How do you keep your soup hot on Friday night?

amother

Ecru

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 11:11 am

amother wrote:

I put frozen soup in my pot and straight on the blech. its piping hot by the meal. chulent I obviously cook before. and it bubbles before I put it on. the blech is the best as I live in lakewood and we have a lot of power outages here. so if I use hot plate then I would not have chulent or soup. this is the best route.

I also live in Lakewood but most stoves turn on with an electric ignition so I don't think that would work in a black out. I have had the power go off about 2-3 times on a shabbos in the last 12 yrs that I lived here but B"H within minutes turned back on.

mha3484

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 12:14 pm

I used to have a 1 qt crockpot. I would put a frozen container in Friday morning (minus the plastic) and by the time it was ready for the meal it had defrosted and boiled. It broke and I have not gotten around to getting a new one so now I just keep it in the oven.

someone

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 12:15 pm

Hold on, if most people here don't use a blech or hotplate (this is the first I am hearing about this, everyone I know uses one), do you have only cold food for lunch? Apart from cholent which can be put in a crockpot.

mha3484

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 12:18 pm

Our lunch is fish and salads which are served either cold or room temp, a hot dish in the crockpot and dessert. Sometimes I stack food on top of the crockpot to warm up.

miami85

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 12:30 pm

someone wrote:

Warm up food on top of cholent pot--we are small family.

SixOfWands

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 1:38 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

Boil it up rigt before shabbos, wrap in a towel and put it under the blanket on my bed. Stays boiling.

You put the soup on your bed? Or just use your blanket to wrap the soup elsewhere? Aren't you worried about spills?

sky

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 2:21 pm

We don't put food on a blech or plata on shabbos - so I wouldn't put one up.
I wrap my soup in 2 thick bath towels and it stays very hot.

(I keep my cholent in a crock pot from before shabbos - I will put food on the crock pot when food is in the pot, but not if its just water boiling. I stick a kugel in teh crock pot before shabbos and if I want to heat chicken or challah or other kugel I'll put in on top of the crock pot in the morning).

lora

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 5:03 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

You put the soup on your bed? Or just use your blanket to wrap the soup elsewhere? Aren't you worried about spills?

this might not be the best sulution if you have a small house with many little kids, but yeah, I put it on a top bunk bed and wrap first a towel then the blanket around it

ra_mom

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 5:17 pm

someone wrote:

I use the hot plate for Friday night, but shabbos day, the only hot food we have is from the crockpot.

amother

Violet

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 5:24 pm

Most people I know don't serve hot foot shabbos day even if they put cholent on the hotplate. Me and dh are usually too full up after cholent to eat anything else. Growing up we always had cold meat, coldcuts and salads for main course.

cozyblanket

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 5:56 pm

I boil the soup up, wrap it in 3 towels and leave it in the corner of the counter.

I wouldn't want to wrap it in things on my bed... what if a child goes up and climbs on the bed and spills the soup? It could ruin the mattress. Anyway, that would require carrying up the steps!

The food gets hot in the oven and I turn it off right before I light.

thanks

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 7:43 pm

amother wrote:

The electric ignition is irrelevant. If it's a gas stove it will stay on in a power outage.

Optione

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 7:54 pm

lora wrote:

this might not be the best sulution if you have a small house with many little kids, but yeah, I put it on a top bunk bed and wrap first a towel then the blanket around it

I'd be very nervous to do this. Even without little kids, I could see a mistake happening. I would be scared that the person getting the soup down would get burned. (Not criticizing, just stating my opinion.)

thanks

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 8:10 pm

Iymnok wrote:

If the food inside is less then 1/3 cooked, even opening the lid is considered augmenting the process, and thus not permitted.
Some people prepare their cholent just before licht bentching.

There are so many factors. It's important to review the halachos.

How long was the food cooked? (chulent has it's own rules since the more you cook it the better it gets.
What type of crockpot/platta? - (some are considered like a pot on the fire, some are like a pot on a blech.)
Under what conditions is it permissible to stir it?
Under what conditions may one put the cover back on?

Ladies - these halachos are important for us to know. There are so many books - Hebrew, English, Yiddish, etc. Let's not rely on what we learned in high school.

MagentaYenta

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 8:26 pm

I had a Wonderbag made by a friend so that I could try out cooking using stored heat and thought it would be great for Friday nights. They work wonderfully and two years later I've had one made for each of my children. http://www.underthechokotree.c.....id=54

amother

Violet

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 8:37 pm

thanks wrote:

Even when fully cooked you're not allowed to open the lid of the crockpot without first removing the crockpot from the base.

cozyblanket

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 10:58 pm

someone wrote:

Yup, for lunch, only my crock pot (chulent) is on. I put things on top of it to warm up, like a small pan of kugel and a challah. But we have some cold dishes. Much better than a hot kitchen from a blech. And safer too!

zaq

Tue, Nov 15 2016, 11:07 pm

I leave my soup pot on the blech. The soup only gets better with time and if dh gets hungry for a bowl of soup in the middle of the night, there it is ready and waiting.