Torah Themed Shabbat Menus

I am loving the new kosher.com blog called Joy of Kosher.  There are so many great recipes, menus, articles, and frequent giveaways.  It is so nice to have an online environment that is kosher with lots of ideas for living a Jewish lifestyle. 

Recently, they have been posting Shabbat menus that are well thought out and nutritionally balanced.  And the really neat thing about these menus is that they follow a theme based on the current holidays or Torah portion.  I thought this was a great idea and wonder why I never thought of doing that.  This week's menu uses barley which is great for a time when we are counting the omer and the Torah portion Emor which reviews the cycle of our holidays.  It is rare that I will use a suggested menu exactly but this one just really clicked with me.  Since my husband and I are dieting I am using a different dessert recipe that I've tweaked - it's Raspberry Cream Pie from Pioneer Woman's blog.  I am substituting sugar-free white chocolate pudding for the vanilla instant pudding and I'm using sugar-free chocolate sandwich wafers for the crust.  I'm not omitting the heavy cream however so we will have to just eat one small piece and then I'll send the rest to my sons house - far away from us.

I'd like to segue from this blog's topic to the pudding I mentioned.  The sugar-free instant white chocolate pudding (I believe it is Jell-O brand) is absolutely delicious.  The white chocolate flavor is subtle so it can be used in a variety of desserts where pudding is called for.  It does not taste sugar free at all and I actually like it better than any other pudding flavor (even with sugar) out there.

Well back to the advertisement for JoyOfKosher - check it out - I think you'll like it.  And that is just a joke about this being an advertisement - I am just sharing from my own opinion.

Jackie