On the food front, finding food for us to eat for 3½ days is a bit of a struggle. This year, I packed various homemade food over the past two months that I had frozen in advance for vacation. The potato latkes from Chanukah, for example, were OK since I had packed little applesauce cups as well, so they had a nice condiment to go with them. Spaghetti pie (recipe in Honest Pretzels by Mollie Katzen), however, normally one of my daughter’s favorite dishes did not freeze and defrost nicely into a tasty dish. Most of it got thrown out, unfortunately. The homemade mushroom barley soup was a hit, but the prepared Tabatchnick’s frozen mushroom barley soup not as much. My kids normally like macaroni and pizza slices, but how many of those can one eat? Ditto for Streit’s canned minestrone soup – all my kids like that soup, but not for every meal. My family eagerly consumed leftover chicken soup last night when we got home.

For myself, I made brown rice in the crockpot two nights in a row (1 part rice to two parts water). I bought scallions and parsley in a supermarket right before we got to Stratton. Scallions are an improvement over bringing an onion and a knife and then ignoring the onion for the duration of the trip. You can cut scallions with a plastic knife, if necessary. Also, one year I brought lettuce on our winter trip, only to find it had frozen and wilted on the journey. Parsley holds up better in the winter weather. I’ve also learned to bring a few bags of frozen vegetables – easy to store, easy to prepare.

If you bring your own food on vacation, what tips do you have for storing, preparing or serving the food?

We are in the middle of the Nine Days – that is, the days before the 9th Av when traditional Jews do not eat meat except on Shabbat. Last night I prepared a successful meal, so I thought I would share what I made:

• Homemade rye bread – half white flour, half rye flour with a little dried oregano
• Mushroom barley soup – with shiitake mushrooms, carrots and sauteed onions
• Salmon, grilled on the stove top with a bit of lemon and some dried oregano
• Salad: lettuce, grated carrots, chopped beets tossed with olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar
• Fried noodles with cheese (that really made my kids happy)
• Steamed cauliflower
• Bean dip: cooked northern beans pureed with fermented garlic, lemon juice, sea salt and olive oil

I don’t usually make meals that varied in the middle of the week!
What have you been cooking?
You might want to try these fish cakes.

Ingredients

• 4-6 baking potatoes (make more so you can eat some after the baking and still have some for the recipe)
• canola oil, enough to coat the potatoes
• 1 heaping tablespoon ketchup (or tomato sauce if you want to avoid the high fructose corn syrup)
• salt
• required spices: black pepper and garlic powder
• optional spices: white pepper, onion powder, turmeric, allspice, paprika, cumin, oregano

Bake the potatoes for over an hour. Take them out of the oven when you can stick a fork in them. Eat a few of them, but make sure you have at least 4 large ones left for this recipe. When they are cool, you can either stick them in the refrigerator for a day or two, or continue with the recipe right away. Cut up the potatoes in cubes, without the skin. Toss them in oil and ketchup (or tomato sauce). Sprinkle with salt and spices. Bake for about twenty minutes. Serve warm.

And while I’m linking, Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival (that Jack manages) of the Jewish blogosphere, is on the Israel Situation.

Not really related, but TwitterMoms is offering a prize if you blog 5 Tips to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy. Wondering what you think of the prize.

Have a great day!

Before moving to Israel, Riva and her family lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.

How did you get started in catering? I love to cook, and especially to bake. Someone has to eat all that food! Seriously, after the birth of Renatya (my second child), I wanted to find a more flexible work schedule, something that would keep me at home more and would be the creative outlet I felt was lacking in my present profession (veterinarian).

What types of catering do you do? I am not interested in giant cookie cutter affairs (pardon the pun) – I like to see the expressions on people’s faces when they eat my food, and I like to give people the feeling of being spoiled by receiving a scrumptious meal as a gift. For that reason, I prefer to do family dinners, sheva brachot, and other parties of less than 50 people. I also make designer birthday cakes and Purim baskets customized to your theme. My newest venture is children’s baking workshops and birthday parties for lower-elementary-school-aged children. Those are a lot of fun. I sell homemade ricotta cheese as well.

Where would you like to see your business in five years? I would love to have my own kitchen storefront to sell takeout and baked goods and a web site where people can order meals for their friends and family overseas. I would also like to expand to personal chef work.

What would you recommend to someone interested in catering? It isn’t just making good food. You need a strong business sense, willingness to put in a lot of unpaid/unrecognized hours, and you have to be a real people person. You must also be a stickler for detail, and be an extremely organized person. As Ina Garten says, it doesn’t matter how good the cake is if they don’t have forks to eat it with.

Visit the Dulce Catering Facebook Group

*Sheva Brachot are celebration meals the week after a wedding (literally, “seven blessings”)

Here’s the custom as I would like it to be:
You visit a sukkah of a friend. You wish the person a happy holiday, and sit down and enjoy one of the treats they have placed for guests in their sukkah. You say the bracha (blessing) on that particular treat, make a little conversation with your host, say “thank you”, and move on to the next sukkah.

Here’s what I have seen:
Children wandering around the neighborhood with bags. Bags! Filled with candy. Sounds a bit like another holiday, not a Jewish one, that is coming in a few weeks?

One of my friends said she has a rule that children must eat whatever they take from her sukkah in her sukkah. No bags. I rather liked that rule. She also tells them, “one candy per child.” Another good rule. I told her I think many parents of this generation have a hard time saying “no” to kids. This is not good for the kids.

Another mother I met told me someone she knew once put only vegetables as treats in her sukkah, then the mother heard children whispering outside her sukkah, “oh, don’t even bother going in there.” You can’t win. Who wants to be the one mom without any junk? (I can’t bring myself to buy candy, so I buy popcorn and pretzels, and I try to make extra desserts. My daughter and I made some ice tea using orange herbal tea bags and sugar — you just leave it in the refrigerator for a few hours to chill and absorb the flavor).

I asked my boys if they have ever taken bags with them, and they said, no, they always eat the food in the sukkah. I told them I was glad to hear that, and they should remember to say thank you to each host. My husband told them not to visit the sukkah of someone they don’t know (because it’s rude). I would make an exception to a family brand-new to the community.

Last night when my daughter was trying to fall asleep she complained her stomach hurt. I said, “well, maybe a little too much junk today. Nothing a good night sleep won’t cure.” It turns out she never had any “real” supper, so I gave her a piece of pizza before bed.

If you do sukkah hopping in your area, would love to hear how it functions. And if you don’t celebrate Sukkot, maybe you can relate to the kids and candy situation?

If any of you grew up within 600 miles of New York City, you may know that New York is well known for its bagels. And bagels are often associated with folks of those parts as a “Jewish” food.

Well, it may or may not surprise you to know that in the early days of the State of Israel, the 1950s – 1970s, it was very difficult if not impossible to find a bagel in the Jewish State. I was first in Israel in 1980, and I cannot remember eating bagel while there. I remember pizza, especially Richie’s pizza. But not bagels. Pita, fresh rolls, yes, but I don’t remember bagels.

It was a nice surprise on this past trip to Israel (my fifth time visiting) that we enjoyed not just one but two bagel shops in the city of Jerusalem. At left my son is happily chomping on a poppy seed bagel from Bonkers Bagel in the Old City.

Below you will see my daughter munching a pizza bagel at Holy Bagel on Rechov Yaffo:

How did these bagels shops rate? Hey, they were happy. And that makes mommy happy.

However, the bagel story in our home town of Highland Park, New Jersey is a bit of a sadder tale. We used to have this wonderful bagel shop just over the border in Edison on Rte. 27. They served delicious fresh bagels, and I remember buying the egg salad bagel with tomato and red onion when my son was a mere babe. However, at some point that bagel store departed, and a new one opened in Highland Park. The new bagel shop wasn’t nearly as good as the old one, both for reasons that the bagels weren’t as good and the service was, well, lousy. The new bagel shop changed owners and then closed completely. There is a Bagel Dish Cafe here in Highland Park, but alas, it is not kosher.

Now when we want bagels in Highland Park, we go to: Dunkin’ Donuts!
I should tell you the best part of our Dunkin’ Donuts is great service. Part of the way they give great service is they yell at you if you are chatting online, and it’s your turn to give your order. They keep the line moving fast, and the people behind the counter remember you. And what you ordered last time. The friendly service is quite nice. Personally, my favorite is the multigrain bagel, because of the oatmeal and sunflower seeds on top.

During the school year some teenage boys ran a service where you could order bagels from Teaneck. I don’t know much about the service or about the Teaneck bagels, but as my son will be going to school in Teaneck in September, I expect I might ask him to buy a few bagels for us.

Years ago when my husband and I were dating we used to go to a nice bagel shop on 72nd Street on the West Side in Manhattan. They served bagels, coffee, orange juice and scrambled eggs for one price, and under the glass on the tables were comic strips. Whatever it was called, it probably is no longer there.

In Brookline, Massachusetts (I grew up in nearby Newton) at Kupel’s Bagels on Harvard Street you could get green bagels on St. Patrick’s Day. Probably still can.

Any decent bagel shops where you live?

If you haven’t had enough photos of bagel shops in Jerusalem, visit Dina.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. thin egg noodles
• 4 eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Enough canola oil to grease the bottom of the pan

Boil water and prepare the noodles. Preheat oven to 350°. Strain the noodles, and mix with the eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste. Grease the bottom of the pan with oil (I use pyrex; sometimes I make two pans of kugels, one for Friday night and one for Shabbat lunch). Preheat the pan(s) so the kugel will be a little crispier. Add the kugel mixture, and bake for about 30 minutes or until the kugel starts to get crispy.

Options: chopped spinach (frozen is easiest), chopped onion, bits of hamburger meat (I’ve never made it this way, just tasted others, but it’s delicious)

Here’s a post of quick, healthy side dishes and not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort side dishes. And some kid-friendly ideas, too. If there’s no link to a recipe, maybe some day I’ll write up a recipe.

Quick Side Dishes

• Sweet potato: Put in a baking dish and bake along with other foods. Takes about 1.5 hours to bake, but if you are baking other things at the same time, it’s only 5 minutes of your time.
• Avocado: Buy an avocado or two on Tuesday or Wednesday. By Shabbat, it should be ripe. Mash and mix in salt, garlic (optional, and we have cubes in the freezer so as not use garlic press on Shabbat), lemon juice (again, we have lemon juice in bottle so as not to squeeze lemon on Shabbat), possibly some hot sauce.
• Beets: If you are in the kitchen anyway, boil some fresh beets. They take 1.5 hours to cook (quicker with a pressure cooker), but most of your work time is spent cutting the ends of the beets off before cooking and peeling after cooking (10 minutes). You can mix them with cucumbers, olive oil and dill right before serving.
• Steamed cauliflower or brussel sprouts: both taste good cold or room-temperature the next day.
• Garlic Spread
• Spinach : use frozen spinach–don’t cook it but take it out and put in a baking dish. Then put it on warming tray before Shabbat for Friday night dinner.

Quick Sides for Kids

My kids don’t like salads. So here are some ideas of what you can put on the table in front of the kids while you are enjoying your salads:

• Carrot sticks
• Strawberries
• Cut up melon pieces

Healthy Sides (not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort)

• Ratatouille
• Eggplant Salad
• Potato Salad
• Red Cabbage and Green Apple Salad
• Cabbage with Mustard Garlic Dressing
• Fruit Salad
• Vegetable Salad (one could do a whole post on possible ingredients)
• Tabouli
• Orange, Radish and Mint Salad
• Carrot Salad
• Marinated Mushrooms

Years ago, I took a course on Environmental Economics, in which I learned that the poorer a country, the less it can afford to spend on the environment. It seems that is also true with health; if one is busy making money to pay for tuition and groceries and whatever else is in the budget, it is harder to take the time to cook lengthier dishes. At the same time, some people just don’t like cooking. And then there are those who would rather be cooking than working. Personally, I’d rather write a blog post about cooking than work or cook. Because I get an excuse to draw those little veggies at top right with my kids’ markers.

I amended this rule from all food banned upstairs to some exceptions this year. My daughter wanted to eat upstairs. So I bargained with her. “OK if it’s an apple,” I said. Then I discovered she would ask often for an apple! Because she knew she could eat it upstairs. Wow, parental breakthrough. An incentive for my daughter to eat apples.

Here’s a previous post on trying to get kids to eat healthy:
Broccoli for Dessert

Dixie Yid reminds us not to overdue the pesach cleaning and not confuse it with spring cleaning, but if we don’t do the spring cleaning now, then when?

Finally, thank you to Prof. K for her vinegar suggestion. I’ve been using white vinegar and baking soda on my refrigerator shelves. It may not work as easily as the strong chemicals, but then, I don’t really want Comet or Joe’s Super Strength Cleaner next to my food.

Update today: my daughter got a kick out of the baking soda and vinegar! I spread baking soda on a kitchen cabinet, and then I asked her to guess what would happen when I poured on a little vinegar. She loved the bubbles! And she shared with her abba the fun of making bubbles while cleaning.