Monthly Archives: June 2009

Natural weed killer

frugal strategies, gardening

I’ve gotten weary of pulling the same weeds, over and over – it’s the morning glory vines that climb my fence that I’m just fed up with.  No matter how many I pull out, it seems like they reproduce overnight and I have this sense that I’m never going to eradicate them just by pulling them.

So today I decided on a new strategy – to use weed killer!  I don’t use any kind of chemicals in my yard, but figured there had to be a natural solution, and found this suggested on a gardening forum:

Natural Weed Killer

  • 1 gallon white vinegar
  • 1 lb. table salt
  • 1/2 t. dish soap

Heat the vinegar and dissolve the salt.  Add 1/2 t. dishsoap (the soap is to help the solution adhere to the plants).  Put it all in a spray bottle, and spray the plants you want to get rid of.  Be very careful not to get any of it on plants you want to keep!

This is very affordable – about $2 total, and makes over a gallon of weed killer.  I can’t yet say how this has worked for us long term, but many gardeners said it was very effective.  Ds sprayed a lot of our weeds along the fence, and the poison ivy wilted immediately.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the weeds disappear!

Avivah

Taking kids on errands with you

homeschooling, parenting,

Our lawn mower broke a week or so before I had the baby, and though I’ve very much wanted to get one, it wasn’t at the very top of the list of priorities for the first two weeks postpartum.  But finally yesterday I went to buy one from someone on CL (I decided on one with a bagger so that I can easily catch the grass clippings for my garden as fertilizer).

When I do errands, I usually ask a specific child or two if they want to go with me, and yesterday I invited one child to come along. But as so often happens, three others chimed in asking if they could come, too (the two little ones would have come, too, but they were due for a nap).  I was thinking about how grateful I am that my kids like spending time with me, even if it means a long, boring drive in a hot van.  And I enjoy spending time with them as well.

So many times people ask about how I get anything done if my kids are around all day long.  Part of this question is how you get things done around the house, and that’s a topic for a different post.  The second part is how you get things done that require you to be out and about.  There seems to be an idea that errands done with your kids along must mean stress and aggravation for the parent and children.  While it’s definitely true that whatever you need to do will probably take longer when your kids are with you, there’s no reason that the time out should be unpleasant for you or your kids.  

Taking your kids with you to various places is the ideal way to teach them how to behave when in a store, a doctor’s office, when visiting the elderly.  They don’t learn about it from sitting at home and hearing you theorize about how to act in public.  Kids don’t instinctively know how to behave in different situations – it’s our active guidance and training that make the difference.  Grocery shopping can be fun for kids!  And if you’ve taught them to act nicely – no running, no yelling and whining, no grabbing things, no asking you repeatedly to buy them every treat they see – it should be enjoyable for you, too! (And a nice side benefit is that they can learn alot about math, pricing, sales, nutritional value of different foods, and anything else you want to integrate into your outings.)

For years I took all six of my kids with me everywhere I went (my oldest turned 13 shortly after ds3 was born, the legal age to leave him with younger children, and at that point I was finally able to run out to the supermarket without taking everyone).  My husband didn’t have a schedule that allowed him to be available to be home with the kids so I could go out.  But I didn’t see going out with my kids as a burden, and I didn’t view taking them to the dentist with too differently than taking them to the zoo.  They were all opportunities for an experience of it’s own and time together as a family.  Well behaved children are a pleasure to spend time with, and we’ve received a lot of positive feedback over the years when out in public. 

Practically speaking, it helps to have something enjoyable to listen to in the car on your way to and from your destination – parsha cassettes, Jewish story cassettes, and audio books have been what we’ve enjoyed during our many drives.  It helps the time fly by, and sometimes someone will want to come somewhere with me just because they want to hear more of a certain story (this was the motivation of dd12 in coming along yesterday). 

Always take along food and water, and I’ve found it’s best to take more than you think you’ll need.  Hungry or thirsty children are naturally going to be cranky, and errands often take longer than you expect, particularly when you’re not prepared!  I like to take along an extra outfit for the youngest kids, because it keeps me from being cranky when someone spills something all over themselves or someone falls in the mud. 

It’s also helpful to take along a roll of toilet paper or a towel in case of a mess, and a couple of empty plastic bags to keep the garbage contained when in the car. I had one child who always got carsick and would throw up every time we went anywhere – I quickly learned to take a plastic basin lined with a plastic bag, along with some extra bags and an extra set of clothes for him (the first time it happened I was out all day and had to stop at a thrift store to buy him new clothes).  Once I started doing this, it significantly reduced the frustration of the situation.  I also at one time had a container of candied ginger (good for reducing nausea), but when it was finished, I didn’t buy more (now that it’s the summer, I’ll get some more, since car sickness seems to be more of an issue in hot weather).  You can also take along fresh ginger – dd12 is going on a several hour long drive later today and will take a piece along in case she needs it. 

Also, keep in mind your child’s sleeping and eating schedule.  If your toddler regularly naps after lunch, don’t think you can take him out without unpleasant consequences later on.  Do your outings early in the day or after his nap, when he’s well rested – it will be a lot more pleasant for everyone.  Try to time things so that you’re home for your regular mealtimes, unless you want to have a picnic in lieu of a regular meal. 

If you know you’ll be sitting around waiting for a while (like a doctor’s office), take a book you can read to them or a game for them to play with.  I had some useful manipulatives and learning tools that came in handy at these times.  It’s a shame to waste opportunities like these. When the kids are older, have them bring something they’ll enjoy; it’s good for them to take responsibility for their own entertainment.  Word find and crossword puzzle books are useful for times like this.  Being prepared for various eventualities makes a big difference.

Avivah

Really Good Vegetarian Meatloaf

recipes

Really Good Vegetarian Meatloaf

Soak 2 c. of water and 1 c. dried lentils overnight.  In the morning, drain off the liquid, and boil 2 c. water for each cup of soaked lentils in a saucepan.  Simmer covered for 25 – 30 min, or until soft.  Drain and partially mash lentils.  Cool slightly. Stir in:

  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1 c. quick oats
  • 3/4 c. grated cheese or bbq sauce

Add remaining ingredients:

  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 4 1/2 oz tomato sauce
  • 1 t. garlic powder
  • 1 t. basil
  • 1 t. parsley
  • 1 1/2 t. seasoning salt or to taste (can use regular salt)
  • 1/4 t. pepper

Mix well, and put in a greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 45 minutes until the top of the loaf is dry, firm, and golden brown.  Cool ten minutes before slicing.

Avivah

Carpet for the garden

frugal strategies, gardening

I mentioned that I got some used carpeting a few weeks ago for the garden, right?   But I didn’t have enough for what I wanted it for.  So I put a ‘wanted’ ad on Craig’s List, and someone emailed me to say they had some carpet they had just pulled up that I was welcome to.

Yesterday I went with ds10 and dd12 to pick it up.  The couple I got it from was curious what I would do with it, and when I told them it was for my garden, we got to discussing gardening.  (They want me to email them when I make jam and sell them some – I don’t think that I’ll do that, though.)  And then they offered to give us a tour of their garden, something they said they never did before except for friends.  They had a beautiful bamboo garden and it was really lovely.  There were six kinds of bamboo (it never occurred to me that there was even more than one kind of bamboo) with lots of other plants – he told us about each one as we walked through (call that science for the afternoon).   (And on the way home, we listened to an audio recording of Sign of the Beaver – history for the day.)

I found it especially interesting since he had a yard that was almost entirely grass free, something I’ve been wondering how to do.  It was very tastefully designed – they did all the work themselves on it – and it was amazing to me how they created a feeling of expansiveness and privacy on such a small lot.  However, nothing was edible, and my goal in planting is to use my ground space for growing food.  It’s more challenging to landscape with edibles.  I’m not giving up, though – I have to be patient and accept that a beautiful garden takes time, particularly when done the frugal way.  For now, I have to be satisfied with having a productive garden, because honestly it’s not very beautiful (and with the mower recently having broken, my grass is quickly getting shaggy – it isn’t adding anything charming to the look of things).  

What did I want the carpet for?  Two things.  The first was to use to create paths between the lasagna beds; particularly with little children, I wanted to clearly define the space where they should walk so they don’t trample the plants. But more than that, I don’t have the desire to constantly be weeding the pathways – it’s bad enough to have to weed the actual garden beds.  This eliminated the expense of mulching the paths.  The second thing I wanted them for was to use as a mulch layer for some of my plants, cutting out a hole where the plant could grow from.  But my kids dissuaded me from doing this with our raspberry and blackberry bushes, saying that it would keep the shoots from being able to spread.  I had to agree with their logic, so the carpet is now just on the paths. 

A couple of the kids used a razor blade kind of knife to cut the carpet into the size strips I needed, but the blade disappeared before they could cut the final piece.  When I went inside I discovered what happened to it.  Ds3 apparently found it, figured out how to unlock it, and slashed the kitchen screen while we were busy with the yard work.  Sigh.  This is part of why there’s always something to fix around here.  🙂 

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

menu plans

It’s been so nice to have received food from friends for dinner in the last couple of weeks, which is why you haven’t been seeing my regular post on my weekly menu plan.   It’s such a nice thing to send people food after birth – I felt so nurtured, and so did my children.  I appreciated not having to cook three meals a day, and the kids enjoyed getting different food than we usually have – just having someone else bring something made it seem more special to them.  (After receiving variations of pasta and cheese dishes almost every night, they concluded that it must be what people make for big families.  They weren’t complaining, though – they enjoyed it.)

But eventually it’s back to regular life, so here is this week’s plan 🙂 :

Sunday – brunch – bread pudding (great way to use up leftover challah so it doesn’t sit around all week :)); dinner – turkey, rice, salad

Monday – b – pumpkin muffins; l – omelettes, salad; d – deli roll, baked sweet potatoes, steamed zucchini

Tuesday – b – hashbrowns, eggs; l -split pea soup and cornbread scones ; d – best vegetarian meatloaf

Wednesday – b – baked oatmeal; l – vegetarian meatloaf ; d – chili, crudites, dip

Thursday – b – polenta; l – Mexican lasagna; d- CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

I’m doubling up on the amounts I’m making for dinner this week in the middle of the week so I can serve planned leftovers for lunch the next day and keep things simple.  Dh went vegetable shopping this morning, so we’re now stocked up and have plenty of fruits to supplement breakfast and lots of nice veggies for fresh salads.  Everyone especially appreciates salad in the summer.  He also got a lot of ripe bananas because since discovering how easy it is to make banana ‘ice cream’, it’s become a staple around here.  I’ve been enjoying mine with spirulina mixed in, but the kids have no interest – they think the green color it takes on after mixing in the spirulina looks disgusting.

Avivah

Free bikes!

frugal strategies

My kids received new bikes today from their fairy godmother :), and we’re giving away their old bikes.  All of them work fine, though a couple have flat tires.  If you live around here and are interested, let me know – I’d love to know some of my blog readers are enjoying them.  Here’s what we have:

  • 1 – 16″ lavender bike – taken
  • 1 – 16 ” red/blue bike – taken
  • 1 – 20″ red bike – taken
  • 1 – 20″ pink/purple bike (has flat tire) – taken
  • 1 – 20″ blue bike (has flat tire) – taken

Feel free to call or email me privately if you have my contact info, or post below if you don’t.  I’d like to give them away within the next 24 hours (ie, by Monday evening), and will be home pretty much all day if you want to come by and pick up any/all of them.

Avivah

Today’s plant exchange

gardening

A neighbor mentioned to me that our neighborhood association was once again hosting a plant exchange (last year was the first one), so I headed over today.  Last year was really nice – 5 free plants per family (4 annuals, 1 perennial), with free window boxes and potting soil.  When I went today, I expected it to be a similar set up, but I found out once I was there that they had changed the way it ran. 

First of all, there were no free plants, because funding was significantly lower this year.  You could only get plants by paying with a ticket.  How did you get tickets?  They couldn’t tell me in a straightforward way, but after paying $10 for dues to the neighborhood association, they told me I was entitled to 2 tickets as a member of the association (wouldn’t tell me before that).  I later found out that for every plant you brought to exchange, you could get a ticket, too.

I decided I would use my tickets to get perennials, since I’d rather have plants that will continue to come back year after year, than to get ones which will need to be replanted.  There were several to choose from, but as soon as they told me one of the choices was purple coneflower, I told them I’d like two of them.  I don’t know what made them ask – maybe because I answered them so quickly – but they asked what made me choose that.  I told them that it was a medicinal plant, echinacea.  But then one of the women told me I wasn’t able to use my tickets for any perennials because I wasn’t a member of the association. When I told them that I was, they agreed that I could have one plant, but only one.

So I went over to see if they had any vegetable or herb plants.  There was one tiny pepper plant and one chamomile start that someone had brought, and when I asked the woman in charge if each of those were a ticket, she said yes, but then reconsidered and told me to take one for free, that they were going to have plants left over and the plants were so tiny she didn’t want to ‘charge’ me for it.  I took the pepper plant – none of the pepper seeds I started were successful. 

Then I got a beautiful purple coleus plant with my remaining ticket.  When I got home, I seperated the echinacea plant into seven individual rootings, and planted each one individually.  I did this with the hope that they’ll spread.  Echinacea is a wonderful herb that is a powerful germ fighter, and I’ll be glad to be able to harvest my own instead of ordering it.  It’s nice to have a flower that looks nice and is so useful, too.  This joins sage, fennel, and red raspberry as medicinal herbs that I’m now growing and will be able to harvest. 

Especially in increasingly difficult economic times, with so many people becoming interested in gardening (for food), I think it’s a shame that they didn’t have vegetable plants or herbs available.  It’s almost as people in charge only wanted decorative plants that have no other purpose.  They did have day lilies available, which have edible bulbs, but I don’t think most people know that, and I don’t really care for how they look.  And anyway, someone there told me that if I want some, I’m welcome to come to her house and dig them up for free. 

There were also two free trees available from the city, willow and (I think) hawthorne.  I asked why those two trees were selected – in my opinion, fruit trees would be more useful – they told me because they are hardy.  I don’t have a large yard and wasn’t interested in filling up valuable space with trees that didn’t have much of a purpose, so I passed on those.

When I got home, I asked the girls to dig up some tomato starts from our garden and take them to the exchange.  Two women volunteering told me that lots of people had been asking about vegetable plants and specifically wanted tomatoes, but no one had brought any.  When I mentioned that I had plenty, they asked me to bring some.  The girls went for me and took ten tomato plants to the exchange, but an unhelpful woman in charge gave them a hard time, acting as if they were trying to deceive her in some way.  (Another volunteer tried to explain to her that they were just bringing plants to exchange, but wasn’t successful.)  She would only give them 5 tickets for the ten plants, instead of ten.  After they told her they thought they were supposed to get a ticket for each plant, she begrudgingly gave them another two tickets, and the girls were left with the unpleasant feeling that she was trying to cheat them because they weren’t adults.  I told them she was probably operating from a mindset of expecting people to be dishonest and try to get more than they were entitled to, and therefore was being protective of the exchange, not that she had anything against them specifically. 

They brought home another coleus, two marigolds, and four begonias.  I don’t especially like begonias, but one of the girls did, so it’s fine with me.  We did some planting earlier before leaving to the exchange, and put in a row of marigold seeds in front of the tomato plants, since they are a bug repellent.  I’ll put the new marigold plants next to some other garden plants that will benefit from them.  The begonias went into the window box, and I have to figure out where to plant the coleus – I love how coleus look! 

We also planted seeds for eggplant, cucumber, yellow summer squash, and green beans (bush).  I wanted to get some acorn and pattypan squash seeds in (we already put in butternut), but we didn’t have enough time.  Maybe later tonight when it’s cooler we can plant them.  We noticed some plants started growing in the compost pile (not the tumbler, which heats everything so that seeds are killed), so we transferred them to the garden – it looks like they are watermelon.  I’m really astounded by how many, many tomato plants I have that seeded themselves, either from the compost pile or from last year’s plants.  I’d guess that I have at least 50, probably more.  We’ll see if it’s possible for us to grow more tomatoes than we can eat! 

The rest of the garden is so far BH looking good – we picked the first three strawberries this morning, the snap pea plants are zooming up, the beets are coming up nicely, and we should be able to harvest some lettuce very soon.  The weather we’ve been having has been great for the garden, I think – lots of rain and thunderstorms in the evenings, with warm and dry days.  I haven’t had to worry much about doing watering!

It’s really gratifying to watch the plants coming up.  I’ve said it before, but there’s something about planting things yourself that warms your heart and is so satisfying.  I don’t know if whatever the garden will yield will justify the time involved (not much expense this year), but gardening is a valuable skill to learn and I find the time outside working in the yard relaxing. 

Avivah

Grain mill recommendations, questions about grinding wheat

food preservation,

A few years ago, I began buying wheat berries and grinding our family’s flour.  That sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is, because my electric grinder does all the work, but I get the sense that people picture me slaving away when they hear we grind our own flour – it’s synonymous with being a nutritional nut or a martyr mom. 🙂

>>I am thinking of grinding my own grains soon and was wondering what type of mill you use and where do you buy your grains?<<

I use the Nutrimill, which I’ve been very happy with.  It has a lifetime warranty and the company will replace or fix whatever is necessary if it breaks due to a fault in the machine, which is a big plus.  They don’t guarantee breakage caused by you putting something in the machine that shouldn’t be there, so when a penny was in the bag of bulk wheat that I bought and it was unwittingly poured into the grinder along with the wheat, the motor burnt out and I had to pay for repairs.  But even then the repair costs were reasonable and they paid the return shipping costs to me, which I didn’t expect and thought was very nice.  It was $249 when I bought it, including shipping, but I think the price is a little higher now.

Earlier this year I bought a Family Mill, which is a manual mill, because I didn’t like having to buy flour when my electric mill was inaccessible (when it was being repaired).  If I were buying a mill right now, I would buy one mill that had manual and electric capacity – the Country Mill is the one I would probably get, because it’s made to last forever, a quality I like in the things I buy since everything in our home gets used hard.  But that’s $400, and I didn’t want to spend that after already spending $250 on the Nutrimill.  In the end, I spent close to that for the two mills, though.

I buy my grains in bulk, but my sources have changed over the years.  I started with my  local health food store, where I got a 10% discount by buying a large quantity.  I didn’t think that was a good enough discount for the amount I was getting.  So I started looking into buying directly from the wholesaler, which is what I went on to do.  Now I buy through a couple of supermarkets that buy from the wholesaler I was using; they buy at the store rate from the wholesaler and mark it up a bit for me, but it ends up being comparable to the higher private customer rate that the wholesaler gave me.   This works out well for me because it’s local to where I do my monthly shopping and the wholesaler was in an entirely different direction.  I get the impression I’m the only one who has ever asked the management of this store to do this, and obviously not every store will be willing to do it (I asked recently at Whole Foods and while they were willing to buy in large amounts for me, the discount they offered was negligible).  But it doesn’t hurt to ask.  I think the manager of the bulk department appreciates my business since the store makes a profit without much extra work for her.

>>Offhand, have you calculated the cost of grinding your own flour versus buying flour?? I was just wondering if you’d already figured it out… Saves me from doing all the math if someone else already did. :)<<

Actually, it’s not cost per pound, though that’s the easiest way to figure it.  The reason is that flour has air in it, so when you grind a cup of wheat berries, you get more than a cup of flour.  I think you get 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups of flour, but it’s been three years since I researched this.  Also, the flour quality is much higher than even the most expensive whole wheat flour you can buy, since the oil in the wheat hasn’t gone rancid.  So you’d have to compare it to King Arthur white whole wheat flour, but the quality of your home ground flour would still be much better.

If you like to use specialty flours that are gluten free, it’s very, very worthwhile to get your own mill.  Those flours are all very pricey and the grains themselves are not nearly as expensive.  I don’t know how much of a case can be made for the money saving aspect of grinding your own wheat.  It will depend a lot on the price you pay for whole wheat flour or wheat berries.  The price I’d pay for 50 lb of berries or flour is the same (comparing regular whole wheat flour), so I’d save 25 – 50% by grinding my own.   But some people would feel the extra step involved in grinding the wheat and the cost of the grinder wouldn’t be justified by that savings.  It would take a lot of wheat berries ground to equal $250 saved!

I bought a mill for the health aspect, since the whole wheat flour in the stores has already lost the majority of it’s nutrients by the time you get it.  Freshly ground flour definitely tastes better, too!  Another benefit that I hadn’t considered when I started doing this is that I can store large amounts of wheat berries without worrying about them losing their nutritional value over time, unlike flour, which has a definite shelf life.

I’m very glad I got the grinder, and have never regretted the purchase.  If anything, I appreciate it more and more over time.

Avivah

Challah instructions and recipe

recipes

>>Would you be able to post your challah recipe? I am tired of the one I am using and figure yours is probably really good. i always like your recipes. <<

My dd14 has taken over the challah making in our house – when she moves out one day, I might have to relearn how to bake challah!  But since I’ve made it for so many years, I think it’s more likely to be like riding a bicycle – once you learn you never forget. 

We use hard white wheat for most of our baking.  People always know that there’s whole wheat flour in our challah, but never guess that it’s all whole wheat.  The whole wheat flour you buy in the store is generally from hard red wheat kernels, and is darker in color, with a stronger flavor.  You can buy King Arthur’s white whole wheat, which is basically the same as what we use, but not as good quality because it’s not as fresh.  Nutritionally red and white wheat are comparable.

>> i have switched to coconut oil and palm oil (the same brands you mentioned in your previous posts), but the one area i am having difficulty in adapting to these new oils is challah. I don’t want coconut tasting challah and I cannot find the right measurement for the palm oil. <<

I use expeller pressed coconut oil for when I’m baking something that I don’t want to have a coconut flavor.  Expeller pressed coconut oil doesn’t have a smell or flavor of coconut.  (It’s also not as healthy as the raw coconut oil that retains the coconut smell and flavor, but it’s still very good for you.)  I like coconut a lot, but there are some foods where it just doesn’t enhance the final result!  We melt it first if it’s cold in the house; when it’s warm it melts so it’s not necessary.  We’ve found that it works just like regular oil, though I think the challah stays fresh for longer with coconut oil, but that’s my subjective opinion.  After the coconut or palm oil is melted, use the same amount that the recipe calls for. 

Here’s the recipe we’ve been using for the last year or two – it’s the amount that we make every week, but it’s a large recipe and most families will probably want to halve it.  You could make this size recipe and freeze of the challahs for the following week, but it’s best made fresh.  

  • 8 c. warm water
  • 4 T. yeast
  • 3 T. salt
  • 2 c. sugar (1 regular cup, 1 overflowing – we use sucanat)
  • 1 c. oil (I use expeller pressed coconut oil)
  • 21 – 25 c. flour (I use all whole wheat, but suggest you start off with half whole wheat and half white because it’s easier to be successful with; of course you can use all white if you like, too!)

Mix the warm water and yeast; add salt, sugar, and oil.  Add flour bit by bit – the stickier the dough is, the better the final result, but you can’t have it so sticky that’s it’s impossible to work with.  Let dough rise for an hour, punch down, then braid.  Put in loaf pans or on a baking sheet and let rise for an hour or until doubled.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes for loaf pans, longer for larger challahs – dd rotates the pans so that they’re on the top rack for 15 minutes, then the bottom rack for 15 minutes to ensure even baking.  My dd prefers how the challahs come out when baked in a loaf pan.  The challahs will look underdone when ready, but sound hollow on the bottom when tapped.   This makes 6 – 7 loaf sized challahs.

I’ve learned that making challah is about getting a sense for what the dough should feel like when it’s ready – you can follow a recipe exactly, but you won’t get the same challah every time because it depends on a number of variables.  When using all whole wheat flour, this is even more important, because it’s easy to make the dough too heavy and then the final result will be dense.  

My dd said to tell you not to get discouraged if it doesn’t turn out great the first time.  You have to get a sense of what the dough feels like when it’s just right, but once you’ve got that, your challah will turn out amazingly!

Have a good Shabbos!

Avivah

Cost for the bris

frugal strategies, homemaking

>>Do you have any tips for how to make a low cost bris?<<

Well, everyone has a different idea of what they consider low cost, but I’ll share what we’ve done. 

Generally, an important principle in saving money is to look ahead and plan in advance.  If you know you’re having a boy, you can think about what kind of menu you’ll want to serve, and take advantage of sales to buy the non perishables.  You can do the same with paper goods and any decorations. 

But we don’t know what we’re having until the baby is born, so planning ahead isn’t something I can do.  I mentioned a few weeks ago taking advantage of a sale on turkey and commented at the time that if we had a boy, we would use it for the seuda.  We had talked about making a late afternoon bris if it was a boy, and serving fleishigs.  But you know the saying – ‘man plans, and G-d laughs’ – since our bris was on erev yom tov, the late afternoon idea was changed to the typical morning dairy spread and the turkeys stayed in the freezer. 

But what you can do is minimize your costs by doing whatever you can yourself.  If you hire a caterer to do the set up, food preparation, serving, and clean up, it’s going to cost you a lot more than if you do any or all of those yourself.  We do all of the preparations ourselves, and can serve foods comparable to what the caterers serve for a lot less.

 What do we serve?   We had bagels, rice cakes, and whole wheat matza (dh and I don’t eat bread and we have friends who also don’t), egg salad, tuna salad,  hard boiled eggs, cheddar and muenster cheese slices, sliced tomatoes and purple onions, salad, cream cheese, butter, fruit salad, and a bowl of whole fruit.  We put out orange juice, milk, coffee, and herbal teas.  We decided against cake and cookies this time, though in the past we’ve also put out a variety of danishes and cookies.  I considered serving scrambled eggs, but it decided to keep it simple and not worry about how to keep the eggs hot without getting rubbery if they sat in the warmer for a while.  Basically, it’s your typical bris morning spread. 

Food preparation for us was making the egg and tuna salads, cutting up the fruit (pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew) for the fruit salad and slicing the veggies for the platters.  The biggest expense was the chalav yisroel butter and cream cheese – we bought way more than we needed and I usually wouldn’t spend more than $2 a pound for either of them.  Because there was a sale last week, the sliced cheese at the take out counter happened to be less than buying a block and slicing it ourselves, but I would have bought it sliced even if it was more.  There are times when it’s worth it to pay a little more and have a little less to do! 

Setting up the room and cleaning up take a solid chunk of time, but it’s not hard and generally it’s the kind of thing our family enjoys doing together.  Because there was a non family member there who was involved and very, um, instructive towards my kids, it made it a lot less enjoyable for them than it would usually be.  But as far as the money saving aspect, that was another way to keep costs down.

We bought paper goods at the local dollar store, so that wasn’t very expensive.  My mother in law took my girls shopping for those items, though, and covered the costs, so I can’t include that in what we ourselves paid for. 

Since my dh did the shopping for the food and I haven’t seen the receipts, I can’t share the breakdown of how much we spent.  It was around $200 for the food, and less than $100 for the rental of the room from the shul (less expensive because we’re members).  We set up for 50 people but could have easily fed double that number (except for the cheese, which was almost finished).  These milchig leftovers came in handy on Shavuos, since people sent food for two of the four yom tov meals, and when an hour before yom tov we realized that’s all there would be, we didn’t have any last minute pressure because we were able to supplement for the other meals with what I had in the freezer and what we had from the bris.  I don’t know whether to consider the extra food costs for the bris as bris costs or my food budget costs, but either way, it all evens out.

We considered having the bris in our house, but felt that space constraints would make it less comfortable for everyone, and therefore the cost of renting the shul space was worthwhile.  But if someone had a large enough home, they could save on that cost by having it all in their home.

The rav/mohel who performed the bris doesn’t charge and refused to take money when we tried to get him to accept payment.  Since we’ve asked the same rav for all of our brissim since living in this city, I don’t have personal experience with other mohelim.  Just last night a Christian women at the homeschool curriculum sale asked me about mohelim and their costs; she was asking for a friend with who wants to circumcise their son ritually though they aren’t Jewish, who had gotten quotes of $600.  I have no idea if that’s standard, though it seems expensive to me.  If that’s actually the going rate, then using the mohel we did obviously was a big money saver, though that wasn’t our primary motivation.

Avivah