Shoshana:

 I think I could easily switch to cheese lasagna and cheese enchiladas, etc.....what is the thing that seems hard is butter. I NEVER use margarine. I am also allergic to soy so many of the dairy substitutes are out. I don't like artificial stuff. No steak and baked potato with butter and sour cream, no desserts with butter in them with a meat meal and how to get Dh to give up butter on challah and butter on mashed potatoes with a meat meal????  

That is what schmaltz is for! Before you cook a chicken, trim off the fat, cut it into little pieces, and cook it with chopped onion until the fat melts and the onions turn golden brown. Salt it, pour it into a jar, and refrigerate, and you have an all-purpose butter substitute to eat with meat-based meals--on potatoes, bread, veggies, anything. I don't eat it much these days, since I eat so little chicken now, but I think it's better on potatoes than butter is. (I wouldn't try it in desserts, though. Use vegetable oil instead.)

jennylyn:

You are too funny Deb!  I would never has thought there were such strong debates over kashrut standards!!

According to a joke I heard, the debates over kosher standards go back to when God was first giving the law to Moses on Mount Sinai:

God: One more thing, Moses. You must never cook a kid in the milk of its mother, for this is cruel.

Moses: Ah, I see, you're saying that we shouldn't mix meat with milk.

God: No, Moses, I'm saying that you shouldn't cook a kid in the milk of its mother.

Moses: Oh, forgive my ignorance, Lord. You must be saying that we shouldn't eat milk within two hours of eating meat.

God: Moses, you're not listening to Me. What I'm saying is, you shouldn't cook a kid in the milk of its mother.

Moses: Oh, pardon me, Lord! Are you saying that we should have completely different sets of dishes for meat and milk, and if we make a mistake, we have to bury the dish?

God: I give up. Do what you want.

Okay, it probably didn't happen that way, but it shows how much my people love to argue about details.

 Thank you for the story. Will have to show it to my DH. He will love it. Babs

haverwench:

According to a joke I heard, the debates over kosher standards go back to when God was first giving the law to Moses on Mount Sinai:

 

This is worth repeating! I have a friend who will appreciate it.  

Dear Haverwench, Thanks for the hilarious joke!  Indeed, it's by far the funniest joke I've heard this whole year!

But, jokes aside, Orthodox Jews believe, & some other Jews like me believe, that the entire "Oral Law" (Talmud, Mishnah, Gemorra, Responsa, & more) was given to Moses at Mt Sinai.  That is, that G-d as it were gave Moses the 10 Commandments tablets, & on them in micro-micro-micro font were all teh rules for observing hte 613 Torah commandments.  Scholars then discovered them later.  Now, those books upon books upon books of Oral Law include many many many arguments among Rabbis as to how to carry out the 613 commandments. That just proves to folks like me that Moses couldn't absorb the entire Oral Law, so the Rabbis who followed him had garbled text to try to decipher.  Yours in Him, Deb

Dear Truepeacenik, I repeat.  Kosher parve gelatin could use fish as a basis because it is pareve, but cannot use animal collagen.  The only Kosher gelatin I or anyone I know uses is called Ko-Jel.  It is made of a seaweed called carragen.  I have a cousin who sends it to me when I run out.

I buy vegan products, using VEGETARIAN JOURNAL's information as to acceptable ingredients as a guide.  The chief products that I buy are "cheeze" products.  This is basically because my 2 local Kosher butchers (which sell all kinds of groceries) do not take Food Stamps, so I cannot shop there to get Kosher hard cheeses.  (That's why my cousin has to send me the Ko-Jel, too.)

Hope this helps.  Yours in Him, Deb 

 I'm not sure why you are repeating to me, since I haveny posted since your answer to me... but the reason I looked into the gelatin and kosher bit was  for a new vegetarian on a board I moderatewo had noticed gelatin in yoplait yogurt. With the OU certification. She asked, i researched.

I can no longer find it, but a kosher warning  newsletter I found actually made the rabinnic case for porcine gelatin! THat bugged me, so I kept researching.

I kept slipping that parve could have eggs and kept getting ill. Now, i prefer to use as few convenience foods as possible

 

I belive Hain SuperGel is kosher...but I forget which seal. I remember it being pretty good.

 I just get agar powder.

Dear Truepeacenick, I did not mean to offend you!  Pardon!  Yours in Him, Deb

 no offense, merely puzzled!

Thank you, Truepeacenik!  Chag Chanukah Sameach/Happy Chanukah!  Yours in Him, Deb