Saturday, July 7, 2012

Vegetarian Shabbat Lunch

This week was one of those weeks - exams to grade, over 100 late papers submitted by students desperate to get in before the final final date and all needing to be graded by the final final date of course, and Shabbat Lunch.

About Shabbat Lunch. Shabbat (Sabbath) is Saturday, when people do most of their socializing. Apart from being the one day of proper weekend, there are loads of restrictions on what you can do (no shopping, nothing involving travel by car or payment in fact, no computer or tv at home). This is all optional obviously but it does reinforce the tradition of two festive meals, one on Friday night and one for lunch the next day. (Some people also fit in a little drink-spotty [called Kiddush] in the morning and tea in the evening but these are the two biggies.)

When I was single, along with my other single friends, I used to prefer entertaining or going out on Friday night and having a more relaxed day on Saturday. Now that I have a 3 1/2yo the emphasis has shifted to daytime activities and Friday night has become a very low key affair with just the two of us. It doesn't matter which you choose, I love entertaining. I love the cooking, the presenting, the eating, the company. I even don't mind the clearing up afterwards. What I've found it very hard to get my head around for almost three years, is cleaning the flat sufficiently to have guests over. WAH means there's always a conflict of interests and, as I read on fb, doing housework with a toddler in the house is like trying to brush your teeth while eating chocolate cake.

Thinking all the grading, etc... would be over this week, I invited two of DD's friends from nursery with their families to join us for lunch. So I had to clean on top of everything else. I feel great that it's done. DD was so excited and happy to have her friends over. I am happy to be back in the reciprocating loop after too long going to other people and never returning the favour.

However, sommat had to give and the blog was in danger of yet another week of going from Silent Sunday to Silent Sunday and nothing in between. So, inspired by my bloggy friend Esther at Frugal and Kosher, I'm giving you my Vegetarian Shabbat Lunch Menu.

First course:

Challah (plaited bread loaves, bought)
Egg mayonaise salad
Stuffed vine leaves (bought)
Green salad with avocado and salty cheese.
Israeli Salad (tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers)
Pickled cucumbers (bought)

Main course:

Vegetable Kugel (like potato kugel but with grated courgette, cabbage and carrots also added. And I put in some sour cream as well).
Cheese pancakes (with ketchup for the children)
Rice cooked with sweet corn (and red lentils but they diappear so no one knows).
Roasted vegetables in a light soy sauce to serve on the rice. (Aubergine, courgette, mushrooms, carrots, onion and garlic. I had some sweet potato but I forgot to put it in.)


Dessert:


Melon and grapes
Some fancy chocolate biscuits (bought)
Ice-cream cones (for the children but we all had).

As you can see, I'm not much of a dessert person but as there was way too much food, we were full by then anyway. And the fridge and freezer are stocked for the forseeable future.

Some clean and some still waiting
One happy fridge


18 comments:

  1. yum! sounds great! It's really great to have guests, isn't it?
    And I wish my fridge looked like that. Mine is such a jumble. Too many things shoved in and stacked up as high as possible! HELP!
    (And thanks for linking to my blog)

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    1. I was happy to link - I am inspired by the amount of cooking you do every week. My fridge usually lloks empty as DD has two meals at nursery and we survive on salad and cotteage cheese in the evenings.

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  2. Oh wow, that sounds fabulous... wish I'd been there! I had a pot luck supper with friends last night and everyone took quiche... :( And most dishes had fish or meat so I had a very meagre supper... Ah well, pudding is always okay...

    Hellfire, a year ago since we met, more or less. Time flies, huh? You okay? xxxx

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    1. A lot has changed in a year - I'm much less overwhelmed and things are better on on all fronts. Starting to entertain again is another step back to normality and I'm very happy about it. (Love those pot lucks when no one does any coordinating :)).

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  3. Just wondering - my 4 year old wouldn't eat most of that meal, and I am always impressed that your daughter does. What about her friends - did they eat everything too?

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  4. In fact, if we had come for lunch, I'm pretty sure my daughter would have only eaten challah, chummus, and pickles... :-)

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    1. They ate the challah, the egg salad and the Israeli salad in the firat course. They'd had enough by then so left the table to go and play. Later for supper DD had some rice and cheese pancake which she loves. The ice-ceram cornets went down well though.

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    2. I just remembered that one 3 1/2yo boy liked the mushrooms out of the roast vegetables (even with the soy sauce. So you never know but you right that it's much easier to please little ones with some roast chickenm or shnitzel. Some vegetarians serve Tivall sausages but I refuse to.

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  5. I haven't made challah in ages...I must make some again soon, as it's one of my favourite breads...in fact I should blog my recipe! Your menu sounds amazing by the way :-)

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    1. Thank you FF - I have to go back and stipulate that the challah was bought (woops). I'm not that good :).

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  6. I have booked a plane ticket, that sounds amazing :)

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  7. I would love to be a guest at your house going by this! It would take me all week to prepare a meal as ambitious as this, and I wouldn't have the confidence either. Well done :)

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    1. I was reading your blog as your comment came in. I love cooking - if someone would clean for me every week I'd do it all the time (and if someone else paid my supermarket bills).

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  8. Ohh it all sounds divine, I hope this week has been easier on you. Mich x

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    1. Thanks Mich, it has although I bought far too many vegetables FOR last week so I've spent this afternoon cooking them up into interesting dishes (none of which DD will eat of course).

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  9. Replies
    1. You're welcome. Let me know how your vegetarian Shabbat goes/went. Shavua Tov.

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