S/O shavuot menu | Imamother

amother

Green

Mon, Jun 10 2019, 8:51 am

Teomima wrote:

I agree people go overboard. I think, to some extent, lots of women feel under pressure to "prove themselves." They want to impress their guests and so make insane amounts of food. I have a family member who does this and the truth is, in their case, quality suffers when quantity takes priority.

I have also seen this and it's a sorry thing. Saw it with my ex-MIL (who was a martyr) with huge amounts who ended up in the garbage because it wasn't "fresh" anymore. All the work and the money and mediocre food cooked without love.

amother

Sienna

Mon, Jun 10 2019, 11:51 am

itsmeima wrote:

We cut out menu down to fish, meat or chicken with one side dish and dessert of course.

Before YT I make a huge batch of roasted vegetables and then...
1) for a dip I blend it with a little mayo
2) for a salad. I mix it with lettuce and roasted chickpeas
3) for a side dish, I mix it with rice or quinoa

For fish, I marinate fish in simple spices and then...
1) I serve it over thIn spaghetti that was mixed with sundried tomatoes, capers, and olives.
2) I serve it with rice, cucumbers, avocado and a little spicy mayo
3) I serve it with roasted vegetables and teriyaki sauce on top
4) I flake it and mix it with pesto sauce and thin spaghetti
4) I serve it with lettuce, vegetables, and a honey mustard dressing.

Love this!!
I want to pin it to my fridge for next Yom tov!
If it’s just me and my husband we really don’t eat a lot!
The “main” course for us is fish and challa and dips.
Over Yom tov I made a smaller fish course and then had meat and rice for one meal.
I live in Israel so only had 4 meals.
But I usually will make one main protein and side and then small starter.
I prefer to have more of one type of food then a little bit of loads of food that gets thrown out in the end!!
When we have guests I would make a bigger starter and another couple of side dishes.

amother

Green

Mon, Jun 10 2019, 12:11 pm

amother [ Sienna ] wrote:

But I usually will make one main protein and side and then small starter.
I prefer to have more of one type of food then a little bit of loads of food that gets thrown out in the end!!
When we have guests I would make a bigger starter and another couple of side dishes.

Why throw if it's still edible? I mean, we all have fridges.

spikta

Mon, Jun 10 2019, 10:02 pm

There's also the issue of how many convenience items you're using. If you chop your own garlic and herbs, that takes longer than using frozen cubes. Likewise for frozen veggies, and pre chopped and washed salad mixes, which save a ton of veggie prep time. I tend toward prepping it all myself, because I'm a cheapskate Wink

but I see how much time I spend just cleaning, peeling and chopping produce.

There's also the issue of cooking style. Big chunks of protein like a roast or chicken or salmon don't have to be particularly labor intensive. You could be serving a very nice roast made with a very nice wine, but as far as prep goes, it can be pretty simple - dump wine over roast, add a few veggies, bake. Salmon can be drizzled with soy and honey and baked. Done in 4 minutes. Much faster than stuffing cabbage, frying schnitzels or rolling kubbe. That's just one of the more common styles in Jewish American cooking. Probably because we're short for time and have many shabosim/yomim tovim to cook for Smile

yo'ma

Tue, Jun 11 2019, 9:28 am

yo'ma wrote:

I hate typing on a laptop. I almost finished and it deleted Mad

. I'll try again.

Thank you! I first checked out this thread and a few others, but mostly this one for ideas. I have salads, dips, and desserts separately because I don't know what when and it also depends if we have company or not.

Salads- cole slaw, broccoli, cucumber, corn, ~~fennel~~, purple cabbage, and beet salad.
Dips- pesto, roasted pepper, sun-dried tomato, techina, garlic, and jalapeno dip.
Desserts- kokush or rugelach, chocolate cookies, peanut butter pie, blondies, cheesecake, and ~~store bought ice cream~~.
I'm adding shabbos party just in case I lose my list, I have written here too Wink

.

Friday night- chicken (I usually decide what kind when I'm ready to make it), and potato kugel (my dd is coming home, yay, and she likes to make it, but if not, maybe zucchini kugel) (I haven't served fish or soup in years because then nobody eats anything else. This is enough food)
Shabbos lunch- eggs, chulent, and ~~liver~~ if my dh brings some home.
Motzei shabbos- salmon (same as chicken above), mashed garlic spinach (is it possible? sweet) potatoes.
Sunday lunch- some sort of ~~meat~~ or a barbecue. Knowing my dh, probably a barbecue and that means lots of different types of meat. ~~Asparagus maybe and either grilled or roasted and maybe carrot fries.~~
Sunday night- meatballs, pasta, and sauteed cabbage, tongue
Monday lunch- ricotta roll ups, 3 different ones, lasagna, eggplant, and zucchini, and a lettuce salad.

Anyone else already so full thinking of all the food??

This is what I ended up making. Tongue is bolded because it was done last minute. I started Wednesday cooking and I figured it out. It took me approximately 15 hours to do everything. I made it all except the potato kugel which my dd did. I do not work and don't have freezer space to make things in advance anyway. It was b'h enough food and we have some leftovers. We had one guest, but he eats a lot, hence the tongue. I wasn't sure a kilo of meat for the meatballs would be enough.

etky

Tue, Jun 11 2019, 11:05 am

OP, I had the same exact thoughts as you when reading the Shavuot threads.
It's like people were preparing, serving and consuming the equivalent of 6 Thanksgiving meals back to back. The logistics are staggering as is the amount of work and mental effort that goes into a Yomtov of this sort. I only made 4 meals for two days and much less food than some posters described, but I feel that I was pushed to the limit.

I almost lost it at one of the meals when my father asked for the vegetable salad and then didn't touch it when he discovered it didn't have tomatoes in it whereas the non-tomato eaters for whom I had left out the tomatoes didn't feel like having salad at that meal and thus the salad was practically untouched. Oh, and I had left shul early to make the salad Mad

About your second point - I also was wondering about the modular mix+match method of meal planning. I think you need to be a certain personality to do that.
I'm too uptight about the meal planning to implement this method. I need to know what I am serving at each meal and how much of it, ahead of time, during the planning stage, although I do alllow for some 'repurposing' of leftovers from previous meals in subsequent ones.

amother

Wheat

Tue, Jun 11 2019, 11:30 am

I guess I did a hybrid of the 2 types. We had guests for shabbos meals, so I cooked a bunch of options for those--2 veggies, 3 starchy sides, 3 mains, and then I mixed and matched those with the one or 2 additional things I made for the YT meals (just our family). I had extra salad things and cold cuts and pantry things/freezer things I could cook on YT if we needed, but it turned out that we had plenty of leftovers to eat for our smaller family meals. It worked out really well and while the initial cooking was stressful, I really felt relaxed once the hosting part was over. I felt that I needed the options for guests because I wanted everyone to find something they could eat. I think if I had guests for all of the meals, that way of cooking might've been more stressful (or I would have just served the same things at every meal! Smile

)