Adventures in Mama-Land

  Y’all know I like to give credit where due, so here is a great big shout-out hooray to my friend Rachel .  Only an IRL friend will let you stand in her dining room and watch as she offhandedly does the most awesome things with food. Let me just back up a bit to say that we love freezer burritos and the kosher kind – breakfast, with egg, or beans & cheese – cost about $3 or more.  A pack of 6 burrito wraps costs $3-something.  A can of black beans (don’t gasp; yes, I use canned, though she probably doesn’t) costs under $1.  A pack of shredded mozarella – ditto; cheap (the pre-shredded is often cheaper than the blocks, these days, though I don’t like the powdery cellulose stuff it comes packed with). So here’s what I did, in an attempt to recreate Rachel’s freezer burritos.  I happened to have chicken filling because we were having burrito night here anyway.  If you don’t, just use salsa like she does.  In fact, you can use salsa anyway – extra deliciousness, I say. BLACK-BEAN F

“It’s my own invention!” Here’s a quick easy medium-hearty soup to go along with a rice-based stir-fry – especially good for a cold evening when there wasn’t much in the house beyond rice and tinned tomatoes… I improvised this, writing down what I did along the way so you could enjoy it, too (cuz I knew ahead of time that it was destined to be just as fabulous as it turned out to be!). What’s in it: 1 tin tomatoes (the big kind of tin – 700-something ml?) 2 tins water or nice veggie broth 2 cubes frozen ginger 4 cloves garlic 3 tbsp ch soup mix (omit if using nice veggie broth) 1-2 cups of frozen corn kernels, depending on how much you like corn; I forget how much I tossed in 1 package extra-firm tofu, browned in wok 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (contains fish) black pepper to taste sriracha / hot sauce to taste, optional – OR red pepper flakes, optional 4 tbsp soy sauce (s/b a bit less?) 6 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (I used lite = low sodium, just because we bought it by

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out!  Welcome!  We’re an Israel-bound (next summer) homeschooling Jewish family of 6 (2 parents, 2 teens, 2 littles) and all our meals are kosher.  Read my MPM intro here or just visit my big ol’ list of Everything We Eat .  We eat mostly vegetarian, kinda frugal, not always super-healthy, but in better, more organized periods of our lives, try to include one vegan meal every single week – on Vegan Vursday , of course!   Sunday (Today):  Tuna-Noodle Casserole @ Mommy’s House – anything I don’t have to cook is Yummmmmmy! Monday:  Perogies, Mashpo & Peas – almost entirely from the freezer – yay! Tuesday:  Bread and Hearty _____ Soup – I’m giving myself a break and plopping this in here as a TBD… I’ll plan WHICH bread and WHICH soup later on. Wednesday:   Moroccan Meatballs and Fruity Couscous Thursday:  Pasta with ______ – creamy, something of some sort? Okay, it may not look like much, but I am hoping planning menus again will

Meal Sunday Monday Tuesday Day   Out – W’s - MEAT TO BRING: honey cake! (big round one) D & P/V - DAIRY * Squash Soup Salmon puff pastry * Mushroom/Broc Crepes * Crunchy Cheese Apple Kugel Vegs kugel from Shabbos Any leftover desserts Night J’ s - MEAT Challah Salsa g fish Beef / Split Pea Soup Shepherd’s Pie Apple Kugel (makes 2 round) PAREVE Desserts: Smores cookie bars Honey Cake Mommy/J/B/ Sara? - DAIRY Challah Salsa g’fish Green beans salad Carrots salad Potto Corn Chowder Lasagna (zuke / spinch) DAIRY desserts Pumpkin Pie (easy!) Honey Cake Crossed out = done so far! * = Cook on Yom Tov

My neighbour is out of town!  Why does that make me so very, VERY happy???  Because she said we could help ourselves to her tomatoes. Here they are, with some of our own homegrown peppers, hot and mild, basil, and a homegrown bay leaf (garlic is Ontario-grown, but not my own): Forgive my ugly, scarred dutch oven.  It’s perfect for everything from candymaking to bread-baking, so it’s gone all the way to 550 degrees and back, pretty much unscathed except for its pristine beauty. Going… Going…   Gone… and into the blender with some creamy stuff! Meanwhile… eggs, salt, all-purpose flour (about 6 cups of flour and 4 eggs – no water)…     Equals… and eventually…    Mmmmm….!!! Aren’t simple suppers the awesomest ever???  True story:  I was tasting the sauce and mentioned to YM, “oh, wow… THIS is an awesome sauce.”  YM:  “you said awesomesauce !”  Yes, I did.  If ever a sauce was, this is.  Or was.

This is the time of year I jokingly refer to as our “semi-empty nest.”  The big kids are in Calgary visiting family, and we are left with a taste of what it would be like to be a totally different family – a fairly predictable life with two kids, no schools, nobody popping in and out of the house.  This period when they usually comes after several crazy unpredictable summer weeks, and this year has been the most crazy and unpredictable of all, with big kids running in and out of the house, up to all kinds of big-kid shenanigans, at all hours of the day and night.  Literally, at any moment if we’re trying to do school or have rests or anything, the door could open with a big kid bursting in, perhaps happy and calm; or perhaps, agitated, angry and shouting.  And there is always money:  they constantly need money, infusions of cash or arguments about money or debates about who owed what to whom and when. So when they go away, it’s a bit of a release.  A bit of missing them terribly. I

Around here, the one thing we all agree on, food-wise, is potatoes.  And it occurs to me, as I type this, that we have had some form of potato every night this week:  potato soup on Sunday (after Tisha b’Av ), the same potato soup revisited as a curried carrot/fish stew on Monday, and mashed potatoes last night with our “girls’ night” STEAK binge (Ted & YM were off in Lakewood for a wedding). But it’s too late, because tonight is scalloped-potatoes night, and I thought I’d share some tips for getting this quick-easy and yummy-for-all-ages supper to the table quicker.  (Of course, in your home, scalloped potatoes might not be supper.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s okay – I’m serving it with farmers’ market corn on the cob, and that, in my opinion, is a meal.  Ted prefers to have a protein on the side of one of my all-starch suppers – like salmon or beanie burgers (try these ones – just smoosh them for burgers instead of balls).  Chacun a son gout.) Anyway – some tips I came up

Here’s our food plan, for a full 3-meal Shabbos to go into the fast!  If you’re not sure what Tisha b’Av is (and also, perhaps, what Wikipedia is, because I’m sure there’s good information over there), click here for my very own FAQ.  Submit your questions here or there and I’ll be sure to get ‘em answered in time for next year! Note:   Crossed out = done! Shabbos Dinner (Meat) Challah Chicken soup w/kneidlach Shake n’ Bake chipotle chicken (Ted – to bake at last minute before Shabbos) Mashed potatoes Corn / NO Black Bean Salad Jello w/blueberries (I just type out Ted’s food plan… frankly, I think this is a terrible idea, but (postscript) I made it anyway) Other hopefully chocolatey desserts Shiputzim Chocolate-Chip cookies Pareve blueberry cake (using coconut milk, coconut butter instead of the real thing) More almond brittle ! Lunch (Meat) Challah Turkey pastries (YM) Slicey meats NO!!! Cholent (ditto – terrible idea; I will seek to undermine this cholent idea

So apparently, there is this RIFT in the pad thai world.  Purists who say NO KETCHUP at any cost.  And impurists like me who are excited to have discovered an interesting shortcut to an interesting sauce.  I found this vegan pad thai recipe through a facebook friend but decided, on learning of the Ketchup Controversy, that it needed doctoring and authenticity – a tough thing given that my love for pad thai began after my love for eating kosher, meaning that unlike real Chinese food, I’ve never had it prepared authentically in a Thai restaurant. I’ve made many rice-noodle-based stir fries in my time, but this sauce is a first for me and I wanted to do it right, or at least, kind of yummy. So apparently, there are four things in REAL pad thai sauce, and two are unavailable to me: sugar fish sauce soy sauce tamarind juice There is also, occasionally, sriracha chili sauce and – lo and behold! – I found this brand with a hechsher!  It only came in a JUMBO bottle, so jumbo bottle

Update: February 4, 2015 This post has been moved to my fabulous new food blog .  I hope you'll join me there!

Very streamlined indeed, what with being out for both the lunches of Yom Tov and all.  It’s weird; I was kvetching on here about not being invited out enough, and yet we’ve been invited out for both Shabbos lunches since we got back from Washington, plus one of the lunches of Yom Tov.  Never rains but it pours, I guess. Anyway, here’s the plan, very similar to last year’s , with a few shufflings-around, plus an additional day for Shabbos!   Friday Shabbos Sunday Thursday Lunch   Dairy Sushi (fake crab) Samosas? Lunch – out at Ds Herb parmesan bread Lunch - Mommy Neapolitan cake Dinner Meat Mommy Challah Ch soup Briskety thing Mashpo Pareve Desserts Chocolate Babka Something Jello-y and strawberry-y Dairy Mommy/Judy Herb parmesan bread Jar g fish Soup – leeky tato Lasagna (not pesto & peas) Beets & carrots, roasted Dairy Desserts Espresso Cheesecake (Ted) Gulab Jamun Dairy Barb Herb parmesan bread Jar g fish

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I’m getting my head in order so I may as well type it all out… Dinner: Challah Chicken Soup w/ kneidlach Turkey mballs Mash po Roasted brox (here’s the Spicy Kosher version ) Lokshin kugel from Mommy Corn Kokosh ring (yummy chocolate filling from Imamother.com – about halfway down the page, but I added about a cup of ground almonds and some cinnamon) One more dessert…TBD, PDQ! Lunch: Out – bringing salad & dessert Curried Carrot Pear Salad (from the Al Pi Darko blog ) (oops – used white cooking wine instead of white wine vinegar – yuck!) Kokosh ring It almost seems too easy, except for the fact that it’s 3 pm and none of it is done yet!

Chol HaMoed cooking!  Ted’s at work all week, and we have a busy schedule of fun-packed activities… kind of.  I have been inspired, to some extent, by Mommzy’s awesome week of Chol HaMoed menus over at A Jewish Homeschool Blog.  This menu is WAY heavier on meat than an ordinary week… because meat is just so much easier than the endless veg prep.     Monday (today, just us) – Riverdale Farm : Broccoquiche from the first days that never got eaten Beet salad from yesterday that never got eaten Soup – potato??? Tuesday (S family) – ROM ( Royal Ontario Museum ): Leftover chicken soup Meatballs (sauce???) Mashed potato Leftover Yom Tov desserts:  banana cake , ice creams Wednesday (R family) – Science Centre : Wing night; with drums for kids who don’t like wings – sauce? Roasted root veg Leftover Yom Tov desserts:  banana cake , ice creams Thursday (Yom Tov – J?) – Kids’ Programs = Gymnastics, Swim, Homeschool Drop-In: Chicken soup Cabbage rolls Veg kugel Another v

I don’t know if it’s the same where you are, but if you pass through any subway station in Toronto that offers more than just the basic convenience store, chances are there’s a coffee shop that offers lousy coffee and lukewarm “Jamaican patties.”  I put the phrase in quotation marks because I understand they are not truly Jamaican in origin… and also, thinking about it more this evening, I couldn’t help noticing they’re not a “patty” at all.  So they are probably a variation of a British-type “pasty” (a daff-sounding British word for “pastry”) with a slightly colonial flair. Curiously, in case you’re still reading despite my droning on, I have always used the word “pattie” as the singular – a convention with which this Philipine pattie shop agrees wholeheartedly:   Anyway. Whatever they’re called and wherever they come from, my absolute favourite meal, my default “caf food” in high school, every day or however-often I could afford it, was a single Jamaican patty, chocolate milk a

Well, it’ll do me good to overcome the torpor and fatigue – after staying up SUPER late for a phone call that never came.  :-( This is the rare week that Ted didn’t plan our meals, so I’m doing it, badly, I guess. So here it is… Shabbos, with food: Supper: Chicken Soup w/Kneidlach Shake n’ Bake Chicken Corn Farfel Lunch: Takeout sushi Takeout sushi gyoza Hmm…. MORE… but what??? Desserts Thinking of made rogelach (yum!), for some reason… never made them before, but I have a chocolate filling recipe I’ve been meaning to try. MimicCreme (coconut/almost-based whipped topping) Jello 1-2-3 in a pie shell – fancy! Drat – I keep remembering I haven’t written the Parsha Riddles this week… and then forgetting

Another rock-bottom Shabbos due to the awkward, between-paycheques and bills-to-pay placement of Purim, which I like to think of as the Little Ouch next to its big brother, the Great Big Honking Painful Squeeze of Pesach.  (Tuition month, in August / September, is probably somewhere in between on this Pain/Payin’ Scale)). So what are we eating???  Ted’s been making the menus for a while now because I lost all interest in food planning (a terrible admission for somebody who is technically a full-time homemaker).  Here’s what’s on the agenda, almost entirely “salvaged” out of the cupboards and freezer: DINNER Challah (Ted made a grocery run last night and deemed flour an “essential” – smart man!) Chicken Soup (bones from freezer) with Kneidlach Pickled Brisket Pumpkin Kugel (still lots of cheap November 1st pumpkin in the freezer!) Corn (eek - do we have corn in the house?!?!!?) Roasted red potatoes Curried carrots (not sure what this is, but Ted has it written on the list,

Well, not quite.  I could have made the pasta from scratch, for instance, but I didn’t.  I could have grown the spinach and tomatoes from  scratch, or at least, made my own sauce, but I didn’t.  Maybe this summer – it sounds like a great challenge. As it was, this was just plain BEAUTIFUL lasagna.  With homemade mozzarella – tasty, though not mind-blowing.  It grated pretty nicely, though it was softer and stickier than regular block mozzarella.  I froze it for a bit and it grated slightly better, though still on the mushy side.  One pound of cheese was the batch I made on Sunday , and another pound was fresh today.  I think we used about 1/4 of the new pound, leaving 3/4 of a pound still in the fridge.  Yummy!  And it’s getting easier and easier to get the cheese just right… patience seems to be the key.  Here’s a tutorial that is VERY explicit, step-by-step, and helpful with the handholding I need as a beginner! (I’m tagging this post “ crafts ”, because why CAN’T cheesemaking be

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out!  Welcome!  We’re a homeschooling Jewish family of 6 (2 parents, 4 kids) and all our meals are kosher.  Read my MPM intro here or just visit my big ol’ list of Everything We Eat .  We eat mostly vegetarian, and I try to include one vegan meal every single week – on Vegan Vursday , of course! As always when I’m feeling busy and uninspired, I think I’ll steal a page from Tiffany’s book, over at Frugal Gourmet Mom.  She always has something “cooking” in the kosher yummy family food department!!!  Mmm… check out Wednesdays Roasted Asian Salmon!  And Tuesday’s meatballs were inspired by her too, indirectly. Sunday (today):  Wings and other meat-type substances at Mommy’s house, with a side of bicker… Monday:  Shells pasta, easy/lazy pasta meal, yum Tuesday (Ted late):  Moroccan meatballs (like these ones ) with fruity couscous Wednesday:  Tiffany’s Roasted Asian Salmon with rice and stir-fry veg on the side Thursday (Ted off, COC Noon Co

Almost a week old already, but I’ve been sick all week and haven’t had a chance to get pics off the camera until now. Just what every 16-year-old girl wants… her parents riffing endlessly and tiresomely on the Harry Potter theme!  First, a handpainted-by-Mommy (that would be moi) DIY puzzle - “Wish you a Very Harry Birthday!”   Baked potatoes slathered with chili, sour cream, cheese, chives (supper by special request of the birthday girl!)… slathered all over Harry’s handsome punim and served on a charming Harry n’ Pals tablecloth:     At birthday girl’s reqeust, I baked a Cherry Chip mix cake with store-bought Cream Cheese frosting (you will notice there are no pictures of Birthday Girl in this blog post… that was ALSO her very special request!). Ted and the kiddies then embellished the cake with custom-Harry Potter-themed embellishments, such as this attractively glazed square of chocolate, and a couple of leftover Chanukah gelt pieces with colourful frosting, glaze and sprin

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out!  Welcome!  We’re a homeschooling Jewish family of 6 (2 parents, 4 kids) and all our meals are kosher.  Read my MPM intro here or just visit my big ol’ list of Everything We Eat .  We eat mostly vegetarian, with one vegan meal every single week – on Vegan Vursday , of course! Um, okay, so this is what happens when you stop something “temporarily” for Pesach… and scarily enough, we’re almost closer to Pesach now than we are to Sukkos. Well, maybe not. But it’s scary, anyway.  I feel like I have been struggling to get on top of our schedules since Pesach, and not really succeeding.  Probably because my sleep is so wonky.  Promise me you won’t look at the timestamp on this post, because in my world, this is “early.” Sunday (tonight):  Chicken, corn fritters, etc at Mommy’s.  She called this morning to say she had bought the chicken and would “make a vegetable.”  Corn fritters were the vegetable.  Clearly, my kind of woman.  To be fair,