'budget' shabbos lunch: chollent and....?

yaelinIN

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 11:07 am

When I lived in Japan, where everything is expensive, Shabbos lunch for our family and (5-10) guests (who were usually very happy to eat a hot, home-cooked meal after eating out of a suitcase during the week) was a pareve cholent (beans, barley/brown rice, potatoes, onions and spices), tuna salad and egg salad, a kugel or two of some sort (pumpkin, noodle, apple, potato) and lots of vegetable salads (hatzilim (eggplant), eggplant with tomato/peppers (matbucha), hummus, corn and peppers, avocado, mushroom-cumin-garlic, lettuce, israeli, cabbage (green or red)), and rarely I made homemade tuna/potato/mushroom burekas (with homemade dough). Now I know some of these vegetables are expensive (all the time or out of season), but I would make smaller amounts of those and more of the others.

freidasima

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 11:16 am

Wow, I'm in awe of how much work and food some of you put into a shabbos.
We do it with salads but a lot simpler.
Challah, chumus, techina, cut up veg, egg salad, sometimes cole slaw, quinoa salad, edamame occasionally.
Then in the winter a vegetarian cholent (potatoes, onions, barley, no beans) and a cut up chicken. The idea is to fill up on salads and challah and cholent and then have a bit of chicken. To drink, mostly water. Then cake and fruit.

Who needs more? Hungry bochurim can eat challah and salads. You don't have to give so much expensive protein.

jelibean

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 11:19 am

la456 wrote:

jellibean, that does not sound like a budget meal....

In some places vegetables are very expensive.
I think deli roll is your best bet, and u can even make your own dough, it wont be puff pastry but more like a knish dough.
Carbs are cheaper, focus on those.

If you go to a Sam's Club or Costco in the US, you can find good deals on veggies, as they're purchased in bulk. The hostess had a lot of lettuce and made good use of it with lots of salads. She made all her dressings too. I'd say the Terra Chips were probably a splurge. She did have a lot of gefilte fish, but then again she was feeding 18 people at each meal.

I think her ground beef/bean cholent was very economical. Her splurge was the shnitzel, deli roll AND wrapped hot dog chunks. As I said, if she'd picked one -- say the deli roll -- it would have been more budget-friendly. And healthier too. (Not that deli roll is healthy, but all three 'treats' certainly aren't.)

And other than a box of Tofutti cuties, she didn't have dessert, as we brought it.

shirafruma

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 12:07 pm

I agree w. greenfire...

A bunch of challahs, dips and maybe one or two veggie salads
a gezunt cholent with the works

AND....TADA

Any meat you have leftover from friday night, put in the wraps with some mayo and lettuce! (a trick I learned when I was expecting 5 for lunch and 20 showed up...)

ra_mom

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 1:04 pm

mommalah wrote:

ra_mom wrote:

How about serving lots of delicious inexpensive home made dips and salads with the Challah?
Make your own lemonade instead of buying drinks. It tastes delicious.
Would you make an egg course, instead of all that chicken? You can serve it with mock liver made from eggplant.
And for the main course I think chulent with kugel sounds splendid.
As long as you have a lot of everything, everyone will be happy and full.
I think deli rolls is an extra. And the dough has to be expensive too.

Hi! Do you have a recipe for making mock liver using eggplant?

Seraph has a nice recipe.
http://imamother.com/forum/vie.....liver

Tamiri

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 1:13 pm

OP, your meal looks very generous by any standard and out of this world by Israeli standards.
This is how you make a cheap meal for Shabbat:

You serve Challa with home-made salads and dips (tehina, chummus, eggplant, carrots (very cheap now), zucchini etc. Let the boys load up on that.
Then you serve your cholent with Israeli salad.
Finished.
Cheap, filling and still enough work so you won't feel as if you didn't do anything.

I serve whole families without breaking the budget. After they eat my homemade challa (1 kg flour in one loaf!) and salads, they really aren't so hungry for all the other stuff and you can buy less of the expensive things like chicken.
Drinks: if you must serve them, pour into pitchers and water them down before serving.

BrachaC

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 1:13 pm

When we were newly married living in Israel and started having bochurim from yeshiva over my dh's mashgiach said: with enough soda and challah a bochur can get through any meal. So even though we don't drink soda we always made sure to buy a couple of bottles. I know some families really don't like egg salad, but when I am in a crunch I go back to it- by far the cheapest protein source. Also with bochurim you don't have to have as much variety. As long as the cholent is edible they will eat it until they are full.

DefyGravity

Wed, Dec 09 2009, 1:16 pm

There's absolutely no reason to have shnitzel AND deli roll AND chicken wraps - especially when you already have cholent.

I usually make one protein in addition to cholent (if I even make cholent) and then make a bunch of side dishes. If I don't make cholent, then I generally make one protein which is usually chicken cutlets.

Cheap side dishes:
Rice
Orzo
Potato Kugel
Lukshen kugel
Roasted Veggies
Kishke (from scratch)
Corn Salad
Bean salad
Lettuce salads

ra_mom

Fri, Dec 11 2009, 2:06 pm

faigie wrote:

how do you make kishka from scratch? I love kishka, but when u buy it,, it's full of beef fat etc.....

This one's delicious. Add more flour and more salt than stated in recipe.
http://imamother.com/forum/vie.....ishka