Skip to main content

Simchat Torah

Its been an eventful week. Just before Shabbat last Friday, we finished our second gas balloon. Where we live, there is no natural gas pipes to the houses. Instead, you contract a supplier to bring you gas canisters that are called balloons. Most houses have two balloons. When one finishes, you manually switch over to the second and call the supplier. They deliver within a few days, so you should never run out. Oh well, this is probably the fourth time that I can remember running out. Since it is a holiday, we could not reach the gas company to get a new delivery. We were sure that Simchat Torah and Shabbat would be cold meals prepared in the microware or stove.

The wonders of the Internet are that you can send mail even if you can't get a person by telephone. We sent email to the gas company and they tried to call us yesterday. Unfortunately, we were on a hike in the desert. But, I got the message this morning and called them before 9am. The person who answered the phone was very nice and promised that we would have at least one new balloon today. At 1:45, the delivery man came by and installed a new balloon! Yeah!!!!

Meals this holiday are just the 8 of us. No guests. Ah well, sometimes you just have to go it alone.

Dinner - 8
Enchilada Casserole
Zuchinni Con Queso
Garlic Bread

Lunch - 8
Thai Chicken Salad
Chicken Stew/Chili
Rice
Salad

The Enchilada Casserole is onions, peppers and ground tofu mixed with Mexican spices and sauteed in butter and olive oil. I then took soft tortillas and layered tortilla, filling and mozzarella cheese in a baking dish. I topped it off with a layer of Gouda cheese and ground pepper. Looks wonderful!

The chicken stew/chili is a crock pot recipe. I put in a kilo of ground chicken, garlic, a few onions, peppers, celery, two cans of baked beans and a cup of barley. I recycled the soup from last weekend by straining it and then poured it over the other ingredients. This I will let cook for 20 hours on low until lunch tomorrow.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A change of pace (Kidney Failure)

I have been trying to keep this blog focused on hospitality and food.  God though has other plans for his creations and I find now that I will have to expand the scope to cover new topics.  I'll try to continue blogging about my menus and our guests, but expect more posts that have little or nothing to do with food. In February of this year, My second oldest son, Asaf was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure. Simply put, both his kidneys are damaged and scarred from some infection or defect that happened years ago.  They will likely cease to function sometime within the next six months. The good news is that there is no immediate danger to his life.  Kidney Dialysis is a viable option and can maintain his health for up to ten or more years if necessary.  Unfortunately, the process is not easy and there are potential side effects. Given Asaf's generally excellent health and age, Kidney Dialysis is considered only a stop-gap measure and not a long term solution. The best solutio...
13 comments
Read more

Mid Pesach weekend and Recap

For the first time in memory, all of my children stayed awake for the whole seder.  In the past years, we usually lost one or more before the main meal.  Last year, one of my children fell asleep on the sofa and we woke him up to say "Pesach, Matza and Maror".  He then went back to bed. My parents attended the seder with us this year.  I'm not sure how many more chances we will have to celebrate pesach with them.  The travel is harder each year and my father is visibly aging.  In past years, my father was the king of the seder.  He belted out the sing-song chant that we use for the hagada and he led the discussions.  This year, he was a silent participant while I took over the singing. On chol-ha-moed, we first went off-roading with our friends the Moritz's down south, just below Hebron and within the 1949 borders.  The Jewish National fund has planted about 3 million trees in that area since 1956.  The location is just north of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kidney Update #1

Good news and Good news. First, my son's creatinine levels declined for the first time in 4 months.  Ok, so they are still over 5.5, but were up around 6.4.  We are taking this as a good sign.  We have been told that once the kidney get sufficiently scarred, its a sure and slow decline until they stop functioning.  Creatinine levels are a measure of the kidney's ability to filter the blood.  Normal function is around 0.7 to 1.2. The second bit of news is even better.  Our posts have been answered way beyond our wildest dreams.  As long time readers of this blog know, our community is very special.  There are about 500 families living here and together, they form one of the warmest kindest groups of people I have ever had the pleasure to know. We posted on our local mailing list about 24 hours before I posted on this blog.  Within the first two days, we had more that six people volunteering to donate one of their kidneys to Asaf.  Don't they realize what a major decision tha...
5 comments
Read more