One working mom's guide to preparing for shabbos

amother

Wed, Jul 05 2023, 9:37 pm

After reading through the chatzos thread I wanted to share how our family makes shabbos because I think it could help others have some ideas of how to get everything done and go into shabbos with peace of mind. Tweak to your own schedule and menu:

I work from home full time BH so no commute. I also keep it simple and buy some things premade. People always ask how I am able to host while working full time and I have to say it took some time but I now dont feel any stress at all preparing for shabbos if I follow my own advice and stick to the system. This is how I make shabbos with 30 min on Thursday and 30 min Friday morning And maybe 15 min on shabbos itself chopping salad.

Disclaimer: DH and DD do the cleaning and shopping on Friday so my jobs are cooking, final touch ups on cleaning, and bathing the kids. Oh and working a full day. Im just focusing here on the cooking piece.

Thursday Night
1. While making supper (something on stove or milchig in toaster oven) I preheat my oven to 350°F. I either do the chicken or gefilte fish in 9x13 pan and at same time rice or fingerling potatoes. Chicken is always bottoms with oil and onion soup mix. If we are having guests I also do a pan of frozen greenbeans with presliced mushrooms and soy sauce with black pepper. If I do chicken thursday, then I do fish Friday. I put up my pans of chicken, starch, and possible veg and then serve supper and put littles to bed. All this is 30 min or less of prep and then just taking stuff out of the oven. By 8:45 Friday night meal is done. Then I go straight to bed.

Friday Morning
2. I start work at 8 so if I get up early then I have time to cook before kids wake up. Usually around 5 nothing too extreme. If we are having guests and I dont have from the freezer (I only make huge batches) I can put up a simple chicken soup that can sit on the stove until shabbos and then the plain chicken from the soup is great to serve kids as a late lunch/early dinner before candle lighting. If I am ambitious I wil make lukshen or matzo balls but most of the time not. I buy baby carrots to cut down on one less thing to peel and chop. Recipe is literally celery, baby carrots, 2 onions, 1 pack of 4 bottoms, oil, salt and water to cover it all. At same time, I preheat oven to 350 and put in my gefilte fish and bake it for 1:15 hours. Once those are in then I put up my cholent with frozen kishke and pastrami or meat. Lunch, soup, and fish for whole shabbos done, 30 min or less of prep. If I have extra time, I make some hard boiled eggs for egg salad or hummus from canned chickpeas in the blender.

3.Things I buy to make life easy, though not necessarily doable on every budget:
A. Challah and baked goods (on legal holidays I often stock freezer with homemade challah for 6 weeks and then when we run out I buy)
B. Dip (1 if just us, 2 if guests)
C. Lox or herring for extra fish if guests
D. Prechecked lettuce and premade salad dressing. After candlelighting and before the day meal, I cut up a big fresh salad.
E. Special drinks (lemonade, coke, seltzer etc) make even a simple meal special for shabbos
F. Parve Ice cream to keep in the freezer and you dont have to make dessert.
G. Pickles and olives are basically an extra salad when you chop them up or put in a pretty bowl so keeping jars of those around is a great secret weapon

4. I dont do dishes before shabbos. I tackle them motzai shabbos and its fine. If you stick to the system theres mostly just 2 major pots to clean and the rest is disposable 9x13 pans. We dont ahve a dishwasher, so always do pretty disposable cutlery so that helps as well.

Hope that helps someone out there with ideas for how to be less stressed going in to shabbos!

jflower

Wed, Jul 05 2023, 9:46 pm

Wonderful! Thanks for posting.

happy7

Wed, Jul 05 2023, 10:10 pm

This is one of the most realistic presentations of quick Shabbos.
You need to buy some things
And make everything else super simple

There aren’t short cuts if you insist on making everything

amother

Wed, Jul 05 2023, 10:19 pm

happy7 wrote:

This is one of the most realistic presentations of quick Shabbos.
You need to buy some things
And make everything else super simple

There aren’t short cuts if you insist on making everything

This was the hardest part to learn and let go of. It doesnt make a lady more of a balabusta if she makes huge quantities all from scratch and goes into shabbos a wreck. You can absolutely still have a traditional, pretty healthy, enjoyable shabbos where you can have guests and no one goes hungry without making yourself a shmatta. It just might cost you a little more than making from scratch. For me it is a cost of doing business and I am happy to do it.

mra01385

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 3:47 pm

Do you make any kugels?

fleetwood

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 4:08 pm

Just a point..this is not necessarily doable for those working outside the home....

amother

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 4:09 pm

mra01385 wrote:

Do you make any kugels?

Nope unless I am magically off on a friday or have time to stock in freezer on legal holiday. We try to do pretty healthy anyway so Its not worth patchke. Never had a complaint from a guest.

amother

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 4:13 pm

fleetwood wrote:

Just a point..this is not necessarily doable for those working outside the home....

If you are ok leaving soup on a low simmer or do some of the friday items on thursday night instead you can definitely do this working outside the home. I tweaked that way when I was going into the office with 2 hr commute and just lost some thursday night sleep. Its definitely easier working from home though because you can leave something in the oven while you work.

amother

Orchid

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 4:14 pm

fleetwood wrote:

Just a point..this is not necessarily doable for those working outside the home....

Why not?

She said she gets up early on Fridays, and the Thursday prep she does in the evening.

fleetwood

Sun, Jul 16 2023, 4:25 pm

amother OP wrote:

I never leave stuff cooking when I'm out. I do my cooking early Thurs and Fri before work.

I think your title should be changed to say working from home.