This year Rosh Hashana is immediately followed by Shabbos, making it a three day holiday.  Although you’re allowed to cook on Rosh Hashana, my preference is not to because then my entire holiday becomes cooking, setting up for the meal, serving, cleaning up, and cooking some more.  That doesn’t allow for me to feel the spirit of the day, so I try to prepare everything in advance.

Below is a list of the foods we’ll be making for Rosh Hashana.  Some are old standbys, some are new for this year.

• Round challahs
• hummus (chickpea and white bean dip)
• matbucha (spicy cooked tomato dip)
• dill dip
• simanim salad for Rosh Hashana night meals
• pomegranate salad
• red cabbage salad
• cucumber salad
• cabbage salad with peanut butter dressing
• corn salad
• tomato salad
• bisli salad
• Moroccan carrot salad
• apple spoon kugel
• onion kugel
• sweet and sour pineapple beets
• ratatouille
• chef salad (I’m still considering if this should be a main course for the second day meal of Rosh Hashana)
• baked fish
• roast chicken
• baked sweet potato rounds
• oatmeal cookies
• brownies
• two tone honey marble cake
• birthday cake for ds6

When there are so many festive meals, it’s easy to feel weighed down by so much food.  I’ve found by having lots of salads and not so many starchy side dishes that everyone feels comfortably full but not weighed down by the food.

Usually I make a number of dishes for the simanim (symbolic foods), and this year decided to do something different and have a big salad that will incorporate as many of these foods as possible – I think I should be able to get just about everything except the fish in.   This idea has never appealed to me before, but now it does – it feels much simpler and I think everyone will like it just as much as what I’ve previously done.

If there’s a recipe you want to see, please let me know  – things are really busy  so I make no promises but I’ll try to put it up in time for Rosh Hashana!

Avivah

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

This morning marks six months from the time we met with the geneticist and were told that the testing results conclusively showed that Yirmiyahu had Trisomy 21.  As such, I was scheduled for a follow up visit today with the geneticist  but decided against going – I’m assuming (based on the first visit) they want to see how we’re coping emotionally and offer counseling if we’re suffering too much grief or emotional pain.  That’s not really where we’re at so I cancelled the appointment along with the appointment with the pediatric hematologist (which was scheduled for the sake of convenience since it was at the same hospital, but Yirmiyahu doesn’t need to be seen until March).  So instead of spending hours on the bus, I can post my menu plan for the week.  🙂

Sunday – b – oatmeal; l – mushroom barley soup; d- stir fry, roast potatoes, beans

Monday – b – banana bread; l – lentil soup; d – meatloaf, french fries, salad

Tuesday – b – pancakes; l – baked potatoes, souffle, tomato salad; d – colcannon

Wednesday – b – fried potatoes, breakfast beans; l – lentil rice casserole, salad; d – cabbage meat soup, baked potatoes

Thursday – b – banana bread; l – chili; d – kasha pilaf, meatballs, vegetables

Friday – b – apple oat scones; l – split pea soup

My dd18 did the planning last week, and stayed up late one night when I was already sleeping and filled the freezer with a number of dishes for the coming week, like the proverbial shoemakers elf. 🙂 As I was writing this out, I got a call from the municipality education representative – he got a report from the school that I refused the psychological counseling ‘recommended’ and wants to meet with me this afternoon to see if we can cooperate with one another.  (This is a nicely phrased way of saying they want me to agree to do what they want – my experience with institutions has repeatedly been that ‘cooperation’ is one sided. )  Since I already have a physical therapy appointment for Yirmiyahu in the afternoon and now this meeting, dd’s planning and preparation will be an even bigger help than I envisioned!

Avivah

Friday night – challah, chicken soup, roast chicken, potatoes, squash, roasted carrots, sesame stir fried vegetable, cinnamon buns; Saturday lunch – challah, hummous, beef stew, sesame chicken, kishke, potato kugel, zucchini kugel, sweet potato pie with crumble topping, pepper salad, pomegranate salad, fresh salad, brownies, rugelach

Sunday – lunch – chicken, kugels, salad; dinner – stuffed peppers

Monday – l – chicken lentil stew; d – baked sweet potatoes, salads

Tuesday – l – noodles and cheese sauce; d – Mediterranean white bean soup

Wednesday – l – shepherds pie; d –

Thursday – l – chickpea and sweet potato burgers; d – Mediterranean white bean soup

Friday – l – CORN (clean out fridge night – though it’s not night :))

My weekly vegetable shopping trip didn’t happen at the end of the last week since I took ds to the emergency room instead, so I’m low on some key veggies and out of fruit.  I hope to go shopping before I go back to the hospital so I can get everything stocked back up again.

I didn’t write breakfasts for this week, since it’s usually the same – oatmeal, polenta or eggs.  I’m trying to minimize grains which is why you don’t see many starches other than sweet potatoes or potatoes on the menu.  That means more beans to replace the starches.  As always, the kids take a midmorning snack to school as well as lunch on a few days; fruits and vegetables available for snacks aren’t written in.

Avivah

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a weekly menu.  When I know that I’ll be sharing it here, it helps me to commit to preparing my menu plan at the beginning of the week and that’s a good thing since having it in place before the the first meals need to be prepared makes the entire week go more smoothly.

Friday night dinner – challah, chicken soup, roast chicken, butternut squash, roasted potatoes, sesame green beans, savory baked carrots, leafy pomegranate salad, cinnamon buns; Saturday lunch – challah, hummous, beef stew, potato kugel, carrot kugel, apple kugel, red and yellow pepper salad with olives, creamy cucumber salad, cabbage/tomato/lettuce salad, brownies; Saturday night – sweet potato carrot cream soup, potato latkes, fresh doughnuts

Sunday – breakfast – eggs, fruit; lunch – creamy yam/carrot soup, potato kugel, carrot kugel, salad; dinner – split pea soup

Monday – b – polenta; l – chili con carne; d – sweet potato pear soup

Tuesday – b – oatmeal; l – chicken with celery gravy and baked potatoes; d – Hearty Tuscan white bean soup

Wednesday – b – polenta; l – shepherd’s pie; d – kidney bean burgers

Thursday – b – oatmeal; l –Hearty Tuscan white bean soup; CORN – clean out refrigerator night

Friday – b – oatmeal; l – CORN

The kids have a sandwich and fruit or vegetables as a midmorning snack at school, and usually have a fruit or vegetable with breakfast. Lunch and dinner are usually served with some kind of fresh vegetables – pepper strips, carrot sticks, cucumber rounds. This week I bought a lot of lettuce so we’ll be having more leafy salads with our meals.

Last week I bought a lot of sweet potatoes – the price is usually too high to include them on a regular basis, but they went all the way down to 2.99 a kilo and I bought three cases (small cases). This is great because they’re so versatile – you can use them in soups, stews, baked and eaten plain, or made into breakfast puddings. Since the weather is cool now, they are able to be stored without spoiling in a cabinet on my laundry porch.

My apartment building has been having some kind of problems with the pipes, so the water has been turned off repeatedly at odd times without warning for hours at a time for over a week. This has made cooking the last two Fridays very challenging, since one week it was off until 1 pm, this week it wasn’t turned on until an hour before Shabbos began. Then when it was turned on I was racing to wash my mountain of dishes with a little trickle of water. I told my kids that it was a Chanukah miracle that the food was cooked and all the dishes washed by the time Shabbos began. 🙂 The reason for mentioning this is that the water is currently off and has been for hours, and we’ve used up all the bottles we filled in advance. Once it’s on again, I’ll be soaking kidney beans and white beans so they’ll be ready to be used in recipes this week.

This past week I stocked up on chicken/meat for the month. When I went into the store I saw whole chickens on sale without a limit on how many could be purchased (usually it’s limited to 4 kilos with a purchase of 100 shekels of items that are not on sale so I get just the amount I can buy on sale – usually two chickens), and bought eight whole chickens. The beef was also on sale, so I got four kilos of that (I use a kilo each week in beef stew for Shabbos lunch) and then six kilos of chicken bottoms at half price (though our family prefers dark meat, it’s much more expensive than whole chickens). I only have the freezer space available in my fridge freezer or I would have gotten more.

The guys at the meat counter know my purchasing habits and asked me if I wanted giblets. I glanced down and saw the price, and told them that since they weren’t on sale I wouldn’t bother this week. They told me they’ll make it on sale for me, so I asked how much? When they said six shekels a kilo, I told them I’d take ten kilos!I cooked up all the giblets in a huge pot when I got home, then bagged them into kilo servings. These make a great addition to all kinds of chicken dishes.  (Last year I wrote about using giblets here.)

Celery is such a great addition to winter soups but usually the heads of celery are scrawny and I don’t bother buying them. This week they were huge and leafy, so I bought one to use fresh during the next week or so, and three of them will be sliced up and dehydrated.

Avivah

Life is so busy that now more than ever I really need to be on top of my menu planning!  I have too much to do in too tight a time frame to waste any time not knowing what I’m making or not being able to prep ingredients or go shopping in advance.  Things could easily fall apart around here right now without tight organization; this week I’ll be organizing other aspects of day to day life that will be helpful in getting everyone through this intense period reasonably happily, but the menu is the first step.

I’m trying to integrate suggestions from a naturopath that I’ve taken a couple of the kids to recently regarding food choices.  She basically thinks that we have a well-balanced diet so her suggestions are pretty minor – eg add in more dark beans (lentils, split peas, red/black beans).  For your convenience, I’m adding links for the basic recipes that I’ll be using – I don’t make most recipes exactly as suggested but I find a basic framework helpful to work from.

Here’s our menu for this week:

Sunday – fruit, oatmeal; dinner – pasta and cottage cheese, salad, watermelon, cake, ice cream (in honor of ds10’s birthday)

Monday –  b – oatmeal, fruit; l – beef and eggplant stew; d – brown lentil salad

Tuesday – b – oatmeal, fruit; l – Persian poached eggs in tomato sauce, kasha; d – Italian salad (pasta, Bulgarian cheese, vegetables)

Wednesday – b – polenta, fruit; l – chicken fried rice; d – white bean tabouleh

Thursday – b –  oatmeal, fruit; l – crispy baked fish, baked potatoes; d – cucumber, tomato and kidney bean salad

Friday – b – polenta; l – leftovers; d – Shabbos menu begins

I serve some kind of vegetable or salad with lunch, but I don’t plan that ahead.  I just look in the fridge to see that I feel like using that day!  For dinners in the summer, I’m making a lot of main dish salads that are filling but not heavy, and integrate a nice amount of vegetables with that.  Several of the kids have specific additions or changes to what is written above,  and  I also usually have something different than what is listed for breakfast, usually eggs or cottage cheese with vegetables.  But this is the basic family plan!

Avivah

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