Mama Bear: I like this

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:15 pm

In the "What's for Shabbos Meal" thread Mama Bear wrote this, and I wish I could do as she does:

Mama Bear wrote:

Just curious if anyone has read all 184 pages of this thread Smile

.

I never post here because our shabbos meal every single week, week in week out consists of:

grape juice
challah
gefilte & white fish
chicken soup with lukshen and soup mandel
Chicken from the soup
potato kugel
farfel
cole slaw
cold cuts
ginger ale & blackcherry soda
watermelon and/or grapes

grape juice
challah
gefilte & white fish
egg salad
sometimes also sauteed liver
cholent
soda
watermelon or fruit compote

lalalalla

So where's the cake? How long does making Shabbos take?

flowerpower

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:26 pm

Mine is very very very similar-
challah
some dips like tomato, spicey olive, matchbucha,chrien, cucumber salad, pickles
gefilte and salmon fish
chicken soup with noodles n knaidlach
chicken, ferfel, potatoe kugal
dessert is chocolate and homemade ice cream if guest are there

fish
eggs with cut up vegetables(sometimes liver and gala)
cholent with kishka and some pie and cold cuts

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:28 pm

I need lessons.
We don't eat fish.
In the summer we don't eat soup or cholent - and it's still summer here in Israel (I think there are like 3 weeks a year where cholent is appropriate). Most people here eat cholent under duress as most don't like it even though I make good cholent.
Deli every week sounds very easy but.... I prefer to not serve that.
I need to make challa.
I need to bake a cake.
I am working on a simple menu but it still takes me time on Friday.
Challa
Either brisket and potatoes made with the meat juices - brisket made Wed. or Thurs. so I can slice it nicely when cool
or
Corned beef and rice
then
Some sort of kugel (Yerushalmi, carrot)
Salad
Vegetables such as beets (cooked and flavored), zucchini (cooked and flavored), mushrooms (cooked and flavored)
Melon, cake for dessert
Day:
Challa
Grilled chicken
Leftover starch and maybe potato salad or tabbouleh
Cabbage salad, carrot salad, leftover beets etc.
Salad
Chummus
Tehina

I feel very inadequate serving like this

Mama Bear

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:31 pm

Challah I bake once a month
Chicken soup I cook once a month
Cholent I cook once in two weeks
On weeks that I have cholent and chicken soup in the freezer, I only have to cook the fish, farfel, potato kkugel and eggs. I'm literally on vacation. It takes less than an hour (aside from the challah) to cook for shabbos.

Fancy menus I save for yomtov.

life'sgreat

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:35 pm

This is so funny. I was going to start posting in the Shabbos Menus thread and post the same week after week in order to see if anyone would pick up on the fact that it's always the same.

I do even less than MB.

Challah (usually bake a batch and have in the freezer)
fish, baked fresh on Friday
candied tomatoes for the fish
chicken soup (huge amount in the freezer)
matzo balls (freezer)
zehu. Chicken never gets eaten here on Friday nights. We have some dips for the fish and the tomatoes.

Shabbos day is
fish
eggs (and sometimes liver)
cholent.

Smile

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:37 pm

Mama Bear wrote:

Okay, this wouldn't fly by me. I will not serve reconstituted cholent. It's bad enough after Shabbat. Frozen? Nah. The only thing I am willing to turn it into is bean soup (yum) but the family isn't, how shall I say... keen on it. Challa I make 8 cups = 1 kg and that lasts about 2 weeks, sometimes more if I make smaller loaves (we don't eat that much challa). Chicken soup.... we'll cross that bridge when we get back to it. If it ever cools off here.
Your husband doesn't expect "more" for Shabbos? Mine isn't a complainer at all but my kids complain all week long that the fridge is empty and there is nothing to eat and only on Shabbos there is food..... so it's good to have a full table at least twice a week over here. But the work....

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:39 pm

life'sgreat wrote:

I wonder: are you all frail and skinny types who have no appetite? By me, I am the only not skinny one but everyone has an appetite for something on Friday night. Little ones (6 and 11) could do with just grape juice, challa and a piece of chicken but the older boys (17, 20 and 25) want FOOD. And cake for dessert.

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:40 pm

Mollys Mama wrote:

we also do the same menu every week (similar to MB & flowerpower) I start preparing Friday approximitely 10am & I'm done within an hour (or less).

It's ah michaya LOL

That must be what heaven feels like. Cook for an hour then you have 6 hours left to clean the house and do laundry!

grin

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:41 pm

This is really funny. I also never look at that thread, for the same reason, although I do cook more courses than you guys - by request of my teens. OTOH, generally, when they have unusual requests, they do the cooking themselves. When they were younger, I cooked:
soup
chicken
vegetable salad
fish
and cake

We're not such big challah-eaters, but now that they're older, I like to make hafrashat challa with a bracha, so I make a large amount of dough and pop the extra pre-shaped challahs in the freezer for following weeks. I do make cake - I rotate between 4 or 5 recipes. The same with salads. I can cook in about 3 hours - the challah-baking weeks take more time.

We also don't eat much chicken - depending on who's home that week, sometimes I just put wings in the soup, to be eaten after the fish and salads.

Last edited by grin on Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

zigi

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:44 pm

friday night-

tuna fish, gelfite fish- caviar
egg salad
salad
cous cous or rice
chumous
babaganoush

soup
chicken from the soup

shabbos day

the same first course

cholent and cold cuts

this is what we every week on yomtov I make other things also. the kids like it. also friday night we don't have big appetites and on shabbos day dh eats kiddush in shul

cake is either made or I buy something.

MyKidsRQte

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:46 pm

Challes ( I bake almost every Friday)
Salmon & Gefilte Fish
Dips (I buy)
Chicken Soup & Lukshen
Baked Chicken, Farfel & Potato Kugel

Salmon & Gefilte Fish
Eggs
Liver Sautee (not every week)
Cholent
Kishke
Sometimes I make Lukshen Kugel

oh, and lets not forget desserts, which my daughter makes whatever strikes her fancy

life'sgreat

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 2:51 pm

Tamiri wrote:

life'sgreat wrote:

Neither of us are skinny (I had lap band surgery). Every time I do make a chicken dish for Friday night, it ends up being dumped, or put in the fridge for Sunday. We don't have large appetites at all though. My son, age 5, usually only eats challah and avocado, then a plate of soup with matzo ball, croutons and lukshen (sometimes).

Tamiri wrote:

Wait... and what about clean up? Do you polish the kitchen when you are done cooking? That's part of the cooking time as well, in my book.

I tend to cook very neatly. I will always place a used food storage bag (usually from the veggies I purchased in the grocery) on the counter, and do all the cutting/peeling on that. My cleanup is usually just wiping down the counter, some utensils, and washing the sink.

Tamiri

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 3:01 pm

GR wrote:

Tamiri, you have a bunch of adult boys. Of course they want more.

They haven't always been adults. And no one here is a big fresser, at all.
I've always cooked much more than what I'm reading - very "frum" people too LOL

! I used to cook so much that I threw out 50% of what I made - maybe more! I BH learned over the years to cook more in proportion to what we are going to eat but I thought "everyone" went meshugga cooking for Shabbat. I just don't have the koach to do it anymore. I've totally simplified, and the food does get eaten, and it doesn't take me 2 days of cooking but: it's boring.

sarahd

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 3:03 pm

Mama Bear, you serve cold cuts Friday night?

My menu is also pretty much the same each week.

gefilte fish
soup with lukshen
chicken
potato kugel
salad
dessert

Sometimes I make salmon or another fish instead of gefilte. I don't serve chicken from the soup because I make my soup with beef bones, but maybe I should. (MB, what do you do the weeks you don't have fresh soup? Serve defrosted soup chicken?)

I only need to get creative with salad and dessert and if I don't feel like creativity I can serve compote, which is what my kids prefer anyhow.

It does take me a long time to prepare for Shabbos, though, because everything is made fresh every week.

grin

Sun, Oct 24 2010, 3:09 pm

Tamiri wrote:

Wait... and what about clean up? Do you polish the kitchen when you are done cooking? That's part of the cooking time as well, in my book.

my clean-up time isn't incl. - add a lot more for dishes, counter, floor, etc - I didn't say I was ready for Shabbos in 2 -3 hours, only that I could do the cooking in that time! I do try to clean as I go, though.