This has been a decidedly boring week thus far but I'm sure that things are going to change before Sunday rolls around again.
On Tuesday I left the house. (Sad that it's an accomplishment worthy of note, but it is.) I walked a 3.2 round trip hike to Mega and home again in under an hour (it's impressive because I did my grocery shopping too.)
All I wanted for dinner was a bowl of Bubby's Tomato Soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. However, when I went to the kitchen to prepare dinner I realized that I was 200 grams short of tomato paste and that was for a 1/2 recipe. But I wouldn't give up on soup - instead I made a thick and hearty tomato-based vegetable barley soup. It wasn't exactly the right thing to go with grilled cheese - so I'll have to make the right soup next week - but the soup I made sure did come out deeeeliciously!
When Z got home from school we watched our 'Monday night shows on Tuesday night' and relaxed for a bit.
By the time Wednesday rolled around I was itching to do something fun. I decided that the adventure of the day would involve pasta. Not just any pasta though - homemade pasta. Oh, and I didn't just want fettuccine or spaghetti, no - I wanted ravioli!!! I concocted a filling from cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Then I started on the pasta. At first the recipe didn't seem to be working too well. The dough wouldn't turn into dough and I had to add a lot of water. Then the dough got so extremely dense that I physically couldn't knead it (I didn't feel too bad though - the mixer couldn't handle it either.) I let it rest for 20 minutes as per the instructions and when I came back the gluten had given a sort of elasticity to the dough. It wasn't quite kneadable, but it was a lot easier to work with. Finally after 4 hours in the kitchen; rolling, cutting, filling, sealing and stacking I put half of the raviolis into the fridge for dinner and the other half into the freezer for another day. When Z got home from school we boiled up some water, added the fruits of my labor and a few short minutes later we were enjoying a really delicious dinner - complete with a tomato basil sauce.
This morning we woke up bright and early. Z had to go to school early to work on a group project before class. He also had to pack up his stuff for Shabbos since he won't have time this afternoon. You see, we're catching a 3:10 bus to Tel Aviv and a 4:50 train to Bet Shemesh for Thanksgiving Weekend. I'm pretty sure that the fun we're going to have will make up for the relative boringness of the past week.
How do I know? Well, that's simple. I'm going to get a haircut, Oscar is going to be there and I'm bringing my kitchen-blowtorch so that we can make some really yummy cupcakes!
If you want to see some pictures of my ravioli making adventure click here!
I'll be back with more photos, more stories and more fun after a quick message from our sponsors...
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Runny Nines...
Where to begin? Well, Shabbos was awesome! I guess that's a good starting point...
After lighting candles Z and I set off to shul. On our way down the main road we noticed that we were being followed. The couple following us looked like a nice, young, religious couple but we had never seen them before. We kept walking but they soon caught up to and then passed us. We smiled and said "shabbat shalom" but it wasn't until we got to the turn-off to the shul that they stopped and looked at us slightly confused. "Where are you heading?" we asked them jovially. With a smile they answered "same place as you, we guess." They walked with us and we began to shmooze. Turns out the husband is Israeli, originally from our new hometown and that his wife is American-born and has been in Israel since 2001. It also turns out that they are the 'new neighbors' that I mentioned have been drilling across the hall from us. They moved in last Sunday and are now settling in. They seem like very nice people and it's exciting that we're not the only religious people in the building anymore. I think we'll invite them for a Shabbat meal at some point.
I met Ora in shul and after davening we found Z and made our way back up the biiiiiig hill. The meal turned out deliciously and so did dessert. The company was great, the conversation was full of laughs and during dessert we played Phase 10 and Bananagrams. All in all a very successful and enjoyable Friday night.
Shabbos morning we decided to go to the 'far away' 8:30 minyan - which meant leaving the house at 8ish. I packed up the carrot kugel, a container full of chocolate crackle cookies and we set off across town. Davening was nice and after shul we headed over to our friend's house for the meal. After the meal a game of 'Settlers' was played - 'cut-throat' style. (Very 'white man takes over Indian land in hostile way' version) but it was a lot of fun. The we shmoozed, read a zillion cook books and relaxed. Pretty soon Shabbos was over but we weren't quite ready to go Home. So we stuck around for popcorn and a movie while the guinea pig ran amok. After the movie we checked the bus times and made it to the bus-stop just in time to hop onto a bus which took us straight home.
Sunday was pretty boring. We woke up super late and inaugurated the new pancake griddle. The pancakes came out super-fluffy and it was a great start to the day. Z headed off to studio at around 1:30 and worked on a project until dinner-time at 7ish. Then he went back to studio to work on the project some more and didn't come Home again until 2:00AM. (It seems most of his classmates also pulled an all-nighter on this project but they didn't have the opportunity to go home for dinner and they also didn't bother going home at 2AM.)
This morning we finished up the leftover pancakes for breakfast and Z's first class was canceled so he stayed home for a bit working on his project some more.
I'm trying to figure out what to do today. I really need to finish my book so that I can return it to the library. Maybe I'll read a bit and then work on an art project.
I should also figure out what to make for dinner. I think we'll have dairy tonight - I'm kind of in the mood for tomato soup and grilled cheese, but I feel like we had that recently. (It's become a favorite of mine lately - although nothing quite replaces my love of good macaroni and cheese.)
For now I guess I'll go browse the 3 job-hunting websites I frequent and send out a couple of proposals on e-lance. Maybe someone somewhere will want some work done. That would be nice. I guess we'll see.
After lighting candles Z and I set off to shul. On our way down the main road we noticed that we were being followed. The couple following us looked like a nice, young, religious couple but we had never seen them before. We kept walking but they soon caught up to and then passed us. We smiled and said "shabbat shalom" but it wasn't until we got to the turn-off to the shul that they stopped and looked at us slightly confused. "Where are you heading?" we asked them jovially. With a smile they answered "same place as you, we guess." They walked with us and we began to shmooze. Turns out the husband is Israeli, originally from our new hometown and that his wife is American-born and has been in Israel since 2001. It also turns out that they are the 'new neighbors' that I mentioned have been drilling across the hall from us. They moved in last Sunday and are now settling in. They seem like very nice people and it's exciting that we're not the only religious people in the building anymore. I think we'll invite them for a Shabbat meal at some point.
I met Ora in shul and after davening we found Z and made our way back up the biiiiiig hill. The meal turned out deliciously and so did dessert. The company was great, the conversation was full of laughs and during dessert we played Phase 10 and Bananagrams. All in all a very successful and enjoyable Friday night.
Shabbos morning we decided to go to the 'far away' 8:30 minyan - which meant leaving the house at 8ish. I packed up the carrot kugel, a container full of chocolate crackle cookies and we set off across town. Davening was nice and after shul we headed over to our friend's house for the meal. After the meal a game of 'Settlers' was played - 'cut-throat' style. (Very 'white man takes over Indian land in hostile way' version) but it was a lot of fun. The we shmoozed, read a zillion cook books and relaxed. Pretty soon Shabbos was over but we weren't quite ready to go Home. So we stuck around for popcorn and a movie while the guinea pig ran amok. After the movie we checked the bus times and made it to the bus-stop just in time to hop onto a bus which took us straight home.
Sunday was pretty boring. We woke up super late and inaugurated the new pancake griddle. The pancakes came out super-fluffy and it was a great start to the day. Z headed off to studio at around 1:30 and worked on a project until dinner-time at 7ish. Then he went back to studio to work on the project some more and didn't come Home again until 2:00AM. (It seems most of his classmates also pulled an all-nighter on this project but they didn't have the opportunity to go home for dinner and they also didn't bother going home at 2AM.)
This morning we finished up the leftover pancakes for breakfast and Z's first class was canceled so he stayed home for a bit working on his project some more.
I'm trying to figure out what to do today. I really need to finish my book so that I can return it to the library. Maybe I'll read a bit and then work on an art project.
I should also figure out what to make for dinner. I think we'll have dairy tonight - I'm kind of in the mood for tomato soup and grilled cheese, but I feel like we had that recently. (It's become a favorite of mine lately - although nothing quite replaces my love of good macaroni and cheese.)
For now I guess I'll go browse the 3 job-hunting websites I frequent and send out a couple of proposals on e-lance. Maybe someone somewhere will want some work done. That would be nice. I guess we'll see.
Friday, November 20, 2009
GP LP NP...
Yay! It's erev-shabbat! Sorry world, I'm just a little bit excited.
Yesterday was a strange Thursday. Zalman is coming down with a cold or something so he skipped some classes under the pretense of feeling under the weather. Of course he felt fine enough to watch a movie (or 2) and to help me shlep home a few kilos of potatoes from the grocery store. (I'm not complaining, I'm just saying...) At the grocery store we met a neighbor who reminded Z that there was a 'boys night out' planned for 9PM at the university pub. By that time Z was feeling better and of course the prospect of a good burger couldn't be ignored. So he went out with the boys and I stayed home and pretended to get ready for Shabbos. I was a good girl and baked 1/2 a recipe of lemon-delight pound cake in my mini-bundt-pan. (The cake came out adorable - in case you were wondering) and in addition to the lemon glaze which gets absorbed into the cake I also drizzled it with a white glaze and topped it with some pretty decorative yellow sugar. I also baked 1/2 a recipe of carrot kugel in two smallish loaf tins. One for the freezer and one to take with us to our neighbor's house for lunch on Shabbat.
This morning I woke up at 7:30 but after mixing up the 'goop' for the matzah balls I decided it was too early to be awake so I went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. (Best nap I've had in ages.) When I got up I baked 3 trays of chocolate-crackle-cookies (that's 60 cookies for the record) I've had the dough in the freezer since Sukkot and decided that the time had come to use it up. Then I cooked the tomato-sauce chicken and roasted the garlic at the same time. The green beans got just a few minutes in the heat and I doctored my chicken soup with fresh carrots, some extra chicken and a sprinkle of seasonings. A few minutes later and the couscous was done too. The matzah balls came out nice and fluffy and we even wound up with some sushi (courtesy of Z - who should really learn that it is a bad idea to 'take over' someone's kitchen while 'someone' is still in the kitchen.)
Tonight Freddie's friend Ora will be joining us for the meal and tomorrow we'll be going down to the Lockerman's for lunch.
My greatest accomplishment today was cleaning the stove-top and scrubbing down the counter. Now it's so clean and shiny! (It's as though it ready for more cooking and baking adventures.)
The neighbors are still drilling and we hope that they will stop for the duration of Shabbat (although there are no guarantees.)
I've got a whole book to read this weekend. I wonder whether I'll actually finish it by Sunday. It's only about 500 pages, but since we'll be out I'm not sure whether I'll have the time. Guess we'll see.
Have a great one!
Yesterday was a strange Thursday. Zalman is coming down with a cold or something so he skipped some classes under the pretense of feeling under the weather. Of course he felt fine enough to watch a movie (or 2) and to help me shlep home a few kilos of potatoes from the grocery store. (I'm not complaining, I'm just saying...) At the grocery store we met a neighbor who reminded Z that there was a 'boys night out' planned for 9PM at the university pub. By that time Z was feeling better and of course the prospect of a good burger couldn't be ignored. So he went out with the boys and I stayed home and pretended to get ready for Shabbos. I was a good girl and baked 1/2 a recipe of lemon-delight pound cake in my mini-bundt-pan. (The cake came out adorable - in case you were wondering) and in addition to the lemon glaze which gets absorbed into the cake I also drizzled it with a white glaze and topped it with some pretty decorative yellow sugar. I also baked 1/2 a recipe of carrot kugel in two smallish loaf tins. One for the freezer and one to take with us to our neighbor's house for lunch on Shabbat.
This morning I woke up at 7:30 but after mixing up the 'goop' for the matzah balls I decided it was too early to be awake so I went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. (Best nap I've had in ages.) When I got up I baked 3 trays of chocolate-crackle-cookies (that's 60 cookies for the record) I've had the dough in the freezer since Sukkot and decided that the time had come to use it up. Then I cooked the tomato-sauce chicken and roasted the garlic at the same time. The green beans got just a few minutes in the heat and I doctored my chicken soup with fresh carrots, some extra chicken and a sprinkle of seasonings. A few minutes later and the couscous was done too. The matzah balls came out nice and fluffy and we even wound up with some sushi (courtesy of Z - who should really learn that it is a bad idea to 'take over' someone's kitchen while 'someone' is still in the kitchen.)
Tonight Freddie's friend Ora will be joining us for the meal and tomorrow we'll be going down to the Lockerman's for lunch.
My greatest accomplishment today was cleaning the stove-top and scrubbing down the counter. Now it's so clean and shiny! (It's as though it ready for more cooking and baking adventures.)
The neighbors are still drilling and we hope that they will stop for the duration of Shabbat (although there are no guarantees.)
I've got a whole book to read this weekend. I wonder whether I'll actually finish it by Sunday. It's only about 500 pages, but since we'll be out I'm not sure whether I'll have the time. Guess we'll see.
Have a great one!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
YummZees...
Yesterday I went to Jerusalem to meet up with Shoshana (Eliyohu) and Deborah! We met in Geulah and had a yummy lunch at Brunch Bagel and then we wandered around and did a bit of shopping. I was successful in all endeavors and we even stopped at Nechama (my favorite bakery in Jerusalem for just about everything) to pick up sufganiot in honor of Rosh Chodesh Kislev! Even though it was a crazy hectic and full day I managed to catch the 6:30 bus Home. The ride only took a little over 1.5 hours and I was in pajamas by 8:45. Z was super helpful and (over)cooked some penne pastas. When I walked in I just sliced up an onion and some mushrooms, let them saute and then when they were good and soft I poured in a box of cream, seasoned with a pinch of salt and a bit of pepper and let it cook until it had thickened a bit. We ate this delicious feast topped with Parmesan cheese and dessert of course were the donuts. We split 1 caramel and 1 jelly (so that we each got a whole one.) While eating we caught up on 2 of our weekly TV shows. (This gives new meaning to TV dinners.)
This morning I woke up at 8:15ish and by the time I decided to actually get up Z had to leave for school. Lucky for him there was a serving of pasta left-over from last night's dinner - so he had a really yummy lunch to take to school. (He said that all of his classmates had been jealous of his gourmet lunch. If only they knew how easy it were to make...)
At 10:00 I was seriously considering walking 6.1 kilometers to the grocery store - just to have something to do when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was Nat, one of my new friends out here in the middle of nowhere. She didn't have work and wondered whether I'd be free to go to the mall with her in Petach Tikva. I said "sure!" because I love an adventure and because a reason to get out of the house is almost always a good thing. I remembered that I'd tentatively planned a 'day out' with another friend also so I suggested calling and inviting her as well. We timed our departure and all caught the same bus. I'd never been to the 'kanyon hagadol' but it's actually quite a nice mall. (They even have a movie theater and a kosher McDonalds.) We wandered around for a couple of hours, did a bit of browsing and even met up with yet another friend for some lunch.
Eventually we caught a bus back Home and 2 of us stopped off at 'Yesh' (the cheapest, biggest grocery store near the city) in order to pick up random groceries for Shabbos. Did I mention that we're going out for Shabbat lunch? No? Well it all happened so fast. Yeah, well we're going out for Shabbat lunch and it should be a lot of fun! Did I mention that since I already have 2 challot in the freezer along with chicken soup that all I've actually got to make for Shabbat is some chicken, some iced tea and maybe, just maybe, some matzah balls - oh yeah, and dessert. Never underestimate the importance of dessert.
Dinner tonight consisted of leftovers from last Shabbat. We still had 1 piece of potato kugel, 5 shnitzelonim (but there were only 3 left by the time everything was heated up), a chicken thigh, a bit of yellow rice and 3 pieces of deli roll. Now there are 2 pieces of deli roll left and Z can take them to school for lunch tomorrow. Ta-da! Talk about good planning.
Tomorrow is Thursday and I'm debating what to do. I've really been terribly lazy this week. Although I got out and about I didn't actually do ANY of the organizing that I was supposed to do. My guest room is a wreck, I can't find anything in my kitchen cupboards and the toiletries in the closet in my room are in such a state of disarray that if I actually needed anything from in there I'd have quite a hard time locating whatever was needed. I also desperately need to take care of laundry - but I've been saying, "it's rosh chodesh" so I don't really feel too bad.
I guess I'll figure it out tomorrow.
It's only a few hours away...
This morning I woke up at 8:15ish and by the time I decided to actually get up Z had to leave for school. Lucky for him there was a serving of pasta left-over from last night's dinner - so he had a really yummy lunch to take to school. (He said that all of his classmates had been jealous of his gourmet lunch. If only they knew how easy it were to make...)
At 10:00 I was seriously considering walking 6.1 kilometers to the grocery store - just to have something to do when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was Nat, one of my new friends out here in the middle of nowhere. She didn't have work and wondered whether I'd be free to go to the mall with her in Petach Tikva. I said "sure!" because I love an adventure and because a reason to get out of the house is almost always a good thing. I remembered that I'd tentatively planned a 'day out' with another friend also so I suggested calling and inviting her as well. We timed our departure and all caught the same bus. I'd never been to the 'kanyon hagadol' but it's actually quite a nice mall. (They even have a movie theater and a kosher McDonalds.) We wandered around for a couple of hours, did a bit of browsing and even met up with yet another friend for some lunch.
Eventually we caught a bus back Home and 2 of us stopped off at 'Yesh' (the cheapest, biggest grocery store near the city) in order to pick up random groceries for Shabbos. Did I mention that we're going out for Shabbat lunch? No? Well it all happened so fast. Yeah, well we're going out for Shabbat lunch and it should be a lot of fun! Did I mention that since I already have 2 challot in the freezer along with chicken soup that all I've actually got to make for Shabbat is some chicken, some iced tea and maybe, just maybe, some matzah balls - oh yeah, and dessert. Never underestimate the importance of dessert.
Dinner tonight consisted of leftovers from last Shabbat. We still had 1 piece of potato kugel, 5 shnitzelonim (but there were only 3 left by the time everything was heated up), a chicken thigh, a bit of yellow rice and 3 pieces of deli roll. Now there are 2 pieces of deli roll left and Z can take them to school for lunch tomorrow. Ta-da! Talk about good planning.
Tomorrow is Thursday and I'm debating what to do. I've really been terribly lazy this week. Although I got out and about I didn't actually do ANY of the organizing that I was supposed to do. My guest room is a wreck, I can't find anything in my kitchen cupboards and the toiletries in the closet in my room are in such a state of disarray that if I actually needed anything from in there I'd have quite a hard time locating whatever was needed. I also desperately need to take care of laundry - but I've been saying, "it's rosh chodesh" so I don't really feel too bad.
I guess I'll figure it out tomorrow.
It's only a few hours away...
Monday, November 16, 2009
Chocolate Pudding...
Hang on just a second...I'm just fishing a fuzz out of my glass of water.
Alright, that's better.
Yesterday I painted (my sad, short, bitten nails) with my favorite purple-y color. They'll be nice and long again in about a week and a half or so. Also, have I ever mentioned that I think that 'insta-dri anti-chip top-coat' is absolutely brilliant? Apply a coat 2 minutes after applying the nail-polish and *poof* your nails are dry in 30 seconds. Seriously. It's awesome stuff.
Aside from the nail-painting, yesterday was extremely boring. I caught up on all of my TV shows from last Thursday and didn't cook anything (yup, you heard me. I decided that there were enough left-overs in the fridge. Maybe I'm sick? Then again, maybe I'm thinking logically for once.)
Last night I crawled into bed niiiiice and early (read: 9:45PM) I thought I'd read for a bit but would you believe that I actually fell asleep at 10? Either I'm getting old or I'm even more bored than I thought I was.
This morning I woke up at 8. Yup 8. That's what, 10 hours of sleep? Nobody needs 10 hours of sleep. At least, I've never needed 10 hours of sleep. I think I've been sleeping too much.
I did accomplish 2 important things this morning. One was actually showering (I know, that sounds really gross - but I just don't feel the need to shower on a daily basis when I'm not going to leave my house and especially because showering really aggravates my super-dry skin.) The other thing I did was convince Z to take the rest of the left-over yellow cake with chocolate glaze and sprinkles (from Shabbos) to school with him and to feed it to his classmates. Much better them than me. That was my thought anyway.
I've been considering my 'to do' list since Z left at 9:50 (that was 2 hours ago for anyone who was wondering.) Ideally I should be funneling all efforts and energies into organizing the closets in my room, the kitchen cupboards and the shelving unit in the guest room. I'm not. (If you couldn't tell.) I'm sitting and blogging, and checking the news, and eating pitot with chumus and doing just about anything which doesn't require actual physical effort - well, with regard to organizing.
I've got to admit, I feel a bit guilty sitting here playing on the computer and being so darn unproductive. Especially considering I have a project to do on the computer too. Meaning that if I were just a bit less pathetic I would be sitting and typing up recipes for the cookbook that I'm meant to be putting together and that wouldn't be organizing my house or anything like that - but it would still mean that I was accomplishing something that's on my list of things to-do. So, I guess that's why I'm not doing it. Instead I'm rambling on in a blog-post in an attempt to procrastinate just a tiny bit longer. Sad, huh? Yeah, I think so too.
Tonight there's supposed to be a meteor shower. Friends of ours told us about it and now we're all psyched to see it. I'm guessing that we'll be able to see pretty well from our mirpeset (since we live a bit to the left of the end of the world.) Now I'm trying to decide what warm and yummy filling kind of soup to make for dinner that we can eat while watching the show. Maybe I'll make some fresh rolls too. That sounds pretty yummy. I guess I should also sweep/wash the mirpeset - that way we can just spread a quilt on the floor for the 'event' tonight.
Tomorrow I'm going to Jerusalem. I've got a few errands to run, and then I'll be meeting up with Shosh and Debs in town. I reckon it'll be quite nice. Although according to the weatherman it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I guess I'll take a jacket with me...
Alright, that's better.
Yesterday I painted (my sad, short, bitten nails) with my favorite purple-y color. They'll be nice and long again in about a week and a half or so. Also, have I ever mentioned that I think that 'insta-dri anti-chip top-coat' is absolutely brilliant? Apply a coat 2 minutes after applying the nail-polish and *poof* your nails are dry in 30 seconds. Seriously. It's awesome stuff.
Aside from the nail-painting, yesterday was extremely boring. I caught up on all of my TV shows from last Thursday and didn't cook anything (yup, you heard me. I decided that there were enough left-overs in the fridge. Maybe I'm sick? Then again, maybe I'm thinking logically for once.)
Last night I crawled into bed niiiiice and early (read: 9:45PM) I thought I'd read for a bit but would you believe that I actually fell asleep at 10? Either I'm getting old or I'm even more bored than I thought I was.
This morning I woke up at 8. Yup 8. That's what, 10 hours of sleep? Nobody needs 10 hours of sleep. At least, I've never needed 10 hours of sleep. I think I've been sleeping too much.
I did accomplish 2 important things this morning. One was actually showering (I know, that sounds really gross - but I just don't feel the need to shower on a daily basis when I'm not going to leave my house and especially because showering really aggravates my super-dry skin.) The other thing I did was convince Z to take the rest of the left-over yellow cake with chocolate glaze and sprinkles (from Shabbos) to school with him and to feed it to his classmates. Much better them than me. That was my thought anyway.
I've been considering my 'to do' list since Z left at 9:50 (that was 2 hours ago for anyone who was wondering.) Ideally I should be funneling all efforts and energies into organizing the closets in my room, the kitchen cupboards and the shelving unit in the guest room. I'm not. (If you couldn't tell.) I'm sitting and blogging, and checking the news, and eating pitot with chumus and doing just about anything which doesn't require actual physical effort - well, with regard to organizing.
I've got to admit, I feel a bit guilty sitting here playing on the computer and being so darn unproductive. Especially considering I have a project to do on the computer too. Meaning that if I were just a bit less pathetic I would be sitting and typing up recipes for the cookbook that I'm meant to be putting together and that wouldn't be organizing my house or anything like that - but it would still mean that I was accomplishing something that's on my list of things to-do. So, I guess that's why I'm not doing it. Instead I'm rambling on in a blog-post in an attempt to procrastinate just a tiny bit longer. Sad, huh? Yeah, I think so too.
Tonight there's supposed to be a meteor shower. Friends of ours told us about it and now we're all psyched to see it. I'm guessing that we'll be able to see pretty well from our mirpeset (since we live a bit to the left of the end of the world.) Now I'm trying to decide what warm and yummy filling kind of soup to make for dinner that we can eat while watching the show. Maybe I'll make some fresh rolls too. That sounds pretty yummy. I guess I should also sweep/wash the mirpeset - that way we can just spread a quilt on the floor for the 'event' tonight.
Tomorrow I'm going to Jerusalem. I've got a few errands to run, and then I'll be meeting up with Shosh and Debs in town. I reckon it'll be quite nice. Although according to the weatherman it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I guess I'll take a jacket with me...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Ivory
I'm back and I'm full of chocolate chip cookie brittle and lots of really yummy food. This Shabbos was super relaxing. I guess it all started on Thursday...
Thursday morning I pampered myself and went to a salon then I went to 'Yesh' to pick up some last minute groceries. Back at Home I got to work cooking for Shabbos. I managed to cook just about everything by 9pm. (Ok, I cheated a bit. The soup and challah both came from the freezer - but in my defense, I did cook them at some point.)
Friday morning all I had to do was boil the matzah balls and brew a few liters of iced-tea. As the rains poured down we went out to pick up a bunch of flowers for the Shabbos table. The kitties wandering around in the store were quite funny and the pretty white flowers were just perfect.
Friday night was as good as it could have been and we made it to shul in time for Maariv. On an exciting nite, one of our neighbors who davens in the far-away 'Anglo-shul' for Shacharit on most weekday mornings has decided to be our 'Torah Tidbits' shaliach and bring a few copies of the weekly dvar torah sheet over to the Netzarim shul (where we daven) for our reading pleasure. I'm excited about this - if you can't tell.
Although we were woken by some inconsiderate, noisy and not to bright neighbors at 1:30 in the morning (evidently they are not overly intelligent, seeing as the only game they could think of playing at 1:30 in the morning involved banging loudly on the furniture in their apartment and screaming like banshees) Shabbos day was quiet and uneventful.
Our menu consisted of all sorts of yummy things this weekend. Friday night we began with challah, chumus and roasted garlic, we then moved on to chicken soup with vegetables and matzah balls, the main course included Savta's roasted-chicken and yellow rice with vegetables and for dessert there was - who am I kidding - we were too full for dessert. Shabbos day we had challah with chumus and pickles, deli roll with 2 kinds of meat in it, shnitzel (which was moist and still had a crunchy coating) and some 'stick-to-the-pan' potato kugel. Dessert was a moist yellow cake with chocolate drizzle and of course it had colorful sprinkles on it. There was also chocolate chip cookie brittle to nosh on all day.
Today I finished 'Ysabel' by Guy Gavriel Kay and began a new series.
The week ahead includes; finding a job, basketball, a day in Jeru with Shosh and Debs and for now that's all there is on the schedule. I'm hoping more fun stuff finds its way onto the calendar.
Maybe I'll start walking this week. I really should. I walked a few 'warm-up' kilometers last week and it felt good to be moving again. I'm hoping it'll work the kink out of my knee (which gets worse when I sit for long periods of time) and I should definitely start stretching again too.
I'll keep you posted...
Thursday morning I pampered myself and went to a salon then I went to 'Yesh' to pick up some last minute groceries. Back at Home I got to work cooking for Shabbos. I managed to cook just about everything by 9pm. (Ok, I cheated a bit. The soup and challah both came from the freezer - but in my defense, I did cook them at some point.)
Friday morning all I had to do was boil the matzah balls and brew a few liters of iced-tea. As the rains poured down we went out to pick up a bunch of flowers for the Shabbos table. The kitties wandering around in the store were quite funny and the pretty white flowers were just perfect.
Friday night was as good as it could have been and we made it to shul in time for Maariv. On an exciting nite, one of our neighbors who davens in the far-away 'Anglo-shul' for Shacharit on most weekday mornings has decided to be our 'Torah Tidbits' shaliach and bring a few copies of the weekly dvar torah sheet over to the Netzarim shul (where we daven) for our reading pleasure. I'm excited about this - if you can't tell.
Although we were woken by some inconsiderate, noisy and not to bright neighbors at 1:30 in the morning (evidently they are not overly intelligent, seeing as the only game they could think of playing at 1:30 in the morning involved banging loudly on the furniture in their apartment and screaming like banshees) Shabbos day was quiet and uneventful.
Our menu consisted of all sorts of yummy things this weekend. Friday night we began with challah, chumus and roasted garlic, we then moved on to chicken soup with vegetables and matzah balls, the main course included Savta's roasted-chicken and yellow rice with vegetables and for dessert there was - who am I kidding - we were too full for dessert. Shabbos day we had challah with chumus and pickles, deli roll with 2 kinds of meat in it, shnitzel (which was moist and still had a crunchy coating) and some 'stick-to-the-pan' potato kugel. Dessert was a moist yellow cake with chocolate drizzle and of course it had colorful sprinkles on it. There was also chocolate chip cookie brittle to nosh on all day.
Today I finished 'Ysabel' by Guy Gavriel Kay and began a new series.
The week ahead includes; finding a job, basketball, a day in Jeru with Shosh and Debs and for now that's all there is on the schedule. I'm hoping more fun stuff finds its way onto the calendar.
Maybe I'll start walking this week. I really should. I walked a few 'warm-up' kilometers last week and it felt good to be moving again. I'm hoping it'll work the kink out of my knee (which gets worse when I sit for long periods of time) and I should definitely start stretching again too.
I'll keep you posted...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
"I'll Be Fine..."
Today I did it. I actually left the house!
I went allllll the way to the other side of town and ran an errand that I needed to run.
Then I walked 1/3 of the way home and stopped off to check out the 'local' fruit and veggie store. (I'm still new to this city - so I'm still learning where the best places to buy certain things are.)
After buying some veggies I made my way to my friend's house. We spent some time at her house reading funny cookbooks and tasting yummy chocolate and fudge before deciding to make donuts.
We needed some ingredients and decided to shop and then go back to my house so we walked another 1/3 of the way home and picked up the ingredients that we needed. I was lazy so we grabbed a bus back up the BIG hill.
The donuts were a HUGE success! However, by the time they were finished we realized that both our hubby's were almost done with school for the day. So - I convinced her that she should have her hubby come home with my hubby and that we'd all have a yummy dinner and dessert together.
We ate our donuts first and Mushroom & Onion Calzones and a Pizza later we were very very stuffed.
It was quite a nice day.
I rather like having friends in my neighborhood! Especially ones who will come and experiment in the kitchen with me. :)
If you'd like to see some pictures from today then just click here!
Tomorrow another adventure but that's a story for tomorrow...
I went allllll the way to the other side of town and ran an errand that I needed to run.
Then I walked 1/3 of the way home and stopped off to check out the 'local' fruit and veggie store. (I'm still new to this city - so I'm still learning where the best places to buy certain things are.)
After buying some veggies I made my way to my friend's house. We spent some time at her house reading funny cookbooks and tasting yummy chocolate and fudge before deciding to make donuts.
We needed some ingredients and decided to shop and then go back to my house so we walked another 1/3 of the way home and picked up the ingredients that we needed. I was lazy so we grabbed a bus back up the BIG hill.
The donuts were a HUGE success! However, by the time they were finished we realized that both our hubby's were almost done with school for the day. So - I convinced her that she should have her hubby come home with my hubby and that we'd all have a yummy dinner and dessert together.
We ate our donuts first and Mushroom & Onion Calzones and a Pizza later we were very very stuffed.
It was quite a nice day.
I rather like having friends in my neighborhood! Especially ones who will come and experiment in the kitchen with me. :)
If you'd like to see some pictures from today then just click here!
Tomorrow another adventure but that's a story for tomorrow...
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