Mama Bear: I like this

Mommy3.5

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 11:12 am

I do pretty much the same thing as MB.

Shabbat is almost always the same.

Friday night
Gefilta fish/salmon some weeks both some weeks only one
Salad if there will be guests
Chicken soup or vegetable soup depending on which one I have in the freezer, I make it in batches depending on my mood
Chicken, although I make it differently from week to week, either broiled, honey, or breaded. Sometimes done on the stove top with rice or potatoes.
1 side dish

Shabbat day
same fish as Friday night
eggs/sometimes liver
sometimes cold cuts
vegetable platter/ salads if we have guests, my kids will only eat Israeli salad, so I save the fancy salads for guests.
Cholent, sometimes kugel and kishke if I feel like making a patchke.

grin

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 11:35 am

kitov wrote:

If my memory serves me well, my chassidish teaschers taught something along the lines of "having to check you ancestry if a yid didn't eat warm food on Shabbos".

Am I recalling well, does anyone know about this too?

Yes, of course - this dates back to the Karaites who explained the pasuk literally that there be no food burning in your home on Shabbos and therefore they spent Shabbos in dark houses and ate cold food (actually, still do - there are remnants of a community still today in Ramle), so if you have nothing warm for Shabbos day, you're suspect of being one of them.

OTOH, it's not my brand of oneg Shabbos to leave a fire going all day in the summer, besides which nobody by us even likes cholent. So I get around this by filling up a thermos with hot water before Shabbos so that hot drinks are available by day.

Mrs. XYZ wrote:

It also says 'Basar, vedagim, vechol matamim' and therefore we davka eat fish AND chicken at eat meal. (but as I said we all just take a small bite of chicken to be yotzei)

That's interesting. We're makpid davka on the fish at both meals - "ha'ochel dag b'yom dag (gematria 7 = Shabbos) nitzol mid"g = din gehinom"

Last edited by grin on Mon, Oct 25 2010, 11:38 am; edited 1 time in total

Mommy3.5

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 11:51 am

Ruchel wrote:

There were people in the dark before timers existed. My own great grandparents in Brussels only started having one in the 30's.

If you lit shabbat candles, you were not in the dark, till they burned out. Karraites did not light candles because it says you cannot kindle a flame on shabbat, it does not say that you cannot light a flame before shabbat and enjoy it.

Karrerites only used torah she bi ctav(written Law), anything from torah shbaal peh(oral law), was disregarded.

mom4many

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 12:15 pm

I'm not feeling so bad anymore that my Shabbos meals are so simple! You mean it's normal?

When I was in seminary I so much more enjoyed those that had nice variety in their Shabbos meals (2+ kugels, sidedishes, 2+ desserts) and I thought that was considered normal.

Nowadays I'm so busy that I barely make 1 dessert for the whole shabbos, and 1 side dish or kugel. (My family won't give up on homemade challa though!)
And since a normal Shabbos is 10-12 people, it takes a good 2 hrs. to prepare!

OK, I confess that I do make a homemade Caesar salad dressing, often make fried fish, sometimes fry eggplant too, oh and a cake. But truthfully I always felt it's simple for Kavod Shabbos, until I read the comments on this post....

MaBelleVie

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 12:29 pm

I don't know. . . for me, as much of a hassle it is to cook for Shabbos, I don't think I would LIKE to simplify it. There's something so special about spending Thursday and Friday in the kitchen, putting together food just for Shabbos. In fact, when we are invited out for Shabbos meals, Friday afternoon doesn't feel as good.

My husband is Moroccan, so I do spend quite a bit of time making challah, all the salatim, Moroccan fish, meat and vegetable dishes. I do like trying new things though, and so does he (even though his mom made basically the same menu every week). So I throw in some KBD-type salads along with the traditional Moroccan ones, and if I find a recipe that looks good, I'll save it to try for Shabbos.

We always have too much food, which my dh is happy to eat on Sunday and even Monday. By the time we're finished with the challah and dips/salatim, and the fish, we're all stuffed. We usually have a little bite of meat and vegetables, and save the rest. But my dh likes to make these Shabbos foods even if we know they'll mainly be eaten during the week, as a kavod for Shabbos and to add kedusha to the rest of out week.

I'm happy to participate in all of that.

Mommy3.5

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 12:34 pm

Ruchel wrote:

Shabbat candles don't keep you in the light.

The reason given for shabbat candles, is that people should not be bumping into each other all the time, which would ruin their oneg shabbat. If you will recall in the time the torah was given, there was not much in the way of light source beyond fire. You could also have made a fire in the fireplace, I guess, but before kerosene and electricity were used, it was candles, Another reason why people worked from sun up to sundown, and went to bed when it was dark, was because they could not afford the expense of candles to work by.

Amital

Mon, Oct 25 2010, 1:43 pm

I have a similar menu most weeks except for the main dish, which I like to play with. But I've figured out how to make my salads last for two weeks and rotate them so I only have to make a few each week (we're sefardi and it's apparently not a meal without a real mezze for dh).

Challah I make fresh nearly every week.

Salads: I do zhug, bell pepper, and carrots one week and smoky babaganoush, tomato dip, and something else interesting another week. Every week I use bought hummus, which we like better than any recipe I've found, and avocado or guac--these usually last a few weeks, too.

Soup, if I make, it's fresh. Often bean, matzah ball, meatball, or taco.

Side dishes: I make 3-4 pans of the same kugel or two each week and freeze the extras to defrost next week. Usually broccoli, spinach, squash, sweet noodle (undercook), corn "cake," maybe potato. Then you get an assortment of options with just a little extra work. The extra work really pays off on Friday, though! Usually add a rice or cous cous dish which I just assemble and bake on Friday.

Chicken: I often buy big amounts of chicken on sale, skin it, and marinate/spice it in disposable pans, freeze it, and then defrost it and cook it the week we'll eat it. I do make 3-4 of each kind of chicken (like sesame chicken, brown sugar spice rub, BBQ, maybe kung pao if I'm up for chopping, etc.), and then just pull out what we're in the mood for that week.

Beef: Same thing as chicken, but I make bunches of meatballs, kebabs, sesame beef, etc.

Lunch main dish: cholent is fresh each week, I use jachnun from a big batch I make and freeze individually. Sometimes I'll make the same chicken or add something small. I have some marinades and sauces that I freeze in plastic bags when I'm making a batch (just add the same amount to your meat and a group of bags) and just throw in if I'm doing something like a pulled beef roast. Or something like a texmac salad (basically 7 layer salad with taco meat) in summer. We like to mix it up.

Dessert: Usually fresh, although I have put away a dozen of a few kinds of cookies and cookie dough balls for a pinch.

OK, so I guess mine isn't all that much repeated every week, but more cycles through a few weeks with no complaints from my family, which likes to have different things. I have a set of recipes that I use most of the time. But cooking a little each week and planning ahead is how I cut down on my prep time AND give some variety! Wink

mom4many

Tue, Oct 26 2010, 3:51 am

Amital wrote:

Wow I'm impressed Amital. I dream of doing this as well - someday? When do you do these big batches - in the beginning of the week or on Thursday?

Also I'm curious how many people you cook for on a regular Shabbos - and what size batches you freeze. I mean I'd need to have batches to serve ~10 people. To me that seems like a large quantity...

My last question is how do you recommend freezing prepared chicken if every week you have a different amount of people (and very few family members touch leftovers)? Every week I take out the exact amount of portions that I think will be used +1 or 2.

Thanks for sharing!

Ruchel

Tue, Oct 26 2010, 6:57 am

grin wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

grin wrote:

People used to light large candles and also had kerosene or oil lamps. They didn't usually sit in the dark.

Some had only electricity.

That's hard for me to believe or understand. Those that had electricity were obviously well-to-do and could afford other options.
Was the electricity so dependable back then that they had nothing else available for when it was faulty?

It's ok if you don't want to believe it. If you need to call my grandmother, tell me.

grin

Tue, Oct 26 2010, 4:43 pm

Ruchel wrote:

grin wrote:

Ruchel wrote:

grin wrote:

People used to light large candles and also had kerosene or oil lamps. They didn't usually sit in the dark.

Some had only electricity.

It's ok if you don't want to believe it. If you need to call my grandmother, tell me.

After posting this, I realized that the language I used may have been hurtful and insulting. I'm sorry if I hurt you and I apologize.