Category Archives: frugal strategies

Dietary changes since moving to Israel

aliyah, frugal strategies, nutrition

I recently answered the question about how we’re adapting to the differences in availability of certain foods since we arrived in Israel from a philosophical perspective.  Today I’ll answer the nitty gritty details.  😛

>>How are you finding the price differences in food?<<

Food prices are for the most part higher here on just about everything but fruits and vegetables.  When you take into account that the average Israeli salary isn’t as high as in the US, food costs make up for a much higher percentage of income here.

But even in the US, I wasn’t buying food at retail prices; I had discounted sources or bought on sale for just about everything.  Therefore, I was able to feed our family of 11 a high quality diet on $650 a month.  Our budget hasn’t drastically changed – we’re budgeting 2000 shekels a month for food ($555) and so far this is working out very nicely for our family and the guests we have almost every week – but we’ve had some shifts in what we’re eating.  I’m including prices of some basics since I was asked about that in the comments section of a previous post.

If I mention a price and you’d like to figure out what it would be in dollars, the conversion rate is currently 3.6 shekels to the dollar; 2.2 pounds equals a kilogram, and 4 liters is about a gallon.  (Yes, I stand there in front of the display shelves in the supermarket doing these calculations in my head to figure out if things are a good buy!  I fortunately have to do this less and less as time goes on, though.)

Dairy – We used to use lots of butter, raw milk, homemade yogurt (from raw milk), kefir, organic cottage cheese and sour cream, and small amounts of hard cheese.  Now, we’ll occasionally have some butter or pasteurized milk, or maybe a yogurt or two, but dairy is no longer a staple in our home.  I can’t stand that soy fillers are added to ground meat and cheeses here to make them cheaper (this was a surprise to me the first time I looked at a package of frozen chopped meat that was on sale), so you have to really, really read the labels to be sure you’re getting what you think you are.

On a related note: I was invited to a party last week at which I was the only English speaker, and when I looked at the so-called natural juice on the table, I saw it had artificial stabilizers added.  I chose to drink water instead, but the woman next to me asked me why I put the juice down.  I told her, and since everyone else at the table was listening, they showed me the ‘no artificial colors or preservatives” claim on the front, and then one of them turned the bottle around to show me where it said it in English (in case I didn’t get the point!).  I turned the bottle to the ingredients and showed them – in Hebrew – the problematic ingredients.  They couldn’t believe it.  Lesson – you must read labels carefully!

Back to dairy.  The least expensive cheese that doesn’t have soy fillers in it is about 42 shekels a kilo when bought at the counter (ie not prepackaged, so it’s the cheaper way to buy).  Milk is between 4.50 – 5 shekels a liter.  Butter is about 7.50 shekels for 200 grams. An individual unsweetened yogurt (150 – 200 grams) is about 1.20 – 2.35 shekels, depending on the fat content (sour cream is on the higher end of this price).  Cottage cheese is 5 shekels a container on sale; I don’t remember how many grams this is, maybe 250 (I haven’t yet bought it) but it’s about a cup.  These prices aren’t for organic or raw dairy products.

I’ve been unable to find raw cow’s milk, and the raw goat’s milk I’ve found is quite a drive from here.  I had a discussion with someone who raises goats and sells raw milk, but she was very adamant that it should be pasteurized before drinking.  She had some good points, basically about the importance of knowing not only the person who raises the goats, but each goat itself to see how it’s feeling that day to determine if there might be any infection that would transfer to the milk.   In any case, I don’t have a vehicle and renting a car to get milk once in a while would be a big expense.  (The cost of the raw goats milk was 7.5 shekels a liter.)  So due to cost and quality concerns, I’ve chosen to drastically minimize dairy, to the point of just about eliminating it.

Eggs – I used to buy pastured eggs directly from the farmer for an amazingly low price and used them very freely – it was common to go through two dozen eggs just at breakfast.  Here for non-pastured eggs I’m paying 27.50 shekels for 2.5 dozen non pastured eggs.  Organic eggs are much, much more.   We still use plenty of eggs, but closer to thirty dozen a month instead of sixty dozen.

Chicken/meat – Though we’ve cut down on the eggs and dairy, we’ve switched to more poultry.  This is an area where I think we are able to compensate a lot for the nutrients we used to get in milk and eggs.  I buy a lot of chicken giblets, a very nutritious organ meat, and use it almost daily for lunch (purchased on sale for 7 – 8 shekels a kilo). We usually have chicken on  Shabbos (the price of chicken varies drastically by kosher certification, ranging around 10 – 28 shekels a kilo for a whole chicken).

A lot of the beef in Israel is raised in Argentina, where the vast majority of animals are pastured.  I buy this once a week for Shabbos (when I can get it on sale for 3 kilos for 100 shekels).

Liver – I wrote a while back about my experience kashering liver.  After undertaking to kasher 20 pounds of beef liver, I was so burnt out that I didn’t reattempt it once we used up that huge batch.  However, in light of the lack of raw milk and high quality eggs, liver is again reentering the picture in our home.  🙂

Dd17 bought a two handled rectangular grill thingy that I can kasher the liver with on our stovetop when she was in Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago – there was nowhere in our city that they’re sold and I was really happy she was able to find it!  (Liver is very bloody and since Jews are forbidden to eat even a drop of blood, liver has to be roasted in a special way to ensure no blood is left in it before eating – this is called kashering.)  We kashered the first one kilo batch of chicken livers a few days ago, and it went pretty quickly, so last week dh picked up another four kilos.  By purchasing these on sale, I pay between 18 – 20 shekels a kilo.  (If you buy them kashered, the price goes up to around 100 shekels a kilo.)  This isn’t something that we need to eat lots of since nutritionally a little goes a long way; I’m planning to use about a kilo of liver a week for our family.

Broth – We are able to buy chicken bones for 4 shekels a kilo on sale, and usually have a pot of broth in use in some way.  We use this as a basis for soup, grains, and of course, with dh being on GAPS for over 1.5 years, broth is a staple for him.  In the winter I particularly enjoy drinking it instead of hot tea.

Fats – This was the thing that took me the longest to come up with some good choices after we moved and caused me the most frustration.  In the beginning had to use regular oil (soy and canola) from the store.   That was the worst since we haven’t had things like that in our house for five or six years and I think they’re nutritionally damaging, versus  less than ideal.  We used a lot more extra virgin olive oil during this time than usual.  Fortunately, we now have palm shortening for most baking and cooking (9 shekels a kilo).

I bought beef fat for 13 shekels a kilo last week  (the butcher discounted it down from 25 shekels a kilo for us – here the fat sells for almost as much as the meat!) and rendered it.  We use extra virgin olive oil for salads or to add to hot foods after they’ve been cooked.  None of these are cheap options but this is an area where I’m willing to spend more. I also try to regularly buy avocados, which range from about 6 – 8 shekels a kilo.

Produce – We still have lots of fruits and vegetables, and this is an area where we spend less in Israel than we did in the US.  I used to limit myself to produce that was under $1 a pound.  Here I’ve been limiting myself to produce under 4 shekels a kilo (this has gotten a little harder with the cold weather approaching and I might have to bump this up to 5 or 6 shekels a kilo at some point), though I occasionally go over for something like avocados, and can still find a good selection to choose from.

Beans – Legumes are famously known as budget stretchers, and of course we continue to incorporate these into our diet.  They average between 5 – 8 shekels a kilo when purchased unpackaged in the bulk section (prepacked is more like 8 – 11).  We soak and sprout all legumes to mazimize the nutritional value and to increase digestibility. 

Nuts – Since I believe that grains are best in limited quantities, I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago experimenting with nut flour recipes to minimize our grain usage – pie crusts, pizza crusts, muffins, desserts of all sorts – I got very good at this!  I was able to buy nut flours in bulk (50 lb sacks) for up to $4 lb.  Here, nuts are very expensive.   In my recent bulk order, I got 50 lb of sunflower seeds, the cheapest option, which is still not exactly cheap (17.20 a kilo plus 16% tax – sorry, I know that’s annoying but that’s how it’s itemized).

Sesame paste (tahini) is the only other affordable nut/seed option that I can think of.  Sesame seeds are about 10 or 11 shekels a kilo; tahini is about 20 shekels a kilo.  We make a batch of techina every week and use it as a dip for veggies.

Grains – I brought my grain grinder along, but thanks to someone’s recommendation, didn’t buy an adapter in the US for it (they said it was a waste of luggage weight and something we could easily buy here).  This was a big mistake.  When we got here, we learned that the transformer we need in order for it to work on the 220 electrical currents here was ridiculously expensive, over 600 shekels.  I’m planning to buy one from the US and ask my mother to bring it to me when she comes for our upcoming bar mitzva, but until then, I have to lay low with our usual grain grinding.

For the last few years I’ve been using primarily freshly ground hard white wheat or spelt when baking.  Without my grinder available to use, I’ve been using white flour, something that I haven’t used in many, many years.  Unless grain is freshly ground (due to the high phytase content), there’s a lot of controversy about if whole wheat or white flour are less damaging due to the phytic acid issues.  I’m not convinced that whole grain flours that have been sitting on the shelves of the store for weeks (at best) are a great source of nutrients, and there are definitely digestibility issues.  I’m not going to idealize white flour, believe me, but I’ve chosen to do this although I could get whole wheat flour for about the same price as white.  It’s a question of what’s the lesser of two evils and I’m not really happy with either choice.  I’ll be thrilled to be back to grinding our grains in the near future.  Using white flour keeps me very conscious to use it minimally and keeps me from falling into the thinking that as long as its freshly ground flour, then it’s healthy.  (I don’t think flour is ideal even when freshly ground and sprouted, but I do believe that those things make flour as ideal as it can be.)

Sweeteners – My staples in the past were organic sucanat (used for all baking), real maple syrup, honey, and xylitol.  I brought some xylitol and one 12 pound container of honey with me; the xylitol because it’s not available for purchase here and I use it for toothbrushing; the honey because I had already spent the money on it, and was able to use it to weigh down a suitcase of clothes that was full but under the allowed weight.  I was really glad to have brought it since honey is so expensive here but that’s finished now – we went through it much more quickly than we generally do since since organic sucanat isn’t available in Israel, and I used more honey.

But I also have bought – gasp! – white sugar.  I don’t believe that brown sugar, demerara, rapadura, or any other of the supposedly healthy forms of sugar are actually of much value, and definitely not worth spending extra money on.  (I did all this research about three years ago when learning about sucanat.)  I’ve shifted my cooking to lots of savory foods rather than sweet in order to minimize the use of sweeteners that are either nutritionally empty or very expensive – there doesn’t seem to be anything in the middle.  I don’t make the healthy muffins and quick breads that I used to serve many mornings for breakfasts, since with the ingredients I have now they wouldn’t be healthy enough for me to consider it nourishing food.  I’ve mentioned before that I cut the amount of sweetener that recipes call for in half, and this generally brings it down to the level of sweetness that our family is comfortable with.  Flour and sugar are now mostly saved for Shabbos challah and desserts, which I’m basically okay with since it’s so limited. 

Our food remains unprocessed and everything is made from scratch, which is also a big factor in our food budget remaining so low even while here in Israel.  I hesitated about sharing how much we spend monthly because I’ve noticed two tendencies people have when seeing this information: a) to gloat because they spend less, or b) to be discouraged because they spend more.  I hope that everyone realizes that this is just our budget, and that this isn’t the place to compete or compare.  If someone wants to cut their budget, I’ve shared extensively over the years about how to cut costs in this area (look in the frugality section), and this has helped many, many people get their food costs down significantly.  If someone thinks we spend too much, well, this is what we’re comfortable with, and we’re not looking to get down to the bare bones.  We enjoy having guests, and we enjoy having nice meals – you can see from what I’ve shared above that there are things we could cut out if we were looking for the cheapest possible food. 

Okay, I’ve spent ages writing this up!  Is this helpful or interesting information for you?  Is there something you would have liked to know about that I didn’t mention?  Have you ever had to shift your diet to accomodate local availability, and how do you feel about it?

Avivah

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.)

My dryer status

aliyah, frugal strategies, homemaking

>>Are you planning on buying a dryer? I don’t have one and with three boys and dh and I, and constantly doing laundry, I can’t imagine having a family your size without one!<<

I honestly don’t yet know the answer to this.  So far we haven’t purchased a dryer, and my hope is that I won’t need to.  Drying laundry in the sun is a no-brainer six months of the year here, when it’s sunny with not a drop of rain.  The challenge comes during the rainy season, which we’re in right now.

In the rainy season, it gets much more labor intensive to consistently hang laundry outside.  All the Israelis to whom I mentioned not having a dryer think I’m crazy.  This last two weeks have been sunny, but for a couple of weeks before that it was consistently raining – which is a beautiful blessing in this country that is so dependent on it – and it was very, very tough to deal with the laundry.

Here’s what it looked like: wake up, look for a break in the rain, and quickly hang the laundry up.  Keep your eye on the overcast sky the entire day.  Tell your kids to let you know if they see any rain.  At the first sign of a sprinkle, the kids come running and yelling that it’s raining, and you bring in all the still wet clothing.  Hang the damp sheets over doors.  At least that’s one thing that dries.  Keep your eye on the sky. Rehang all clothes when you see a break in the rain.  Try to remember to take them in before you go to sleep even if they aren’t yet dry, or hope that if you take the risk of leaving them out overnight, that it won’t start pouring in the middle of the night.

Take your risk since you really want these clothes to dry and you’re 2/3 of the way there….and you lose.  Wake up in the middle of the night as you hear the rain suddenly pour down, and frantically jump out of bed and maniacally begin taking in the laundry, until your rational brain tells you to stop because it’s too late.

Once they’re soaked in the downpour, leave them hanging another two days until you’re at the same place you started, with clothes as damp as if they just came from the washer.  Bring them in once more when they are halfway dry and the rain comes again, and hang them once more when there’s a break in the weather.  Five days after you first did the load of wash, bring them in with gratitude that you are finally finished with this load, look at the huge pile of dirty laundry needing to be washed, and start wondering how long it will take you to cave in and buy a dryer.

No, I am totally not exaggerating.  Five days and I hung and rehung the same laundry three times during that time.  I’m telling you, I felt like my family needed to say a lot more than ‘thanks’ for those clean clothes!  Thankfully the laundry was finished after five days and then during the next week with nonstop rain, I got smart – before I went to sleep at night, I covered the clotheslines with our heavy duty plastic tablecloth, and only took it off when there was a break in the weather.  Moving a plastic tablecloth was a big improvement over taking all the laundry in and putting it back out.

Because the air is so damp and cold, even when it’s not raining the laundry doesn’t dry quickly.  So it still takes a while to dry but with my new system I don’t think it will take more than three days, and probably only two, for clothes to dry.

I’ve developed strategies to stay on top of the laundry despite the weather.  Firstly, wash clothes regardless of the weather.  Then you have them ready to hang as soon as you have a chance.  (Usually, I wash one load, hang it, wash another load, hang.)  Secondly, really keep an eye on the weather.  You know the saying, “Make hay while the sun shines”?  That’s my motto.  When the weather is sunny, I do a ton – sheets, towels, rags, anything that needs washing so that I’ll be set if it rains the next day.

In general in the winter, I try not to let dirty clothes build up.  If it means putting in a load of clothes and the machine isn’t totally full, that’s okay.  Waiting another day for the machine to be totally full could be the difference between trying to dry things in the rain or the sun.

When I wake up in the morning and see the blue sky, I am SO grateful because I know I’ll be able to get my laundry done.  Really, you don’t know how nice it is to hang the laundry one time, and then take it down when it’s done.  And even leave it overnight without worrying.  The small pleasures in life. 🙂

Here’s a reminder about a post I wrote a couple of years ago about tips for hanging clothes to dry outside: http://oceansofjoy.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/how-to-dry-clothes-on-clothesline/

All that being said, I very much hope we’ll have a very, very rainy winter and I’ll be constantly pushed to deal with my laundry that isn’t drying easily.  We need the rain!

Do you line dry clothes year round?  Why or why not?  If you do, how do you deal with inclement weather?

Avivah

My first bulk order in Israel!

aliyah, frugal strategies

Oh, my goodness, the excitement!  You wouldn’t think making a bulk order would be such a big deal to someone like me who’s been making orders like these for years!

To back up, I thought this order would have happened right after getting here.  Before moving to Israel I learned about a bulk baking supply company, and took their phone number with me in order to place an order as soon as we got our phone line hooked up.  The woman I spoke to, upon hearing that I lived in the northern part of Israel, suggested I contact one of their suppliers in the north, and order directly from him to make things easier for me.

Great idea, I thought!  I got on the phone right away with him, but he didn’t seem to think selling to me was such a great idea at all.  No problem – I’ve convinced a few sources who usually only sell directly to stores to sell to me, and so even though this was in Hebrew and there’s a definite gap between my English and Hebrew fluency, I set to work to convince him as well.  He finally agreed after two or three weeks of conversations, and I happily placed my first order.

My happiness was premature, however, since he called a day later to apologize.  He told me he really wanted to find a way for it to work for me to order with him, but since I wasn’t registered as a business, the computer system was rejecting my order since my identity number is linked to a private person – and he was only allowed to legally sell to businesses.  Oh, shucks.  I couldn’t find a way to get around this, aside from finding a business that would be willing to tack on my order to theirs, but I don’t yet have the connections to make this possible.  So there went that idea.  (Someone since suggested that I register myself legally as a business, which might be an idea worth looking into but will take a lot of legwork and time in government offices.)

At the same time, I was negotiating with a different store to sell to me in bulk, which they agreed to do but they hadn’t told me what the discount would be for buying in those amounts.  I literally spoke with five different levels of management about this, getting referred to a higher up each time, and it’s clearly the first time anyone spoke to any of them about this.  But I finally lost my interest in continuing to persist, since the top guy kept telling me to call him in the few days, and then he’d be in a meeting or not have the numbers in front of him or whatever.  I still have his number for a time when I have nothing to do but but repeatedly call until I get a final answer.  (I don’t think this will happen – when I lose interest, I move on – I don’t have time and energy to waste.)  So there went that idea.

Then I thought to arrange a bulk order locally from the first place that’s far away, and to split the gas costs to pick it up.  There was only lukewarm interest in the idea, and later I realized that to do something like this, you first have to teach people how to buy in bulk, how to store in bulk, how to split orders, how much money can be saved.  It was too much work to get this together with other people, so finally I decided to make my own order.

Dh rented a car to go pick this up, and between the rental cost and the gas cost ($8 gallon), it really decreased our savings.  But there were a couple of things that justified it because I can’t get it locally at all (eg palm shortening) so we felt it was necessary by this point.

So three months after arriving, we got our first bulk order, and it literally felt like old times!  My kids were shlepping all the bulk bags up and asking me where to store things, and it was so something that our family does, and it was a nice heartwarming feeling.  For me, anyway.  🙂

It doesn’t seem like so much when it’s written down, but in the little rental car with three kids along for the ride, dh was hard pressed to find a place for everyone!  Here’s what I got:

  • 60 kg palm shortening
  • 12 kg chocolate chips
  • 5 kg cocoa
  • 5 kg shredded coconut
  • 5 kg baking powder
  • 25 kg baking soda
  • 25 kg oats
  • 25 kg sunflower seeds
  • 25 kg coarse salt
  • 10 kg powdered sugar (for dd17)
  • 1 kg garlic powder
  • 2 kg cinnamon
  • 1 kg cumin
  • 2 kg sweet paprika
  • 1 kg oregano
  • 1 kg curcum (sorry, I don’t know if this translates to curry or tumeric, if someone knows please clue me in)

I like having what I need on hand and not running out!, and I really like paying 25 – 50% or less of store prices!  The challenge is always where to store things, which in much more compact Israeli apartments is definitely a legitimate issue.  (This is where I think doing a shared bulk order is a win-win; people get the cheaper price but don’t have to store large amounts of food.)   Initially I was surprised that with food costs so high, Israelis don’t seem to think of buying in bulk or getting lots of things when they’re on sale, but it seems the space constraints as well as the ‘buy it fresh the day you need it’ mentality don’t lend themselves to bulk buying.

Avivah

When your food budget is limited…coming to terms

frugal strategies, nutrition

>>Now that you’re in Israel, and the food available is different than the food available in the US, and the prices different as well (not to mention different bulk things available), I was wondering how or if your focus on healthy foods changed…. I was wondering how you prioritized health and made do with what is available here.<<

Rather than go into detail about the specifics of how our diet has changed since we moved to Israel three months ago – I’m happy to share about that in another post if there’s interest – I’m going to share how I think about the nutritional limitations that I’ve felt, and I think many others do, when seeing that the amount of money available doesn’t extend to the the foods they feel are necessary to buy for an optimum diet.

Last year was a difficult year for me in many ways; I often felt like I was chasing my tail, and as a result, I wasn’t cooking as well as I had in the past.  We still had a healthy diet – but too often I’d get discouraged because I was looking at what I wasn’t doing, rather than all that I was doing.  But what I was doing was still significant!

I really enjoy learning about nutrition, and I enjoy feeling like I can take concrete steps to nourish my family.  This is something I’ve enjoyed learning about since I was 17, and I’ve been blessed to have been able to continually learn more and make nutritional improvements over the years.  But there’s a fine line between doing all that we can nutritionally, and developing an unhealthy perfectionism, an attitude of all or nothing.

It’s so easy to get trapped by this, and because it’s coming from a good place, of wanting the best for our families, it can be harder to see that we’ve crossed the line of balance.  Sometimes, people end up feeling that no matter how much they do, it’s never enough.  I certainly did.

I had to mentally recalibrate then, and I periodically have to recalibrate now.  Good nutrition isn’t about an all or nothing approach.  It’s a journey, and sometimes you’ll have different tools available to you than other times as you walk this path.

One of the tools for the journey is money.  Some of us have more, some of us have less.  Accessibility of certain foods is another too.  Physical energy to prepare food from scratch and shop is another tool, desire to learn more is another tool.  The support of our spouses is a tool, the willingness of our children to eat what we make is another tool….there are so many tools!  All of us have some tools in abundance, and other tools are kind of spotty.

When I focus on what  I’m missing, it’s going to keep me from seeing all that I do have!   And to gloss over the amazing abundance we’ve seen over the years because it didn’t provide for every single thing I would have dreamed of would be almost criminal.  Over the last five years, our monthly food budget has ranged from $400 up to $650 (for our family of 11) while living in the US.  It’s been hard for many people to imagine how we fed our family on this amount, let alone kosher, healthy foods – but we were able to integrate many wonderful nutritional components into our way of eating.

Whenever I would go food shopping, I would often feel that G-d made sure I found wonderful bargains, and helped me meet people who were able to help us further expand what we had available (farmers I was able to buy from directly, store managers who were willing to sell to me at wholesale prices, etc).  We were provided for in so many ways.  I felt that our money was blessed and it was able to stretch so much farther than seemed likely!  Does that mean that I had everything I wanted? No. But I had everything I needed.  Big difference!

Of course there were things that I would have liked to have been able to afford.  And now there are things here in Israel that I wish were available or affordable.  But if I get frustrated about what I can’t have/do or get stuck on what I wish I had, it keeps me from seeing and appreciating all that I do have.

Getting stuck in negativity is a bad place to live from, and certainly a bad place to eat from!  Even the best food can’t fully nourish you when you are filled with negativity.  I believe that the frame of mind you eat in also affects your health, and eating less than ideal foods from a place of gratitude and joy is going to do good things for you.

Focusing on all that I have, validating my efforts, and trusting that we’ll be sent the tools that we need for our journey to health and in every other area of life, help me feel at peace with the constraints that I’m often faced with.

Avivah

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.)

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, homemaking, menu plans

Shabbos (Sabbath/Friday night)- dinner – challah, chicken soup, chicken, roast potatoes,  carrot/apple/onion bake, warm cabbage salad, beet salad, apple pie

(Sat.)  b- cinnamon bubble loaf;  lunch – challah, techina, hummus, Turkish salad, beef stew, crunchy coleslaw, savory beet salad, Moroccan carrot salad, traffic light salad, baked yams, oatmeal cookies, chocolate cake, rugelach

Sunday – lunch – beef stew, coleslaw; dinner – stir fry, salad

Monday – b – polenta fries; l – meat sauce and pasta shells, salad; d – apple lentil bake (double for tomorrow’s dinner), beet salad

Tuesday – b – eggs; l – butternut coconut curry, rice, carrot salad; d – apple lentil bake

Wednesday – b – rice pancakes; l – chicken pot pie (double and freeze one for next week), beet salad; d – split pea soup, cornbread (double for tomorrow lunch)

Thursday – b- oatmeal; l – split pea soup, cornbread, salad; d – Russian borscht

Friday – b – eggs

The fruits that are accompanying breakfast this week are red grapefruits and apples.  A neighbor invited us to pick navel oranges, two kinds of lemons, and mandarins in her yard last week, and we went through those very quickly!

The kids take freshly baked bread every day for their ten am meal at school, along with some fruit and/or a veggie – usually pepper strips or cucumber; this isn’t listed on the menu.

I use bone broths as a base for all my soups as well as to cook grain or bean dishes.  This adds a lot of nutrients to a meal that would otherwise be vegetarian.  I was delighted last week to stumble on a sale on chicken bones – 4 shekels a kilo, and so I bought all that they had.  As much as that seemed at the time, we go through broth at such a quick rate (three sixteen quart pots a week) that they won’t last nearly as long as I’d hope. And now that we don’t have raw milk every morning, I’ve been thinking maybe we should get into a habit of drinking broth daily to compensate.

I started soaking the lentils on Sunday, so they’ll have time to sprout by the time that I’ll be cooking with them.  I also started a new batch of kimchi, about two and a half gallons this time – the first four gallon batch that we started a couple of weeks ago still isn’t ready, though it’s breaking down nicely and is about two gallons in volume now (the cabbage breaks down as it ferments).  I like to have a cup of the juice as a morning probiotic drink, so that also accounts for the lessening volume!   By making a new batch of kimchi now, when the time the first batch is finished, the second one will be ready.  Cabbage based ferments take a lot longer than pickles or carrots, so you have to plan ahead unless you don’t mind not having any kimchi for a few weeks while a new batch ferments.

Cucumbers are going up in price quickly, double what the summer prices are, but they’re still affordable.   This week I’d like to buy a big batch and make a few gallons of pickles before the prices really shoot up and I set aside pickled cucumbers until they come back into season.  The kids enjoy this a lot, and we have them regularly with our lunch meals, though I don’t list it.

Have a good week!

Avivah

(This post is part of Menu Plan Monday.)

How to make olive leaf tincture

frugal strategies, health, home remedies, nutrition

I firmly believe that in every locale, there are potentially medicinal plants that will be of value to you.  However, it means letting go of thinking there are certain herbs that you must have – for example, in the US I had easy access to plantain, dandelion, and burdock, and it’s a mental shift for me to not feel like I need them when those were well within my comfort zone.

Here in Israel, there are olive trees all over.  And I already knew that olive leaves were good for you, since I bought them a couple of years ago as part of a big herb order.  Seeing the abundance of olive trees here on our very first day prompted me to learn more about how I could include this in my natural medicine chest.

First of all,a little about olive leaves (the following is from the Bulk Herb Store website, where I ordered my herbs from):  Olive leaf is a natural antibiotic and antioxidant that can help or prevent many diseases. The active compounds have been reported to act as an anti-microbial agent, which slows invaders enough for the body’s natural immune system to react. It exhibits powerful anti-parasitic and anti-fungal properties that fight over one hundred viral and bacterial conditions. The result is a natural antibiotic and antioxidant with similar effects to garlic and onions… It also works to lower high blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, improve respiratory response, improve skin health, heart disease and fatigue. Olive leaf can rejuvenate your vitality and energy, enhance your immune system, supports your cardiovascular system and promote general health and well-being.

An easy way to use olive leaves is by making tea with them – just brew the leaves with some water, mix in a little sweetener, and drink up!  I also used a concentrated olive leaf tea to wash down ds12’s foot when he had cellulitis.  Be warned that the effective ingredient in the olive leaf is bitter, which is why I suggested sweetener!

So that’s one way to use it, but I like something even faster – having a big family means that I have to find ways to accomplish what I need to as effectively as possible.  There’s also a limit to how much tea you can drink, and when you’re really under the weather, it’s likely you’d like something that will be powerful and effective, without leaving you bloating and running to empty your bladder every fifteen minutes.

Enter olive leaf tincture.  (Read here to learn how amazing olive leaves are – I felt so lucky after learning all about them that I can easily harvest them for free here.)  Making a tincture means that you draw out the medicinal qualities of the herb, and simultaneously preserve it for long term use.  Ideally this can be done with alcohol, though in the past I’ve chosen to use vinegar and glycerin to make tinctures, since I thought my kids would prefer those flavors.  Alcohol stores the best, though.

The instructions for making olive leaf extract/tincture are ridiculously easy:

1) Wash the leaves well, chop finely or shred in a food processor, then  place in a glass jar.

2) Cover with 80% proof vodka.  (A funny story – I asked dh to pick up some vodka at the store for me to make this.  When he went to get it, an elderly Russian man approvingly commented to my husband, who tried to explain that he was getting it for medicinal purposes.  I had also asked dh to pick up some lemon juice for salads, and when a little later in the store the same elderly man saw dh holding the bottles of vodka and lemon juice, the man smiled knowingly and smirked, “Right, medicinal.” )

If you’re using fresh leaves, then the ration of leaves to vodka is 1:2 or 3; ie, if you’re using 8 ounces of leaves, then you’d need to cover them with 16 – 24 oz of vodka.  If you’re using dried leaves, the ratio is 1 leaves: 5 vodka.

3) Seal the glass, and let it sit in a dark place for at least two weeks, but up to six weeks.  (Mine was ‘brewing’ for almost four weeks.)  Shake it every once in a while and make sure the leaves are all covered by liquid; add more vodka if you need to.

4) After two weeks, you can now strain it out.  If you have those wonderful amber colored dropper bottles (like I did, but gave away before we moved, sniff!), then pour it in there for easy use.

5) Use your tincture!  Here’s a good site with information about how to determine your dosage.

Avivah

(This post is part of Monday Mania, Homestead Barn Hop, Traditional Tuesdays, and Real Food Wednesday.)

Making pillows

frugal strategies

Yesterday dh and I needed to go to an office at the bottom of Karmiel, and while we were there, did a little bit of shopping in the area.  We saw some pillows marked at 30% off, and looked to see how much they were – just 70 shekels each after the discount!

To buy ten pillows for our family, this would have cost us a hefty 700 shekels.  And this reminded me that I didn’t share with you about my pillow making adventure.

For about seven weeks after arriving here in Israel, we didn’t have pillows.  Everyone used some item of clothing pushed into a pile under his head at night, and though it wasn’t ideal, it was manageable.  I wanted to buy some, but the choices I found weren’t great: the second hand store had cheap pillows for just 5 shekels each, but I had no desire to let any of my family members rest their heads on the majority of the pillows there (I did find two good ones, though).  Then I saw some new pillows that were just 15 shekels each at the bargain store, but were so flat that I knew after using them for a night we’d hardly feel there was anything under our heads!  And lastly are the higher quality pillows like those we saw on sale yesterday, which is really the kind of pillow I wanted.

Dh isn’t yet working, and we have to be conservative about our expenditures, so spending hundreds of shekels on something like pillows, that are nice but you can’t really call them essential, didn’t seem prudent.

Right around the time I was checking out the pillow purchasing options, I passed a leather couch set out on the curb that was being given away.  The cushions you would sit on were ripped, but the back pillows were in perfect condition.  I passed it, thinking it was too bad there was nothing I could do with them.  And passed the same couch a second time a little later that day, and then the third time I passed it the same day, a light went off in my head!

Since the cushion covers were leather, it was safe to assume that no one had drooled on the inner cushion, wet it, or done anything else that would make it disgusting.  I realized I could use the inner cushion to make pillows with – they were good quality cushions with good quality stuffing.

Here's one of the cushions

Dd10 and ds9 were with me, so each of us grabbed one – two large ones from the back of the sofa, and one smaller one from the side of the sofa.  (I didn’t take the second small one because the zipper was opened a couple of inches, and I didn’t want to worry if anything could have gotten in.)  When we got home, I saw that they were constructed differently than I had anticipated, and my first idea for recreating them wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

I found a couple of sheets we had been given that were in the give away bag, and started cutting, using the material in a way to minimize the sewing I’d need to do (ie the fold of the sheet became the length of the pillowcase on one side).  One was a crib sheet, which I turned into two matching pillow cases.  A twin sheet yielded four matching pillowcases, and the inner casing from the original couch cushions became the remaining three pillow cases.  I unfortunately couldn’t bring my sewing machine along when we moved, which would have made this project super fast.  But I compensated by doing a running stitch by hand to quickly sew the material together, and I was able to do this with the kids around while interacting with them, so though it took some time, it wasn’t a big time sink.

Once I had a case closed on three sides, I let the littles fill them with foam. They had fun with this, though their enthusiasm did lead to an extra mess!  After we stuffed in the amount we wanted, I sewed each pillow shut.  It’s especially nice that since this is industrial quality stuffing, it’s soft but denser than what I’ve seen in craft store so these pillows won’t turn into flat pancakes anytime soon!

Some of the pillows, looking a little lumpy before being smoothed down

By reclaiming and recycling materials that were available to us, and equally importantly, by looking at those materials with the willingness to think creatively, “What can I do with this?”, we now have nine new pillows that didn’t cost us a penny.  Not only that, I saved the inconvenience of traveling on the bus to get them and bring them home, which would have been significant with the amount of pillows we needed.

Avivah

(This is part of Make Your Own Monday and Frugal Friday.)

Viking Stew

frugal strategies, recipes

This recipe is so easy, and so inexpensive!  It’s hearty and filling, perfect for cold autumn and winter days.

Viking Stew

  • 1 large head of green cabbage, chunked
  • a few sweet potatoes or winter squash, peeled and chunked
  • 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
  • 1 – 2 lb meat chunks (chicken or turkey chunks are also good)
  • 2 – 3 fresh sprigs rosemary
  •  salt to taste
Mix all of the above ingredients in a roasting pan, and cover.  Bake for two hours at 350 degrees.  Then eat and enjoy!I currently am paying 2 shekel a kilo (about .35 lb) for cabbages and onions.  This makes it the cheapest vegetable currently being sold here.  We bought three cases of butternut squash last week for 15 shekel, and I have yams that we were given.  For the meat chunks, I used diced giblets (also called gizzards, but I dislike how that sounds), which I bought for 5 shekels a kilo (about .75 lb).  And since rosemary grows all over Karmiel, I send one of the kids to go out and pick some fresh when I need it.   (As I mentioned in yesterday’s menu planning post, I make a menu based on what I have on hand – this is a big part of why my food budget stays so low.)

Avivah

This post is part of Melt in your Mouth Monday, Tuesdays at the Table, Fat Tuesdays, Real Food Wednesday and Frugal Food Thursday.)

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

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

Clothing exchanges in Ramat Beit Shemesh

aliyah, frugal strategies

After my post in September in which I shared about great used clothing bargains I found, I was asked by a number of people for the details on where I went.  I don’t track my readers, and though I know there are people reading my blog in a number of different countries, it’s been an eye opener that so many people in Israel were reading this well before I moved here!

There are clothing exchanges (gemachim) all over the country, but I don’t know about most of them yet, and probably won’t, since I’m not going to travel all over to get used clothing!  Here’s the details on where I went in Ramat Beit Shemesh, which is about a forty five minute drive from Jerusalem.

1) 23/2 Reviim – this is where I started, and where I recommend anyone going starts out. Their prices are the least expensive and there’s a very large selection.  The woman running it is an incredibly special person who a good friend of mine has told me about for years who I had long wanted to meet – I was just sorry to learn what her last name was later that evening, after I was long gone!  The prices are 2 shekels for a pair of shoes, 2 shekels per item for kids ages 12 and under, 3 shekels an item for over age 12.

Dd11 is tall for her age, so the clothes I bought her were size 16 – 18 (girls), but I was told that since I was buying them for someone below the age of 12, to pay the children’s price.  That was very nice, don’t you think?!

They also have backpacks, purses, some linens, and tzitzis.  I think the backpacks were a shekel each, I don’t remember now for sure, but the tzitzis were definitely a shekel a pair.  That was an amazing price since I needed a few pairs, which would have cost me about 30 shekels each.  The woman who runs this is an English speaker.

2) The second place I went wasn’t a clothing exchange, but was a person who every couple of weeks does a used clothing sale. I’m going to include her information here, since she does it regularly enough for it to be a good resource to be aware of.  Her address is 3/16 Nachal Zohar, the third floor.  You can call her beforehand to find out when she has a sale – 050-678-9422.  She is a native French speaker, so you’ll need to speak to her in Hebrew unless you speak French.

The used items were 5 shekels each, and she had a bargain box of things that were damaged or for whatever reason not selling (eg kids clothing with words on it) – anything in the box was 3 items for a shekel.  She also has brand new things – I bought brand new womens’ skirts with the tags still on for 10 shekels.

3) 40 Sorek – this is the most expensive of the places I went, and I think it’s good to go to the most expensive places last – if you can find what you want more cheaply, than why not?  The entrance to this isn’t in a building, but down a huge flight of stairs outside – maybe three flights down?  This is also run by a lovely woman who is an English speaker.

I believe the prices were 5 – 20 shekels per item; 5 – 10 for children’s clothing, depending on what it was, and the ladies clothing was 10 – 20 per item.  There were some very nice things there and you can really find something lovely for Shabbos or the holidays.

For my Israeli readers: have you ever gone to any of these places?  Are there other gemachim that you’d recommend and can share the address of?  For my non-Israeli readers: where have you found great bargains on clothing?

Avivah