Shavuos in Israel is just one day, though I had to remind myself of this since after so many years I’m used to having two days of Shavuos.

Dairy is traditionally served on Shavuos, but I’m not really set up to easily serve dairy (no dairy oven, tablecloth, serving dishes).  What we’re doing instead is to have fish meals and then having cheesecake for dessert.

Night meal:

• challah, homemade
• dips: hummous, techina, matbucha
• creamy vegetable soup
• baked pollock with tomato olive topping
• roast potatoes
• chickpea quinoa pilaf
• cucumber salad
• tomato olive salad
• fresh salad
• cheesecake

Day meal:

• challah, homemade
• gazpacho (I might end up leaving this out since we have so many salads)
• baked baby cod in coconut milk
• salmon loaf
• potato knishes
• pancakes
• tabouli (cracked wheat salad)
• cucumber salad
• tomato olive salad
• savory beet salad
• corn salad
• vegetable platter
• cheesecake
• chocolate chip cookies

We made a huge amount of cheesecake at my kids request – this is the only time of year I make cheesecake – we made four very large pans.  (Obviously it won’t all be eaten in one day!)  I’m hoping to make another batch today to give to friends, but we’ll see what time allows for.   Since I don’t have a dairy oven I was looking and looking for no-bake recipes but the US recipes don’t work because I don’t have the right ingredients, and I wanted to make something a little different than the typical Israeli no-bake cheesecake (with layered biscuits).  I did some adapting to make the filling that we made – we all tasted it and agreed it was yummy – but I don’t yet know how the final product will be.

We made a few versions, all with the same cheese filling – one version was crushed coconut cookies and butter as a crust, another was biscuits laid flat in the pan as a crust, another used several layers of biscuits alternated with filling, then folded into a triangle shape.  All of them are frozen and will be put in the fridge to thaw  an hour or two before dessert.

Avivah