Sukkot prep
Sep. 26th, 2007 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidSukkot 1 dinner
guests:3 2
restriction:mostly gluten-free
Sukkot 1 lunch
guests: none
whatever I feel like making... current possibilities include a big green salad with diced chicken breasts poached in spicy tomato-pepper stuff, or leftover salmon in a green salad, or something lox-based (possibly with eggs and veggies), or bread and cheese and sliced tomatoes
Sukkot 2 dinner
out
bringing: dessert, in the form of chocolate-cayenne cake
Sukkot 2 lunch
guests: 3
restriction: no red meat, minimal eggery
Shabbat dinner
guests: 5
restriction: no fruit other than during dessert
Shabbat lunch
status unclear
Usually I prefer to have everything made in advance, but this year, I'm tending towards actual cooking on the holiday. Some of it is that it's a three-day holiday, so there's that much more food to be made (and stored), some of it is because of the timing with my farm share deliveries. And some of it is not being organized enough to get everything done in advance. Plus I do like having freshly-made food.
The only thing that still must be done before the holiday starts tonight, because I refuse to leave my oven on for three days, is bake the chicken (which was to have been turkey meatloaf, but Trader Joe's failed to have the ground turkey I use). All the other oven things are done, and I will have an electric burner available on a timer.
I'm still debating putting the hot water urn on. On the one hand, tea is nice when it's cold out. On the other hand, the weather report is ranging from balmy to downright warm, until Friday night. On the third hand, it'll heat up the kitchen even more (large warming tray will be on the whole time, plus the aforementioned electric burner some of the time), and takes up valuable counter space. Help! Opinions?
I leave the sukkah frame up year-round (an excellent design made and mostly implemented by Electrictruffle, years ago now), which blocks the openness of sky during the rest of the year (er, not that I was organized enough this year to have people over for porch meals....), but means I have less to do before the holiday. This is particularly useful because the frame really requires two people, and I still seem to be one person :-).
Sunday I reorganized the stuff on the porch, moving the plants down to one end, bringing lots of unnecessary stuff down to the basement, throwing out dead things, and so on. Monday morning I unrolled the schach (the pre-fab one I got last year, which even has its own handy carrying case) and added smaller bits of wood underneath (to prop up where it sagged a little, since it's an inch or two less wide than would be ideal) and above (to weigh it down, in case of Weather). And I swept off the porch. Last night I checked that the new porch light would be bright enough without other illumination (though I'll probably bring out lanterns, just because candlelight is nice), and wiped down all the porch chairs.
This morning, I walked to Hillel to pick up my lulav and etrog. It was convenient to order through them, and not to have to figure out when to schlep into Brookline, but I also like having more choice, so perhaps next year I'll revert to getting my own.
To do before the holiday starts: light a multi-day candle; set up the eruv tavshilin, finish straightening up the more public parts of the house (the forecast is iffy for rain, so things may move inside), cook a couple of things for tonight's dinner, make sure the tray tables are more accessible, finish putting the laundry away.
Most years I don't do anything to decorate the sukkah; there's nowhere particularly convenient to buy things, and it's definitely last on my list to do, because it's very much not obligatory. I have only one pair of hands...
But yesterday, I woke up with an idea of something that I wanted to make. On the way home, I stopped at the fabric store, and I already had fabric paint. So last night I painted stylized pictures of the seven species, white on brown fabric, ironed it, safety-pinned it to the flat sheet that gets used for all the strange stuff (sukkah sun block, dust cover over my sleeping bag at BRC, probably a tablecloth or a picnic cloth at some point...), and hung the sheet up, using big binder clips and releasable cable ties across the top. This was enormously satisfying: I have a huge problem with the perfect being the enemy of the good, and this was something I thought of and managed to do, in less than a day, without all the usual angst about it not being as I'd wanted, not all aligned properly, and so on and so forth.
Side note: Home Despot carries releasable cable ties... but only in 7- or 8-inch lengths. Why not anything longer, like the standard 11- and 14-inch lengths? No clue. The short ones weren't long enough to go around 2 by 4s. I realized in time that I could use two to make a larger loop, so reusable won the day :-)
guests:
restriction:
- challah (partly whole wheat, with multigrain flakes and maple syrup), wine
- hummus, olives, carrot sticks of many colors
- polenta rounds with spicy mozzarella and roasted tomatoes (or could switch back to soup and make these for somem other meal; depends on how hot it really gets today, I suppose)
- salmon baked with peach salsa
- steamed broccoli
- rice (or barley or whole wheat cous cous) with beans and whatever else appeals
- vanilla-mango soy ice cream with vanilla-roasted fruit (nectarines, plums, oranges) (or chocolate-cayenne cake)
Sukkot 1 lunch
guests: none
whatever I feel like making... current possibilities include a big green salad with diced chicken breasts poached in spicy tomato-pepper stuff, or leftover salmon in a green salad, or something lox-based (possibly with eggs and veggies), or bread and cheese and sliced tomatoes
Sukkot 2 dinner
out
bringing: dessert, in the form of chocolate-cayenne cake
Sukkot 2 lunch
guests: 3
restriction: no red meat, minimal eggery
- challah, wine
- hummus, olives
- vegetable-barley soup
- one of the things listed for day 1 lunch, or a cheesy pasta thing, or spicy cashew noodles
- salad of some sort (tomato-feta? green?)
- cooked vegetable (depends on farm share)
- chocolate-cayenne cake
Shabbat dinner
guests: 5
restriction: no fruit other than during dessert
- challah, wine
- hummus, olives
- vegetable-barley soup
- gefilte fish with chipotle mustard
- chicken baked with onions, garlic, and carrots
- salad of some sort
- cooked veggie of some sort
- chocolate-cayenne cake
Shabbat lunch
status unclear
Usually I prefer to have everything made in advance, but this year, I'm tending towards actual cooking on the holiday. Some of it is that it's a three-day holiday, so there's that much more food to be made (and stored), some of it is because of the timing with my farm share deliveries. And some of it is not being organized enough to get everything done in advance. Plus I do like having freshly-made food.
The only thing that still must be done before the holiday starts tonight, because I refuse to leave my oven on for three days, is bake the chicken (which was to have been turkey meatloaf, but Trader Joe's failed to have the ground turkey I use). All the other oven things are done, and I will have an electric burner available on a timer.
I'm still debating putting the hot water urn on. On the one hand, tea is nice when it's cold out. On the other hand, the weather report is ranging from balmy to downright warm, until Friday night. On the third hand, it'll heat up the kitchen even more (large warming tray will be on the whole time, plus the aforementioned electric burner some of the time), and takes up valuable counter space. Help! Opinions?
I leave the sukkah frame up year-round (an excellent design made and mostly implemented by Electrictruffle, years ago now), which blocks the openness of sky during the rest of the year (er, not that I was organized enough this year to have people over for porch meals....), but means I have less to do before the holiday. This is particularly useful because the frame really requires two people, and I still seem to be one person :-).
Sunday I reorganized the stuff on the porch, moving the plants down to one end, bringing lots of unnecessary stuff down to the basement, throwing out dead things, and so on. Monday morning I unrolled the schach (the pre-fab one I got last year, which even has its own handy carrying case) and added smaller bits of wood underneath (to prop up where it sagged a little, since it's an inch or two less wide than would be ideal) and above (to weigh it down, in case of Weather). And I swept off the porch. Last night I checked that the new porch light would be bright enough without other illumination (though I'll probably bring out lanterns, just because candlelight is nice), and wiped down all the porch chairs.
This morning, I walked to Hillel to pick up my lulav and etrog. It was convenient to order through them, and not to have to figure out when to schlep into Brookline, but I also like having more choice, so perhaps next year I'll revert to getting my own.
To do before the holiday starts: light a multi-day candle; set up the eruv tavshilin, finish straightening up the more public parts of the house (the forecast is iffy for rain, so things may move inside), cook a couple of things for tonight's dinner, make sure the tray tables are more accessible, finish putting the laundry away.
Most years I don't do anything to decorate the sukkah; there's nowhere particularly convenient to buy things, and it's definitely last on my list to do, because it's very much not obligatory. I have only one pair of hands...
But yesterday, I woke up with an idea of something that I wanted to make. On the way home, I stopped at the fabric store, and I already had fabric paint. So last night I painted stylized pictures of the seven species, white on brown fabric, ironed it, safety-pinned it to the flat sheet that gets used for all the strange stuff (sukkah sun block, dust cover over my sleeping bag at BRC, probably a tablecloth or a picnic cloth at some point...), and hung the sheet up, using big binder clips and releasable cable ties across the top. This was enormously satisfying: I have a huge problem with the perfect being the enemy of the good, and this was something I thought of and managed to do, in less than a day, without all the usual angst about it not being as I'd wanted, not all aligned properly, and so on and so forth.
Side note: Home Despot carries releasable cable ties... but only in 7- or 8-inch lengths. Why not anything longer, like the standard 11- and 14-inch lengths? No clue. The short ones weren't long enough to go around 2 by 4s. I realized in time that I could use two to make a larger loop, so reusable won the day :-)
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 03:07 pm (UTC)My current thinking is that on yom tov, I can heat up water from the tap, and I can leave a pot of hot water on the hot plate for Shabbat dinner, and hope that it will be warm enough Shabbat day that it's not as appealing. (The current heat makes it really unappealing to leave anything on that I don't have to, unlike some years when it's nice and brisk already.)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 05:58 pm (UTC)I like that.
Sounds like nice plans.
Perhaps prepare some iced tea?
no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 06:16 pm (UTC)I was pleased with eggery too.
Iced tea is nice, but doesn't fill the same role for Sukkot, heating up people sitting around in a slowly chilling booth.
Notes
Date: 2007-09-30 12:42 am (UTC)I made potato salad with scallions for part of first day lunch.
The chocolate-cayenne cakes came out well.
Sukkot 2 lunch ended up being two guests, not three. I made pipette pasta with roasted tomatoes and roasted peppers, cheddar, and marinated spicy mozzarella, also some eggplant-pepper spreads. I served leftover steamed broccoli, but no salad or olives. I also sauteed the hot peppers with peaches and nectarines (also some honey and brown sugar), to serve with the spicy chocolate cake, and that worked well.
Shabbat dinner main course ended up being a green salad, plus a platter of chicken and its veggies served over the leftover couscous from Wednesday evening.
Also: the porch light didn't come back on when it got dark the second night. It seems like I haven't had it on enough for the bulb to have burned out, but perhaps that's what happened. If so, it's annoying, but fixable. At least I was able to put out the three lanterns with tea lights so Shabbat dinner wasn't quite as dark as it might have been.
And I didn't wash the brown fabric before painting it, and it turns out it runs (the rain Thursday night...). At least the ironing was sufficient to bind it to the fabric. The sheet was not as secure as it might have been; binder clips are not the best answer, especially without the bottom/sides tied down too.