Prepare for Yom Tov in advance- FREEZE

Tamiri

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 7:32 am

Um, I brought a 17 cu ft freezer on the lift with me. Around 500 liters. And you know what: With the 12 chickens that I bought last week all nicely cut up and frozen, my flour and legumes and 3 batches of challa and my home-made bread and the meat and fish and spices and a couple of cakes and I don't know what else PLUS I have a nice-sized refrigerator freezer - there isn't so much room. I have some space to play around with, but after I make soup today and freezer those containers, uh.. it's going to be tight.
In the U.S. the people I know who had lots of company had at least 2 fridges and a large upright freezer.
I don't know how you can do it with a tiny Israeli freezer and refrigerator. I guess that's why we are allowed to cook on Yom Tov - did you forget that?
If I were you Friedas, I would make one meal a crockpot meal. Put it all up at night, then have a nice hot meal on Shabbat. Not a cholent: you can easily make a roast and potatoes if the crock pot is big enough. What else, what else: Flat meatloaf, flat brisket: things that can be cooked and piled on top of each other.
How do people do it? I think the answer is that they cook on Yom Tov.

freidasima

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 7:50 am

Well tell me this, how in the world can I cook on YT???
First, we can't use the oven, only the stovetop so no roasting, baking, etc. and as I don't fry that basically limits me.
Second, during the day we are out in shul from 7:30 AM to around 1:30 PM and yes, I am there for the whole davening G-d help me (at least on RH I should be a mensch, no?) so everyone gets home and is hungry (we only have a 15 minute hafsoko after Kriyas Hatorah to make kiddush and except for a small piece of cake or rice cracker or something no time to eat anything) so lunch has to be completely done.
As for cooking on erev chag, forget it...it takes hours to make the salatim with checking produce etc..and then the "sponja hagedola" of the house, another hour and then rush rush everyone into the one and only shower and get things done and that's not even mentioning lunch which everyone wants and mommy has to make.
C'est la vie.
As for cooking for the second night, when? During tashlich?We finish lunch like 3:30, then by the time I have cleared up, done dishes etc. it's 5 and time for tashlich and that's until 6:30, home to bench lecht and daven and voila, they are home.
When exactly am I supposed to cook on Yuntif?
Faggedit.

As for one pot meals, that's not going over in this house. First I don't own a crock pot. Second we rarely eat meat, so no roast, no meatloaf, just chicken, chicken, chicken. Roasted. No schnitzl or fancy stuff. third we don't eat beans and fourth it doesn't go with what people eat here. Tons of fresh salads, roast chicken, rice, lentil and veg soup, kugel, cake, sometimes a cooked side dish like acorn squash, dalorit, or pumpkin, or sauteed onions and mushrooms, then fruit. That's the meal.

No one dish meals for us ever...what about the soup?

freidasima

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 8:14 am

You still have big kids at home. I have big kids who come home to eat and sleep. Let's see, little ds is in the army until chag and maybe or maybe not will he come home. Older ds is in yeshiva and with his fiance, middle and younger dds are working until late sunday evening and then going to help my mother when they get home. They are even working half day on Monday so no help there.

Dh works sunday and monday will go shopping for the papers, challah for yuntif, then he gives a shiur and will be home noontime to eat.... My fridge isn't big and there is no way that I can cook all the food I need Sunday nite and put it in the fridge which will be full of produce. If it is frozen, then I take it out sunday nite to defrost and until I put it into pots monday around noon it just sits defrosting in the fleishic drainboard not taking up space. I don't even have much counterspace that isn't covered by the milchig and fleishc drainboard. Once we measured it for some reason and it was less than 1 meter counterspace in total. So no place to really put things down either.

SMALL KITCHEN, small fridge, lots of food, lots of people. C'est la vie.

Remember that my whole kitchen measures 2m by around 3m, we don't even have a kitchen table it is so small with cabinets on two walls and stove/fridge on the third wall and the door on the fourth.

As for sponja sunday, they all traipse in monday afternoon including chayal with two weeks of sand all over him, hence sponja sunday is irrelevant (and I make sponja in the kitchen, bathroom, hallway and dining room EVERY day), but as for the entrance, living room (through which he walks and leaves his stuff on the way to the boys room which is off the kitchen), it has to be done the last hour before yuntif after the cooking is finished and everyone is washed.

Ironing? What's that?

heffer569

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 8:33 am

freidasima wrote:

Ladies first I am in awe of you. I take of my hat (sheitl in my case) to your ingenuity, forsight and strength of cooking. The variation in recipies is fabulous and I have learned a lot from this thread.

Now I have a technical question. I have a stand up five drawer freezer in addition to my regular small one. But when I think of the quantities that I have to freeze for a large family, how in the world could anyone freeze enough for an entire chag?

Let's think. Two of my five drawers in the freezer have things in them that can't be taken out. My rice, flour, legumes, and things that some people keep in the cupboard but here in EY I have learned that bugwise they must be kept in the freezer. That leaves me three small drawers to fill. If I have to make just RH, I have four meals with soup for 12 or more people which means close to 50 portions of soup! And we like to eat! So at six to eight portions a big container, and four containers fill up a drawer, if I am lucky I have a drawer and a half worth of soup. Now comes the chickens. Everyone gets two pieces of chicken a meal (by me a chicken is divided up into 8 pieces not including the back as a piece and the neck as a separate piece - two wings, two pulkehs, two thighs, two breasts, I do NOT do it yeshiva style with a chicken in 16 portions, we are all adults eating here, no kids anymore, even the "baby" is 18) so that means that let's say I serve chicken for all meals (just for instance) that means 12 x 4 x 2, in other words I need around three chickens a meal, that's 12 chickens. To cut up and freeze 12 chickens at 2 chickens a container and a drawer can take 4 big and 2 small containers, that means I have filled my drawers and am already going into the little freezer over the fridge.

Now in that freezer I keep bread, the legumes being used on a regular basis for soups, ice pops, etc. and frozen veg (we use very little but I have peas, broccoli bodek and bodek strawberries and other things I can't use fresh). So I have let's say around 3/4 of both shelves free. But I have already used up the small one with the overflow of chicken so let's say I have one shelf left.

Now the side dishes. I make sweet carrots for one meal, and four frozen cakes (chocolate, coffee - thank you Tamiri for the recipie!, plain and something else) for the four meals. Maybe if I am lucky I will have room to also make two kugels to put in.

And now my freezers are packed!

I still have other things to make for RH like the rice, potatoes, salads, side dishes, even if I could make and freeze the rice who has room?!
And the minute I finish RH and turn around I have a shabbos to make, YK chicken and soup and another shabbos the minute YK is over.

Not to speak of the first day of sukkos with another 12 people that I have to make the day shabbos is over.

I know that we are all facing this and that those of you with two days yuntif have it lots worse. I'm not complaining, but I really want to know where you put all the food when you write that you have cooked for all of sukkos already!

Maybe because you are talking about small families with 2 little kids? But there are those of you here on this list with 6 and 8 kids too and have households full of guests as well...

So how can you freeze everything and have room?

I have cooked for the whole succos already and they only way im able to do it is I have two HUGE Chest freezers my 12 yr old sister can easily lay down in them. That I had emptied b4 plus I have 3 refridgerator freezers. we are having on average at every meal 8-10 adults and about 18 kids so I made alot of food everything I made I tripled or used the heimishe cookbook which has recipes for 60 servings. I will post my menu later. Also We are going away for R"H and Y"K so that made succos easier even though we are in america and keep 2 days.

MommyLuv

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 11:22 am

roza wrote:

BTW, I don't bake, I leave baking to bakeries. We have a wonderful bakery here called Simply Bread and they use natural ingredients and bake better than I do. They make, round chalahs, honey and apple cakes for Rosh Hashana. http://www.simplybread.com/default.aspx They are pas isroel too( my husband is one of the mashgichim)
That leaves me with lots of space in my two freezers. Instead of keeping the meat frozen till the last moment, I took it out, baked it and put it back. Takes less space, after all the fat went out. Of course, chicken soup takes space. We have freezers as it's much cheaper to order a lot of meat or chicken and freeze.

I am drooling over that bakery's breads!!!!! Maybe I'll move to Arizona. The bakeries here are awful.

freidasima

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 11:42 am

Well at least I don't bake challah, but I do make my own cakes, the bought ones here are (1) expensive and (2) unhealthy to say the least...

I did compromise this evening and took a few packages of legumes out of the freezer...and dh saw what I was going through and he decided that for one of the meals we are having...omlettes. Yes you read it right. As he said, simchas hachag doesn't mean sending mommy to the hospital with exhaustion or to the looney bin after she goes out of her mind, after the chag. I flipped. Omlettes? But as he said, sure. With challah, and no soup and made on the spot and if you don't like it lump it.

This is my dh? The man who likes chicken and soup at every meal? Wow...maybe it happened as he keeps finding me crying in the kitchen this week...

But you read it right, first day yuntif omlettes it will be for lunch. As he said, we are getting a package or two of lox for the "fineshmekers" among the kids (that's primarily oldest dd and especially the son in law) and they can have it on challah, and everyone else can have omlettes. I asked my mother what she thinks of it, as the oldest person who is going to be there and her comment was - try hard boiled eggs, they are easier and you can just make them in advance. "Mom, you're kidding?" no she wasn't.

I guess people are realizing that I am falling apart. As they say in chinese "hoch zeit".

freidasima

Wed, Sep 24 2008, 1:16 pm

Thanks for the ideas but it's not going to work around here. As for adding meat, the whole idea is to make it milchig, also we don't fry anything, and dh doesn't eat cooked veg and we don't eat egg yolks so...when he says omlettes he means what we call "chavita levana", meaning steamed egg whites...in a teflon pan with a bit of water...yeah, yuk, but we got used to it. Just wait until you are in your 50s with high blood pressure.

Also no potato salad as it has either oil or mayo both of which we don't use. Same goes for beets, no one eats them here. What I mean by salad is chopped lettuce and peppers, or grated carrots and raisins, or grated onion and scallions or edamame salad or quinoa salad etc.

We shall overcome!