Friday Night Menu - Fill in the blank

I've received many requests to post menus - but in following the adage "if you give a man a fish, he has one meal, but if you teach him to fish.....", instead, this menu is my structure for a Friday night meal when I have a lot of company. When it's just family for shabbat, or one invited family, my menus can be more creative, but when the table is set for sixteen, it's best to stick with the basic structure, so that quantities and varieties are not an issue.

First Course:

Either: Salad with an added "fancy" or soup

Main Course:

Beef main dish

Chicken main dish

Sides:

Potato

Rice or Noodle

Hot Vegetable

Cold Vegetable or Salad

Dessert:

One "fancy" dessert

one cookie or smaller dessert

(one should be chocolate, one non-chocolate)

I follow this structure and there's always enough for each individual, no matter their eating idiosyncrasies.

When you're filling in the blanks, consider the colors of the foods, and the "strengths" of the flavors. Make sure to find something green or bright - not all beige foods (roast chicken, roast potatoes and eggplant salad will not really look great....) and making everything either super spicy or bland will also be boring for your guests!

As always, feel free to email with any questions!

The Uneaten Enigma

If you're like me, and most hosts I know, the idea of having just enough food for your guests means you didn't prepare enough. So at this time of year, it's likely that your refrigerator is full of small, medium and large containers of various goodies - goodies that were acclaimed on their first serving and will be ignored on their second!

The best thing to do is purchase inexpensive freezable containers, and freeze single servings of all those yummy things. Even better is if you can find aluminum "tv dinner" trays. Don't even try to serve them as leftovers this week - put them away for a night when things are hectic, but a warm "fresh" meal will be welcome

And don't forget to label the containers - a brown mass of meatballs looks a lot like brisket when frozen!

Organization Is Its Own Reward

Early morning shopping trips, late nights waiting for the brisket to be done, weekends of working hard and keeping up with lists, lists and more lists have paid off - I have scheduled a manicure for my lunch hour today - and will be very careful to use rubber gloves tomorrow!

Being a good hostess is not only about the food on the table and the appearance of your home, but about the way you make your guests feel. If you've worked so hard that you are miserable, tired, cranky and feel a mess at your own seder, then you've done too much - and your guests will be uncomfortable.

Always make sure that in some way that is meaningul to you, you have taken care of yourself as well as you've taken care of your home, your family and your guests! For me, it's a manicure - for you, it could be a bubble bath - but in whatever way you can - be good to yourself!

Pre Pesach Pics

The effort of organizing and being your own taskmaster pays off! As planned, I kashered about 75% of the kitchen Friday before shab bat, and was able to finish about an hour after shabbat ended. By midnight, I had eight batches of almond brittle in the freezer.

This morning I was in the kitchen before 7, and got everything done on my list -

And the reason for 4 container of tzimmes - simple, one for the seder, one for my mother, one for my grandmother and one for the freezer for my son when he gets home from Israel.

Setting the Table

I have made it a habit, not just for pesach, but for any holiday or shabbat, to set the table as early as I possibly can. Having the table festively set puts me in the right mood, and reminds me of the wonderful time that will be had, and why the effort in the kitchen is worth it.

If the thought of all those dishes after the seder is daunting, go with the nicest paper that's affordable - the selection is huge.

I use my mother's china, cloth napkins and pretty floral napkin rings which I use only for the seder. This year, I was inspired during a trip to Christmas Tree Shops and about a month ago, picked up some pretty planters and packets of herb seeds. I don't usually have a green thumb, but amazingly those little herbs actually grew - and the best grower was the parsley - so in addition to having 4 beautiful plants for a centerpiece, I have home grown parsley for Karpas.

Because a friend was gracious and invited us for Friday night dinner this week, I plan onhaving the kitchen half kashered before shabbat. Shabbat Lunch can be salad and cold cuts - so the oven and stove will be done (and lots of things packed) before shabbat. By the time I go to sleep Saturday night, the kitchen will be fully kashered.

In addition to doing LOTS of cooking and baking on Sunday, I will set the table - and as I cook into the night each night, the sense of gleeful anticipation will keep me going -

I'll post pictures of the herbs and table early next week.

Pesach Prep - Step 3 - The Shopping Lists for This Year and Next Year

In April, 2006 I wrote about the need to make your lists in advance, and to make separate lists for the separate stores - read that post as a reminder -

There's one more list that's essential to create, keep in a place you'll remember, and refer to from year to year - your "Buy / Don't Buy" list - a trick I learned from my mother. She posted the list on the inside of the pesach closet - it doesn't matter where you post it, so long as you remember to get it out about a month before pesach.

There are certain foods that can be saved from year to year. I save salt, vinegar, and spices (I know Julia Child would not approve, but come on...). So if I have leftover when I'm packing pesach away, that goes on the "Don't Buy". And if you have a ton of leftover... ummm..... sardines, or chocolate (ok, not possible, I understand), or you bought too much or too little matzoh meal, your Buy/Don't Buy list is the place to record notes like that. My list always has "8 yards contact paper" to remind me how much to buy - nothing's worse than having the kitchen nearly kashered at 2am - and finding out you're 3 yards short, or out of plastic sheeting to cover the table - or have no coffee filters to make coffee the next morning!

Next post - forget the seder of the seder - you need the seder of the cooking! Timelines and organization are key!

Countdown to Pesach

Getting very close.....

Going to Brooklyn on Sunday - let's be real folks - the prices for meat in Westchester are ridiculous and pretty obnoxious on the part of the one butcher (I won't name the store, you figure it out!).

So off we go the holy land...

Which means of course, that time had come for me to figure everything out, which, at long last, I did, and I will post the plans, menus, recipes in the days to come.

In the meanwhile, we've been having fun eating through all the odd contents of the freezer, the end of the frozen leftover soups, odd mismatched main courses, but I'm close to empty so it's all good. And this shabbat will be the last one I cook. For Shabbat Hagadol we've been invited to friend who close their houses for pesach (bless them!!!) and there's lunch at the shul, but with what it costs, we've decided to get our own takeout instead. Though my stove and oven will have been kashered by then, I'll still have my electric hotplate to use to warm anything up.

Keep watching, I promise lots of menus, tips and recipes soon!