Coupon for Olivia spreads

Trying to save time?
At least save some money too!

Here's a coupon for 25% off Olivia spreads

Coupon expires July 31, 2015

FREEBIE - Nikol garbage bags

Even though I'm not a fan of plastic bags, sometimes the reality is that they are needed. So I decided to post this freebie for you, despite my misgivings about buying garbage bags...

Want to try out Nikol's new garbage bags? They claim they are stronger and won't rip easily, so maybe they're worth a try! I know some of you out there go buy Kirkland bags at Osher Ad, perhaps these will turn out to be a less pricey alternative for you.

Just fill in your name, phone number, address, and email address (you can unsubscribe from their mailing list afterwards, don't worry) and they'll send you a trial pack!

Click here to sign up for yours!

Save Money on Kids' Shoes and More

Have you tried out MyHabit? MyHabit has amazing deals (that don't last long!) and fast, low cost international shipping!

If you're in Israel, like I am, and you spend up to $60 in your MyHabit order, your shipping costs will usually be $15 and you'll get your package delivered to your door with no additional fees!

Here's a great deal going on right now - Kid's Dress Shoes.

Rosh Hashana is right around the corner, and if you're like me, you don't want to spend hundreds of shekels on kids' shoes that are serious JUNK. I've found a lot of that being sold here. 
So --  enter MyHabit!!

You can get decent quality kids shoes for under $20 (some are slightly more), so you can save some serious cash this way.

I know you'll find good uses for the money you've saved!


And while you're there, check out the other deals, and then be sure to let me know what money saving deals you found!

Break the fast

It's really hot this Tisha B'Av - I hope everyone is managing to stay cool and avoid dehydration!

Hoping you make it to the end of the fast without getting sick!

Since the timing of the fast this year was just difficult, in my opinion, I haven't prepared a break-the-fast meal yet.

But here's the plan:

Watermelon 
Cake left from Shabbat
Coffee and lemonade and iced tea

Real food:
probably Baked Ziti, or sandwiches, or whatever anyone feels like making. I'm not doing much cooking!

And it's just going to have to be "Good Enough".

Hope everyone has a meaningful and easy fast.

Food Recall

Strauss has announced a recall of "Dani" puddings, due to the presence of plastic pieces inside the pudding.

Anyone what has purchased Dani puddings in 8 packs with barcode 7290010472390 or single puddings with barcode 72993637, with an expiration date of 4.8.2015, that were produced between 16:45 and 20:00, is asked NOT to consume these puddings.




Please call Strauss customer service at 1-800-777-777 to arrange your refund or replacement.

Refunds for Cottage Cheese and Gevinah Levanah

Significant weight discrepancies have been found!



If you've recently purchased Tnuva brand cottage cheese or gevina levana (white cheese) in 125g ("personal size") containers, you may be due a refund.


After a recent investigation, in which it was revealed that the 125g cups on the market right now weigh much less than they should, Tnuva has announced a program to compensate customers for the error.

Customers who have these products in their refrigerators with an expiration date of all dates thru 26.7 should call Tnuva's customer service hotline at 1-800-666-244 to request compensation.

"Nine Days" Pantry Challenge Menu

It's that time of year again - the Nine Days are here and it's hot out. It's actually quite fitting to have a week in the summer to focus on lighter eating. It seems to be quite practical, when you think about it, even though that wasn't the origin of this custom. I believe in keeping 9 days food very simple, not any fancier than a regular weekday's meals would be.

In my house, it's not really going to be a "lighter eating" week, since we eat vegetarian during the week year-round, but I plan to do a "lighter spending" week! Starting very soon, we will not be able to avoid spending money as we approach our son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah. There's just no way around it, even though I decided to self-cater the Thursday night event. Self catering is a lot of work, but it allows me to control the cost of the event, while serving foods that would be out of our price range if we did a catered event, as well as the ingredients used. With all the different foods we need to be careful about (at least labeled!!), this seemed to make the most sense...

But I digress. This week we'll be pantry challenging...

Here's the planned menu:

Sunday
Lunch: Sandwiches, cut vegetables with chumus
Supper: Spaghetti, Steamed Kishuim, Watermelon

Monday
Lunch: Lentil patties, rice cooked in vegetable broth, carrot sticks
Supper: Baked Potatoes/Baked Sweet Potatoes, non-dairy crustless vegetable "quiche" (using random veggies from the freezer)

Tuesday
Lunch: leftovers from Sunday and Monday
Supper: Sloppy Sams on Fresh Rolls, Corn, tomatoes & cucumbers

Wednesday
Lunch: leftover Sloppy sams and corn
Supper: Scrambled eggs, Pancakes, melon

Thursday
Lunch: Sandwiches, any vegetables that need to be used up
Supper: Pasta with sauce and cheese or polenta, salad, ??

Shabbat - this is a really tentative plan
Fresh Challot
Food from the freezer, plus fruit soup and a fresh black bean cholent
Seudah Shlishit will be tuna salad/egg salad, rolls, veggies, and  lots of fruit and lemonade or something like that...

Shabbat Menu

This week flew by! I can't believe Shabbat is almost here already, this week did not seem to have enough days. Isn't it strange how that happens?

This week we are having 5 adults plus a baby for our Friday night guests, I hope I have enough food - this really just sneaked up on me!

Here's the plan:

Homemade Challot
Salad Course: Chumus, cut veggies, fennel salad, roasted eggplant, cabbage salad...
Spicy Roast Chicken
Brown Rice
Potato Kugel
Butternut Squash Kugel
Sweet Potato Kugel
Roasted Kishuim 
Roasted Cauliflower (maybe)
Polenta with Tomato-Lentil Sauce and nutritional yeast

Black Bean Cholent will be served at lunch

Dessert: Watermelon, Cinnamon Cake

Seudah Shlishit:
Challah and all the leftover salads and watermelon 

Hopefully this will be enough! What's on your summer Shabbat Menu?

Food Recall (Israel!)

Another fish recall...


"Yisragal Meterman" and The Ministry of Health announced a recall of the following product due to possible listeria contamination:

Vacuum sealed Herring fillets (production date 05/07/15, expiration date 20/08/15)

Consumers are advised to return the product to the store where purchased for a refund.

Weekly Menu

Time for my weekly menu planning! I'm so curious to hear how many of you out there do weekly menu planning! What's your strategy?

This week, we really need to use up some things from our freezer, so while I cannot call this a full pantry challenge, I am trying to keep my supermarket purchases really basic this week.



Here's the plan:

Sunday
Lunch: Rice, Tofu, corn, assorted leftover vegetables
Supper, Baked potatoes and sweet potatoes, hard boiled eggs, carrots, roasted kishuim, and some figs

Monday
Lunch: Random things from the fridge that need to be used up (potatoes, veggies, polenta, yogurt...)
Supper: Shabbat leftovers

Tuesday
Lunch: Sandwiches, carrot sticks, apples
Supper: random freezer findings

Wednesday
Lunch: Random freezer findings
Supper: Baked Ziti, make-your-own-salad

Thursday
Lunch: Any random leftovers from the week
Supper:Pizza (homemade),  salad, steamed veggies

This is not such a detailed menu, but hopefully it will do! It's time to do a good freezer cleanout in any case!
How's your menu for the week shaping up? Do you find menu planning saves you money? Do you waste less food?

Shabbat menu!

Suddenly, at least half the family is "under the weather" and that is so sad. It's hard when the kids are sick, and if I were to be super honest, I'm not 100% myself either. But Let's Pretend I never said that, because I a NOT giving in to being sick this week!

But keeping in mind this dragging feeling, and the fact that our vegetarian son is not home this Shabbat, I am going to try to keep our Shabbat menu ever-so-simple. And I'm even going to do the cooking tonight!

So here's the plan:

Challah rolls from the freezer
Some sort of one-pot wonder dish: I have turkey breast and plan to make it with rice and vegetables, haven't yet figured out the recipe (turkey breast was on sale this week)
Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Potato Kugel
Black Bean Cholent for lunch

Cake from the freezer
Melon

Seudah Shlishit - whatever I can find. I'm not cooking specially for it.  

What do you plan to have this Shabbat?

Price Controlled Foods - UPDATED PRICES

New prices for (price controlled) milk products went into effect recently (July, 2015). I decided to republish the entire list with the new prices for your convenience.

Here's a quick rundown of what you need to know about government price controls on food in Israel:

--- Retrieved from http://www.kosherfrugal.com/2014/09/updated-list-of-price-controlled-foods.html ---

--- Retrieved from http://www.kosherfrugal.com/2015/02/price-controlled-foods-price-update.html ---
The price listed is the MAXIMUM price for the specified item - in theory, a store can discount it further, if they want to.
If a store is selling price controlled items for a higher price, they are in violation of the law. You can (and should) report these violations to the regional supervisor. 

Here are the items that are supervised, and the maximum price to consumers:

(The prices shown below are for the entire country, excluding Eilat. Eilat is exempt from Ma'am, so prices there will be lower.)

Lechem Achid (I believe this is about 65% whole grain) - 750g loaf, 5.11

White bread, 750g loaf, 5.11
 
Challah or yeast cake, 500g, 5.31  (don't ask me what kind of yeast cake this is referring to, I have no idea!)
 
Lechem Achid, sliced and packaged, 750g, 7.30
 
White bread, sliced and packaged, 500g, 6.49

Regular Kitchen Salt, Fine Kitchen Salt, Fine Table Salt, and Coarse Table salt, 1 kg, 2.09 

3% milk, 1 liter, bag, 5.15 (was 5.30)

1% milk, 1 liter, bag, 4.80 (was 4.95)



3% milk, 1 liter, carton, 5.95 (was 6.30) 


1% milk, 1 liter, carton, 5.60 (was 5.90)

Eshel, 4.5% fat, 200ml, 1.60 (was 1.65)  


Gil, 3% fat, 200ml,  1.45 (was 1.52) 


Sour Cream, 15% fat, 200ml, 2.30 (was 2.44)

Sweet Cream, 38% fat, 250ml, 6.25 (was 6.60)  


Butter, regular, 100g, 3.95 (was 4.13) 


Emek Cheese (at the cheese counter), per kg, 43.30 (was 45.45)  


Gilboa Cheese (at the cheese counter), per kg, 41.15 (was 43.14) 


Gvinah Levana (white cheese), 5% fat, 250g, 4.85 (was 5.11) 
 
XL eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 13.20
L eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 12.10
M eggs, regular, 1 dozen, 11.20

Do you ever see stores overcharging? Have you ever made a report to the supervisory board?

Expected Price Drop (Milk Products)

New milk prices will be bringing down the price of dairy products in this country in the very near future. Not only will the prices of price controlled dairy be lowered, but other dairy products are also expected to become less expensive. Considering Israelis' love affair with dairy products, this will mean savings in many pockets.

Here are some of the expected changes, which are supposed to go into effect on Wed, July 8, 2015:

Product             Quantity          Current Price           New Price
3% milk, bag         1L                       5.30                       5.15
1% milk, bag         1L                       4.95                       4.80
3% milk, carton    1L                       6.30                       5.95
1% milk, carton    1L                       5.90                       5.60
Eshel                    200ml                1.65                       1.60
Gil                       200ml                 1.52                       1.45
Sour Cream          200ml                 2.44                       2.30
Cream (sweet)     250ml                 6.60                       6.25
Butter (unsalted) 100g                    4.13                       3.95
Emek Cheese,        1kg                   45.45                     43.30
Gilboa Cheese       1kg                   43.14                     41.15
White Cheese        250g                  5.11                       4.85

image from globes.co.il

To see all the products subject to government price controls, click here.

Happy savings, everyone!

Weekly Menu

Time to plan my menu for the week!

Do you plan your menus? I find that when I do, it's so much easier for me to make sure we have relatively healthy food to eat, and it minimizes my panicky trips to the makolet for emergency ingredients, since I plan my menus around the foods that are in my house already. Obviously, sometimes I have to switch things around, or I run out of time to cook, and we have to improvise, but the few minutes I spend planning is really worthwhile!

This way, also, when someone wants to know "What's for supper?" I can just nonchalantly say, "Check the blog!" instead of having to think about the answer...

So here's the plan this week:

Sunday: 
Lunch (for the non fasters): PB&J sandwiches on whole wheat bread, red peppers and cucumbers
Supper: Tomato Soup with Black Beans and Rice, cut veggies and crackers with chumus, and watermelon

Monday:
Lunch: Random Pareve and Dairy Leftover Shmorgasbord
Supper: Leftover Chicken, Cholent, Kugel, etc from Shabbat

Tuesday
Lunch: Pancakes, Scrambled Eggs, Salad
Supper: Spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese, make your own salad

Wednesday
Lunch: Leftover Pasta and Salad
Supper: Baked Tuna Patties, smashed potatoes, carrot sticks

Thursday
Lunch: PB&J sandwiches, whatever fruits and veggies need to be used up
Supper: Sloppy Sams on fresh rolls, oven fries, and make your own salad

This week I get to keep Shabbat super simple, as my pickiest customer heads off on a Shabbaton (good luck to him there, really...)! 

Oh and snacks for the week will be popcorn, roasted chick peas, watermelon, and whatever other cheap fruits we find!

What's on your summer menu?

Break the fast menu

This is the longest "short fast" on the Jewish calendar! It is also really hot out, so what I'm looking forward to most of all is rehydration.

Here's our break the fast menu - it's really simple because I had no desire to bake or cook today, so bear with me!



Lemonade
Watermelon
Crackers 
Cucumber and Carrot Sticks
Homemade Chumus for dipping
Tomato, Black bean, and Rice Soup (with shredded cheese on top)




Also planning to have some coffee, probably iced coffee.

What will you break your fast on?