SuperPharm coupons (Israel)

Don't forget to sign in the SuperPharm's site and print or load their coupons onto your smartphone!

The new batch of coupons is good thru February 13, 2013.

They include:

sample coupon

Kleenex brand toilet paper  

Huggies brand wipes (refill pack)

Sunday brand bleach

Life brand hand cream

Barcelona brand men's cologne and deodorant

Nicole brand paper towels

Meridol brand toothpaste

Jade brand eyeliner (metallic)

Careline brand mascara

Make sure you are logged in and you use the "print" button on top of the page, in order to print coupons with a real barcode. What you see when you first open the site are sample coupons that will not be accepted in the store...

Happy savings!

Pasta with lentils and carmelized onions

I made my son take over some of the cooking.

In particular, I let him know that he needs to know how to cook food he will eat, so we are starting with food for Shabbat. He's a vegetarian, and even though the rest of us are weekday-vegetarians, he's also a vegetarian on Shabbat.
And that means that sometimes I end up making a TON of different foods, with the hope that he'll agree to eat enough to satisfy his 14-year-old-boy appetite.

But it's just a lot of cooking, and my thought was that if HE prepares something, maybe he'd eat more of it. He's a little suspicious of food he's not familiar with, especially anything with more than one ingredient, so what better way to be familiar with it than to PREPARE it?

He agreed to make this pasta with lentil dish that I suggested, as I was trying to make sure he got some protein into him over Shabbat (this was after he looked through one of my vegetarian cookbooks, On the Road to Vegetarian Cooking, and declared that there is nothing there to try).

Pasta with lentils, carmelized onions, and garlic

Ingredients:
1 small onion, sliced in strips
1 T. olive oil
1 cup green lentils, dry, sorted and rinsed
1/2 pkg of pasta (he used spirals)
salt, pepper, granulated garlic (or you could use fresh garlic, crushed and roasted in olive oil), and another tablespoon of olive oil

Bring a pot of water to a boil, and add the lentils
While the lentils cook, heat 1 T. olive oil in a cast iron frying pan (over medium heat), and cook the onions in it, stirring from time to time, till they brown. Set onions aside.

Once the lentils have cooked for about 10 minutes, add the pasta to the pot. Simmer till pasta is fully cooked.
Strain the pasta and lentils and toss in a serving bowl with the carmelized onions, more olive oil, and seasonings.
Serve warm, although I suspect it can be served cold as a pasta salad too.

He ate it readily!
And the other kids all sampled it too, and most liked it. Most of all, they were impressed that their big brother cooked something REAL...

Shabbat Menu (a.k.a. Where Did the Week Go?)

Every week just seems to fly right past! At least most family members appear to be on the mend, although now my oldest child has caught a cold. I'm hoping it doesn't aggravate HIS asthma...

So it's time to plan a Shabbat menu, you say?

Trying to keep it really simple.
I am figuring it all out, EXCEPT I asked my vegetarian son to go through one of my vegetarian cookbooks and choose a non-tofu dish for him to learn to make, and I will coach him through cooking it for Shabbat...

The rest of the menu is:

Vegetable soup with wild greens

Black bean cholent (for lunch)

Oven-fried chicken and oven-fried shnitzels

Potato Kugel

Butternut Squash Kugel (using the one butternut squash I have left and the pumpkin that's left)

Salad - tomatoes, cucumbers, red/yellow peppers, and scallions

Apple Crisp (we got lots of apples for free the other day. I ran out of oats for the topping, but I made it this week with wheat bran and there were NO complaints!)

Challot (from the freezer)

Chocolate Cake (from the freezer)

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Little gifts - for which I am grateful

I was walking home this afternoon, with my 5 yr old daughter, and she always notices the flats of produce sitting in the driveway of one house in particular. She notices because they usually have fruits she like to eat - like persimmons and pomegranates right now, peaches and grapes in the summer, and more.

Today she pointed out an abundance of pomegranates.

And today I saw a light on in the window of the house.

So I asked her if we should go knock on the door and find out if that fruit is there for people to take if they want.

She timidly asked if we know them. I said no, but we can just knock on the door and say hello and ask about it.

So we did.

A kind woman in her 50s, maybe 60s, greeted us. The house was full of kids - at least 6 of them - which she identified as her grandchildren. We asked her about the fruits and veggies, and she explained to me that her husband simply buys too much when he goes to the shuk, and she can't possibly use it all. She said her husband gives some to some of the families nearby, but there is always such "shefa" (abundance), she doesn't know what to do with it... but she always wonders if there isn't someone around who could truly use it... and then she handed me 4 plastic shopping bags and told me to take whatever I wanted, b'simcha (happily), and to take anytime there is stuff out there.

We thanked her for her generosity, wished her that she should always be in a position to have such shefa to share, and went and picked out produce from the flats. Now bear in mind that they'd been sitting there since at least a day before, and it rained all night and part of the day today. Not everything was in great shape, even though the boxes were under the carport. We had to skip the persimmons as they were all so smushed we couldn't even lift them without making a huge mess.

We found avocados, pomegranates, apples, tomatoes, celery, turnips, dill, onions, cauliflower, pumpkin, and more.

I would take a picture but I already put it away and even served pomegranates, tomatoes, and avocados with supper!

Now, thanks to that family, I think all we need to buy this week will be grape juice and chicken for Shabbat, and some more bags of milk! Which is good, because all those asthmatic and allergic people in my house are running up our kupat cholim charges.

As I've always said, whenever we've looked at a month that we weren't sure what would be, Hashem makes sure it works out. Sometimes it's in the form of an unexpected little job, sometimes it's free groceries. But it always works out.

Crackers

Just a quick reminder about snack foods!

If you really want to stretch your shekels, don't buy snack foods.

I know, you still need to feed the kids snacks, and fruits and veggies are not the only thing they want to eat.
And you don't want to serve cookies or muffins every day. Too much sugar.

So what do you do?

Go ahead! Make your own crackers! It sounds hard, it seems intimidating, but really it is simple.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
Click here for the recipe 

 

Menu

Our supper menu for the week, using what's here in the house.

Sunday:
Tomato Soup, Lentils and Rice with vegetables, oranges

Monday:
Whatever is left from Shabbat

Tuesday:
Split Pea Soup, Homemade bagels with homemade cream cheese, olives, carrot sticks, and sliced peppers

Wednesday:
Split Pea Soup, Pizza (I made a batch of individual size crusts and they are already in the freezer!), carrot sticks, sliced cucumbers

Thursday:
Garlic bread, Pasta with tomato sauce and cheese, salad

Simple Cake (that's not chocolate)

It started with a jar of cherry preserves. They had been sitting around for a while. My daughter found the jar and asked if she could open it for a sandwich one day, and I told her, "no, I'm planning to use that for a cake I'm going to bake." That was six months ago. Every so often, she has asked, "Eema, when are you going to make that cake with the cherry jelly?" Of course, I kept telling her, "soon," and for some reason, never did.

So, as her birthday approached, my daughter asked if I would make the cherry jelly cake for her birthday. "Of course!" - it was a great idea, since I didn't want to make the same ol' chocolate cake. BUT my husband always claims not to like cakes with fruit in them.

I wanted it to be a cake EVEN my husband would eat, and I succeeded! I know this, because apparently he came downstairs at 3 a.m. and ate a piece of cake...

Here's my recipe:

2 T. ground flaxseed + 1/4 cup boiling water (or 1 egg)
1/4 cup oil
1/2 c. milk or milk substitute (I used soy milk)
1 1/2 c. flour (I used white flour this time. gasp!)
1/4 c. ground flaxseed (optional)
2/3 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 jar of cherry preserves or your favorite no-sugar added fruit preserves

Topping:
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts or ground flaxseed (I used flaxseed, because it was handy)
1-2 T. oil

Directions:
Mix 2 T. ground flasxeed with the boiling water, allow to cool for 10 min.
Add oil, and milk. mix well.
Add flour, ground flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, salt. Mix well.
Spread about half the batter (it will be thick) in a lined round cake pan. spread 1/2 jar of cherry preserves over this. Spread the remaining batter on top.
Mix together the topping, and cover the whole top of the cake.
Bake at 180 C (about 350 F) for 30 - 35 min. Check with a toothpick to be sure it's done.

Allow to cool before cutting.
It was a big hit in my house! Please be sure to tell me what you think if you try it!

Shabbat Menu

It's Thursday. Again - it came very quickly! Time to plan for Shabbat, and it's a special one - Shabbat Shira and Tu B'Shvat! Unfotunately, my kids and I have been taking turns being sick, so we're not up to having guests - just trying to avoid having to go to the ER is enough effort (asthma is awful). But despite all the coughing, wheezing, ear-aching, sneezing, and sniffling, we will try to make sure we have an uplifting Shabbat.

Here's the menu:

Homemade Challah (making a batch today)

Vegetable Soup with lots of kishuim (squash) (special request for lots of kishuim)

Black Bean Cholent (for lunch)

Pineapple Chicken (special request from my daughter)

Rice

Apple Kugel/Apple Crisp

Potato Kugel

Roasted Carrots and Beets

Make-your-own-salad, with whatever veggies I happen to have on hand

Fruit Platter for Tu B'Shvat: So far I have pears (which I haven't bought yet this season, so we can even make shehechiyanu), persimmons, kiwi, grapefruit, oranges, bananas. We'll see if we get any other fruit today or tomorrow.

Birthday Cake for my daughter, who was born 8 years ago, on Tu B'Shvat!

Here's my favorite vegetable soup recipe. It's actually not so much a recipe, as it is a method:

Chop/dice/ slice your soup vegetables - I usually use onions, garlic, celery, tons of carrots, zucchini, and other veggies as the mood hits me.

Sautee all the veggies in extra virgin olive oil, then cook, covered, to reduce, for 10-15 min. before adding any liquid. Fill the pot with water or vegetable stock (if you don't want a vegetarian soup, feel free to use your chicken stock). Season with salt, pepper, parsley, dill, and any other herbs you love in your soup! Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 1/2 an hour. You *could* cook it longer, making sure not to boil off too much liquid, but you don't need to.
It's a really easy soup.

What are you making for Shabbat Tu B'Shvat/Shabbat Shira? Anything special?

Price Controlled Foods in Israel

Some readers wanted more information about government regulated prices for certain foods in Israel, a.k.a. price controls.

Here's a quick rundown of what you need to know:

The price listed is the MAXIMUM price for the specified item - of course a store can discount it further, if they want to!

If a store is selling price controlled items for a higher price, they are in violation of the law. You can (and should) report these violations.

I'm showing prices for the entire country, excluding Eilat, by the way. Eilat is exempt from Ma'am, so prices there will be lower.

Lechem Achid (I believe this is about 65% whole grain) - 750g loaf, 5.29

White bread, 750g loaf, 5.29

Challah or yeast cake, 500g, 5.77 (don't ask me what kind of yeast cake this is referring to, I have no idea!)

Lechem Achid, sliced and packaged, 750g, 7.93

White bread, sliced and packaged, 500g, 7.05

Regular Kitchen Salt, Fine Kitchen Salt, Fine Table Salt, and Coarse Table salt, 1 kg, 2.07

3% milk, 1 liter, bag, 5.04

1% milk, 1 liter, bag, 4.74

3% milk, 1 liter, carton, 6.27

1% milk, 1 liter, carton, 5.87

Eshel, 4.5% fat, 200ml, 1.59

Gil, 3% fat, 200ml,  1.45

Sour Cream, 15% fat, 200ml, 2.37

Butter, regular, 100g, 3.73

Emek Cheese (at the cheese counter),per kg, 44.52

Gilboa Cheese (at the cheese counter), per kg, 42.21

XL eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 13.90

L eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 12.80

M eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 11.80

If you see a store charging higher prices, you can report them to the regional supervisor.

Last year, the Ministry of Finance decided that Badatz milk products are also price regulated products, so stores cannot be charging more for the Badatz-supervised milk, leben, butter, sour cream, and Emek and Gilboa cheese, FYI.