I also try to cook as few times a week as possible, refrigerating and freezing the leftovers to be heated up at serving time, sometimes at a moment's notice. This works well for most of us who have busy lives and lots of hungry mouths to feed.

 

My favorite group of people to feed are the college-aged young people, and Israeli soldier's home on leave over Shabbat. They are grateful for just about anything and generally dive into the Mezze table of goodies I have prepared.

 

Keep basic ingredients on hand, and you will be delighted with the results!

 

 

Be sure to have on hand Extra-Virgin Olive oil, the first pressing of the olives which has a much more distinctive and sweet taste. As a finishing touch to vegetables and appetizers, such as Humous, a generous drizzle of olive oil will give it a great sheen and incredible taste.

 

You can also add a small dish of olive oil with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper added to the bowl for dipping with pita or homemade bread.

 

Regular olive oil is used for cooking and roasting meats and vegetables.

 

I use olive oil almost exclusively in my cooking with the exception of baked sweets. Sometimes I add a bit of butter to the olive oil for added flavor, depending on the recipe.

 

We often have our guests sit on our balcony with the brass table in the center, filled with appealing foods.

 

It is an opportunity to greet your guests and catch up on how they are doing while offering hot and cold appetizers, preferrably some of their favorite tasty treats.

 

On Friday, get all your food prepared and cooked so that you can truly relax on Shabbat. It is easy to lay out the dishes and foods prepared in advance.

 

Following the evening dinner meal, get everyone to help with clean up, soak the dinner plates and silver ware in hot sudsy water, or stack in a dish washer if you have (I don't). Put away all foods in their proper containers, ready for leftovers on the weekend.

 

Use paper products on Shabbat afternoon if guests come over. Then you won't have a huge clean up later on.

 

Determine to get some rest for yourself!

 

The meat (or fish, or vegetables)

The first and most basic rule: You get out what you put in. A charcoal grill is not a magic box. It can't turn processed and inferior meat into a divine delicacy in pita, old fish into a masterpiece, or tired, limp vegetables into crisp and flavorful antipasti. In your kitchen at home you may sometimes be able to cover up your less than perfect raw materials by some smart cooking and the addition of various ingredients, but the barbecue never lies. Treatment of the meat is fast and minimal: a quick sear on the outside at high heat, a brief cooking, and into your mouth it pops.

Strong spices that mask the flavor are completely unnecessary if the ingredients are good. If the meat needs them, something is probably wrong with it. In other words, it's worthwhile investing in raw materials, and they should be fresh. In most cases, a picnic with a barbecue is a long, hard way to have fun, involving a drive that's not particularly short (or a short drive and a long traffic jam at the end). If you trouble yourself the day before to go to a good butcher (or fish store, or vegetable stand) and get quality meat, treated and aged the way it should be, you'll enjoy yourself much more than by placing on the pyre a frozen mix of meat, water, phosphates and other chemicals that spent most of their adult life in Styrofoam and cling-wrap.

If you have a good, reliable butcher - one of the Hinawis in Jaffa or Khalil in Acre, to name a couple - take his advice and all will be well. He'll tell you if the sirloin is aged and ready, even if you usually prefer entrecote. It's always a good idea to get ground meat for kebabs from these butchers, which they make on the spot from a mixture of beef and lamb fat, ground with onion, parsley and a secret spice mix. All you'll have to do is roll the mixture into patties and make sure they don't dry out on the fire.

Spices should not distract attention from good ingredients. Fresh ground pepper and salt is all a good steak needs - being careful not to salt it ahead of time because that will dry out the meat. Salt it only on the barbecue. Still, you should coat lightly what you want to barbecue with olive oil, which prevents it from sticking and keeps it juicy. If you want to marinade the meat or the fish, the marinade should contain olive oil too.

If you're using wooden skewers, soak them in water for about half an hour before using them, so they won't burn, and so the meat will come off them easily. Metal skewers heat up and cook the inside of the meat as well, so using them will cut cooking time a bit.

With your perfect meat, fish or vegetables in your cooler, you can now turn to some other elements of the successful barbecue.

 

The Fire

Lighting the fire can be one of the most irritating and frustrating things about a barbecue. After you've given up on burned newspaper, some people turn to the wham-bam technique - pouring kerosene all over the coals. The fire does catch right away, but usually at the price of a disgusting smell of fuel sticking to the food (not to mention the safety risk). To make things easy, you're better off using the starter briquettes that are widely available anywhere that sells charcoal. They do the work almost like fuel, but their smell dissipates much more quickly.

After some of the briquettes have caught fire, it's time to fan the flames. The idea is to add oxygen to increase the flames so all the charcoals alight. You can use newspaper, pieces of carton, an electric fan or a rubber fan made especially for barbecues. With a brisk Galilee breeze you won't need all that equipment, and you can let nature take its course. One way or the other, what we want is a little bonfire licking all the charcoal.

And now - patience. Once the coals are burning, you have to give them time. No touching and no fanning. Wait until the flame dies down and the coals are glowing red hot and are covered with a thin layer of white ash. If you try and hurry the process and lay the food on the grill too soon, it will end up charred and burned.

While you're waiting for the charcoal to be perfect, you should oil the grill with half an onion dipped in olive oil, which prevents the meat from sticking and gives you a false sense of cleanliness (the bacteria won't survive the heat anyway, with or without the onion). If you have a particularly sensitive palate you'll want to sprinkle herbs (rosemary, for one) on the coals or the grill to make the food more aromatic.

 

The time has come to place the food on the grill. With most simple barbecues, you have to relate to the heat as an unknown, depending on the amount and type of charcoal, the distance between them and the grill and the type of grill. Too high a heat will burn the meat (or anything you put on the barbecue) before it cooks through. Too low a heat will not seal the meat, and will dry it out. Therefore, this is a very delicate stage that requires total focus of all the cook's intuition and experience from barbecues past. First of all, cook only meat that is at room temperature. Meat that's just been taken out of the fridge will shrink and get hard from the thermal shock of the barbecue; it will burn on the outside and stay cold on the inside, losing all its juices on the way. This is all the more true of frozen meat: It must be completely defrosted and at room temperature before grilling.

Exact grilling time, especially of meat and fish, is critical. If you pass it, even by a little, you can forget about juiciness; you'll have to make do with a dehydrated dish. If the cooking is taking longer you should brush the meat or the fish with marinade or oil. The best way is to baste them with a bundle of herbs, either thyme, rosemary, oregano or marjoram.

A common mistake people make in order to check whether the meat is ready or speed up the process is to make slits in it with a knife. This damages the charred outside of the meat, causing it to leach its juices and dry out. So how do you know if the meat is ready? Take it off the fire when you think it still might not be, and try it. It's invariably better for good meat to be a little undercooked than overcooked. You can always put it back on the grill for another minute. But saving fish or meat that has dried out from overcooking is mission impossible.

 

For serving your meal, prepare a large fresh salad early in the day, along with a side dish (hot vegetable), if you need. Otherwise, when you want to eat your meal, plate your food with the already cooked meat and vegetables and heat it up in the microwave. Add your seasonings, sauces and fresh salad, and voila!--dinner is served!

 

Meat meal: Bake, broil or BBQ your fish, chicken or beef and store away.

 

Vegetable: Steam potatoes, carrots, leeks, broccoli, etc. Grill mixed vegetables with olive oil: courgettes, zucchini, eggplant, onions. Grill red peppers; peel and store in tight container.

 

Rice or Pasta: Steam rice, cook pasta and store without sauces or seasonings.

 

Homemade Soup: Soak beans the day before by covering with water. (Legumes do not need pre-soaking.) Start your cooking day by making a healthy soup broth and let it simmer on the back of the stove while you prepare the other meals. Add the rest of the soup ingredients and store in large container.

Now you are ready to use the above ingredients for your recipes.

Tip 4: BBQ

Tip 5: Meal Preparation

Tip 6: Cooking Preparation