Sunday, December 11, 2011

This was a busy day. We went on a hike! What a great experience, even though I am soo not into hiking!
Came home, and of course, the house was colder than it was outside, so we had to come up with a quick warming supper!

Here's our menu:


Vegetable soup (leftover from Friday night. I always make a double soup for Shabbat so we can have the leftovers early in the following week)

Toasted cheese sandwiches

Tomato slices with basil and olive oil (found tomatoes cheap last week!)

Purple cabbage (still had purple cabbage left from when it was cheap a couple of weeks ago. cabbage stays well in the fridge, uncut)

Red pepper slices (found red peppers cheap last week!)

Hot cocoa (major splurge. cocoa got SO expensive. Please tell me the cheapest place to buy cocoa!!)

What's on your menu?

Shabbat Parashat VaYishlach, December 9-10, 2011

Today's post is quick and to the point:

Here's my Shabbat menu:

Homemade Challot


Vegetable Soup

Chicken in BBQ Sauce

Rice

Apple Kugel

Broccoli

Carrot Kugel

Vegetable Stew for lunch (My crock pot broke, so I am trying out the pot on the platta method. wish me luck!)

Chocolate Cake

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Today turned into one of those errand running days, and it rained and rained, and then when the rain cleared we found ourselves surrounded by a crippling fog! By the time we got home, everyone was wishing we had just gone out to eat! (And they were all whimsically recalling the fettucini alfredo they had at the restaurant the last time they were treated to one!)

So for supper tonight, I quickly pulled together the following:

Garlic bread (on baguettes from the supermarket)

Spaghetti Alfredo

Pasta with tomato sauce

Sauteed vegetables (Eggplant, Peppers, and Garlic)

Boring, but definitely a crowd pleaser. And FAR less expensive than getting pasta at a restaurant! No surprises, no whining. Sometimes I need a day like that!

Soups

What's your favorite soup?
I'd love it if you share your favorite soup recipe! Tonight I'm thinking of making a carrot soup, but I'm not sure how the family will react. Hmm. Maybe I'll just fall back on the tomato, roasted pepper, fennel, and rice soup from last week, since everyone loved it!

Feel free to link up to your favorite soup recipe in the comments!

A little off-topic...

Okay, so this post has nothing to do with food. And not really anything to do with saving money, either, although perhaps sort of...

This post is about my shopping experiences in this country. By and large, I have found that if I want to bargain hunt I have to put on a suit of armor and have an extra healthy dose of humor at the ready, to deal with the unpleasant experiences that invariably accompany shopping. Whether it's feeling like I'm being ripped off, salespeople who ignore me, other customers who push their way in front of me in line, or whatever, I have not enjoyed shopping much here. That's not to say that it's all bad. There is that great little arts and crafts store in the Industrial Park at Ramat Yishai, where they were so helpful. And the shoe store (Naalei Hakibbutzim) where the saleslady took me to heart when I told her not to show me anything above price X. The shoe store in Tiberias that we found had decent shoes at decent prices was much less pleasant, but not terrible either.

So ... recently my son had his Bar Mitzvah. We had some Judaica books we still wanted to get for him after all the gifts were opened, and in addition he is beginning a new chapter of his learning, so he needed to get books for that. I took a chance and ordered these books from a website -  "Hamefitzim" - they had what I was looking for, at good prices, and offer free delivery to my door with a large enough order! (Oh, and a special for chanukah - a free book from a list of 5 choices with a large enough order)
I had trouble signing up for an account on their website though, so I called in my order. And it arrived, 2 days later. Delivered to my door. So now, I am recommending them to all of you. This is an unsolicited recommendation, and I get nothing if you shop there. I just figured we could all use help finding good vendors from time to time.

Please share your gems with me, too!

Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011

I am not in the mood to make dinner... How do you handle that? I didn't plan what's for supper, and I'm running kind of low on EVERYTHING since last week's pantry challenge hasn't actually ended yet - I didn't venture to a supermarket today.

Here's what I'm scrounging up:

Leftover soup from Friday night

Spaghetti with optional tomato sauce

Sauteed vegetables - I have eggplant, green pepper, fennel, and onion. Yummy with spaghetti.

What are you cooking?

Printable Coupon!

This time I found a coupon from Yellow - those convenience stores that I never venture into.
Right now, through Jan 2, 2012 you can use this printable coupon to get an energy drink for just 1 NIS. I know that some people drink these, so enjoy!

Click here to get this coupon - exclusively for Yellow's fans on Facebook!

Printable Coupon!

Mega's coupon of the week for their Facebook fans is for their store brand frozen Jachanun. You can get it right now for just 9.99 NIS for a 1 kg package.
Coupon expires Dec. 3, so act fast! (Tip, if your local mega is open on Saturday night - mine's not - you can get an extra 10% most items for shopping then! This offer is for "You" card holders)

Click here for the Jachanun coupon

Shabbat Parashat Vayetze, Dec 2-3, 2011

This Shabbat we are having our usual style Shabbat menu for Friday night, but we're having dairy for lunch. This just kind of HAD to be. You see, I broke shattered the ceramic crock from my pareve crock pot this week. And I wanted to serve soup for lunch, so practically speaking, I HAVE to use my milchig crock pot until I replace the pareve crock pot...

So here's what we're having - it's been a pantry challenge week. I bought almost nothing, yet we are still pretty well stocked. (My salad pickings are pretty slim, though!):

Homemade Challot (from the freezer)

Vegetable soup (my standard one) - with whatever vegetables I have. I think we're out of kishuim this week, though. I believe we have onion, garlic, carrots, fennel, broccoli stalks, and butternut squash. Seems like it should combine to make a decent soup! - for Friday Night


Crock Pot Split Pea Soup - for lunch

Rice - I made a large batch and separated it into 2 containers already so I'd feel organized. It's for both meals, so I wanted to keep it in 2 separate pans.

Carrot Kugel - also separated already so one half can be served Friday night with chicken, and one half for lunch with dairy!

Chicken with honey-ginger-soy sauce - for Friday night

Tofu with honey-ginger-soy sauce - for Friday night, for my vegetarian son

Broccoli Pashtida (cheesey casserole) - for lunch

Whatever fresh vegetables I have - I think we're down to carrots, peppers and maybe 1 cucumber left

We still have pomelit, and I found a cinnamon cake in the freezer, so we're set!

Shabbat Shalom! What are you serving this Shabbat?

Thursday, December 1, 2011

I've been doing well with the pantry challenge so far - we bought milk (as predicted), bananas (do your kids eat bananas like mine do?), and fresh yeast. And we're keeping a list of all those things we discovered we're out of and we've been making do and improvising!

Tonight we are having another hearty soup! I love serving soup. While cooking, it warms up the kitchen, and while we're eating it, no one is asking me to turn on the heater! (They may ask right before and right after, but not while they are actually eating it!) And if it's a thick soup, it fills everyone up and I can cook fewer dishes and wash fewer dishes, too. Win-win!

So here's the menu:

Homemade dinner rolls

Lentil soup with rice (I'm posting the recipe and pics soon!)


Carrots, cucumbers, green peppers

What's on your table tonight?