The menu below integrates planned leftovers (I purposely double ingredients when cooking so I don’t do double the work – eg, when cooking chickpeas for Shabbos, I made lots so I’d have some cooked for stew on Sunday).  And during the week if I have a bit of something left over from one meal to the next, I either repurpose into something else (eg some cooked veggies will end up being added to a stew), or eaten in addition to the meal itself as a side dish if there’s enough of it.  My goal is to get to the end of the week with a minimum of food storage contIf I link to a recipe with ingredients you wouldn’t think I’d use, then I’ve taken the basic idea and then adapted it. 🙂  There are very few recipes I use as is, but it’s easier to link and adapt than pay attention to the measurements I use and post my own version.

Shabbos (Sabbath) – night – challah, chicken soup, roast chicken, ratatouille, sauteed cabbage, roast squash and yams, cinnamon rolls, stewed pears

lunch – challah, techina, Moroccan carrot salad, pepper salad, marinated chickpeas, baba ganoush, eggplant and red pepper dip, savory beet salad, cabbage/lettuce salad (I have to think of a good name for this, since it’s really good!), squash pudding, potato kugel, onion quiche, chicken, lemon squares, rugelach

Sunday – breakfast – fruit; lunch – chickpea eggplant stew, rice (make double for breakfast on Weds), carrot salad; dinner – potato soup, cabbage salad

Monday – b – polenta; l – Viking stew, beet salad; d – butternut squash soup with dumplings

Tuesday – b – oatmeal; l – chicken with red lentils; d- Viking stew

Wednesday – b – rice pancakes; l – chicken with sesame noodles; d – lentil barley stew

Thursday – b –  fried eggs, pepper strips; l – chicken pot pie; d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

Friday – b – oatmeal; l – lentil barley stew

On Friday afternoon, dh went shopping for vegetables, and since I didn’t have a chance to unpack them all that day, I spent part of this morning organizing my pantry.  Though I don’t have the space to store foods bought in large quantities, I have made enough space to be able to take advantage of good sales, so I usually have vegetables left from one week’s purchase to another.  That means putting the older vegetables in the front so they get used right away; otherwise, bargains can easily turn into losses if they spoil before they are used.  And then I take a look at what I have in my pantry and fridge, and plan my menu for the week based on that.

I started a big batch (4 gallons) of curried carrot sauerkraut on Friday (well, let me be honest – I delegated this to ds12), but still need to add some onions, garlic, and purple cabbage to it.  Right now it’s just green cabbage and carrots – but it’s a lot of it!  Fortunately, you can add vegetables to a ferment after it begins fermenting.

This morning, I started a pot of chicken broth to use for the next couple of days. It goes really fast around here, and I miss the free turkey carcasses I used to be able to get, that allowed me to constantly make huge pots of broth for pennies a pot.  What I’m doing now is buying whole chickens, which is the cheapest kind of chicken here (aside from giblets and wings), cut it up and debone it.  Then I put the bones in one bag in the freezer for broth making, and the other parts in another bag.  (I try to keep the white meat separate, since it dries out if I cook it with the dark meat, but is excellent when cooked well.)

With the cold weather coming up, everyone will enjoy hot soups, and I like to use broth as the base for all my soups – it not only adds lots of nutritional value, but it makes a regular soup really, really good.  (I sent a thick potato soup to a neighbor a few months ago, and her husband kept exclaiming over how amazing it was – based on the ingredients in it, he couldn’t figure out why it was so delicious!   Broth, a cook’s best friend.  🙂 )

(As always, feel free to request a recipe if you see it listed and there’s no link.)

Have a great week!

Avivah