!

Here's the plan:

Homemade Challot
Salad Course: Chumus, cut veggies, fennel salad, roasted eggplant, cabbage salad...
Spicy Roast Chicken
Brown Rice
Potato Kugel
Butternut Squash Kugel
Sweet Potato Kugel
Roasted Kishuim 
Roasted Cauliflower (maybe)
Polenta with Tomato-Lentil Sauce and nutritional yeast

Black Bean Cholent will be served at lunch

Dessert: Watermelon, Cinnamon Cake

Seudah Shlishit:
Challah and all the leftover salads and watermelon 

Hopefully this will be enough! What's on your summer Shabbat Menu?

Weekly Menu

Time to plan my menu for the week!

Do you plan your menus? I find that when I do, it's so much easier for me to make sure we have relatively healthy food to eat, and it minimizes my panicky trips to the makolet for emergency ingredients, since I plan my menus around the foods that are in my house already. Obviously, sometimes I have to switch things around, or I run out of time to cook, and we have to improvise, but the few minutes I spend planning is really worthwhile!

This way, also, when someone wants to know "What's for supper?" I can just nonchalantly say, "Check the blog!" instead of having to think about the answer...

So here's the plan this week:

Sunday: 
Lunch (for the non fasters): PB&J sandwiches on whole wheat bread, red peppers and cucumbers
Supper: Tomato Soup with Black Beans and Rice, cut veggies and crackers with chumus, and watermelon

Monday:
Lunch: Random Pareve and Dairy Leftover Shmorgasbord
Supper: Leftover Chicken, Cholent, Kugel, etc from Shabbat

Tuesday
Lunch: Pancakes, Scrambled Eggs, Salad
Supper: Spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese, make your own salad

Wednesday
Lunch: Leftover Pasta and Salad
Supper: Baked Tuna Patties, smashed potatoes, carrot sticks

Thursday
Lunch: PB&J sandwiches, whatever fruits and veggies need to be used up
Supper: Sloppy Sams on fresh rolls, oven fries, and make your own salad

This week I get to keep Shabbat super simple, as my pickiest customer heads off on a Shabbaton (good luck to him there, really...)! 

Oh and snacks for the week will be popcorn, roasted chick peas, watermelon, and whatever other cheap fruits we find!

What's on your summer menu?

Weekly Menu!

It's that after-the-holiday time now, and time to plan my week from all sorts of angles. As it turns out, I actually have a super busy week ahead, with more than enough to keep me busy! And I don't want to end up having food crises, because hungry kids are not happy kids...






So here's the FOOD plan:

Monday:
Lunch - Dairy and Pareve leftovers from Chag
Supper - Shabbat leftovers (including chicken, cholent, potato kugel, broccoli...)

Tuesday
Lunch: Lentil Patties, Baked Potatoes, carrot sticks
Supper: Macaroni and Cheese

Wednesday
Lunch: Baked Potatoes with various toppings, hard boiled eggs, make-your-own-salad
Supper: Pizza (quick crust recipe)

Thursday
Lunch: Sandwiches, carrots and celery sticks
Supper: Any leftovers from the week!

Menu for the week

Friends, it is time to plan a menu for the week!

We were actually supposed to have a family menu-planning session, but haven't gotten back to it. Have you ever done that? 

I'm not 100% sure I recommend it, but we do them anyway. We have had so many unrealistic suggestions (ice cream and m&ms do NOT make a meal, my dear children!), that I regret having them sometimes...  But I do feel it's good to check in with the family, hear what they have to say about meals and menus, discuss the basics of healthy eating, and try to accommodate the stronger preferences they may express (but no, no matter how many times they ask, we will not have pizza and pasta on a daily basis, sorry everyone!).

So here's the plan for the week


Sunday: Pizza night

Monday: Shabbat leftovers

Tuesday: Lentil Soup, rice, stir-fried veggies (with seitan? I found some in my freezer, that was bought on sale at some point)

Wednesday: Tomato soup with rice, scrambled eggs, salad

Thursday: Baked potatoes with assorted toppings, leftovers from the week

Lunches will be sandwiches, pancakes, and random things I find in the freezer


Besides the focus on really inexpensive foods, this menu is basically a pantry challenge menu - I will need to buy eggs and some fresh vegetables, but otherwise I think we have enough to get by. (We may be running out of flour, I should really check!)

Looking forward to a productive week without spending far too much (time and money) on food!

Some notes about the cost of food: I use brown rice (I normally pay 7-8 shekels/kg), whole wheat flour (4.50/kg) and red lentils  (8-9 shekels/kg) regularly.  This way we are still eating healthy complex carbs, but not spending a lot of money on them. We've been buying potatoes, carrots, cabbages, onions, and more for 1-2 shekels/kg, and celery cost me 2 shekels/bunch last week, so I have plenty. Also I managed to get the largest head of lettuce I've ever seen - certified no pesticides - for 4 shekels. I'll be eating lettuce all week long, for just 4 shekels! I'm sure it would cost me more in water and fertilizer to grow my own. And lately, I have not been so interested in foraging greens (my spring allergies are acting up and making me sneezy and sleepy!), so finding inexpensive greens is a really good thing.

What inexpensive pantry staples do you rely on? What about inexpensive vegetables? Do you have access to vegetables for 1-2 shekels/kg?

Shabbat Menu!

We are continuing with our Pre-Pesach Pantry Challenge this Shabbat.
I am happy to say I hardly bought anything this week besides milk, a few fresh fruits and veggies, and some pitot!

Anyhow, here's the Shabbat plan (actually, my family is really under the weather, so this is assuming we're up to cooking and eating, which is actually not a given):


Challot (I still have flour to use, so we'll have fresh ones!)
Vegetable Soup with "Magen David" (Star of David) pasta (I love those cute whole wheat Magen David pastas!)
Chicken with Rice from the freezer
(Vegan Cholent for Shabbat lunch, with vegan kishke if I get to it)
(Tofu shnitzel (from the freezer) and plain rice for the vegetarian)
Roasted Veggies (whatever is left here - cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes...)
Make your own salad
Potato Kugel
Fresh fruit for dessert, cake if I find one in the freezer

I'll also make some hard boiled eggs and other things for easy seudah shlishit (pasta for pasta salad, and other simple foods)

How's your pantry challenge coming along?

Weekly Menu

 

 I haven't had a chance to plan my weekly menu! I keep getting caught up on the roller coaster ride of life. But I'm planning now, it's better late than never.

So here goes:





Sunday: 
Picnic lunch - leftover challah with salads and spreads
Supper - Shabbat leftovers

Monday:
Lunch: Reincarnated Cholent Soup (added tomato paste, lentils, spices, and water to it), sandwiches, avocado
Supper: Pasta, Salad, and some precious asparagus (that I foraged)

Tuesday
Lunch: Vegetable-noodle soup, cucumbers and tomatoes with techina
Supper: Tomato-rice soup, Lentil patties,  baked potatoes,  whatever vegetables I find

Wednesday
Lunch: leftover soup, corn muffins, ??
Supper: Crock pot split pea and vegetable soup/stew, ??

Thursday
Lunch: all the leftovers from the week, or whatever I find in the freezer (I know there are random containers in there!) if there are no leftovers
Supper: Homemade pizza, oven-fries, and salad

Menu Plan for the week

By now, you all know how I feel about menu plans. Having one is good, even if I don't stick to it perfectly. Not having one means we are always scrambling and we don't eat anything resembling balanced meals. SO -- here's my plan for suppers for this week:





Sunday night -Vegetable Soup, Tuna Patties, Oven-fries

Monday night - Shabbat Leftovers

Tuesday night - Sloppy Sams on Fresh Rolls, Salad, Roasted Root Vegetables

Wednesday night - Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Tomato soup with rice, carrots and cucumbers

Thursday night - Pasta of some sort, Make your own salad

What about lunches, you ask?

Good question.

I've been having a harder time with lunches lately, and I'm not sure why. Maybe when I say "I'll serve leftovers" I forget that with one teenage boy and one almost teenage boy in the house, there are rarely any substantial leftovers around. So I plan to serve pasta some days, soup other days, and we'll supplement with sandwiches, vegetables, eggs, and fruit. We are well stocked with peanut butter!

The end of the week will likely be a little nutty, as we plan to host yet another kiddush. I'll post my plan for that soon!

Shabbat Menu

This week's menu is going to feature all the produce I got from the sug bet rack, and some other things I have in my house. We did not do any big shopping this week!


Here's the plan:



Whole Wheat and Oat Bran Challot

Vegetable Soup (got kishuim and celery from the sug bet rack, the rest were regular cheap veggies)

Spicy Roast Chicken (had a chicken in the freezer from the last time I found it for 9.90/kg!)

Rice Pilaf - brown rice, wild rice, green lentils, onions, and orange peppers (peppers from the sug bet rack) with spices

Stir fried veggies with cashews (radishes (peeled), green peppers, and bean sprouts were sug bet) 

Potato Kugel

Black Bean Cholent

Lettuce Salad with honey-cinnamon oranges and chopped nuts (lettuce was fine, but sold on sug bet rack, oranges are cheap right now)

Chocolate Cake and fresh fruit for dessert

What are you making?

Weekly Menu

It's already Monday night and I'm still flying by the seat of my pants/skirt as far as meals go, since I never made a plan. My days are pretty full with all that goes on already, so having a plan is pretty essential if I'm going to a)stick to my budget, b)use the food I have in the house, and c)feed my family relatively balanced meals. I know when I don't make a plan, we end up figuring out less healthy "survival" meals, and often that means when I'm out on a walk I'll pick up pitot or bread, cheese, bourekas, etc even if I had no plans to buy those things that week!

So - in an effort to make tomorrow an easier day, and to save me the panic and "survival shopping", I will plan my menu now:

Sunday - already over, I don't even know what we had (in my defense, half the family had some minor stomach bug and weren't even hungry)
Monday - more of who-knows-what, and Shabbat leftovers for supper

Tuesday:
Lunch: Rice, lentil patties, salad
Supper: Split pea soup, Baked Ziti, steamed kishuim

Wednesday
Lunch: Split pea soup, banana muffins, baked apples
Supper: Felafel 

Thursday:
Lunch: all the leftovers from the week
Supper: fresh dinner rolls, sloppy sams, roasted vegetables

How do you stay on top of feeding your family? How many meals do you cook every day?

Menu for the week

I would LOVE to be able to plan my weekly menu, but I am so low on fresh produce, I can only do a bare basics plan -- I'm going to have to fill it in more as the week goes on. Please leave a comment below with some ideas!

So here's what I've come up with so far:

Sunday: lunch - vegetable-noodle soup, muffins from the freezer
Supper - Split Pea Soup, Pasta, salad

Monday:
Lunch: leftover split pea soup,??
Supper - Tomato soup with rice, Tuna-Wakame patties (scrambled eggs for the kids who won't eat that), ??

Tuesday:
Lunch: Leftover tomato soup, sandwiches
Supper: Felafel

Wednesday:
Lunch: Pancakes, ???
Supper: Pizza, Roasted veggies?

Thursday: 
Lunch: all the leftovers from the week
Supper: Pasta with ??

That should do it!

Shabbat Menu

Time to plan my Shabbat menu! I think I need a cup of coffee and then I can do most of the work tonight.

Here's what I came up with after surveying what's in the house, since there is really no way I'll be going to a store tomorrow (do you go shopping on Friday, ever? If so, how do you make it all work?):




Fresh Whole Wheat and Oat Bran Challot

Vegetable Soup with noodles

Black Bean Cholent (for lunch)

Oven Fried Shnitzel

Potato Kugel

Spicy Roast Sweet Potatoes

Purple Cabbage Salad 

Israeli Salad

Also making Banana-Coconut Breakfast Cake, and my favorite Coffee Cake. If I don't run out of time, I might make some Chocolate Chip cookies, too. It's a long Friday night, and sometimes we need a snack besides popcorn!

At least, that's what I plan to make!

Hoping I can stay awake to cook now.
What are you making this Shabbat?

Weekly menu

Time to plan again, because without planning I tend to get stuck in a rut. And that is not a place I like to be, and truthfully, my kids and husband hate it when I'm there, and tend to ask for pizza A LOT.

Does that happen to you as well? 

So here's the plan:



Lunches will be stews or leftovers from suppers.

Sunday night was Shabbat leftovers

Monday night: Red Lentil Soup, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, carrot and cucumber sticks

Tuesday night: Baked Ziti, Salad, Quick Garlic Breadsticks

Wednesday night: Vegetable-Barley or Mushroom-Barley Soup, 
Whole Wheat dinner rolls with spreads

Thursday night: Scrambled eggs, Baked potatoes, cut veggies with dips

This plan is subject to change! It usually gets changed up here and there!

How are you with meal planning?

Shabbat menu (pantry challenge style)

This has been one roller coaster of a week. We had most of the week with my hubby out of the country, but he should arrive home soon. We had a leaky roof repaired. We had the fiery death of the transformer so I need to buy some new kitchen gadgets. We found out about the death of my father's cousin. My sister had a baby girl. Another sister is making a bat mitzvah this weekend, but the family things are all 6000 miles away. The country was shocked by terrorist attacks. We celebrated our youngest child's loss of her first tooth. And more.

So it's been quite a week, and to be honest, I just want to go to sleep. But I will have to cook...

Still trying to stay out of the supermarket, so here's our pantry challenge Shabbat menu:

(I DID buy some sug bet produce this week, so we've got some sort of vegetable selection)

Challah from the freezer, probably 

Split pea soup (with carrots and celery)

Spicy Roast chicken with rice

Vegetarian Fried Rice (for the vegetarian child)

Potato Kugel

Roasted Kohlrabi

Spicy Roast Sweet Potatoes

Butternut Squash (not sure how, roasted or kugel?)

Cucumbers and other veggies

Black Bean Cholent

Cake from the freezer for dessert

The clock change has made Shabbat afternoons really short, so at this time of year, we finish lunch and have dessert as seudah shlishit.

How do you handle short Fridays and long Friday nights?

Pantry challenge manu!

I'm hoping to buy very little this week, but I will be buying fresh milk, and fruits and veggies. Other than that, I am trying to do a pantry challenge!

So here's the plan: breakfasts will be mostly oatmeal and fruit

Lunches will be random - sandwiches and veggies, or leftovers from the previous night's supper.



Suppers:

Sunday night: Shabbat Leftovers

Monday night: Lentil and vegetable soup, Rice, stir fried veggies

Tuesday night: Baked Ziti, Cut vegetables

Wednesday night: Scrambled eggs, Corn bread muffins, salad

Thursday night: Garlic bread, Vegetable-Barley Soup, ?? 

Anyone else out there trying not to shop? How's your pantry stocked?

Cooking for chag

It's that time of year, when every week there is a special Jewish holiday, requiring lots of food preparation. Not to mention the other preparations of getting a lulav/etrog set (or 3!), and building a sukkah! And decorating a sukkah, which requires lots of patience and creativity...

I'll try to post about our decorations later, but for now, I will write about my food prep plan.

I'm cooking today for my sukkah building crew plus a family with a new baby.

Chag is us plus some guests.

Today: 

Garlic Foccacia Breads (making it the Quick Bread way) 
Pasta two ways (with tomato sauce, veggies, and cheese, and with macaroni and cheese style) 
cut veggies - we have cucumbers, carrots, kohlrabi, peppers... 

Planning to make enough to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow too. (Just how many bags of pasta do I need to have enough for a total of 18 people...?)

For Chag:

Challot
Vegetable Soup
Vegetarian Chopped Liver
Roast chicken with rice
Tofu lo mein for the vegetarian
Potato Kugel 
Apple Crisp
Salads (whatever I manage to pull together)
Brownies
Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'd love to hear how all of your holiday preparations are going!

Menu Plan for the week!

Last week I didn't plan out my menu very well, so my meals were haphazard and all over the place. Not *such* a terrible thing, especially in the summer, as long as everyone was able to eat! So, despite not planning well, we managed!

But I figured I can do better. So here's the plan for this week (no idea if I will actually stick with it) --

Lunches: Sandwiches, Stuffed baked potatoes, pancakes, and salads

Suppers:
Sunday: Embellished Shabbat Leftovers
Monday: Baked Ziti and salad
Tuesday: Sloppy Sams on homemade dinner rolls (using my favorite bread recipe), salad
Wednesday: Quick pizzas, home-fries, carrot sticks
Thursday: Leftovers from the week

Snacks: fruit (I'll have to keep looking for fruit deals!), popcorn, muffins, granola cookies

Do you like to plan your meals for the week?
I'd love to hear your menu!