Whats for shabbos meal tonight?

↑ freidasima ↓

Thu, Aug 28 2008, 4:14 pm

It sounds delicious.
Tamiri I made your non margarine coffee cake with oil for the kids (dh and I don't eat oil), let's see how they like it...I'm afraid though that your yerushalmi kugel is too much for me...besides if it is only for the kids and two of them don't eat pepper...but once upon a time when I could eat oil a good yerushalmi kugel was my favorite! I'll keep the recipie though...

And Seraph, you are right, it is shabbos mevorchim, I only remembered now when you wrote it...so lekuved shabbos you all have such terrific recipies...let you know how the kids enjoyed all the new stuff that you gave me the strength and courage to make!

↑ freidasima ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 4:44 am

Ok so everyone is home this morning and I tell middle dd that after she wanted "variety" I spent all afternoon and evening making variety yesterday (as you well know!), and she barely looks up from the newspaper and says "when I said variety I didnt mean that you have to make quantity, just one new thing each week".

I tried to tell her that I made a lukshen kugel and a sweet potato kugel and a regular potato kugel, nine different salads, and a coffee cake, a chocolate fudge cake and a lemon meringue cake and three different kinds of chicken.

Her comment was. "ah huh" as she was doing a crossword puzzle. She didn't even look up.

Dh was right. He said that he loves shabbos the way I have always made it, he doesn't need variety, he doesn't need me to be exhausted from cooking when I could have sat and read a book or went to visit my mother on my half day off yesterday. That the only one who complains about everything under the sun is middle dd that that no matter what you do for her, even if she appreciates it, the appreciation lasts for ten seconds max and it's not worth the effors. He also warned me that I woudn't get a good word from her about all the work and effort that I put in, but I would be sure to get a complaint if anything wasn't 100% what she wanted.

He was right.
I was wrong.
I could have just had a half day vacation yesterday.

I feel like charlie brown the cartoon character who goes arrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!

she isn't a bad kid and has wonderful sides to her, but she takes me totally for granted.
My own fault. I tried to be too much of a giving mother.
Dh tells me that when she complains I should tell her that at her age it is time for her to put up or shut up, meaning she should then do it herself if she doesn't like the way something is done...

Dh is right. As much as I believe that it is best for a girl to get married from her parent's home to her husband's home, this one should go and live with a bunch of other girls in an apartment already at her age and see what it is like not to have a mother that you can dump on about everything and when you have to get on 24/7 with other people. Maybe it would attune her that mothers have needs as well....

Aidelmom ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 5:10 am

I haven't started cooking yet.. I usually cook only friday afternoon. (When winter comes now that I'm working Fridays I guess I'll have to start on Thursday)

I am going out for shabbos day. Dessert is in the freezer.

The cooking won't be a big deal. The same boring stuff I alway make, duck sauce chicken, potatoes or petitim under the chicken, potato kugel, gefilte fish and challah. If I have extra time maybe I'll try for some type of vegetable dish.. Its the cleaning I'll be rushing around doing last minute.

Old young, in ref to your question (too lazy to quote) my husband usually does the main shabbos shopping thurs. night. on his way home. The baby doesn't get as much attention, my husband helps and sometimes the floor doesn't get washed.. thats how I do it, though its not ideal.

↑ Tamiri ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 6:14 am

freidasima wrote:

The coffee cake was very good last week. I will post it here again. I made another cake today substituting oil for margarine (Cinnamon Mocha) and we'll see how that goes over.
Regarding the yerushalmi, it's too much oil for anyone. Which is why I divide the recipe in two and freeze one half. Each half is for 2 meals...so you can imagine tiny pieces.

↑ Tamiri ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 6:14 am

sarahd wrote:

Tamiri, thanks for the recipe. Maybe I'll give it a try next week. Where's your coffee cake recipe?

MAZOLA OIL COFFEE CAKE from cooks.com

2 1/2 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3/4 c. Mazola oil or Crisco oil
1 c. sour milk or buttermilk (1 T vinegar in 1 cup soy or any parve milk and let stand for 10 minutes)
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Mix all dry ingredients, except nutmeg. Add oil and mix well. Take out a scant cup of mixture for topping. To what is left, add one cup sour milk or buttermilk, 1 egg (well beaten) and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. Beat and pour into pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and scant cup of topping. Pour into 8x8" square pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. If you prefer more topping you may take out of dry mixture a little more than a full cup.

↑ Tamiri ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 6:23 am

Friedasima, isn't motherhood grand?
I would not cook so much if I didn't get bored myself with the same old.
I've got most of it down pat: everyone (but me) loves kugel yerushalmi and carrot kugel. So we have that every week.
Chicken on the grill is standard.
In the winter I guess we'll be back to chicken soup and cholent.

Everything else is up for grabs. I enjoy salatim very much. Up until DH lost his job we'd buy them at catering places, but it's not the same as home made. They add too much oil. Making the salatim was also just too time consuming for me to do with DS #5 around all the time. Once Abba started being home all the time, things changed - I was able to spend more time in the kitchen. And there you have it.
No one by us really cares too much about food except me. I come from a family of food lovers. I look it. My DH and kids don't, thank G-d. My parents love food and my mother has dabbled with fancy cooking since I was very little - I think she used to watch Julia Child (the "original" food channel) when she was nursing one of us. She still cooks a lot though it beats me how she and my father can eat all that - they are both thin. I imagine she spends on food more than 50%/month of what I spend on a family of 6. LaBriyut!

↑ freidasima ↓

Fri, Aug 29 2008, 6:37 am

Sarahd, Tamiri, you are right. No more catering to middle dd...she can spend hours patchkeing in the kitchen over some dessert, she is good, but she never has time to do the "dirty jobs" and the nitty gritty. A bit of maturing is needed here...

As for dh, he said straight out, "cook for me. I love everything you cook". And he does. So I know that he will be appreciative...heck, on the nights that he takes his own pareve microwave schnitzl and salad and all I end up doing is pouring him a glass of water he thanks me profusely at the end of the meal for a "lovely meal and lovely company" and believe it or not, I know that it isn't a put on because any meal we have together is a lovely meal....

Now middle dd is standing in the kitchen making her own lentil mixture (which I put out to sit in a bowl with water to sprout all night), but not before she criticized me for having let the plate on top of the bowl actually touch the water that the lentils were sitting in (of course I had washed the plate top and bottom first)...

I MUST keep a sense of humor about this. When she was little, she showed the same critical traits and my mother would say that when she grows up with a personality like that, she will either be a ganenet or a Nazi.

And this is the same kid who cries at sad cartoons. Oh well. You just gotta love them no matter what...

↑ freidasima ↓

Sat, Aug 30 2008, 4:44 pm

Ok so here goes.
Middle dd had nothing to say about the food other than to comment that the chocolate fudge cake was too thick.
The boys ate everything but didn't say a word.
Youngest dd who is a gitte neshomeh thanked me for "everything that you cooked". But she also thanks me for doing the dishes.
Dh told me that everything was fabulous and incredible and he loves me (yeah well, he says that when I give him dry toast and lukewarm water as well...)...but he did eat large pieces of all the cakes and told me tonight that everything was great...and that I shouldn't expect compliments from the kids but just cook for him and he loves everything that I make...
On the other hand, he took a piece of middle dd's lentil pie and sauce and later told me it was inedible but he still told her it was delicious and took a second helping (why? To give her confidence he says)...he is too much.

Next shabbos, they can eat the stuff I froze this week!

↑ Tamiri ↓

Thu, Sep 04 2008, 1:09 am

Please excuse my ramble. If you don't want to read the mess in my head, please skip this thread. I like it because I can come back to it and remember what I cooked. When I am old I will be able to say to my family: see what I could do when I was young?
(Revised): Don't nudge me. I am busy thinking about how my sourdough bread will come out. The odds are against me. I got up at 6 am today to start playing with it. I don't like failure but I think I set myself up this time. It's rising on my husband's bed. Room is cooler than the kitchen area and I don't want it to rise too much and not get baked in time. We'll be out of the house till late. It needs to rise about 12 hours I think. I am happy it doesn't look dead. I just hope it's not like a brick after baked.

And, we have our son's swearing-in ceremony this evening which is a good reason not to get tired in the kitchen. We'll go out to eat afterwards.

I am up to
Cornflakes chicken made the cornflakes mixture in the processor, will do chix tomorrow
2 kinds of cabbage salad (I guess dilly mayo with kholrabi and carrot for one, lemon juice and olive oil for the other) Made dilly mayo and then marinated dinner salad for the other
2 kinds of chatzilim (I'll decide what as I go along) Same as last week. Tomato sauce one, celery/garlic/vinaigrette for the other.
Moroccan carrots if I get my act together Did it
Roasted peppers did it in a mustard/onion/cumin/parsley dressing
Dump bars (a cake thing I found the recipe in my files but can't remember ever making them) I. Have. No. Eggs. In. The. House. My arab supplier isn't getting them in regularly and I will not spend supermarket prices for eggs. Maybe he'll have them this afternoon. If not, we'll just have to have the mayonnaise/peanut butter cookies.
Defrosted frozen veggies (by popular request, no less. Maybe I will do something with that)Gotta remember to defrost.
Stir fry noodles with veggies it's getting done
Cucumber salad forget it. I put cukes in the marinated dinner salad
Tehina it's getting done
Kugels and challa from the freezer.

Doesn't sound too good, huh? Oh well...
Now it's looking more decent. I want to give thanks to Hashem for creating gan for little boys. When little boys go to gan, their mommies can get a lot done is less time. BH

Last edited by Tamiri on Thu, Sep 04 2008, 5:25 am; edited 1 time in total

↑ Tamiri ↓

Thu, Sep 04 2008, 5:30 am

sarahd wrote:

Tamiri, that marinated eggplant salad - do you layer it with crushed, chopped or sliced garlic? Sliced or chopped celery? And is the marinade meant to be more sweet or more sour?

I place the celery and garlic in the small chopping bowl of my processor and chop until it's chopped, but not liquid. It should not be a mush because it's so yummy to eat the crunch after it marinates. I fried the eggplant. Shook some water, vinegar, sugar and salt together. Layered the eggplant with the celery/garlic, starting with that on the bottom, then eggplant, then celery/garlic, then eggplant, then finally more celery/eggplant. I poured the vinegar mixture over all. Turned the container upside down to marinate. Then turned right side up.
I am not sure of the recipe. This was told to me by the lady who sits at the door at my supermarket. I am looking for cheap ideas (food has gone up so much) and I figure the "amcha", people of the land, will be able to help me best. This one is SO GOOD. Don't forget to mop up whatever is left in the bottom of the container with a piece of challa (on Sunday or Monday - the longer it marinates, the better it gets). The lady told me this can keep more than a week in the fridge but it doesn't last cause it's so good.
Regarding the sweet/sour: you want the marinade to taste "good", but not over powering. My eggplants themselves have a tiny sweet aftertaste which melds so well with the vinegar, but you don't want to lose that sweetness, if you know what I mean. The marinade is definitely NOT sweet but has a sweet undertone. The truth is: you can make it however you like. It's one of those "eye it" recipes.

↑ Tamiri ↓

Thu, Sep 04 2008, 5:34 am

freidasima wrote:

Tamiri, you once again have me in awe.
We are away for shabbat, once in a blue moon, without the kids and I told them that they can do whatever they want for shabbat. The freezer is full and if they want leben and jam so be it.
After last week they can break their heads themselves!

I come from a major balabusta. My paternal grandmother was a cook at Yeshiva Flatbush and Camp Massad for many years. I grew up loving cooking and housemaking. This is tiring but so nice to be able to do after YEARS of no patchka in the kitchen. After 3 kids I just could not do it anymore. I was just thinking how lucky I am to be doing something I like. Including having a nice clean kitchen after working, and a sparkling stove. I feel accomplished. Pathetic, I know. A PhD is so much more impressive Very Happy

All I have to do is clean a couple of chickens and go get gan boy. BH.

↑ sarahd ↓

Thu, Sep 04 2008, 5:36 am

This is what this week's menu looks like today:

jarred gefilte fish ( embarrassed

, but we're having a guest who won't eat my gefilte fish because of his health problems and won't eat baked fish either; only cold cooked fish. I don't feel like ordering a whole lot of sliced fish that I don't think will get eaten.)
chicken soup with kneidlach
honey-mustard/poppyseed roast chicken
potato kugel
maaayyybeee yerushalmi kugel
chickpea salad
marinated mushrooms
marinated eggplant - thanks for the instructions, tamiri
plum torte (plums on sale again this week)
compote

Last edited by sarahd on Thu, Sep 04 2008, 7:09 am; edited 1 time in total