Starting shabbat prep early? TEACH ME HOW!

naomi2

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 3:25 pm

amother wrote:

Tuesday: view sale circulars and make shabbos menu and grocery shopping list
Wednesday: shop for shabbos (everything)
Thursday: cook and bake everything
Friday morning: clean up house

I only have 1 child, and my husband helps a lot, and I work from home so I've got a lot of time...

I do the same

amother

Papaya

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 3:30 pm

I shop Monday or Tuesday, order fish on Wednesday, cook everything Thursday morning before leaving to work, afternoon/evening begin kitchen cleanup, Friday morning I make kugel and ferfel in the oven and clean rest of house.

My cleaning lady does heavy cleaning when she comes so that Friday I'm mostly just doing surfaces.

PinkFridge

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 6:42 pm

amother wrote:

Thanks for your detailed list
Would love your saladrecipes I can make ahead. All mine are to make fresh.
TIA
Btw are there healthy sides aside for kugel that can be made ahead

Marinated salads.
Roasted veg.
And if you want to make them Friday, maybe you can peel and slice, etc. earlier in the week. Salad dressings and dips for sure.

amother

Coffee

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 7:41 pm

amother wrote:

Thanks for your detailed list
Would love your saladrecipes I can make ahead. All mine are to make fresh.
TIA
Btw are there healthy sides aside for kugel that can be made ahead

It depends what's on sale and in season. Usually, I make some sort of greens sauteed in olive oil, garlic, and add lemon and salt at the end. Almost any vegetable cut up, cook depending on the vegetable, add olive oil, lemon and salt. Tahini, babaganoush, baked butternut squash with cranberries, layered eggplant, which is
cut eggplants into 1 cm slices, salt and press between 2 plates, then wash, dry and oven fry then layer with tomato sauce, cumin, hot pepper, salt, lemon and cilantro, and bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Or slice fennel, saute in olive oil, add raisins, a sprinkling of roasted pine nuts, lemon, and salt.

Or cut and boil carrots, and either marinade with honey, lemon and orange blossom water or with olive oil, cumin, lemon, salt and chopped cilantro. Or do both and get 2 salads for almost the same effort.

Or marinated artichoke hearts, or stewed okra, or matboucha, all of these things are better made on Thursday

Coffee Addict

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 8:36 pm

pointyshoes wrote:

I work mornings on Thursday so when I get home (1:15):
I eat a snack, put up the challa dough and soup, prepare the beans for Cholent in boiling water to soak
I check if I need more knaidlach (I make and freeze)
Then I do anything that needs peeling (potatoes for me), I then chop my veg for roasted veg and wash my peeler.
Then food processor things: kugel and if I'm doing a cabbage salad
Once they're in the oven, I boil eggs and fry an onion
I get the chicken in the oven
Then I make the dips
Once everything's out of the oven I put the salmon in.
Then its tidy up time and I take a break for supper and bedtime.
I set the table
Then I make dessert and cakes (dh usually helps with that)
Big clean up of everything besides kids rooms.

Friday:
Put up the Cholent in the morning in crockpot or pot on low. Turn it off 1:15.

Then I vacuum, wash floors, basic clean up, baths and showers all round and clean toilet (did the whole bathroom Thurs night)
I'm usually ready to light at least an hour before shabbos

I love lists!!!!!!!!!!
I have an app called "colornote" that u can make checklists and tick off as u do it. It puts a line through the task- I use it all the time.
Good luck

You do a ton in one day! You gotta have lots of physical koach! Besides of being organized, which I am, You also have the strength to do so much in one day, which I don't have so much. Each to it's own. Very Happy

amother

Bisque

Tue, Apr 05 2016, 9:23 pm

I do all my shopping wednesday, which means by tuesday night I Know what I am making

Thursday, before I leave to work, I peel and cube all chicken soup vegetables, and prepare matza ball mix, (If none left in freezer) If I can I squeeze in some blender time, and whip up a dip or two, or some pesto.
thursday when I come home from work I have 1.5 hours before I go get kids/bus stop
put up soup
put up fish
boil matza balls
clean and prepare chicken (in some sort of marinade) and put in fridge
bread shnitzle
soak beans
peel potatoes
marinate any roasting vegetables

Friday I wake up 45 minutes earlier than usual:
Fry shnitzle
make potato kugel
put up cholent
Friday's I come home the same time as kids
so all I do is pop chicken into oven, roast vegetables, and set the table

I bake and freeze challah on Sundays , baked goods for shabbos are very often bought rugelach
oh, I also have help on Fridays (bh!!) who cleans up after me and we come home to a clean house (nothing better than that!!!)

it took me many years to become organized. I used to leave everything to last minute.
Once I started working on fridays, I really trained myself to leave nothing too big for friday.

Seas

Wed, Apr 06 2016, 1:43 pm

There are many replies giving advice about lists, organization and preparing ahead, but the truth is none of this is necessary. The fact is that everyone manages to be ready when Shabbos actually comes in (or 15-20 min later) regardless of the time of day that happens to be. This means that the problem lies not with actual things needed to do, but with a psychological cutoff time that is simply too late.

My suggestion is to decide as an absolute rule which you will not break that your candle-lighting time is actually 15 min before the official one. Just knowing that in actuality you have a buffer zone should take off the pressure and hopefully make it easier.

Miri7

Wed, Apr 06 2016, 1:55 pm

I used to be a down-to-the-wire person, but now that we have several kids (BH) and DH and I work Fridays and have to do pick-ups Friday afternoons, we prepare mostly on Thursday evening. I shop Wednesday night. If I'm baking I bake then, too.

Thursday evening we often have a really simple dinner. Then I cook most everything, and prep the one or two things I will cook Friday. Friday cooking is super simple - just putting chicken in the oven or roasting vegetables. I put the cholent on Friday, but all the veggies are cut Thursday night.

We have changed our menus to foods that are easy to prepare. When I was a SAHM, I would cook much more elaborate meals and recipes with a lot of steps. We've cut most of those out of our rotation and it has made things SO MUCH easier!

I have kids set the table Friday - it's one of their "jobs."

I also have my cleaning lady come Friday morning, so the kitchen is clean after all my cooking Thursday night, and it's nice to come home to a clean home Friday.