Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1

Life in Corona Lock-down. This week I "gave in" and accepted the offer to get some ready-made meals. There are perks to being 70+. We're registered as one person, not two, because I do cook. It's just that the idea of receiving ready-made "restaurant meals" seemed irresistible. The meals are like TV Dinners or kosher airline meals with a bag of pre-washed salad.

The day after we received our first meals, we got two cartons of food staples, disposable eating utensils and a few dozen rolls of toilet paper.

As you can see there are lots of canned goods, and I almost never use canned food.

"Never say never."

Presuming that the cartons will arrive about monthly, I decided that our lunches will be based on the food we've received. Since I had baked sandwich rolls the day before, my husband got a tuna sandwich and I ate the other half of the can with cooked vegetables.

The following day I challenged myself to come up with a meal using the Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce. So I cut up an onion and two nice squashes and put the pieces in a pot, added the contents of the can plus some water.

After the vegetables were fully cooked, I served the "stew" with fresh salad, as you can see in the photo below. My husband also got a serving of pasta.


It was delicious,frugal and we ate much too much. This bean vegetable stew was easy to make, healthy and inexpensive. Call that a success, thank Gd.

Interesting Psak About Kitniyot on Pesach

Please don't get me wrong, I haven't accepted this psak, yet. One isn't supposed to pick and choose rabbinic decisions according to convenience. According to Pirkei Avot, we're supposed to choose a rabbi (teacher), and then follow in accordance to what he teaches. And since I'm not a follower of Machon Shilo, actually it's not associated with the Shiloh I reside in and never heard of it before, I can't just blindly follow what it has publicized.

According to that institute, they chose the name "Shilo," because:

The central idea behind Machon Shilo is that while the Jewish People have physically returned to Erets Yisrael, they have not yet returned to the Torah of Erets Yisrael, only to the learning of Torah in Erets Yisrael.

Using that same reasoning, I don't know if the time has come to erase all halachik ethnic differences. That's the external manifestation. I think we have to first erase the more "internal" differences.

Here in the Village of Shiloh, I'm encouraged by the large percentage of families whose children have married other "eidot," Jewish Ethnic groups. The newest generation is growing up with "blurred lines," knowing that we're all Jews and that's the most important thing of all.

Chodesh Tov!