This week, I was thinking that I haven’t posted a weekly menu plan or shared any recipes for ages!

The truth is, I haven’t been on top of menu planning for quite a while, though there are always new recipes that we’re trying out (like every day or two!). About the menu planning, I’ve been relying on dd17 to come up with dinner ideas but even though she’s very good about it, I don’t like to ask that of her on a regular basis – there’s a kind of pressure in having to think about what to make for dinner an hour or two before it needs to be on the table that I don’t like and don’t want anyone else in my family to feel.  Now with the summer weather here, it’s really time to think about our meals differently, since the stews and soups we enjoy when it’s cold out aren’t especially appreciated!

On Monday, I sat down to plan our menu for the rest of the week and frankly felt a little nostalgic since I’m not able to buy so many of the things that regularly made up our meals in the US.  Frugal beans and grains have always had a part in my menu plan, but generally a small part.  I miss the abundant dairy, pastured eggs and nut flours that I regularly used, but the cost here is just too high to regularly include them.  And since this week is the last week of the month and my budgeted food money for the month was spent, I was faced with the additional challenge of using whatever was in the house without buying more groceries, which meant lots more bean based recipes than usual!

However, planning the menu got me into a good frame of mind since I was able to come up with some new frugal meal ideas that everyone has been enjoying!  Since someone asked me today to share some ‘food’ stuff and recipes on my blog, I’m going to share my menu even though I usually post this at the beginning of the week (links below are for the basic recipe though I adapted most of them):

Monday – breakfast – oatmeal, fruit; dinner – red lentil cauliflower soup

Tuesday – breakfast – oatmeal, fruit; lunch – sprouted brown lentil salad, green pepper strips; dinner – fluffy scrambled eggs, mile high biscuits

Wednesday – breakfast – oatmeal, fruit; lunch – baked potatoes, kohlrabi/carrot/cucumber salad with yogurt dressing; dinner – white bean salad

Thursday – breakfast – oatmeal, fruit; lunch – dirty rice (rice with ground beef and veg), black eyed pea salad (with tomato, scallions, fresh mint); dinner – lunchbox salad

Friday – breakfast – polenta, fruit; lunch – clean out the fridge!; dinner –
Shabbos menu (this is incomplete because it’s still being planned) – challah, roast chicken, roast potatoes, coleslaw, steamed Moroccan carrots, beet salad

Shabbos lunch – chicken, potato kugel, mushroom quiche, crunchy cabbage salad, tomato olive salad, cucumber salad, hummus

The kids take sandwiches and vegetables with them for their ‘ten o’clock meal’ that they have in school.  For snacks between lunch and dinner, usually they have fruits, vegetables, or home popped popcorn.

I bought a juicer a couple of weeks ago, and so everyone also has been having at least one cup of carrot juice a day.  I’ve really been enjoying starting my day with this!  Dd17 likes beet juice but no one else has gotten too interested in that.  I haven’t been experimenting with different mixes since carrots are currently very inexpensive (1 shekel a kilo/13 cents lb when I buy them in bulk bags), and everyone enjoys the juice.  Last week we went through 30 kilos/66 lb of carrots!

Avivah