Weekend Hospitality

There will be no dancing in our house this weekend.   Usually, we have either a group of boys or a group of girls visiting us.  This Shabbat, we hit the jackpot, two girls from Michlelet Shalavim and four boys (from I don't know where yet).  Fortunately, we have plenty of space, so the boys get the third floor and the girls get the study on the first floor. This has been a good week for us and we thank God for the change in pace.  Having so many guests is just one of the things that we have to be thankful for. This Shabbat we will also have a local family each Shabbat lunch with us.   Normally, this would make the house very full, but two of my boys are away this shabbat.  They are particularly upset since I made food that they love.  Perhaps there will be leftovers. Shabbat Parshat Shmot Dinner - 12 Curry Chowder Soup Beef stew with Wine sauce Shabbat Chicken Lemon Chicken Meatballs and Noodle Mashed Sweet Potatoes Lunch - 18 Lemon Chicken Cajun Chicken Chicken Pot Pie Spaghetti ...

I just received my new laptop.  Its been two weeks since my old laptop was stolen.  The mourning lasted about 10 days.  Now with my new laptop, I can start again! This weekend is going to be busy.  We have a young couple (no kids) eating with us this evening.   It should be a nice quiet dinner (as quiet as it gets here). The Kav L'chayim organization is doing a weekend in our community and we are hosting two pairs. Each pair is a patient and his or her helper.    They are having a group dinner tonight.  Tomorrow lunch, we will host our two pairs plus an additional two helpers.    As happens often in our community, one of our good friends is traveling this weekend.  We will be hosting her family of 5 for lunch! Shabbat Parshat Vayichi Dinner - 9 Chicken soup with vegetables Spaghetti and Meatballs Stir fried chicken and vegetables Cabbage and Caraway Lunch - 18 Chulent Cajun Jambalaya Pargiot with Garam Masala and Bharat dry rub Spicy Stir Fried Cabbage (Garlic, Red Pepper, Ginger...

The past month has been very hard. Our Thanksgiving dinner went very well, but it was downhill from that point. We had local elections and I lost my seat on the city council. One week later, we were robbed while we were sleeping. In addition to the violation of personal space, the thieves took my laptop and my backup system. Walla! a significant part of my life was lost overnight. Our friends and family have been very supporting. We ate both meals out last weekend and hence there was no post. I just ordered a new laptop while should arrive by next weekend! (God willing) This weekend, we are getting back to a normal life. We have four yeshiva boys coming for Shabbat and we have a new local family with young children coming over for lunch. Winter has arrived with cooler temperatures and occasional rain. The biggest impact to my cooking is that my wife has decided to stop being on the Atkin's diet. For a number of years now, I have restricted carbs in my weekend cooking so...

Shabbat meals went very nicely. The chicken tangine with lentils was very nice. I need to remember to put in the right amount of liquid. This time, I put in about twice as much and even with added lentils, it was soupy. The taste was very yummy with the chicken very soft. Our guests for dinner were Gershy (Gershon) Rapp and his friend Rachel Giblon. They are both from Toronto. Gershon is ending his second year at a yeshiva in Ramat Bet Shemesh and will be entering the army (Nahal Haredi) in four weeks. We had a very nice dinner, even if it was rather noisy. The stories of Yehuda and Tamar and Yosef and Potiphar's wife are just wonderful! Lunch out was nice, but we lost two of our children. They decided to eat at a friends and did not bother to tell us where they were going. One of the best things about our community is that this behavior is actually permitted and does not send the parents into a state of panic. We found them about around 6pm.

Well, we made it past Thanksgiving. It was a success as always and we were totally wiped out. We were invited to friends for last shabbat lunch. Dinner last weekend was leftovers. We still have a number of packages of frozen turkey and frozen corned beef. In addition, I've got enough stock to last for about 3-4 months of regular usage. This weekend we once again accepted an invitation to lunch! That means that I only needed to cook for dinner. We have two guests for dinner tonight, so our magic number is 9. That's a pretty small meal for us. Tonight's menu is simple but fun. Parshat Vayeishev Dinner - 9 Brussels Sprout and Red Pepper soup Chicken Tangine Pan fried Pargiot with Steak Rub EggPlant and Garlic Kimchi Rice Of course, my wife things that we don't have enough food...

We cooked 45 kilo of corned beef yesterday. Today we sliced it. Interestingly, we seem to have gotten two different cuts of beef. One was a softer grain, while the other had a tighter grain. It will be interesting to see if anyone notices the difference. We arose and got started at 7:15am this morning preparing stuffings. We have eight birds this year and so we made eight different stuffings. The list included: Creamed corn stuffing Sun Dried Tomato stuffing Pesto and Black olive stuffing Celery and Thyme stuffing Mushroom stuffing Orange Rice stuffing Rosemary stuffing The accompanying picture shows the birds as they were prepped for the ovens.  We use baking bags for the birds, not because it makes them taste better, but because it reduces the mess.  We don't have even a single oven big enough for these birds, so we borrow ovens from our friends.  Each bird generates a very healthy amount of liquid which is nicely captured by the oven bags.  The birds went in the ovens betwe...

We got our order from the butcher. About 102 Kilo of Turkey spread across eight large birds. 12 large Corned beefs weighing in at about 50 Kilo and another 10 Kilo of ground meat. I took the necks off the birds and will roast them for an hour before putting them into a stock pot tonight to make stock for the stuffing. The corned beefs will go four at a time on the stove top for 2.5 hours each. They should be done by this evening around 11pm. The ground beef will be made into sweet chili tomorrow morning after the birds get into the ovens. Speaking of ovens, I now have to make calls to a few volunteers confirming their ovens for tomorrow. The birds usually take about 5 hours. I start stuffing at 7am, put them all into our car and deliver them to the ovens before 9am. I check on them around 11am and then finish between 1 and 2pm. The birds cool for about two hours until we carve them between 4 and 6pm. The Feast starts at 6pm!