At Home in the Holy Land...

Metropolis King!

2012-01-28T19:56:00.003+02:00

Aaaaand I'm back! That was a highly enjoyable (though slightly exhausting) weekend. (It was probably just super-exhausting because it came at the end of a ridiculously busy and hectic week that seemed to last forever.) In any event - it was still an awesome fun Shabbos.

Akiva & Emunah joined us (they came Thursday night. As I mentioned 2-posts-ago 2 of Z's friends joined us for dinner Thursday night too. The guys played Settlers while the gals watched a movie.) Friday was hectic-feeling. I woke up early and decided to bake a batch of chocolate chip muffins for breakfast - they were ready just as everyone woke up. Then Z & Akiva went on a 'road-trip' to run errands (read: pick up chumus) on the other side of town. Ayala and her brother Yoni arrived at a little before 2pm. Somehow everything was finished by 3pm. I was extremely impressed.

It was freezing outside and the rain was crazy! We put the heater on a Shabbos clock in the living room and had it run for most of Friday and all of Saturday - (cause it's just not ok for it to be 52F in your living room when you're trying to 'live' there!) Anywho - by closing the doors to all of the bedrooms and running the heated steadily we managed to bring the temperature in the living/dining room & kitchen up to a toasty 62F! On a ridiculously pathetic note - the 12 hours-worth of 'shiputzim' that the 'fix-it-guys' did last week were all for naught - because all of the leaks are back. (At least there isn't mold anymore though - since they chiseled out the moldy concrete and re-filled the channel...) I hope they aren't too crestfallen to see their hard-work gone to waste when they come tomorrow to 'finish' painting.

Our guests all had to run pretty soon after havdalah - many kilometers to travel and all. We bid them 'goodbye til next time' and we're hoping 'next time' won't be in the too distant future!

Menus:

Friday Night - roasted garlic, 'AbuDushi' chumus, matbucha (homemade), pickles, mushroom & orzo soup / vegetable soup (onion, carrot, zucchini, sweet potato, potato, split peas, barley, salt&pepper, orzo), Roasted Chicken (1 whole butterflied chicken + 2 kirayim) on a bed of onions & fingerling potatoes, Rum & Vanilla Glazed Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans, Garlic Rice.

Shabbos Lunch - roasted cherry tomatoes & garlic, 'AbuDushi' chumus, matbucha (homemade), pickles, sliced veggies (red pepper, carrots, cucumbers, green pepper, mushrooms), big bowl of lettuce (add-ins: craisins, sliced almonds, candied pineapple, candied pecans), Israeli salad, chickpeas (with salt&pepper), eggplant parmigiana, AB's citrus-y salmon, potato knishes.

Desserts: Cookie Brittles, Brownies with Ganache, Chocolate Chip Muffins

Impressively enough there weren't too many leftovers. 1 breast & 1 kirayim from Friday night (which made 3 meals for Z to eat this week) and 2 servings of eggplant parmigiana.

"Soft Kitty...Warm Kitty"

2012-01-27T08:23:00.002+02:00

The good news is that the apartment is all clean for Shabbos (a bazillion thanks to Z!)

The bad news is that I only got about 2/3rds of the cooking done between Wednesday & Thursday...

Ok - to the kitchen... Hoping to be done with everything by 12.

Random Sidenote: The white wine and mushroom sauce I made last night congealed so heavily on the (bag and a half of) pasta (and all the salt seemed to disappear) that now there's enough to feed 4-6 people left! How did I overestimate so badly?! Maybe I'll just toss some Parmesan on top and serve it at Shabbos lunch... *sigh*

10 to go!

2012-01-26T23:33:00.000+02:00

Holy wow - I love days when I get everything on my to-do list done!

Garlic rice, potato knishes, matbucha, eggplant parmesan, lemonade (6 liters-worth), muffins, pasta salad...

And I made awesomely delicious 1/4-cup-of-batter sized buttermilk pancakes for breakfast!

Seriously - talk about a good day.

Granted - I'm exhausted and it's only 2:50pm...and half of our shabbos guests are coming tonight (so I still have to make dinner and set up their room), and I haven't done any laundry yet... Still - I'm super impressed with what I have accomplished.

Aaaaaaaaand - 3 hours later I am back. Beyond wiped out and still nowhere near done. Turns out we'll be 6 for dinner tonight (instead of the anticipated 4 - and all 4 guests most likely haven't eaten much today) so I've actually got to make a filling enough meal for everyone. I'm hoping that a tossed salad, a loaf of tomato basil bread and pasta with cream sauce will do the trick - because I don't think I have energy to do much more than that. Good thing there's a bunch of cookie-dough-balls in the freezer - because they'll bake up into a super-quick and easy dessert.

Z & I ran to the grocery store (at 5pm when the 'fix-it-guys' finished for the day - after another 6 hour ordeal - and they'll be back on Sunday too.) The place was a zoo! (Remind me NEVER to listen to Z with regards to shopping. I should've gone yesterday!) As it was the store was mobbed and the place was completely sold out of potatoes. (Good thing I didn't ~really~ need the potatoes... though it's weird to not have any in the basket.)

And now it's 11:30pm and I can't actually think straight anymore. I guess I'll finish this post off for now - and write about dinner and further adventures sometime tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it.)

Melee!

2012-01-24T13:58:00.000+02:00

A photographic depiction of today's adventures which began at 8am with us clearing everything away from under the window-frames. (Of course now that it's 'fixed' - I'm wishing I had taken some 'before' shots just for comparison...)

The window in the Master Bedroom

Instead of just re-caulking the window frame (which is what they've done three times - in the past 2 years) they actually drilled a channel in the wall to see where/why water was pooling in the wall. (Well, before filling up the channel with new cement anyway...)

Since the windows were out anyway Z decided to clean them...

We weren't really expecting them to do anything else productive but while they were here they agreed to switch the broken strap/string thingies on the trissim. But in order to switch the strings they needed light in the room which meant that they brought in a ladder and fixed the lighting fixture in the ceiling of the guest room (which hasn't worked for over a year - since the wind blew it so violently that one of the wires got knocked loose.) And as an added bonus they even fixed both of the electrical sockets which had fallen out of the walls.

Here's my kitchen - looking somewhat like we're cleaning for Pesach - but we're not. I assure you. We are not.

My makeshift calendar for 2012 built in the 'old-style' (whereby a new settlement is erected directly on-top of the previous settlement...)

We're using the dining room as an 'office' until the fix-it-guys are done (and until all of the fumes they brought with them dissipate.)

Here's a shot of the progress in our backyard. They are still 'terra-forming' the mountain and haven't started building anything. I wonder how they actually expect to get all of the construction done in under 2 years.

On an off-topic sort of note - Toffee can't understand why Z likes to eat smelly-fishies so much!

Still on the list of 'to-do' for today is a trek to the post-office to pick up another package and to pick up a check from a client for graphic-services-rendered.

I'm thinking little white fishies and smash/crash-(baked)-potatoes tonight for dinner. And while I'm at it I might bake a 2nd batch of muffins for the freezer. I'm also very tempted to cook up a batch of pancakes for the freezer - because it's so much easier to pop them into the toaster or microwave than to make fresh ones all the time.

Mississippi Mud Brownies!

2012-01-23T16:03:00.002+02:00

Turns out all you've got to do is ask...isn't that right Z? Mmmm, ice cream, water and sometimes even pasta!

Today has been quite productive. I managed to get 6 loads of laundry done. (Where do 6 loads of laundry come from in a house with just 2 people?! Ok ok - 3 loads were sheets and towels from the guest suite - so I guess it's not so unreasonable.)

Z did a bunch of chores that he'd been pushing off for quite some time. I'm pleased to announce that the sheirut mirpeset (service porch) is officially tree-free and a lot less muddy, the legs have been re-attached to the challah board and that the (completely incompetent and useless) 'fix-it-guy' stopped by to look at the water damage in the apartment and yeah - this is the same stuff we've been having issues with since we moved in. Supposedly he'll be back again tomorrow morning at '9:00am' to 'fix' the problem (again)...but only if it doesn't rain.

I had a 'moment' today when I accidentally took off my glasses instead of taking off my headphones and couldn't figure out why I was still attached to the computer. (Yeah - that really happened. Go ahead, laugh. I know I did - for a good 5 minutes after I realized what the problem was.)

One of Z's friends will be sleeping over all week - since it's studio-prep week for all the ~~archinerds~~ architecture students.

I really want to bake some muffins and bread to restock the freezer. (Did I say that last week too?) Well - this week I really mean to do it. I've got a liter and a half of milk to bake into delicious breakfast treats for Z. Maybe I'll even make him a batch of cinnamon buns...

Mmm...cheeeeese.

2012-01-18T19:29:00.000+02:00

Remember how yesterday I said we had sushi for dinner with Sara - well, that was actually only half of the story. What we actually did was rolled 26 rolls of the stuff for Renat's bridal-shower (which is taking place as I type this which is why I'm finally allowed to talk about it.) Mostly I was supremely impressed with myself because I cooked 6 cups of raw sushi-rice to fluffy and sticky perfection.

In other news - if you haven't seen me recently, or you've been wondering how/why I've been waaay off the fructozoid-food-wagon for the last few months, or you're confused by the numerous cryptic number-related blog-posts I guess it's time to let you in on the secret...

We ordered a super-special package and are anticipating arrival around Pesach-time!

As you can see - things are growing quite well!

(Heehee, I'm so punny!)

Today was also notably exceptional because Z drove our car for the very first time (with me as his 'accompanying experienced driver'.) He did a great job! We went all the way to the grocery store and then back home again.

As a 'thank you' for letting him get behind the wheel he even volunteered to make us lunch. We enjoyed pan-cooked grilled cheese (filled with honest-to-goodness mild English cheddar and a smear of spicy-brown-mustard), sliced veggies and a tall glass of lemonade apiece.

Tonight is Little Brother's engagement party on in Givat Shmuel, but due to scheduling conflicts with 'studio' and 'end of semester madness' we won't be able to make it. I wish the date hadn't been changed (it was supposed to be tomorrow night!) but I guess life is what it is - and we'll just have to get them out here for a fun-filled-family-dinner at some point before 'the big day'!

Tomorrow - much cookie baking will commence...I hope!

Bendy Strippers...

2012-01-17T22:06:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was pretty productive overall. I washed/folded all 4 loads of laundry and washed up most of the dishes. I also went out with Sara for a couple of hours. We went to the 'spices store', to the post office, to Mega and to the paper-good store. I made it home with plenty of time to bake up a 1/2 batch of cinnamon swirl cake and an amazingly delicious pizza-bubble-ring for the guys. There were only 3 of them so I allowed myself to be 'convinced' to play Settlers with them. I almost won too. Really - if they guy before me hadn't had so many silly progress cards and ports I would've had it. I had the cards in my hand!

Book club books! I'm excited to read them!

It was a nippy 10C in our bedroom this morning. I refused to get out of bed until the 2 sweatshirts I'd put on warmed up to 'body-temperature'. We eventually found the nerve to turn the heater on and 2 hours later we basked in the toastiness that was 16C. (It's a really good thing we've got a freezer stocked with soups. They keep us warm.) Thankfully I can always sleep in my 'inside boots' when my toes are frozen.

Because in every boys mind: video game = homework

I spent most of the day curled up on the couch in the office - because that way we only had to heat up 1 room in the apartment. Why the office? Well - it's got the most 'inside-walls' so it heats up the quickest and stays warm too!

The wild fuzzies have gathered some berries!!!

Truth be told I didn't do much of anything productive today. I ate a lot of junk and procrastinated leaving the office for any reason.

Do you think he's enjoying that English cheddar? I KNOW he is!

Sara came over at around 5 and we had a sushi-party for dinner! It was a pretty typical evening - though I amused myself a little more than usual.

The box from my newest toy!

After the food-part was over we did full clean up. Z washed dishes, Sara took out the garbage and I was the head-over-see-er from the comfort of a dining room chair - cause I am GOOD at that job.

Sugar Coma - of sorts...

Sara's friend was passing by so she offered to drive Sara back down to the campus which worked out perfectly. Then after Sara had left I went back into hibernation on the couch in the office.

Special-Op: Retrieve Cookie

Tomorrow we're supposed to go to Yesh - and Z is supposed to drive us there! Yikes! I know I shouldn't be so nervous but I just am... You understand, right?

Outward Pressure...

2012-01-15T20:42:00.001+02:00

Not quite sure where the last week has gone. Last Wednesday was spent attempting to straighten up the apartment. Thursday turned into a crazy-hectic-day when I had to bake an anniversary cake, make dinner for the guys and take Sara across town all at the last-minute - well, the cooking/baking/entertaining was last minute - the outing across town wasn't. On Friday we made our way to The Sun House in the pouring rain - when we got there we visited S&S and I was presented with my suitcase-of-presents from the USofA. I love all my new clothes (especially the fuzzy sweatshirt which fits over my bulgy-belly) and I especially love my slightly-belated Channuka present from Z - an adorable (and super exciting) Canon Rebel XS! I'll start taking/posting some pictures with it just as soon as I find my old photography-course notes and figure out how to use the darn thing! Shabbos was lots of fun - we spent it eating lots of good food, getting shot at and shooting nerf-guns and laughing a lot. The anniversary sign might've said the wrong number, the frosting might've been grainy (on account of homemade 'powdered' sugar), the dog might've wanted to eat all of The Dibble's friends - but it was highly enjoyable!

Saturday night we headed back to the middle of nowhere with Sara and her friend Yael. They came over and we all enjoyed a delicious fresh batch of heavenly thin crust pizza. (Yeah - the one I raved about 2 weeks ago or so...that awesome one where the dough gets made in the food-processor, has a 24 hour cold-rise, then bakes up perfect pizzeria pies...mhm, yum.)

I slept late this morning - on account of not sleeping so well Friday night and suffering extreme DWTMTFS (Don't Want To Miss The Fun Stuff) on Shabbos afternoon (which meant I didn't bother napping.) Anywho - I didn't wake up until 9am - which (as you know by now) is pretty impressive for me.

At around 1 we left the house on a 'material-mission' which took us down to the printing-place, then to the Industrial Area(s) of the middle of nowhere. I got to visit the fun spice store while Z wandered around price-comparison-shopping for super-narrow PVC piping. I put my foot down as far as buying an electric saw went - but he got the materials he needed for his project.

Logged onto Skype I got to catch up with Rikuda&Co and said 'hi' to the Smushes via video-conference. The Z came Home and we dug some meat out of the freezer. (The Crazy Lady gave it to us at some point) It made a delicious dinner served over some pastas.

Now Z is busy trying to string his tetra-deca-whoza-gons together into an enormous model of foamy-goodness. I'm pretending to figure out how to use my camera but keep getting distracted by stuff on pintrest (my latest time-wasting obsession.)

Tomorrow I've got lots to do. Laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, 'refreshing' the spice-jars, going out with Sara to the other side of town, dinner for the guys (Hard to believe this is the last Monday of the semester...) then game night!!!

27+4 = 12+3

2012-01-10T11:37:00.001+02:00

It was boys-night last night so I dragged myself out of bed and cooked for them.

For dinner I made garlic pita chips (cut pitot into 4 wedges then separate the tops/bottoms. Drizzle with olive oil, salt & garlic powder. Toast on a higher shelf in a 200C oven for 8-10 minutes. (Check them often or the thinner ones may end up crisping too much.))

I served the 'chips' alongside a Chicken & Pasta dish. (No pictures because they ate all of it - even though I made a bag and a bit of pasta! But trust me when I say it smelled incredible and was pretty too!)

Chicken & Pasta

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts into small bite-sized chunks.

2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 medium zucchini, cut into small/med cubes

8-10 button mushrooms, sliced (I went slightly thicker so they'd hold together better)

2 tomatoes, diced (with their seeds & juices)

1/2 tsp dried basil

salt & pepper to taste

1/2 cup white wine

1/4-1/2 cup chicken broth

1 package pasta

Directions:

Cook the pasta (make sure it's al dente cause you don't want it getting mushy! It also pays to make it first so you can nosh while you're cooking. Oh, only I do that? Yeah, I didn't think so...)

In a large pot saute the garlic in some olive oil until it's fragrant then toss in the zucchini and the chicken. Then season with the basil, salt & pepper. Give everything a stir so that the chicken starts to cook and gets seasoned.

When the chicken is just about cooked through toss in the tomatoes, and let them start to cook down - after about 2 minutes gently stir the mushrooms in too.

Pour in the wine and the chicken broth and bring the liquid to a simmer.

Now it's time to carefully add the pasta - (if your pasta has clumped together and cooled you can pour some boiling water over it and give a gentle stir to loosen and separate the noodles.)

Stir everything together, adjust seasoning as needed and make sure that the pasta heats through.

Even more exciting than the pasta was the dessert I put together. A while back a friend gave me a chocolate chip pound cake recipe which I tried but wasn't exactly thrilled with the results, I also tried another recipe (provided by the ever awesome www.tastespotting.com) but more than half of it ended up feeding Mr. TrashCan. A few weeks ago I found yet another chocolate chip pound cake recipe and decided to give it a spin. (Well - with a few personal tweaks for the heckofit.)

See those knife marks in the ganache? Yeah - that's a sign of gooood ganache (and for the record I didn't do it - it was the boys - I swear!) Anywho - I baked up this beauty in my 6 cup bundt pan (this recipe amount would probably make about 1 loaf if you don't have a cute little bundt.)

I tweaked the recipe from kosher camambert's blog - as she said it's not a light and fluffy cake, it's nice and dense, but it's also delicious and moist! I actually mixed 1/3 of the batter with cocoa powder and spread it on top of the white layer - it baked up gooey and almost brownie-like.

Marbled-ish Chocolate Chip Cake:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup margarine

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk (I actually used pareve cream - like Rich's whip)

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cocoa powder (optional - noted in recipe...)

1/2-1 cup chocolate chips (does anyone actually measure these?!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F
Cream the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla too.
Combine the flour and baking powder then mix half of the dry ingredients into the batter.
Add the milk/cream and beat until just combined.
Mix in the rest of the flour.
(Optional - at this point you can move about 1/3 of the batter into a small bowl and beat the cocoa powder in until well combined.)
Stir in the chocolate chips. (If you opted to 'marble' the cake make sure to add chips to both parts!)
Spread batter into greased/floured pan (I put the yellow in first then carefully spread the chocolate on top of it.)

Bake for 30 mins, then lower oven temperature to 350F and bake an additional 8-10 minutes.
It's done when it passes the 'toothpick test' and a toothpick inserted carefully into the center comes out cleanly. (Just don't go poking any chocolate chips!) Pull it out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

If you're into ganache (which I am - very very much so...)
Heat up 1/4 cup heavy cream and chop up 100 grams of bittersweet chocolate. When the cream is nice and warm dump the chocolate in and stir like the dickens until you've got a beautiful, satiny puddle of chocolate. Let the ganache cool (stir occasionally so that it doesn't start to set up) and when it's thickened up a bit (which happens as it cools) drizzle it artistically over the top of your cake. Let it run down the sides and pool in the middle and when you're done be sure to lick the pot and the spatula - because the thought of wasting ganache makes me oh so sad!

All in all I'm pretty much sold on this cake. (Though I will do one experimental run with soy-milk/oil and see how that affects the texture - because really I'm too lazy to take the mixer out to make cakes in the middle of the week. And after that I'll also do an almond milk & barley flour test to see if it can be made Fructose-Friendly for those unfortunates who suffer.) Still, it's good to have to add to my ever-growing recipe collection.

Best part - it's got the boys stamp of approval. How do I know? Well - they DID eat more than half of it...

Attraversiamo...

2012-01-08T23:05:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday night turned into an impromptu 'game night' - and since it was post-fast I felt doubly-responsible to make a good dinner. Only catch was that the guys would be getting home at around 5:30 and I had an appointment from 4-5. Thankfully I'm resourceful and realized that if I made dinner early and popped it into the oven when I left the house that I could set the whole oven on a timer so that it would turn on and heat the food and then it would be ready on time! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Anywho we had mac-n-cheese (though the noodles were weird and soaked up a lot of the sauce) and I even found enough tomato vegetable soup (and oatmeal rolls) in the freezer to feed everybody.

In case you were wondering (and in the more likely event that you weren't) my appointment was with the dr/nurse and I'm pleased to announce that my blood-pressure is gold-standard 110/70 and that I've managed to gain a whopping 10 lbs in 5 weeks! (Yes, this IS cause for much rejoicing and celebration.)

Friday morning Z convinced me to drive into town with him to pick up the last of the groceries. He then pushed his luck and begged for me to take him to the 'industrial area' to buy that 'good' chumus from the chumusia! While we were there he also suggested stopping at the bakery to pick up some 'taste-treats' (pastries) for breakfast. It was a good thing that I wanted some borekas because we bumped into friends of ours and ended up having a delightful shmooze!

Cooking for Shabbos didn't take very long - and by the time candle-lighting rolled around I was tired but everything was finished so all was good. Sara slept by us and Z's friend Shoham joined us for the Friday night meal. We played a whole lot of Cities&Knights and had a really entertaining night which ended on the super-late side. Shabbos day flew by too (probably because we were so busy playing Cities&Knights.

Sunday was a pretty boring day (though Z was kind enough to change the sheets - which was really awesome because there's nothing quite as great as clean sheets after a hot shower.) I spent an enjoyable hour 'skyping' with some adorable kiddos (and their awesome mother) and counted down until 8:30pm when I got to head across town for the first official book-club meeting. People always think I'm so quiet and shy because I don't tend to talk unless I've actually got stuff to say - but man oh man I had a lot to say about this book - not good and not bad - just a collection of chatter that accumulated in my noggin while I was reading my way through it. The nicest part of book-club was the 'socializing' aspect. I tend to feel highly antisocial living on the 'far' side of town - not intentionally - it just happens to be that we tend to entertain people at our house quite often (as if you couldn't tell) and opportunities to 'get out' don't manifest as regularly as could be hoped for. Point being - I'm really happy to have a reason to get out once a month and hang out!

"Excuses are for people who need them..."

2012-01-04T22:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a pretty laid-back kind of day aside from the whole 6:30am wake-up so you can go get a long-winded blood-test done thing. As a reward for finally getting the blood-work done I stopped off at the fruit&veggie seller and bought myself 1/2 kilo of strawberries because the price was (finally) right. (It's kind of fun that strawberry season on this side of the world is in the dead-of-winter.)

I was home by 9:30 and I didn't do much of anything. Well - I did mix up a batch of 24-hour-pizza-dough (more on that later.) I also impressed myself by washing the pareve and dairy dishes! (How awesome am I?!)

Later in the afternoon I helped out a friend by taking her to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth removed (no fun to have done and especially no fun to have to go alone.) On the way back to her dorm (she was still all numbed up) so I insisted that we stop and pick up some ice cream for her to enjoy when the '2-hour-post-op-period' was over.

Dinner was mini-pastel from the freezer and really delicious mashed-potato-puffs while watching some pointless comedy.

This morning I woke up on the earlier side and Z was amazing and brought me my toast with butter and jam in bed. (Heehee, how sweet? Ok - truth be told he's been doing it every day for the last 3 months or so - but today I feel like boasting about it.)

When I was feeling up to it I shlepped myself out of bed and decided that today was the day that I found a way to use the 2 red-grapefruits that have been sitting in the fruit bowl for just a bit too long. A quick internet search led me to some citrus-y type cupcakes. I tweaked the recipe (used oil instead of butter, used slightly less zest, used soymilk, and made 1.5 batches using 2 medium eggs.) I also double-dipped the tops into the glaze made from powdered sugar and grapefruit juice and ended up with the perfect muffin. They were tangy and refreshing. Decidedly citrusy but not too sweet. And 4 out of 12 were missing by the time I went to put them away in the freezer a few hours later...

Game-night on Monday had been cancelled on account of a BIG studio presentation that the guys are working on. Z asked if they could maybe possibly come tonight and I said I didn't mind. (After all - that's why we buy pasta when it's on sale!) I baked a 1/2-batch of this peanut butter chocolate chip coffee cake (in an 8" round pan - and used oil instead of butter because I was too lazy to melt anything.) for 'just in case' they actually came - figuring that even if only 1 slept over it would be a nice breakfast for in the morning.

But I warned Z that even if the guys were coming that they wouldn't be arriving until 9pm and that I was still planning on making the thin crust pizza that I'd prepped the dough for yesterday for dinner at around 6pm. I even went ahead and made the tomato sauce listed in the recipe (though I had to peel/seed my own tomatoes because I didn't have any in a can.)

If you are looking for pizzeria perfection (in the comfort of your own home, for a fraction of the cost, even if you don't have a pizza peel or a pizza stone...) then THIS is the recipe you need to try. It had that awesome thin crust - crispy on the bottom but that awesome chewy-gooey stuff under the cheese. I went easy on the sauce (as indicated in the original post - it was quite potent) and ALL the taste was there but without the mouth-filling gloppiness that you get from marinara sauce - it really let the flavor of the crust and the cheese shine without being drowned out in the least bit! I was SO impressed - but I'm not the gauge by which we measure such things. What do I mean? Well, we always look to Z for a comment on the matter. In this instance the fact that he devoured his crusts sealed the issue (he NEVER eats the crusts. Not even when he's really really really hungry!)

Ok - so it's true - you can't just decide to make this particular pizza on the spur of the moment, or even that morning - it requires some forethought - but considering that the dough can stay in the fridge for up to 3 days... well, I'm all in favor of making it for 'just in case' you decide you want pizza one day that week! I love that the whole affair comes together in the food processor (dough and sauce) and I am a HUGE fan of the whole 'no-knead' philosophy (because it seems impossible and implausible but it really works!) And anyway - according to the original post you can freeze this miraculous stuff and so long as you pull it out in the morning you CAN enjoy pizza any day!

I really should have taken pictures of everything (because the citrus flecked muffins were gorgeous, the coffee cake belonged in a bakery and the pizza was a work of art) but I was super-lazy today and didn't even take out my camera until the second pizza came out of the oven - and by that point all we could think about was the torture of waiting 5 whole minutes before cutting into it in order to devour it - crust and all.

Mind you - I found the space somewhere in me to enjoy some ice cream for dessert. Because after all - the only appropriate thing to follow incredibly good pizza is ridiculously tasty ice cream...

PitaButterJellyTime!

2012-01-02T21:10:00.000+02:00

Yay for my little corner of the blogosphere where I can publish my daily achievements and feel like I managed to accomplish something (aside from setting a new world record for most consecutive hours spent in bed watching tv...)

Today I woke up ridiculously early - I was supposed to go get a blood-test done at 7:15am - but turns out they changed the lab hours (again) and they weren't even open today.

I didn't mean for today to be quite so productive - but my over-sensitive nose and unsettled stomach couldn't handle the lingering scents of 'people' and 'everyday living' that were permeating the apartment. I ended up showering, pampering my feet a little, changing the sheets (which meant washing the dirty linens, which meant filling the loads so by default meant washing the small amount of laundry that had accumulated since Thursday. Then since the machines were going and I was on a roll I figured I might as well wash the floor-mats which I'd been meaning to wash for the last two months or so...) Like a crazy person I opened the windows/doors and let in the frigid outside air. Sure it was cold as it brought the indoor temperature down from 57F to 52F but hey - it got rid of the stench - which made my nose happy and helped to settle my stomach.

When my nausea abated I realized I was in the mood for some lunch - so I cooked up a batch of baked ziti. Since I was in the kitchen anyway I cleared off the draining racks and put away all of the dishes. Z came Home for lunch between classes and was surprised to be treated to a 'real' lunch. There was even enough to pack up 2 servings for lunch for tomorrow - so the boys have what to take with them to eat on their 'long' Tuesday in school.

I spent the majority of the afternoon being lazy and hiding out in the office (because the heater was on and it was toasty in there.)

I even decided to make dinner (cause I'm just tooooo nice sometimes) yellow rice and oven-baked honey-mustard shnitzel. It came out of the oven just as the boys walked in and it smelled quite good - I'm hoping it tastes good too (even though I know the flavors of the rice and the the marinade don't quite jive... I know I know - I'm such a food-snob.)

And in other news - Z has informed me that he suffers from an affliction known as 'pregnancy brain'... Anybody else wondering when he's due?

I'm Not a Welder...

2012-01-01T23:17:00.004+02:00

Last Thursday turned out to be a crazy busy day. I managed to cook most of Shabbos before going to sleep and was quite pleased with myself. (Read: grinning ear to ear when I passed out for the night from sheer exhaustion.)

Friday morning was relatively relaxing. I woke up early and prepped everything for the quiche. Z assembled it and put it into the oven while I was out with Sara. We went out to run a couple of errands. I got home just in time to pull the quiche out of the oven. Then I scrubbed the stovetop and countertop until they sparkled.

It was amazing to have everything cooked nice and early - it really makes the day much more enjoyable. There was even time to clean the calcium-build-up out of the urn (using the old 'boil it with vinegar' trick) before filling it with clean water and setting it up for Shabbos.

Our guests (Feige & Ephraim) arrived on the early side but that was alright - I pulled a freshly baked tray of potato borekas out of the oven for everyone to snack on (since there were still a little over 2 hours until Shabbos.) Thankfully all of the cleaning and prep was done so we were all able to relax until it was time to light candles.

Sara joined us for the meals, we played a couple of games of Settlers and a lot of shmoozing took place.

All in all a very nice Shabbos.

Menu included:

Friday Night: chumus, instant-pickle-slices, roasted garlic, chicken soup with matzah balls, 'regular' roasted chicken, couscous, apple kugel (1/4 recipe), streusel topped sweet potatoes, green beans with garlic & basil olive oil

Shabbos Lunch: chumus, roasted cherry tomatoes and garlic, instant-pickle-slices, sliced veggies, lettuce-salad (add-your-own-toppings), citrus glazed salmon, tomato onion cheese quiche, 'Israeli salad', oriental pasta salad, chickpea salad

Desserts: brownies with chocolate ganache frosting, chocolate babka

Today was super-boring until around 8:20pm when Z 'suddenly remembered' that he had to build a model of the project that he'd spent the day working on. Suffice it to say - I cut, folded and glued many things. 3 hours later it's not quite done yet but I'm thinking I'll go to sleep anyway. I've done my part.

In exciting news - the FamBily is back from MerryCa and we're happy they're Home safe & sound!

100 - For anyone who is counting...

2011-12-28T22:10:00.001+02:00

Busy morning.

Menu for Shabbos is figured out.

Z had a driving lesson.

We went to Yesh and shopped as though the grocery stores are all shutting their doors forever.

Unpacked all the groceries and reorganized the kitchen pantry.

Reorganized the 'food pantry' in the guest-room.

Lazy afternoon.

Watched TV.

'Window Shopping' online.

Snacking & eating & snacking & eating & noshing & eating.

I managed to drink a little over 2 liters of water today - that's probably gonna haunt me all night long...

Boring night.

Z is having another 'studio crisis' - where he wasted the 1st half of semester on a project but didn't show the teachers until this past Monday and they hated it so now it's been scrapped and he's back to square 1. Which means a boring lonely night for me while he pulls and all-nighter and gets progressively more frustrated. (Doesn't that sound like fun?!)

Maybe I should have washed the dishes since I need to cook for Shabbos tomorrow and if I have to wake up in the morning and do the dishes I'll lose all willpower to actually cook and then be a wreck on Friday.

Oh man - things just got complicated.

Chopsticks!!!

2011-12-27T17:10:00.000+02:00

Today was an exceptionally boring day - but strangely enough it flew by very quickly. It might have had something to do with going to sleep at 2am - or rather, getting into bed at 2am but not being able to fall asleep until almost 3... Then a tiny 'cha-cha' feeling deep in my tummy woke me up at a little before 7am insisting that it was breakfast time.

I figured you'd be more interested in the goodies I cooked for last night's party than in the pics of Z and his crazy friends. (I have yet to make it into one of the pictures - but I'm still trying.) As I wrote about - the donuts had a delicious taste (imparted by the nutmeg in the dough is my guess.) The dulce de leche didn't firm up like it has the last 3 times I made it (though I cooked it for the same 3 hours...) so it was very liquidy (but that didn't stop anyone from filling up their donuts with it.) And I'll be using the leftovers in brownies, on ice cream and in a cake or two as well...

And the latkes - I could cry tears of joy about the amazingness that was the latkes. Never before have I made such fluffy, airy, delicious latkes. Since Z & I differ on the correct consistency for latkes - I was a super-nice-wife and made 2 (full) separate batches - one batch with 'processed' potatoes and the second batch with 'shredded' potatoes. My food processor made the whole shebang move along very smoothly and the hardest part was probably squeezing the liquid out of the potatoes&onions (which I did through a clean kitchen-towel). The seasoning was perfect - freshly ground '4 season' pepper and the perfect amount of salt so that it wasn't discernible as saltiness but rather just enough to bring out all of the flavor in the puffs of deliciousness.

Did I mention that I scooped them with a 1 Tablespoon ice-cream-scoop? (You should know by now how much I love that thing!) so there were A LOT of latkes. (Just to give you an idea of how many - when the whole family was in The Sun House for Shabbos two weekends ago The Crazy Lady made a triple batch of latkes for 10 of us - and had in mind that everyone was eating them as pre-dinner snack and then again at the meal... I made a double batch and there were only going to be 7 people eating them after bread and soup.) So you can understand why I wasn't sure that they'd actually be eaten and I worried about the quantity of leftover I was likely to be 'stuck with' at the end of the night.

However - I knew they'd been a success when they were still being noshed on as the remaining 10 were carried to the kitchen and even as they sat on the counter waiting to be put away people were coming in to sneak another one or two...

Tomorrow is Wednesday which means Z will be 'on the road' for a few hours (so keep off the sidewalks) and when he gets Home we'll go out and do the grocery shopping so that I can cook for Shabbos on Thursday. This week I'm really hoping to get the vast majority of my cooking done on Thursday because lately I've been procrastinating until Friday and the stress is just not worth it. Also - I've got a date with Sara on Friday morning - which means there just won't be time to get everything done.

I guess that means I should ~~finalize~~ figure out my menu for the weekend...

Watch Your Mouse!

2011-12-26T23:59:00.000+02:00

I'm a little behind, I know. But truthfully speaking there's not much to report.

Z & I spent our first quiet Shabbat together at Home since Before Rosh Hashana. It was highly enjoyable.

Sunday was boring. But today made up for it. Monday night game night + chanukah party! The game crew guys, the (sometimes) gaming-girl, and Sara all came up the mountain for the occasion!

On the menu were:

Carrot soup, no knead bread, fresh latkes (grated texture or smooth texture depending on which you like), homemade sufganyot (with homemade 'from scratch' dulce-de-leche to fill them with if you were so inclined) and decorated chanukah sugar cookies.

Z's alcoholic treat of the night was home-brewed bloody marys. The guys summed them up perfectly by describing them as, "frozen pizza in a cup" - next time we'll use smaller cups, but everyone seemed to enjoy them.

Here are some pics so you don't think I'm making things up...

Happy 7th night/day everybody!!!

Squishy & Huggable!

2011-12-22T19:38:00.000+02:00

I shlepped myself out of bed today for one reason and one reason only... I really really really wanted to bake my sugar cookies!

These are decorated in tribute to my very favorite donuts from Bagel Nosh in Lakewood - and yeah - I mean the cake-y ones.

I didn't really do any of the cooking for shabbos on account of the fact that I spent all day rolling/baking/icing sugar cookies. Though I have to admit I did spend a while video-chatting with Phil (we watched snow fall for a good 10 minutes...) but we decided to end the call so that she could go make some sugar cookies of her very own. Even Freddie made cookie dough (that she and Mr. Freddie will bake together tomorrow. Aren't they just so cute?!)

For dinner we pulled a container of tomato-vegetable soup out of the freezer. I added some extra chickpeas and we cooked it down a bit then enjoyed it over couscous.

We actually had quite a delightful evening. We lit the candles and sang the songs, then we got our meal together and enjoyed it while watching Kung Fu Panda 2. (For a ridiculous movie it's got some pretty good lessons to teach. Heck, I'm now actively searching for inner-peace.)

The fuzzies have their gelt, a huge pot of beef stock is lightly-simmering away on the stovetop, the cookies are ready for shabbos...

What more do we need?

Happy 3rd night everybody and happy almost 25th toooooo!!!

Eating the Squished Tree...

2011-12-21T21:26:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was kind of crazy. The phone rang off the hook (both of them), people came to the door, people wanted e-mail responses... I haven't been in contact with so many people by so many means in ages! It was so weird!

I did find some time to hang up the Chanuka decorations and get the menora out. But by the time the official candle-lighting time rolled around Z was nowhere to be found... Turns out he completely forgot it was the first night of Chanuka. So much for google-calendar and his ipod organizing his life... I got a good laugh about it (in retrospect) though I was far from amused last night as I sat home alone waiting for him to get back from school.

Since last night was such a 'bust' I decided that today should be a super-fun day. I woke up early and forced Z to make me a fancy breakfast. (Ok, 2 breakfasts - but who's counting?!) Then at 11:30ish I made my way across town to Yael's house. We hung out (for the first time in ages!) and actually ended up baking cutout cookies for the shul Chanuka party.

When all of the cookies were baked (and stacked according to shape - because I'm a little obsessive about stuff like that) we said our 'see ya soon's and 'let's not wait ages to do this again's and I headed off to 'town'. I picked up the few things that I needed for Shabbos then drove back up the mountain.

Z was Home when I got there and he was such a gentleman - he came down to the car to meet me and then carried up all of the groceries!

On account of him being so awesome I figured I owed him a nice dinner - but we were out of french fries. So I experimented and made something new. I sliced potatoes into wide rounds then tossed them with a mixture of: salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, parsley flakes, flour, breadcrumbs and olive oil. Then I baked them until they were crispy and delicious. They turned out much better than I'd anticipated (and I thought I'd come up with something brilliant - but then I found out that one of the kids-cookbooks actually has a recipe for something very similar.) Ah well - nothing new under the sun - but darn they were tasty!

So we lit our candles and sang the traditional songs and played with the stuffed animals (cause that's tradition too) then Z got to feast on broiled-tilapia fillets and spice-encrusted-potato-chips while we watched an episode of Good-Eats dedicated to grilling pizza. (Now I really really really really want to grill pizza...)

Tomorrow is going to be a busy but laid-back day. I already mixed up a batch of cookie dough of my very own and am looking forward to baking more sugar cookies - for the fun of it! Then I'll probably bake the challah for Shabbos and maybe even make the soup and quiche. Who knows - maybe I'll manage to organize something or other while I'm at it! (Wouldn't that be industrious of me? Hehehe...)

Anyway - wishing everyone a bright second night and a joyful second day of the Festival of Lights!

Popcorn Bucket...

2011-12-20T00:02:00.000+02:00

Fambily weekend in The Sun House was highly enjoyable and successful. I managed to get all of my baking done on Thursday (2 'big' babkas, 3 'small-ish' babkas and way over a hundred chocolate chip cookies...) We packed up most of the goodies and sent them to 'deep-freeze' so that the parentals could shlep them 'fresh' across the ocean for the Fambily over there.

One small babka turned into a birthday cakes with a little help from some sparkly toothpicks and we all partook of latkes fresh from the frying pan!

Saturday night was uneventful and Sundays adventure included wishing parts of the family a safe and enjoyable trip across the pond and driving back to the-middle-of-nowhere. (Funnily enough the drive seems to get shorter and shorter - except for when you get stuck behind those reeeeeallllly slooooooow trucks...)

I kept myself busy today. I've finally been 'accepting' graphics work in a relatively steady flow (good for preventing boredom and good for filling the bank...) Anywho - today I worked on projects for 2 clients. The more exciting project was a wedding invitation (which I really seem to enjoy laying-out.) The fun part was that the client wanted a column of cute little illustrations - which meant I got to play around in Illustrator for most of the day - which made me very very happy.

I also managed to do 3 loads of laundry (washed/dried/folded/put away) and I unpacked the suitcase from Shabbos. And just because I'm super-nice I even sliced up some veggies and made some pasta with garlic cream sauce for Z to enjoy for dinner.

Now I'm pretty much exhausted so I think I'll go to sleep. I hope I sleep through the night. That would be awesome!

V-Day!!!

2011-12-17T21:43:00.000+02:00

Some pictures from our weekend away...

Hail the Red Hat with Flaps!

2011-12-15T08:35:00.003+02:00

Hello world! Popping in to say 'hi' and 'I'm still alive' and 'I'm much happier today than I was last time I posted'...Sorry for leaving such a sour post up for so many days without an update.

Thankfully the non-physical issues that were exacerbating the stress/anxiety were sorted out between Monday and Tuesday. Including the final transaction required to secure our ownership of a gorgeous 820sq meter lot of land in The Holy Land!!!

Then I actually got a nice 6 hour stretch of sleep on Tuesday night which left me well-rested-enough to be able to drive down to The Sun House on Wednesday afternoon. The drive was actually very pleasant - especially because I downloaded some new music to listen to!

When we got to The Sun House our first stop was at S&S's house. It was wonderful to see them and as an added bonus we got to see Aunt Sharon too! I shared a tiny bit of chocolate with Z, some with Mean'ma and a whole lot of it with Jellybean - who seemed quite content with the awesome treat.

Our next stop was SuperH where we ran amok (~amok amok~) and found a lot of fun stuff (bring on the cow, bring on the sauce and a YoAbba?!)

Back at The Fambily House we put away the groceries and had an all-around good time. Dinner was lightly herbed salmon with seasoned olive oil and pasta with roasted garlic tomato sauce.

Phil came Home from sheirut leumi for dinner because she had worked a 'morning shift' (did I ever mention that she's working in the same machlaka (ward) at Shaarei Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem that Freddie worked in a couple of years ago? How cute is that?!) Anywho - she made awesome barley-flour chocolate chip cookie bars for dessert. (YUM!)

I guess the exhaustion from the beginning of the week hit me because for the 2nd night in a row I slept like a 'log' (well, I got up once but only for about 2 minutes because my bladder refused to be ignored. Heehee, sorry if that was too many details.)

Now it's Thursday and there's tons to do! Appointment up in RBS, baking babka and cookies for loves across the pond (and for Shabbos), errands to run and most importantly ice cream to eat!!!

Now I'm all 'pumped' up and excited to get things done!

(Usually) I love mornings!

~ R A N T ~

2011-12-12T02:24:00.000+02:00

My little corner of the universe means MY place to share the thoughts in MY head. If you don't like it STOP reading - but don't you dare read and complain.

I'm lying awake at 2 in the morning (again) because I'm in excruciating pain and nauseous beyond belief.

So I'm thinking to myself - it's kind of ironic that people ask how you're feeling but don't actually give a hoot what the answer actually is. Oh yeah - and even when they insist that they want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth - they really don't. They just want to think that your life is full of rainbows and puppies and kittens and all sorts of happy flowery good-feelings and stuff.

Well - you know what?! Even though it might be beneficial for me to pretend to everyone in the outside world that everything is hunky-dory it isn't.

That's just the depressingly annoying truth.

Sure there's tons of good stuff going on - but it doesn't negate or outweigh the bad stuff that I'm dealing with.

Quick List of the physical 'bad stuff' I'm trying to work through:
Extreme nausea (for going on 6 months - and yes - I AM medicated, but it doesn't really help much), a return of all fructose-symptoms (including the nasty rashes, insomnia, lack of energy, severe eczema, and digestive issues - but I'm still unable to stomach protein such as eggs/meat - so going back on 'the diet' is out of the question because I won't be able to get the right vitamins/minerals or even consume enough carbs/calories in a day), my pelvis is quite literally falling apart (physical therapy and orthopedist referrals in my possession but it's too hard to drive 40 minutes to see a dr) - and there's more but I won't bore you with the nitty-gritty details.

All I'll say is that I KNEW my body hated me and that's why I pushed certain things off for a few years - but stupidly I charged ahead when things were finally feeling good/stable assuming that things would sort themselves out and for some (not so hard to understand) reason - at this point I'm regretting my decision. A lot.

Also - I'm sick of being told that I'm a wuss and a cry-baby because I'm feeling this way. Pain is REAL people - and it would be nice if you could be sympathetic at the very least! Maybe I don't have your super-hero complex or your impossibly high pain-threshold - but when I am hurting it is a VERY real pain to me - so have some mercy and stop comparing me to my sister / your other friend / yourself / a cat that's been run over 3 times but is not quite dead yet.

If I've neglected to call you to thank you for sending me things I wasn't expecting that I only found out about while discussing a different topic with somebody then I'm sorry. If I've forgotten to return your call because I was sleeping at some seemingly 'early' hour then I'm sorry. If I've forgotten your birthday or anniversary I'm sorry. If I've neglected to come and worship at your feet (because I have enough trouble trying sit up - let alone kneel down) then I sincerely apologize.

15 minutes of typing and I don't actually feel any better. Go figure...

At this point in the game I'd usually just delete this entire post, put the computer down, turn over and stare at the wall until the sun comes up in a few hours - then when tomorrow has blossomed into a new day I'd go back to pretending that everything is juuuuuust dandy.

However - on this super-special occasion - I think I'll post this anyway - because it's 2:24 in the morning (again) and I'm sick of being awake at this ridiculous hour.

If you're 'expecting' a call from me today/tomorrow (whatever date you want to call it) it'll have to wait. I've got to spend a few hours on the road (probably mostly spent in agony/nausea and a relentless wave of puking thanks to the vicious motion-sickness that has intensified to a debilitating level) all to go to the bank to deal with something ridiculously stupid that should be able to be dealt with in a simple fax but which this country insists on making 40x harder than it needs to be.

In short - I'll try to call in the afternoon - if I'm still functional.

And if it sounds like I've been crying - that's because I have been.

Dinner Fries

2011-12-10T19:03:00.001+02:00

Friday was quite the busy day - seeing as I had to do ALL of the cooking for Shabbos - because I'd been toooooo lazy to get anything done on Thursday.

I decided to go 'all-out' with the challah and kneaded up 1/2 a batch of dough. Z could only locate 1 'challah-pan' so I ended up shaping 3 loaves and only making 1 chocolate babka. (probably a good thing because if there had been a second one available I probably would have eaten the entire thing myself.)

Abe joined us which was really nice. We hadn't seen him in a while. The weather was cold but the food and company were good - so it all balanced out.

Friday night: chumus, matbucha, meatball minestrone soup, coucous, jersey chicken & green beans.

Shabbos lunch: chumus, matbucha, 'build-your-own' sweet-salad, sliced vegetables, 'the drs' dry-rubbed chicken, potato kugel & kasha varnishkas.

Dessert: blondies (leftover from Wednesday night) and the most delectable chocolate babka I've ever made.

Why did I never think of using chocolate-spread in babka before?! I smear on a thin-layer of chocolate spread then sprinkled some walnuts and chocolate chips and a final dusting of cinnamon - then I rolled it up, twisted it and baked it with a delicious brown sugar crumb topping. It made oneheckuva mess in the oven as it oozed and grew - but man oh man - it rivaled the taste of chocolate babka from any bakery I've ever tasted.

Jump Bump - Jump!

2011-12-08T21:07:00.001+02:00

Tuesday was a boring 'do-nothing' day. Well - that's not entirely true. I spent Tuesday designing receipt booklets and a stamper for my 'little business' - now I will have fancy receipts to give out instead of the silly little generic ones I've been using until now.

Wednesday was relatively laid-back and quiet. Ora & Shlomo came over for dinner which was really nice. We hadn't seen them in a while so it was good to catch up. I served tossed salad, a hearty tomato vegetable soup and a loaf of amazingly delicious cheddar cheese bread. For dessert we ate blondies (kept warm in the oven) served over french-vanilla ice cream. In a word - scrumptiousness.

This morning started off on the early-side. I headed into 'town' at a 8:45am so I could get some of the grocery shopping done before meeting up with the newly-begun English-book-club. I had to go to 4 different stores to find the ingredients for the super special treat that I'm making Z for Shabbos - meatball minestrone soup.

I didn't actually get much accomplished today - too tired and nauseous (and cold and lazy - but who's counting?) I did 3 loads of laundry and cooked up the (dried) beans for the soup. Thankfully the only labor-intensive parts of Shabbos cooking are the challah and the soup - so hopefully it won't take too long to get everything done tomorrow. I've also decided to multi-task on the challah/dessert front and make 2/3rds of the dough into challah and the last 1/3rd into a chocolate babka. Ta-da! Brilliant! Right?!

In very happy news I bought coca-cola 'flavored' gummy worms today.

In even more heartwarming news - Z made dinner tonight (well, he made most of it anyway) - he pan-seared thin chicken cutlets (seasoned with garlic olive oil, salt & pepper), then he turned the leftover baked potatoes (from Monday night) into crash(smash)-baked-potatoes. I finally got around to cooking that cauliflower I bought last week as 'popcorn cauliflower' and it was amazingly delicious (as usual) and for some 'color' we added a bit of tossed salad (man it's nice to have washed lettuce in the fridge!) I think it was probably the most healthful meal I've eaten in a long while - at least it felt that way. (Maybe that's because it was the first time in a few months that the thought of eating chicken didn't seem revolting to me...)

Other adventures of the day included: almost throwing out the oven-mitts, creative uses for a popcorn bucket, the search for spinach, buying bones, many tiny kicks and more.

Somehow in my life even the boring days are exciting...

Jollybean!

2011-12-05T22:39:00.001+02:00

Super fun day today! Definitely more sociable than the last 2 days were. Aviva came to visit and restock her tv-collection.We shmoozed and had a great couple of hours. Then Z came Home for a break between classes and we worked on the house-plans together for a bit.

It was chilly in the kitchen until I turned on the ovens and I actually enjoyed being 'in the swing of' the baking. I didn't get around to the muffins today - but I did wash almost all of the dishes and made a pretty incredible dinner so I feel decidedly productive.

It's kind of a shame that the guys brought assorted beers last week - because they would've gone ridiculously well with tonight's 'super-bowl-party' themed dinner. Though - the plum wine that came with them this week smelled heavenly and amazing!

Speaking of dinner - I tested out 3 news recipes (who better to try them out on than hungry guys?)

Tossed salad - Perfectly seasoned baked potatoes - ('mildly' charif) Baked buffalo wings - Pretzel rolls - Pink lemonade to drink and some of these incredibly delicious cinnamon roll bites for dessert.

No pictures because it was dark by the time everything was ready to eat and then the guys got Home and then the food was all gone.

Crazy how that happens!

Crazy Bear?

2011-12-05T08:55:00.001+02:00

This morning I 'woke-up' after a fitful night of many tiny naps.

Z was kind enough to go and make some breakfast for me.

While he was in the kitchen getting the food ready Toffee started poking my stomach and screaming at the top of his fuzzy lungs "breakfast is coming! settle down in there!"

Yup - completely normal start to the day...

---------------------------------------------------------

I've got to figure out what to make for dinner. It's boys-night, so it needs to be enough for the gang-of-4. I want to make it early and then be able to leave it in the oven to keep warm while I go out to a "Hapoel Tel Aviv" basketball game on the other side of town for about an hour and a half...the issue is the overlap time - I'll be out from 7-8:30ish, and they'll probably get here at 9ish...

I'm also thinking that today is a perfect day to bake muffins. (I really love muffins!) I'm thinking double chocolate with peanut-butter chips (or swirl), and those sugar-coated 'donut muffins' that so many people keep talking about... Gosh I hope I have enough milk!

I have GOT to get out of bed today! Really though!

Woohoo Twenty-Two!!!!!!!

2011-12-02T12:01:00.001+02:00

Crazy fun girls shabbos planned for this weekend...

Menu -

Friday Night: roasted garlic, chumus, matbucha, chicken soup with matzah balls, Sara Schapiro's sesame chicken, green beans with garlic olive oil, couscous

Shabbat Lunch: roasted garlic & cherry tomatoes, chumus, pickles, Israeli salad, chickpea salad, eggplant parmesan, baked penne with roasted vegetables, carrot kugel, mini corn muffins, tossed salad with sweet dressing

Seudah Shlishit / Afternoon-tea: leftover salads, sliced veggies with spreads

Dessert: Devil's Food (Belated) Burpday Cupcakes topped with Pillowy Soft Mocha Frosting, Root Beer Float Cookies

Wishing everyone a Shabbat Shalom and a wonderful weekend!!!

Jellybean Likes Jam?

2011-12-01T23:18:00.001+02:00

Tuesday was super-boring aside from a nightmarish blood-test in the morning that left me black&blue in one arm and nerve-shot in the other. Silly veins ran for their lives when the saw the needle coming...

Wednesday wasn't too exciting either. I went to Yesh (all by myself! Yay for feeling well enough to go places alone!) Back at Home I cooked up 4 liters of chicken stock and puzzled over the Shabbos menu.

Thursday got off to a super-exciting and disgusting start (good thing we bought that popcorn bucket...) 'Spa-time' was the order of the day - so I pampered myself. (Aside from painting my nails - cause it seems silly to waste the time on polish when I'm going to spend hours in the kitchen...) My doctor appointment went really well. Pleased to share that the weight-gaining-effort has been successful this past month! I've made it back to the weight I was at back in June. This is a VERY good thing!

After finishing at the doctor we went to the fruit&vegetable store. I got a bit over-excited and bought clementines, grapes, and an adorable little cauliflower (for lunch tomorrow.)

I pulled a carrot kugel, corn muffins, matzah balls, challot, and matbucha out of the freezer for Shabbos. I also made a nice-sized tray of eggplant parmesan (I actually breaded and oven-fried the eggplant slices!!!) and there was so much eggplant that there was even enough to make a small tray for Z to enjoy for dinner. The last thing I did was bake up a batch of devil's food cupcakes. I'll frost them tomorrow with a dark chocolate frosting. Yum! Chocolate obsessed...

Not to much to get done tomorrow - so I'm hoping that everything will be finished by no later than 12...I wonder if that will actually happen.

I guess we'll find out!

Happy Anniversary Saba&Savta!!!

2011-11-28T22:08:00.001+02:00

After spending a night waking up every 40 minutes in order to turn-over I was awake for the day at 7am.

At around 11:30 I drove a container of chicken soup down to a sick neighbor on the other side of town.

On the way Home I stopped at the grocery store with the express purpose of purchasing some ribat-chalav (caramel) filled sufganyot. They had them on Friday but I refused to buy any before it was officially the month of Kislev. Sadly, the store didn't have any.

Z called when class ended and asked whether the donut-hunt had been successful - I told him that sadly the store hadn't had any in stock. He insisted that I pick him up from the traffic-circle at the bottom of the hill and that we go on a mission to find the elusive ribat-chalav sufganyot. Finally - at the 3rd store we went to we achieved our goal - 2 'mini' caramel filled, 1 'mini' vanilla custard filled and 1 'mini' jelly filled. We left the store happy!

At a little after 6pm Z informed me that the game-night-guys were all gung-ho for their weekly game-night.

"Great," I thought to myself "now I've got to think of something to make for dinner for a gang of 4."

Thankfully I stocked up on pasta at the big sale 2 weeks ago (5 bags for 10 shekel. Does it get any better than that?) I decided that I hadn't made penne a'la vodka in a while - and that's how I chose the main-dish.

I mixed up a batch of 'the usual' pizza dough - the only difference being that I kneaded in some garlic & basil infused olive oil at the very end. After the rise I divided the dough into quarters - 1/4 became a personal-ziti-pizza for me and the rest of the dough became 26 'knots' (which I drizzled with extra oil and sprinkled with salt when they came out of the oven.)

The thing I had the most trouble deciding on was dessert. Originally I wanted to make a babka but time kept ticking by and before I knew it there was no time for dough to rise. I was too lazy for cookies and didn't have the energy to squeeze oranges for juice for a cake. I wasn't in the 'mood' for brownies or blondies - but I did have a container of sour-cream in the fridge that really needed to get used. And that's how I found myself making raspbery rugelach with white chocolate. Next time I'll definitely roll the dough out on powdered sugar for a bit of a flavor-upgrade, but the texture of the pastry was spot-on amazing.

The guys all seemed quite satisfied with the meal, the house smelled amazing and I took that as a sign of success.

Now I'm absolutely exhausted. I've got to get up early tomorrow morning so I guess I'll go to sleep as soon as possible.

Literally - I'm going to hit 'publish' and then fall asleep for the night.

I love having a snack-table next to my bed.

Real Live Puppies!!!

2011-11-27T16:50:00.001+02:00

Shabbos was delightful. We enjoyed our Fakesgiving meal Friday night and 'brunch' for the morning meal was also really delicious. Tonny & Tzivia joined us for the weekend and it was so nice to actually spend time with them.

Friday night: roasted garlic, chumus, matbucha, chicken soup with (super fluffy) matzah balls, whole roasted chicken (I butterflied it and it fit in the pan and oven so much more nicely), sweet potato pie (I added 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to the mixture), mashed potatoes, peas, miniature corn muffins.

Shabbos lunch: roasted garlic & cherry tomatoes, chumus, matbucha, pickles, israeli salad, 'salad bar' (big bowl of lettuce, orange segments, craisins, candied pecans, slivered almonds & sweet dressing), sliced veggies (mushrooms, carrots, 3 colors of peppers), carrot kugel, broiled salmon with citrus glaze, tomato onion cheese quiche.

Dessert: a BIG tray of brownies topped with heavenly chocolate ganache.

We shmoozed until 2am Friday night and I was worried I wouldn't wake up on time in the morning but my bio-clock is wound waaaay too well for 'oversleeping' so I was awake at 7am anyway. I woke Z in time for shul and then read for a while until it seemed late enough to get up and get everything organized for lunch.

We spent all of the afternoon playing 2 intense games of 'Cities & Knights' and somehow I won 2 of the 3 games that we played - though I'm still not sure how it happened.

After our guests left we straightened up the apartment a bit and then decided to watch a movie.

Sunday morning dawned cold and bright. The construction workers arrived at the site to turn on the machines, let them run for a bit then they turned them off and left for the day. I have a funny feeling that not too much construction is actually going to get done over the winter.

I don't have too many plans for the rest of the week. Blood-test Tuesday and an appointment at the dr. on Thursday. Grocery shopping on Wednesday with Z (for Shabbos.) Possibly 'game night' Monday (if the guys don't have to spend all night at their 'hagasha' (presentation).

I've already got a tentative menu plan for this week - but I doubt I'll stick to it.
Sunday: Shabbos leftovers
Monday: Penne A'la Vodka & breadsticks
Tuesday: pulled chicken & tortillas
Wednesday: soup from the freezer (carrot or split pea)
Thursday: little white fishies & seasoned potato wedges

I'm also really excited that Kislev is here! I can't wait to get a sufganya! I've decided to indulge in 2 this year - one in honor of rosh chodesh and one on Channuka. Do you reckon I can stick to the plan and control myself? I'm not so sure...but we'll see how it goes.

Chodesh Tov everyone!!!

Count Roquefort of Cheese...

2011-11-24T19:29:00.001+02:00

I woke up at 7:55 this morning. Which I think sounds like a reasonable hour for a self-employed work-from-home gal to be waking up - but for me that's pretty late - so I was already behind-schedule.

To make up for 'oversleeping' I spent the morning lazing around in bed with the laptop. I did get up and organize the ingredients to bake challah at some point - but I quickly decided that it was too cold to be productive so I got back into bed.

On Thursdays in the early afternoon Z has an hour and a half long break between classes. Usually he comes Home and finds himself some lunch but today I dragged him out to town so that we could pick up the last of the things on my shopping list that I wanted for Shabbos.

Late yesterday afternoon I was informed that since it's Thanksgiving Weekend that it would be very much appreciated if I'd make an appropriate meal-plan for the Friday night meal. I had written up a menu on Sunday but I just tossed it out the window and re-wrote the whole thing.

At 3:45 this afternoon I finally got off my lazy bum and started cooking for Shabbos. Challot, lemonade, pie-crusts, matzah ball batter(?), sweet potato pie, chicken soup and miniature corn muffins - because I know Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving for Z without the cornbread. (What can I say - I guess I do have a soft spot for him in my heart after all and I love to see him happy.)

To indulge my neurosis I rolled the pie crust a drop thinner than usual and mixed up a bit more filling than the recipe called for so that I would have enough to make a tiny-pie in addition to the big one.

After all - we're having guests for Shabbos and there's no way I was going to serve an 'untried' recipe for the very first time...

Ok. Fine. You got me.

I just REALLY wanted some sweet potato pie.

And man oh man - was it good!

< bump > (?)

2011-11-21T21:06:00.001+02:00

Because sometimes you say things and they're so true and so funny at the very same time -

"I used up my white wine in the onion soup for shabbos and now I used up my cheese in dinner. So tomorrow I'll go buy wine so I can add it to the leftover soup and cheese so I can finally make myself my broccoli & mushroom calzones! lol! I have big goals."

Because sometimes things really aren't as simple as they sound -

"the client wants a dove with an olive branch in its mouth, a rainbow that is wide in the middle and narrow at the end makes you think of a circle but isn't shaped like a crescent and 3 words of text (in a line). Also, everything should look 'self-contained' but the image and the text should also be able to be used separately."

Because sometimes the truth is obvious but still needs to be said -

Me to Z: "Minestrone soup & an overstuffed vegetable-pizza-braid for dinner for you and your friends. (And loads of clean socks for your wearing pleasure...) I hope you realize how much I love you."

My earlier post might have made it seem like I was sitting in bed and having a pity-party while beating myself up for not doing anything productive. I just wanted to clarify that the goal of the post was to spur me into action and it sure served its purpose well. I did 4 loads of laundry, changed the sheets on all 4 beds (and washed the linens), scrubbed the guest bathroom clean, washed the shower-rod and hooks in my bathroom and finally changed the shower curtain, sent out a 2nd and 3rd draft of the graphics project I'm working on and phone-conference-d with the client, straightened up the kitchen and the living room and I even made dinner for Z and his friends.

Now it's 9:30pm and I am officially exhausted. Thankfully it's just the guys tonight so I can crash whenever I want. Which is good - cause I'm thinking that 9:45pm would be the perfect bedtime...

Bubbles & Flutters

2011-11-21T08:38:00.001+02:00

Shabbos seems like it was ages ago - even though today is only Monday.

Friday was a busy day. We went out to town (and took Sara with us.) Our yishuv acceptance letter was waiting for us at the post office, we shmoozed with some friends and then we rushed home so that Z would be on time for his driving lesson.

It was super-chilly on Saturday and I was very happy to have the heaters set up on timers to keep the room warm.

All of the food for the weekend came out amazingly delicious. I made 4 recipes from an old blog that I stumbled across and they all came out really well. Chicken paprikash, 2 knish doughs and a cinnamon cake for dessert. There was a ton of other food too - even though it was just the 2 of us - but the most exciting was the onion soup which I made in the tiny 6 cup crock-pot that Freddie gave to me (because it only makes about 2 bowlfuls of soup and that's nowhere near enough for them.)

Sunday was pretty boring. I did the first draft of that graphics work that was waiting for me - and as predicted the client wants it to look 'smooth &shiny' but his logo is awful colors and pointy. Why don't people realize that you can't quite achieve the same look of a cool-wave of gray, green and black if you're stuck working with a wordy logo with a big star in robin's egg blue and creamsicle orange? I'm sure there are other graphic-artists who could come up with better ideas than I'm getting - but I'm kind of lost on this one. I think this will be my last graphics project. I'm seriously considering closing the tik - I know, I only opened it in May so it's been a short run - but the amount of paperwork and money paid to bituach leumi and an accountant just isn't worth it. I should've listened to the other people who 'told me so' before I wasted the time, energy and effort. Well - now I know.

There are so many things that need to get done around the apartment and I'm just not physically feeling up to doing them, even though my brain is desperate to get stuff organized. It's grossing me out that summer-dust is still coating all of the shelves in the house, and that the top of my fridge is a disaster area, and that the bars on my showers are grimy... Heck, the shower curtain in my bathroom ripped and is now knotted to itself to stay up - I have a new one (that I've been meaning to hang for ages) but I just haven't done it. Plus now it's cold so it makes me want to curl up and hibernate instead of cleaning.

Aaaaand this is why I was supposed to be home before RoshHashana and not on 'sick-leave' in The Sun House. Because the 'cleaning weather' passed too quickly and now my house is going to continue to make me nauseous and grossified (is that even a word?!) until the spring comes - and by then I KNOW I won't have the time or energy to clean everything from top-to-bottom. Ugh. So frustrating!!!

Ok - this post is turning into a rant because everything feels like it's spiraling out of control - even though in reality there is barely anything going on. Not that it matters, I barely spend 5 hours out of bed or off of the couch in a week anyway. This is getting REALLY REALLY old.

Bring back the 74-degree weather!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ultimate Productive Procrastination

2011-11-17T19:14:00.001+02:00

Today there were a lot of things that were supposed to get done. I didn't do very many. I was supposed to put together a stationary-set for a client (they finally sent me the information I needed yesterday) but after an hour and a half of fiddling around with it I got frustrated. So far I have 2 envelope-design ideas and 4 letterhead ideas. Personally, I don't like any of them and I'm pretty sure the client won't be thrilled either. Bad news for me. Seriously, bad news. (Especially since he wanted this done - as he put it - "yesterday"...)

I made myself rice for lunch because I just wasn't in the mood to scrub a potato. Doesn't mean I skipped the potatoes though - no - I ate the rice with potato chips. My very favorite way since going FF - and I haven't had that combo in about three and a half months.

Yesterday I was trying to puzzle out my Shabbos menu. It's going to be a quiet weekend here, but we still need food. I got a serious hankering for knishes. As you may remember, I've been searching for 'THE' knish-dough for ages. I'd tried 3 recipes so far (and they were all failures in my book) but I was still far from beaten. The other day I stumbled upon a very cute little food-blog which hasn't been updated since 2009. But the author holds to 'kashrut' (which means no meat&dairy or treif foods) and also means good for me! He had 3 variations of knish dough posted, so I wrote them down and decided to try out 2 of them.

The first recipe turned out this ridiculously flaky pasty dough. It would be amazing for strudel. As a matter of fact - I'm going to make strudel with it. It made darn good knishes but they probably won't be as tasty once they're reheated. I went with a kasha filling (because I love kasha!) I used an egg and some mashed potatoes to hold the insides together. I got 18 out of this first batch - but we gobbled up 9 of them straight out of the oven.

I've been a little overzealous with the measuring lately and have been overestimating amounts quite frequently of late - so there was a lot (and I mean A LOT) of filling left over. That was alright though - because I had a 2nd recipe of dough to try out. I made up the dough but haven't gotten around to shaping the knishes yet - so I'll have to keep you posted on how they turn out...

I had a surprise visitor at around 4:00 which was a lot of fun. I love it when Sara stops by! Especially when I'm having cold lonely days. We entertained ourselves for a while then she had to go back to her dorm to study. (She's quite a studious one nowadays!) But it's ok - we're gonna see her tomorrow, cause we're going to go on a trip into town to pick up the last-minute things for Shabbos. Like more gummy worms and fresh chumus and all that important stuff!

19+5 = Beans

2011-11-16T09:34:00.001+02:00

The days just keep flying by. One might think I was actually busy based on my lack-of-posting. That would be partly accurate. I've been busy sleeping 11 hours every night (does it count if you wake up a zillion times?) and writing proposals for clients (though I'm still waiting for 'go aheads' and information so that I can actually do the projects.)

Last Shabbos was delightfully relaxing. Ayala came alone and we spent the whole weekend reading. Sunday was quiet and boring but I made a lot of progress on the Snoopy hook-rug.

Monday morning I finally finished the snoopy hook-rug (now it just needs to get washed and framed.) Monday night was super-busy - some of the game-crew was scheduled to come over so I had to make dinner. It was quite chilly so I decided on salad, carrot soup and fresh bread. I made up 2 batches of dough and put them to rise just as an insane thunderstorm knocked out power in the whole city. I found some candles, lit them and settled on the couch praying that the power would come back by the time I had to bake the bread. Thankfully a few minutes after shaping the loaves the lights came back so I preheated the oven and baked up a world of deliciousness. Z and 2 friends arrived soaked through-and-through and after drying off they were quite thrilled to sit down to a warm filling meal.

Next time I make this bread I will bake it in 2 loaf pans instead of as one HUGE braided loaf. It was delicious though - light and fluffy but decidedly bread-y. In an attempt to 'change things up' I diced an onion, sauteed it until softened and kneaded it along with all of the oil into the dough. The leftovers of the onion-loaf made an amazing breakfast - toasted with a drop of salted-butter.

Tuesday was an absolute waste of a day. I did nothing. Z washed the dishes though - so at least something got done in the house.

Which brings us to today. Another Wednesday. Z just left for his 5th driving-lesson (out of 28) - he seems to be doing quite well. The sky is gray and angry looking and I'm wondering if another thunderstorm is on the way. I've got to go out to the grocery store at some point - and would definitely rather do that when it's not pouring.

Looking forward to a quiet weekend. Maybe we'll pull out the radiators for the heck of it (since it's been averaging 64F in the apartment this week - and 62F this morning...)

I'm thinking more soup for dinner. Isn't the winter great?

19 Gummy Bears & Jellybeans...

2011-11-10T19:40:00.002+02:00

What I got done today:

- Cooked chicken soup for Shabbos
- Reorganized and cleaned out the freezer
- Took: matzah balls, matbucha and chicken pot pie out of the freezer for Shabbos meals
- Baked a batch of pretty sugar cookies
- Baked a batch of challah
- Made pasta with alfredo sauce for lunch when Z came back from his field-trip
- 4 loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded & put away)
- Taught Z how to make microwave popcorn
- Watched the 2nd half of season 2 of 'The Good Wife'
- Took my vitamins
- Ate enough to feed a small whale for a week (the dr. will be proud)

There's still so much to do tomorrow so I'm freaking out a little even though I know that it will be fine. It's just that Z has his 2nd driving lesson and I really need to go out to town to get some last-minute groceries. I like early Shabbatot much more that late summer Shabbatot but I definitely feel more pressured in the winter.

Wish me luck.

I'm tired already...

2 Tbsps are Perfect

2011-11-09T17:30:00.000+02:00

This morning's official (second) breakfast of champions. (That's me - the champion!) My latest easy food-thing is microwaved baked potatoes. I scrub the tuber really well, then dry it off and poke it a whole lot of times with a fork. Then I throw it into the microwave for 5 minutes on high. When it's done I give it a squeeze to see how much more time it'll need then usually reset the timer and let the box 'zap' the spud for another 2-5 minutes. Today after the first 7 minutes I cut the potato open, put some cheese on top and stuck it back in until the cheese got all bubbly and delicious. Oh yes and I'm a very big fan of cranberry juice - I drink it mixed with seltzer. It's got this delightful sour tang to it that I'm kinda sorta hooked on.

In other news - I have a lot of pretty colored fruits and veggies sitting around and begging to be used. Not quite sure what to make yet - but with Shabbos coming I'm sure I'll come up with some brilliant plans.

Just in case you were wondering where the Pam went - it got a makeover. Instead of short cheap-o looking Pam, now you get tall fancy looking Pam! Isn't that exciting?!

Z loves me. He made a batch of fresh soft pretzels. He makes good doughs because he's got a lot of upper-body-strength. See - sometimes the brawn is more important. Only kidding...or am I?

Frizzie was pleased with the pretzelicious results. We ate 3 of them for fourth-lunch (or maybe it was pre-dinner? It's hard to keep track...)

Tomorrow - cooking for Shabbos. I mixed up a batch of sugar cookie dough today, so I guess I'll have to bake them tomorrow too.

Rugel:Rugelach :: Naah:Naot ?

2011-11-08T13:45:00.000+02:00

I can be a little 'anal' at times. There - I admitted it. Cause you know, it wasn't obvious from the way I make armies of perfectly shaped mini-quiches, or the way I refuse to serve 'messy-looking' cookies, or the way I ~insist~ that all of the peel needs to be off of my potatoes and carrots, or the way I cut out all of the white stuff inside of a pepper... Hehe - I feel like I'm incriminating myself in trying to prove this point.

So - one of my pet-peeves is tomato seeds and skins. I just can't help it. I may have learned to tolerate and even sometimes enjoy the flavor of tomato but the skins and seeds are just unpalatable to me. For the record - me liking tomato is major progress from the days of old wherein presented with a slice of pizza I would immediately grab a napkin and a knife to remove the offending cheese and all traces of anything resembling tomato-ness. Oh yeah - and that time I threw a level5 temper-tantrum because some sauce touched the pasta on my plate. (And now I'm wondering how/why my parents never strangled me...)

Back to the point - today I decided to make tomato soup but I was out of tomato paste. How is one expected to make a smooth and creamy tomato soup without tomato paste? (And what did people used to do before tomato paste came in conveniently measured out little packets anyway?) Well - I decided to find out. I stuck some tomatoes in the food processor and pulsed until I had what I supposed would be referred to as 'chopped tomato' then I poured them into a pot with the water, sugar (yeah, I like my tomato-soup sweet), salt and pepper. I let everything boil until I determined that all of the goodness had leeched out of the tomatoes. Then I made up a roux and proceeded to strain the tomato-broth through a relatively-fine-mesh-strainer into the thickener. A quick stir to incorporate everything then I brought the soup up to a boil. An hour to simmer and then - mmmm, heaven in a bowl.

Who needs that processed tomato paste stuff anyway? Not me. That's for sure.

And that's how we get stuff done.

Brags for 20pts

2011-11-06T23:59:00.000+02:00

Today I drank 2 liters if water, went to the grocery store, and ate enough to feed a small horse.

Does that constitute a productive day?

*wonders*

Sincerely hoping for a 1-day general strike tomorrow. It's like the Israeli way of wrangling 'snow-days' out of the system...

Do a Barrel Roll...

2011-11-05T21:58:00.001+02:00

I am officially tired of making small things. Can I quit?

Shabbos was ok. I was so busy coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose I barely noticed the time passing (except for the 4 hours last night which went by at a slow crawl because all I really wanted to do was sleep.) It also rained - quite a bit. It was also notably chilly - which was nice but would be nicer if I could have curled up with a shmoiling hot water bottle on my stomach under my quilt.

As a direct result of being too lazy to turn on my cell-phone on Saturday nights after havdala, Z and I missed out on a 'game night' with a bunch of neighbors on the other side of town. It's alright though - who needs friends when you've got sniffles&tissues, animated movies and leftover chana-masala?

In other news - I've decided that the guys who live upstairs are actually super-heroes. They have a phone which rings often and a lot. How much is often? Well, it rings at all hours of the day and night - different times every day/night - and when I say all day and night I mean, anytime from 2am to 11pm and anywhere in-between. It also rings a lot - and by 'a lot' I mean that the things 'ringringring's a minimum of 8 annoying 'ringringring's every time (but it has gone up to 35 without any pause.) So the way I figure it - they're super-heroes, the phone is their special line to the mayor and man oh man are they kept BUSY. Well - either that or they're hiding from debt-collectors...

288,000 Jellybeans?!

2011-11-04T15:01:00.001+02:00

Long night and my arm is ache-y from the flu shot. But I got up this morning and in an effort to be productive I put together 2 batches of pie-dough. While they chilled we went out to the grocery store to pick up some chumus and a new box (or 4) of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. (The cereal was on sale - 2 boxes for 30 shekel - so I couldn't say no...)

Back at Home I assembled the mini-pastels (with a lamb/cow chopped meat combo that Z seems to love.) They smelled incredible and Z was a bit overeager to try them so I let him have one for lunch too. (Am I nice or what?)

Clean floors, clean sheets, clean pajamas - I guess I'm ready for Shabbos.

Have a good one everybody!

18 Tomorrow!

2011-11-03T20:19:00.000+02:00

Today was relatively productive. I woke up at around 7:30 and Z brought me breakfast at 8ish. I gave myself a 5-star spa treatment (because I felt like I deserved it) and then I did 4 loads of laundry and cleaned the hair out of the shower drain (because there's just stuff that's gotta get done sometimes.)

The afternoon flew by and at 4 I had a doctors appointment which went very well. My weight is finally going up (and yes, this is cause for celebration - which is kind of ironic - but that's just life I guess.) Z's afternoon class was cancelled so he actually came with me and while we were there the nice nurse offered to give us our 'complimentary flu shots' so we put on our brave-faces and got immunized.

It's been storming outside for the last couple of hours. Our very first winter thunder/lightning show of the season. Super exciting, because we really really need the rain!

Shabbos is just about prepared. Challah, soup, dips and lunch are all coming out of the freezer. All that's left for tomorrow is to make mini-pastels (meat pies) and some sort of dessert. And I guessing we'll probably want to plug in the urn for tea. Gosh it got chilly in the last couple of weeks!

Spageta Nadl?

2011-11-02T13:18:00.003+02:00

In an attempt to utilize my time more efficiently today I decided to be somewhat productive. I'll start with a picture of something I did last week - just to put last week's productivity on display for the sake of comparison. See, last week I made potato blintzes for Shabbos. I actually ended up making them on Friday morning, because I wanted to eat (a lot of) them fresh out of the frying pan, crispy and delicious for lunch on Friday too.

Yesterday I spent the entire day in bed feeling miserable. Z gave me a second cold. It's nice that he wants to share - but why doesn't he ever share nice stuff like candy and chocolate?!

The photo above and below have nothing to do with each other. I bought a (big) popcorn bucket because the idea of having an actual popcorn-vessel made me extremely giddy. I was overcome with excitement and so I bought it. Only when I got Home did I remember that I don't eat popcorn. Reality checks make me sad. Anyway - I still like it - it's hard durable plastic and I think I'll fill it with potato chips or cookies or something else - who knows - maybe even with a whole box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch...

And just in case you are inspired to make candy here's a little video to show you what you'll be doing most of the time... watching the syrup - checking the thermometer - watching the syrup - checking the thermometer... It's actually a time-consuming process - but it's also super easy.

Tomorrow is Thursday again. Sheesh. Days just fly on by. It's craaaazy!

Date Confusion...

2011-10-31T21:13:00.002+02:00

In a last-ditch attempt to salvage some Halloween spirit I went out to the grocery store and bought hotdogs, buns, pickles and fries.

I figured this way I could legitimately claim to have made Halloweenies in the spirit of the day.

Weird thing is it feels more like April Fools Day - trying to pass off a July 4th BBQ as a Halloween dinner.

Some days ya just can't seem to get it right.

Crunchy Shell

2011-10-31T12:48:00.002+02:00

Friday was insanely busy. It was the first time I'd cooked Shabbos in almost 4 months. That's a long time by my standards. Z cleaned the house from top-to-bottom because it was so ridiculously dusty that neither of us could breathe.

Sara joined us for the weekend. It was extremely relaxing and highly enjoyable. I drugged Z with Dayquils/Nyquils as he needed them because his cold seemed to take a turn for the worse after inhaling all of the dust while cleaning. Thankfully by Sunday morning he was feeling a lot better.

Meal List from Shabbos - just so I don't forget:

Friday Night: challah, chumus, matbucha (homemade fresh), roasted garlic, chicken soup with matzah balls, Moroccan spiced chicken, jasmine rice, green beans with salt and garlic

Shabbos Lunch: challah, chumus, matbucha (homemade fresh), tomato onion quiche, potato blintzes with fried onions, sliced veggie platter

Desserts: candy apples, caramel apples, PB CC oat cookies, brownies with chocolate chunks

Sunday morning I went for (yet another) blood test. My veins were in an extremely playful sort of mood and kept disappearing when the nurse stuck the needle in. She apologized profusely (and I couldn't really blame her - the vein HAD been there when she started putting the needle in) but it took about 4 pokes and a bit of jiggling to get some blood out and it didn't really flow - just sort of dripped, so the whole process took a lot longer than I would've liked. Even more annoying was the long wait to go in for the test. There were 5 people ahead of me and somehow it took 45 minutes for my turn to arrive. Remind me not to go on a Sunday morning ever again.

The best part of Sunday was that while I was out getting poked//prodded and waiting... Z got up and made a batch of the most delicious fluffy buttermilk waffles ever! So when I got Home I drowned them in maple syrup and devoured half a dozen of them! Deeeeeeeelicious!!!

Dinner last night almost didn't happen. We couldn't agree on whose turn it was to cook. Eventually I got frustrated enough that I decided to just make what I was in the mood for. Turns out sesame noodles were a good choice. I lightly steamed: carrots, green beans and baby corn which I tossed with the seasoned noodles. We ate them warm and delicious for dinner and before putting the leftovers away I added sesame seeds, some extra soy sauce and a dash of garlic powder so that they'd pack a flavor-punch when eating them cold for lunch - which I plan to do today and tomorrow and well - to be honest every day until they run out. Cause they are just THAT good.

I had been hoping that Z's game-crew would come over tonight because it would have given me a perfect excuse to bake a bunch of fun Halloween treats - but Z didn't make it to class this morning on account of his cough and some unfinished homework. Anyway - by the time noon had rolled around all desire to spend hours in the kitchen had somewhat dissipated. But it still left me feeling super-sad because I'd had all these excitingly fun plans for caramel corn, black&orange cookies and other fun stuff - but I guess I'll just have to keep it bottled up until 2014 - which is the next year that Halloween falls out on Shabbos which means I can legitimately sneak in Challaween on Friday night. (I find it amusingly ironic to have pagan Halloween on Jewish Sabbath - I just can't help it. Ok?! I like the color scheme and can't help that I love candy and all the autumny-fun-stuff we associate with it.)

So what am I doing today? Well, I've been awake since 6:30am and have eaten enough to satisfy a small cow, but it hasn't even made a dent in my appetite (which I guess is a good thing.) I should probably get off the couch and take a walk, 15-30 minutes would do me good.

Maybe I'll bake those cookies anyway - I just really want cookies...

Cold Noodles!

2011-10-27T14:06:00.001+02:00

Here's a celebratory picture of my camera. I thought it was lost and gone forever, but Yo'abba found it moments before we left The Sun House to head back Home. And there was much rejoicing.

Just to follow-up on yesterdays post...

I almost didn't buy the apples because 'apple season' might be autumn in the USofA but the sure are pricey here (especially since you only get about 2 bites off of each one...)

Setting up the candy...

I dropped the apples into a boiling water and vinegar mixture to get the wax-coating off of them. It's an important step because if you leave the wax on then the candy will just sliiiiiiide right off of the apples into a sad little mound around their bases...

Sticks up their middles. *clears throat*

Half a teaspoon of red food-coloring - to make the candy that signature happy red color and 1/4 tsp of strawberry flavoring to add to the leftover candy...

It takes a good long while for the heat to rise. I thought my thermometer had stalled or something around 225F - it just wouldn't change.

At around 275F I added the coloring and then as we hit the 300F mark I started coating...

So pretty!!! I only got one super-bubbly-candy-coating because I was a little too excited to actually be making candy apples and didn't dip carefully (no it wasn't the first apple, it was actually the 3rd, but I just got a little too exuberant...)

The leftover candy shouldn't go to waste. So I added the strawberry flavoring and made some free-form lolly-pops! I never realized how easy hard candy is to make! I'm seriously considering investing in some lolly-pop molds now! They make an adorable gift and you can even customize them by pressing jelly-beans, licorice and all sorts of other things into them! Super pretty!

Caramel apples to follow - just wanted to get your attention...

Mmmmm, candy!

Give me my pencil.

2011-10-26T18:19:00.001+02:00

Here's the deal - I went grocery shopping today and for some impulsive reason I bought 10 tiny round and adorable apples.

With me all nostalgic, autumn in full-swing in the good ol' USofA, apple picking season well-underway and Halloween coming up in just a few days I don't think I can be held accountable for craving candy covered and caramel smothered apples. Really, I mean - who isn't?

Anyway - point of this ramble is that I am 'chalishing' no, make that 'plotzing' to make some of the divine creations myself. Problem is - I can't realistically eat the apples, and the coatings all have corn syrup in them so...I'm not quite sure where the point in making them would be.

I suppose it is almost worth the effort of going through all the trouble just to photograph the darn things, post the pictures and make a couple hundred other people drool...

Oh, is that sadistic twisted and evil?

Yeah, maybe.

But I'm thinking that it might just validate the whole experience.

Alright, it's settled.

Tomorrow will be the day of the apple.

Prunes Mmmm...

2011-10-25T20:50:00.000+02:00

Since when do I love citrus fruits? I ate grapefruits with Phil in The Sun House and that got me in the mood for pomelit, so I ate 1/2 of one today. Man oh man it is refreshing and delicious! I like them a tad on the sweet side - so I might have to switch over to pomelos... I guess I'll pick some up tomorrow.

I did 5 loads of laundry today. Yup - all the laundry from the last month. I think I'm good for a while now.

I surprised myself actually because I pushed myself and forced myself to make a healthy nutritious dinner. Second night in a row. Truth be told, it wasn't as rewarding as last night's feast - but it still turned out quite tasty.

I whipped up a 'kinda-version' of these vegetable cutlets. I say 'kinda' because I used a different array of spices (though I did stick to the garam masala/cayenne/curry combo somewhat) and the veggies I added were carrots/zucchini/peas which I steamed to just-before-perfection. (I used my steamer-basket-majig for the very first time! Heehee! I've had it long enough!) then I shaped the mixture into 2 tsp patties, coated them in breadcrumbs, sprayed them with some cooking-spray and baked them for 40 minutes (flipping once in the middle) til' the crumbs were golden brown, crispy and delicious.

For the protein portion of the meal I figured I might as well use up the breadcrumbs, so I coated some chicken fillets and fried up some shnitzel.

I hope Z enjoyed the meal. I know I did.

Even more stuff to do tomorrow. I'd better get some sleep tonight!

Jellybeans are Perfect!

2011-10-25T00:50:00.001+02:00

Ok ok, so it's been almost a week...

The good news is - we're officially back at Home!

After a highly successful visit to the doctor, The Crazy Lady was super-awesome and drove us Home. Z went to his first day of classes and the girls went out to the grocery store. Good thing we picked up the basics cause Z invited the 'game crew' over for the first game-night of the year.

I'm not sure how I managed, but I wiped down the living room couches and dining room chairs. I also did a load of laundry (including the guest room sheets - which Meanma helped me strip off the bed.) I switched a light-bulb, wiped down the kitchen counter and unpacked most of the suitcases/bags from our month-long vacation.

Then I put together dinner. A big pot of tomato vegetable barley soup, 1-hour buttery dinner rolls, pasta alfredo (cause alfredo sauce is so darn easy to make), and a batch of blondies for dessert. Man oh man it felt good to be back in my kitchen!

Sara came to visit and keep me company after school. Then Z came Home and soon the guys all arrived. Dinner was delightful, I've missed the banter and fun times.

Summer was nice but I'm very happy for a new school-year to be starting. I've missed what I considered 'routine' and can't wait get back into the swing of things. If today was an indication of the good times to come - then I am ready to let them roll!

Bring it on Big Guy - I'm ready!!!

Finger Cookies

2011-10-19T10:38:00.002+02:00

Monday was a super-busy day of chol hamoed 'round these parts. Debs and the little came to visit for an awesomely fun(ny) lunch (prepared by Z.) Yo'Abba had quite a good time pulling out big yellow trucks, knights and pirates to play with! The afternoon was by no means relaxed - The Crazy Lady got dinner cooking as the concert set-up and by the time the music started Sarah Leah arrived after a 1.5 hour bus-ride and Timmy made it home after 2 hours on the road. (Don't we ALL just love rt 38 traffic?) Little Brother stopped by to visit and left more enlightened than he arrived. Akiva&Emunah stopped by before rushing off to hear Udi Davidi from the front of the Stage with Yo'Abba. Then at 10:45 as Moshav Band wound down their set, Feige & Shani stopped by bearing benchers and to share wedding pics. Suffice it to say bed-time didn't roll around until a little after 1 in the morning.

I've been coughing/sneezing and slightly congested since last Friday but I figured it was just an allergy related thing (weather changing and all - it happens every year - doesn't it?) But spending 2 hours in the car on Sunday sent my delicate and slightly-compromised immune system in to a super-dee-duper downward spiral so the few hours I spent in bed on Monday night were occupied by much nose-blowing, coughing and sneezing. Sadly things only got worse on Tuesday when I went into complete breakdown mode. After 4 rounds of salt-water sinus-irrigation, close to 300 tissues, 2 liters of water and about 5 cups of tea - I actually managed to sleep for a few hours last night.

With all of the germs and whatnot we cancelled our holiday plans to go to Petach Tikva and are staying in The Sun House until next Monday afternoon (since I have a dr's appt on Monday morning.) Then we'll rush back Home so Z can go to his first day of classes. Yay for school!

I can't wait for vacation to be over so I can get some rest in the quiet of my own Home. At least I hope it'll be quiet. Maybe the rains can start, heavy and frequent - that way the construction noise will be kept to a minimum...

Macro Flash

2011-10-16T21:01:00.001+02:00

What can you say when you're encouraged to drink 2 cups of vanilla milkshake (made with Ben&Jerry's ice cream and whole milk) for dinner because you haven't eaten enough calories in one day?

Aside from maybe, "Life is good."

Spent the day at the cousins celebrating Adina's bat-mitzvah in the sukkah with a festive bbq and good times. Got stuck in rush hour traffic on 38 on the way back to The Sun House and it took us 40 mins from "shaar hagay" until we made it back to the Fambily House. Quite an adventure.

More to come tomorrow...

"...cool, minty bliss..."

2011-10-12T14:54:00.002+02:00

It been an interesting last week and a half or so. But they've been feeding me here - so I guess I can't complain...

The laaaaaast tea biscuit (don't worry there are another 6 packages in the kitchen pantry.)

We even got to socialize. And yeah - Settlers happened. 3 times. And I even won once.

This morning I woke up early and frosted the cookies that I baked last night. Not perfect - but good enough for me.

And of course the Rum&Spice cookies - they look prettier when sliced, but I didn't have the time or the patience. Dibble already ate half a dozen and declared them 'delicious' so I don't really care.

Phil and I made a chain of rainbows to hang in the sukkah and there were some extra papers left over. I woke up to find this attached to the bedroom door...

Toffee is kind of zonked - I keep waking him in the middle of the night. He's holding onto that water bottle like it's the last good thing he's got. Poor fuzzy buddie.

Have a great holiday everybody! Enjoy sitting in your booths and hope you have lots of fethtival thpirit!

May the rains not fall (yet) and the wind be calm! (Also if this heatwave would break - that'd be awesome.)

Realized...

2011-10-11T08:06:00.000+02:00

It would be a whole lot easier to deal with waking up with the urge to vomit daily if I weren't such an emetophobe.

Ugh.

*shudders*

The Nose Knows

2011-10-10T12:40:00.003+02:00

Dear Z,

When I say the milk is spoiled - trust me - it is spoiled.

Love,
me

PS: I forgive you for trying to feed me what was in your estimation 'almost spoiled but not quite there yet' milk with my cereal.

Big Salt

2011-10-09T16:11:00.000+02:00

That was decidedly the strangest Yom Kippur I've ever kept. Still, I actually made it to shul for chazarat hash"atz of neila so I was pretty impressed with myself.

For breakfast everyone enjoyed some homemade bagels which Phil & Z made on Friday morning. (Yo'Abba bought a few from the bagel-store for 'just in case' but now they're in deep-freeze-storage because the homemade ones were very very tasty.)

I got myself weighed and measured this morning. Still haven't gained back what I lost 2 months ago, and actually somehow managed to lose 2 of the kg that I fought to gain back. Not sure how that's possible - but the dr. isn't worried, so I won't be either. In good news my blood pressure has hit the new 'golden standard' of 110/70. The nurse was highly impressed. At least something good came of the visit. Heeheehee.

Phil made me some potatoes for 3rd lunch which were quite delicious then I chowed down on a snack from 3:30-4 - ok, it was a lot of snacks. But I need it, right?

They're building the big famBily sukkah outside now and I'm thinking I should go and cheer them on.

I'm excited to bake for Sukkot. A batch of regular rainbow cookies and a batch of monochrome rainbow cookie (ff!) Hooray!!!

Wolfie!

2011-10-06T07:44:00.003+02:00

It's been over a week and I've fallen off the face of the planet. It happens.

We've been in The Sun House since last Thursday early-afternoon. Rosh Hashana was a rocking great holiday. I made it to shofar blowing on the 1st day. Sunday was uneventful and Monday was spent being assessed for 7 hours (long story for another time - no patience to type it out now.) Tuesday we went to Ikea with Sarah Leah, Meanma & Phil. It was a last minute idea and we were only there for about an hour and a half before I was ready to collapse.

Today we're travelling back to the-middle-of-nowhere to pick up some stuff that we need for Yom Kippur then we're coming back to The Sun House. There are also a few errands to run and yet another doctors appointment. Goody goody.

I'll be back when I have something interesting to share.

Receptacle

2011-09-28T05:33:00.001+03:00

When I was in one of the younger grades the word 'bin' appeared on the weekly 'spelling list' in school.

The tests were tricky because the teacher would pronounce the word and then you'd have to write it down.

For some reason on the 'pre-test' I spelled it 'been' because that's the way it sounded. She marked it incorrect and I lost points.

On the 'weekly spelling test' I apparently spaced-out because I spelled it 'been' again.

Again she marked it wrong and I lost points. I was so confused because 'been' is spelled right, even if it's not the intended word.

Why couldn't she have reminded me that just because they sound the same doesn't mean that they share a common definition.

I'm sure I could've gotten 100%.

And that folks is one of the stories that I contribute to my hatred of all things school related.

Mess a well-meaning kid up in their early years - you mess them up for life.

The proof is in the pudding.

Who let me blog at 5:30am?! Why am I even awake at 5:30am?!

*sigh*

Cheeze Doodles or Jellybeans?!

2011-09-25T21:41:00.001+03:00

Shabbos was extremely quiet. I dragged myself out of the house on Friday morning and picked up salatim for Z in town.

The best part of the whole weekend was that Sarah Leah came to stay from Thursday evening until late Sunday afternoon. She kept me company and took great care of me. (Z took great care of me too - like he has been and I'm sure he will keep doing.) But it was really nice not to be home all alone when he went out to shul.

In other VERY exciting news, Z took his driving theory test today (that's the written test that you need to take before you can take driving lessons...) Anyway, he passed!!!! Finally!!! Now he can start taking all thirty-something of those pesky lessons.

It rained a whole bunch early this afternoon. The weather has been crisp and cool and it's making me feel all mock-autumny. It's kind of nice. I'm happy to be wearing sweats around the house and if this continues I might just take out my boots too!

Chicken Pot Pies...

2011-09-23T11:19:00.000+03:00

Look it! Look it! My pepperlings are actually growing!!!! I am SO excited!!!!

There are a whole bunch peeking out! I get a thrill out of going out every day and seeing new ones!

Heeheehee! This is SO exciting!!!

And of course - our one tiny orange. I hope that with some more TLC and an 'in-home' winter we might be able to coax the tree back to life for next season...

Our week's worth of dust accumulation on the bookshelves in the office. No - it's not only on the bookshelves. It's everywhere - on the couches, floors, shelves, beds, counters, everything!!! It's DISGUSTING!!! Stupid construction!!! Can't it be winter-cold already so I can close the doors and windows and not suffocate?!

Progress...

This was a HUGE pile of enormous boulders about a week and a half ago... now all that's left is a pile of gravel from the rock-shmuncher-machine... And they've carted most of it off to the bottom of the construction area.

Til' next week!!!

Carrot Soup & A Zhuzher...

2011-09-22T18:30:00.001+03:00

I hate those 'almost empty' bottles that tend to accumulate in my bathroom. I went on a spree a while back and decided to use up all of them. I decided not to be picky about matching scents or even using the same brands. (I cover my hair so who cares if it dies...right?) I finally did it. I finished off all of the 'just about done' bottles. But I had run out of shampoo long before running out of conditioner (strange - I know, it's usually the other way around.) So I bought new shampoo only to need to buy some new conditioner - which I eventually did. What is the point of me telling you all of this? Simply put - it smells so good that I want to move into the conditioner bottle.

So - if you're looking for me and can't seem to find me...check in the bottle.

In other news - today Z bought me a white chocolate 'Magnum' ice cream bar from the ice cream truck. It was my one and only of the whole summer. It was totally worth the wait!

198 Days To Go...

2011-09-21T07:27:00.002+03:00

Why is it that for the entire duration of time that I felt like a functional human being the government had a 'building freeze' on the settlements and all day every day was wasted time.

Now that I feel like a sick piece of junk the construction crews show up at 5am to 'wash' the machinery, then turn on the machines to 'warm the engines' at 6am and by 6:45am they are breaking apart a mountain outside my bedroom window. Did I mention that they've been working 10-12 hour days to 'make up' for their month-long break over Ramadan?!

Is the government out to get me? I know they hate their citizens but seriously, can't they have some mercy?!

I just want to sleep!!!

A Gogo for You

2011-09-19T08:13:00.003+03:00

Friday was a typical crazy day in The Sun House. Cooking and prepping and cleaning and screaming...the usual. Thankfully by the time we had to light candles everything was done. The meal was delicious (and somewhat reminiscent of Thanksgivings gone by.) After dinner everyone kind of drifted off to sleep.

Shabbos day was highly entertaining. Mr. Freddie davened musaf so Mean'ma made sure to get to shul in time. Lunch was deeeelicious - because strips of perfectly seasoned and grilled steak and chicken breast can never be bad. After lunch I read for a little under an hour then Sara came to visit! 2 games of Settlers and 1 of 'Cities&Knights' and suddenly it was time for mincha, then maariv, then shabbos was over!

On motzei-shabbat we drove over to S&S's house to wish Savta a VERY happy (english) birthday! The sign came out really nicely (in my opinion) and a good time was had by all. Chocolate decadence cake, potato chips, amazing smelling popcorn, fresh fruity melon! The perfect melava malka.

On Sunday morning after a breakfast of 'toast and spreads' the girls took a road-trip to 'BIG'. We bought fun kitchen-y and serving stuff at H&O (because Bezeq sent me 6 really cool coupons to use.) I also finally went to Office Depot and bought myself a new box of my favorite pens.

The Crazy Lady drove us Home and on our way into the city we dropped off a Yaffa package at the yeshiva then ran into Mega to pick up some groceries. Back at Home we unpacked everything and had some lunch.

Just in case anyone is looking for a super-special holiday type food - Osem is making a special 'cinnamon and coffee' flavored run of their awesomely amazing tea biscuits. I'm reckoning that they will make an absolutely incredible crust for sweet potato or pumpkin pie. I know one thing that I'm going to be making anyway...

Cinnamon Coffee Deliciousness...

2011-09-15T18:24:00.001+03:00

We were very productive today...

Frizzie found a hat to wear. He says it's great for sleeping and all sorts of weather. He's a strange little bear.

When your car says the following - it is probably time to visit your local garage...

This kasha button was VERY happy to see me. Ok, so he looks a little scared. Don't worry little button - I won't eat you!

Frizzie went hunting for the perfect colored crayon to color in Sarah Leah's birthday sign!

I'm still very excited about Shabbos! Bring it on!!!

Signing off from The Sun House (again...)

Samuel's Rock

2011-09-14T09:48:00.001+03:00

Shabbos was delightfully relaxing. Phil was here and we had a whole lot of fun. She especially enjoyed her meat&potato pie. (Z enjoyed his too.)

On Sunday The Crazy Lady drove out to the-middle-of-nowhere and picked Phil it. We had a nice little lunch when she got here and then they headed Home.

Monday was extremely boring. The most exciting thing to happen was an excursion to the grocery store.

Tuesday was noisy beyond belief. After a month of no construction the crew was outside banging away at the mountain before 6:30am. Absolutely ridiculous if you ask me, not that anybody does... They actually worked for about 13 hours (with only 2 half-hour breaks during the day.) Maybe they're trying to make up for lost time or something?

Which brings us to today - Wednesday... Not a clue what's going to happen today yet. Though, the construction crew has been outside making noise since 6:45am...

Kumquats or Prunes?

2011-09-09T16:08:00.000+03:00

I know I shouldn't laugh but the funniest thing I saw today was three young boys playing outside.

The two skinny ones were riding on small 'wheel-y toys' and they were chasing the third heavier-set one down the street.*

If G-d has it all figured out in the 'Master-Plan' and you only see things that are supposed to teach you a lesson...well, I'm just wondering what moral exactly to take away from this one.

Have a great Shabbos!

(*Just a sidenote - they were all having fun and laughing, it wasn't some sort of bullying or torture session.)

2011-09-07T15:33:00.002+03:00

Have you ever been having a less than rosy week and every day seems harder and harder to get through? Then suddenly one morning you wake up and you just know that if you can manage to push yourself a little past your limit that maybe, just maybe today can be a little bit better.

So you push yourself - as hard as you can - to a point where you think you might break and just as you doubt that you can make it a single act of unexpected thoughtfulness and kindness comes your way, picks you up and drenches you in a feeling of such warmth and euphoria that you blow right past any imagined goals.

That's what happened to me today.

It was wonderful.

Thank you.

Bases & Folds

2011-09-06T20:19:00.001+03:00

Not too much of interest has happened - I figured I'd post just to let you know that I'm still alive.

Our services were not required on Sunday so we didn't end up helping our friends move to their new home. They're all settled in though - not to worry.

Monday was tedious, seemingly endless and boring. Z had class in the morning and wound up spending an extra 3 hours on campus 'doing the school a favor' in the evening. (They had a group of poli-sci students from the US visiting and wanted them visitors to have the chance to hear all about attending university in a controversial 'settlement' city 'in' Israel.) The highlight of my day was that I 'skype-d' with Freddie. They're still in Swiss-Cheese-Land but they'll be Home next week.

Today wasn't really any better than yesterday except that Z had class in the afternoon so he was Home all morning. I pulled myself together enough to put-together a flyer/poster for a client - (one thing out of a bazillion off the 'to-do' list) but wasn't overly productive otherwise. Z checked the mail and there was a 'petek' addressed to me. Supposedly there is a package waiting for me at the post office. (I'm admittedly a little nervous because the last time one of these slips came it turned out to be a registered letter from 'misrad hatachbura' (Ministry of Transportation) informing me that I was required to take a mandatory 12 hour driving refresher course for no reason other than that I'd had the privilege of holding an Israeli drivers license for a minimum period of 5 full years. (Remember that fiasco? Just got resolved 2 weeks ago. I passed if you had forgotten. I haven't quite gotten over the whole traumatic experience yet.) Suffice it to say - I'm not in the least bit excited about the package waiting for me. You might say nervous and/or anxious...

In exciting news 2 of my pepper-plantling buds flowered! I'm hoping that's a good sign and that this means that peppers are on the way! Also, I've noticed a lot more buds on a whole bunch of the other plants! It's so very exciting!

Nothing else to report. Til' next time...

Jojo & Gemma...

2011-09-03T20:56:00.001+03:00

Friday was quite the interesting day. Z did all of the cooking for Shabbos. He even made the soup and the challah. (Can you tell how pathetic I've been feeling?) I managed to pull myself together enough to drive him down to the shul for 'early mincha' but as we pulled up we noticed the usual early-minyan-goers milling about in front of the building. Turns out they only had 8 guys. By the time #9 and 10 showed up a few others had left including the one with the key to the shul. So Z got back in the car and we drove back up the mountain.

Thankfully Shabbos was more or less quiet and relaxing. Aside from waking up at 6am wondering if the world was burning down - because tons of smoke had blown in from somewhere downwind and was threatening to asphyxiate me in my bed. Then of course at 7:45am when some construction worker showed up turned on one of the huge earthmoving-machines and proceeded to wash the entire thing while the motor ran for about 45 minutes before shutting it off and leaving - for the day. And yes - today WAS Saturday. Seeing how things were going I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when 3 families on the block decided that today was the optimal day for parties and loud-music blaring in their gardens (or better yet - blaring from their living rooms loudly enough for them to hear in their gardens.) The next place I live will NOT be in an apartment building and will NOT be surrounded by people with no common courtesy for their neighbors.

Tomorrow morning we're going to help friends of ours move from Rova Bet to their new place in Rova Alef. It'll be nice to spend some time with them and it's good to have an excuse to get out and socialize.

Not sure what else is planned for this week yet. Hopefully I'll keep you in the loop...

Bor + Even = good way to get rid of a rasha...

2011-09-01T19:54:00.000+03:00

Today was kind of lame.

I spent many of the early morning hours (3am-6am) awake dealing with a very sad tummy. For that reason I spent most of the day exhausted.

I'm happy to say that I managed to drink almost 2 liters of water today which is super-good.

I really have to give myself a mani/pedi.

Turns out that we're having 2 guests for Shabbos lunch. This is a new development, so now I've got to make challah tomorrow morning (cause the 3 tiny rolls in the freezer just aren't going to be enough.) At least the chicken soup and matzah balls are made.

Just in case you wondered about weird weather - it rained last night. Quite a bit. How strange is that? Rain in Israel on the last night of August...creepy.

Tomorrow - laundry, cooking, cleaning and finally Shabbos.

Bring it on...

Do Nut Luv

2011-08-31T16:25:00.005+03:00

Z had class all morning (well, 9-15 anyway) but he was so sweet - he got up early and made me breakfast at 8. He's awesome!

Victory for today - I hand-kneaded and baked a batch of yeasted cinnamon buns. Why'd I do the work by hand? Easy. I made them dairy (milk and butter alllllll the way) so I didn't want to use my mixer.
In extremely exciting news - late yesterday afternoon (as the sun was setting) I went outside to admire my little garden. Imagine my amazement (after a week of inconsistent watering) when I noticed that my adorabubble little pepper-plantlings (who are actually about a foot and a bit tall) seem to be budding, which means they're going to flower, which means - we might actually grow some sweet bell peppers!!! Well - I'm over the moon about the news! I mean, who knew I could actually grow stuff?! Especially after the Fred&George fiascoes of 2005-2006.

This morning I went out to double check on the plants (to make sure I hadn't been seeing things) and not only was I correct, but I was even more excited to see that our baby orange tree is actually putting out fruit too! I was sure it would never produce again after the weather-shock it got last year. Suffice it to say, I'm very excited.

I found a few more random photos from our week-and-a-bit-long vacation - so I'm sticking them in here too...

Toffee Matters!

2011-08-30T18:15:00.001+03:00

It's been almost a week since my last update and I wish I could say that I've been busy doing productive stuff but truth be told I've spent most of that time trying to force food into my system. (Sounds like fun, doesn't it?)

Last Thursday I finished up my mandatory 12-hour driving-refresher-course (which my amazing father graciously accompanied me to - to help me keep my sanity and to be my part-time translator.) This afternoon I received a highly anticipated SMS from the driving school which let me know that my worrying could now come to an end - by the grace of G-d and much patience from my father I passed the driving refresher course. (Now in theory I shouldn't need to take another one for at least the next decade.)

Shabbos last week was a lot of fun. On Friday afternoon Z and I visited with S&S for a little while. We couldn't stay long because candle-lighting was quickly approaching but it was great to see them. Saturday was Phil's 18th (English) birthday so we partied it up! Her friend Chavers came for the weekend and we all had an awesome time hanging out.

Sunday came way too quickly and not too much happened on it. As a matter of fact - I can't remember anything that happened on Sunday.

Yesterday was super busy. Z traveled back to Ariel in the super-early morning because he had class. Yo'Abba washed our car (because it was covered in ickiness and berries.) Timmy moved to Jeru - he's got an apartment with 2 friends in a super-convenient location smack-dab in the center of town.

This morning started off with a faux rainstorm/hurricane, a power outage and some vampires - but not all at the same time. Then we came back to the-middle-of-nowhere.

Hard to believe that this summer's vacation has come to an end. Frank McNugget & the Dibble start school at the end of the week. The weather is even cooling down.

Z is being amazing. He's actually washing out the fridge (because I got annoyed at the gross icky sticky spots all over it.)

As a reward I'm making him some super-delicious manicotti for dinner.

Not sure that it balances out - but maybe I'll make him an awesome breakfast tomorrow too...

Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Summer Fun...

2011-08-24T23:06:00.002+03:00

Robert...

2011-08-22T19:21:00.001+03:00

I know - I know. I've been missing for (over) a week. Hard to believe it's been so long.

The good news is that you haven't missed much of anything in my life. Last week wasn't much fun at all. I spent every day on the couch wondering whether it would be allowable for me to go into a coma or die. My stomach hasn't been acting quite up to par and nothing seems to make it better. Nausea coupled with excruciating gut-pains were highly uncomfortable.

To make things a bit easier we decided to move into the Fambily Place in The Sun House for a little while. That way there's a somewhat climate controlled environment (a/c) and I don't need to be scared of being home alone. (Yup, you read that right - it's happened again - I felt so miserable that I was actually scared to be left home alone.)

Anyway, we've been in The Sun House since last Thursday. I'm not feeling significantly better but at least I've started eating again. (Or rather, I've reached a point where I can force-feed myself food so that I'm actually taking in calories on a daily basis.)

In addition to the ridiculousness of the stomach problems - I'm spending 12 hours this week taking that mandatory driving refresher course that I wrote about back in June. It's a government scam but it's legit and failure to attend a course and pass the exam at the end will result in a moratorium on your drivers license next time you need to renew it. (Meaning you need to repeat the entire 'licensing' procedure that most people do at the age of 16-18 - theory test, 30-something lessons, road test...) Anyway, all things considered it seems easier to just take the stupid refresher-course. It's just annoying because it is only offered in specific cities, in Hebrew and the hours are from 5pm-9pm. So far I made it though the first class (of 3) and I'm hoping I'll manage to sit through the next 2 - they're Tuesday and Thursday night.

Z is being a real saint. He bused to The Middle of Nowhere today to go to class - he had to be on a bus at 6:20am to make it to school by 9. Then he came all the way back to The Sun House. He's incredible.

In other news:

The Freddies are in Swissland.

Timmy is officially out of the army and is currently bottle-feeding a hummingbird with broken legs.

Phil bought me a new pre-tied bandana to replace my destroyed black one.

Frank McNugget is expanding his musical repertoire - he's branching out to bass.

Dibble made a new friend (Liron from across the street) he spends a lot of time there, because Liron's family has a wii...

That's about all I can think of for now. So I guess I'll be back when I'm feeling better, when I've got something else to report or if another weeks goes by before either of those things end up happening...

Hematoid for 23 points...

2011-08-14T19:58:00.001+03:00

Shabbos was delightful. Yehuda & Nirit Solomon joined us for the weekend and I know I really enjoyed.

Friday was wonderful and relaxed. We made early shabbos with a few hours to spare.

We played a couple of games of Settlers, Phase 10 and even some Quarto. There was plenty of time for reading and naps too.

All-around a highly enjoyable weekend!

Friday Night: roasted garlic, chumus (Abu Dushi), matbucha (homemade), chicken soup with matzah balls, white rice, zaatar chicken, couscous, roasted root vegetables (red onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini & carrots)

Shabbos Lunch: roasted garlic & cherry tomatoes, chumus (Abu Dushi), matbucha (homemade), chicken & rice salad, savory meat roll, sliced vegetables

Seudah Shlishit: leftovers from lunch

Desserts: FF PB CC Cookies, FF (oil) brownies, root beer cookies (from the freezer stash)

They cause the first bus back to Jeru. Z straightened up the apartment and after some tv catch-up we went to sleep.

Today was pretty boring. We took a walk on campus to drop off an assignment in one of the teacher's boxes in the office.

On the bright side - the weather has been incredible - a cool 73F in the apartment for most of the morning and evening, not really going much above 78F in the hottest hours of the day. This is weather that I can deal with!

"K'fotz on Pop"

2011-08-11T20:25:00.001+03:00

Yesterday was somewhat productive. After Amo left (at around 11) I counted down the minutes until chatzot (which marks the time when post-9-days laundry can be started.) Finally the clock ticked the time and the first load went into the washing machine. 4 loads later Z got Home from school. He didn't even come inside to get some lunch. Instead I met him in the parking lot and we went straight out to the grocery store to pick up almost everything that we needed for Shabbos. While we were out we stopped off in town to pick up an assortment of nuts and some more barley flour (and strawberry extract for whenever I go meringue crazy again.) We also stopped off at one last place to pick up a bag of briquettes for the bbq.

For dinner last night Z grilled up a storm. Za'atar chicken breast for me and saucy wings for him with a huge helping of french-fries on the side.

I was up bright and early this morning and had the chicken soup at its post-scumming lazy-boil by 8:30am. At a little after 9:00 I got a call from Yael. She wanted to know if it would be alright to drop by with her sister. They were on a mission to get some nice scenic pictures of the city. I quickly put together 1/4 batch of challah dough and mixed up a batch of barley rolls for myself. I was just putting the barley rolls up to rise when they arrived. The 'quick visit' turned into a few hours but it was really nice to catch up with her and meet her sister. They invited me to join them at the pool but I declined - hopefully next week I'll get a swim in though!

I shaped 3 nice-sized-loaves of challah and baked them then I drove them home at around 1pm. After dropping them off Z and I popped into the 'chumusaria' to pick up some of there superb spread for shabbos. (We bought a big container so that we have plenty for all 3 meals.)

I didn't really do much cooking today which means I'll have to do it tomorrow - but so long as I start bright and early I'll be done with plenty of time to spare...I hope.

Today I ate a barley roll with margarine, a serving of rice pasta spaghetti with a little tomato sauce, 50 grams of potato chips, 1 cup of chicken broth with 1/4 cup of cooked rice and 1/2 cup of fruity pebbles cereal!

Yup - you read that right - Fruity Pebbles Cereal!!! How much fun is that!? Turns out that all that's in them in puffed rice (cause they're gluten free), sugar (ok - a lot of sugar), food coloring (yeah yeah - I know), and (completely synthetic) fruit flavorings! Anyway - although they'll probably kill me faster than eating apples and honey - at least they won't give me a stomachache in the process. So - overall - I'll take 'em!

Mike & Harvey

2011-08-09T21:10:00.001+03:00

Monday was long and slow and relaxing. Waffles for our guests for breakfast, calzones for lunch then some serious baked-ziti (with homemade chunky tomato sauce) for pre-fast fill-up.

Sarah Leah caught a bus back to Jeru in the mid-afternoon. I spent the rest of the afternoon sort of bored.

Eventually we all changed into flip-flops and I drove everyone down to the shul at the Nezarim caravans.

Back at Home we went straight to sleep. Well sort of, I actually spent a couple of hours reading the first part of "A History of the Jews" by Paul Johnson. I figured the subject matter was depressing enough to be appropriate material for the annual day of mourning.

I slept through the night (probably thanks to the earplugs I shoved into my ears as far as safely possible) but I kept waking up every hour from 3am and onwards for no apparent reason. Finally at ten minutes to 8 I woke with a jolt and proceeded to wake Z up so that the guys could get to shacharit by 8.

After shacharit I drove back down and picked Z up from shul, then at 1:15pm I drove him back down for mincha (rather than making a pointless trip home I sat on a bench near the shul and read a bit in the shade. I figured it counted as my vitamin D for the day.) The last trip was the trip down for ma'ariv - again I waited in the car while they davened. (This is another perfect example of why Z really really really needs to get his license already.)

Between mincha and maariv I was quite busy. I baked up a batch of oatmeal rolls (part whole wheat) and cooked up a big pot of tomato vegetable soup. I also prepped the ingredients for a batch of 1-hour cinnamon buns which I mixed up and baked with perfect timing so that they were done and glazed right before heading out to ma'ariv and still warm by the time we got back to break our fasts.

Dinner was much appreciated by both of the guys. (I wasn't quite as thankful for my bowl of rice and potato chips - but trust me - you wouldn't have been either.)

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day and 'health-food-store' shopping day and I'm quite excited about it!

Measured Craziness

2011-08-07T22:58:00.001+03:00

Shabbos was fun. The meals were enjoyable - the perfect roast came out really perfect. We played a lot of Settlers and a whole bunch of card games. We played some musical chairs and Freddie got a personalized mug with a dolphin-shaped-handle as a birthday present!

Saturday night I picked Sarah Leah up from her friend's house in Nofei Aviv and after some random silliness we all went to sleep.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early for me. (Why do I keep waking up - for the day - at 5:30am?) We did some errands around town with The Crazy Lady & Phil. Then we took a fun little tiyul with S&S and Yo'Abba. Back in The Sun House we packed up the car and headed back out to The Middle of Nowhere. We made very good time (even with the traffic) and stopped at Yesh to pick up some groceries on our way into the city.

Amo arrived a few hours after we got Home and I threw together a delightful pre-pre-fast dinner. Broiled tilapia, vegetable moussaka and pasta (huge ziti shaped noodlea which I had the foresight to snap in half prior to boiling but which could've benefited from being even smaller.)

We partied for a while, watched Men in Black (for the heck of it) and those who could enjoyed ice cream (I'm pretty sure the peanut butter and mint are now finished up.)

Now I'm thinking it's time to get some sleep. The temperature is delightful (mid 70's) and there is the slightest most pleasant sort of breeze blowing through the apartment.

Hard to believe that tomorrow is Monday and erev-tishka-bob.

Fredrick?

2011-08-05T18:22:00.007+03:00

Same old craziness in The Sun House...
Thursday we celebrated Freddie's birthday with a bright and early birthday surprise.
There was a late sort of lunch then homemade pizza and FF rice-wraps for dinner.
Friday morning was busy as usual. Cooking, cleaning, having fun.
I got to shape the challahs (they turned out enormous even though there was the same amount of dough that I usually make.) I also got to peel vegetables, see a decapitated worm, helped make soup, cleaned & washed dishes, helped make matzah balls and did a whole lot of overseeing. (I'm very good at overseeing!)
We had a nice big 'fancy' breakfast. Toast with butter and Swiss jam, salmon, hashed-browns, omelets & scrambled eggs, and freshly squeezed orange juice...
All in all quite a busy day - but we've got all of Shabbos to recuperate.
Woohoo - Let the Summer Birthday Weekend fun commence!!!

The Cheese is Trapped!

2011-08-03T22:46:00.001+03:00

Copy & Paste yesterdays post except that today I ate a bowl of rice, a small bag of potato chips, 2 pieces of oatmeal cookie pizza and a barley roll with margarine.

At 9:30pm I decided to bake a batch of cupcakes for Freddie since her Hebrew birthday is tomorrow and we're going to see her in The Sun House tomorrow. I tried a new recipe for chocolate mint cupcakes and they smell delicious but they're flat-topped in the messy - all over the pan way. *sigh* I hope they taste good cause there's no way frosting will fix this mess.

We're off to The Sun House bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm mostly packed, hope I don't forget anything.

Chocolates in Stranger...

2011-08-02T21:22:00.001+03:00

Today I watched 2 movies and so many tv shows that I lost track of how many.

I also ate 3 pieces of oatmeal cookie pizza, a bowl of french fries, a bowl of rice pasta with some 100% tomato sauce and a bag of potato chips.

Gosh it was a mind-numbingly boring pointless waste of a day of my life - I'll just toss it on the pile with all of the others.

Watch Out For Nuts!

2011-08-01T22:16:00.001+03:00

I know today was Rosh Chodesh and the beginning of the 9-days but I was itching to get things accomplished today. I started off washing the dishes that had been accumulating on the counter. Then I moved on to cleaning the guest bathroom - toilet, sink and bathtub. Z left for school and was kind enough to take out the trash so the next thing I did was put the kitchen garbage can into the bathtub and clean it out with bleach (man that thing gets disgusting sometimes.)

I then figured that Z would be hungry when he got back from school so I decided to make something nice for him. However, I was completely out of mushrooms. I got dressed and headed out to the grocery store when I picked up a 2-pack of mushrooms for 10shekels and 2.5 kg of beautiful, red, firm, plum tomatoes for 5shekels.

Back at Home I mixed up a batch of pizza dough and while it rose I sauteed some onions and mushrooms. I assembled 8 perfectly sized calzones (filled with half a slice of gilboa cheese, some of the vegetable mixture, 1.5 Tbsp cottage cheese seasoned with S&P, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and finally the other half slice of Gilboa to hold it all in.) I made a tiny hole on top of each one then brushed them with egg wash and baked for half and hour.

Once the food was made I took a good look around the kitchen and realized that more cleaning was in order. I cleaned the stovetop, counters, sink and then even did a complete job scrubbing the drying-racks that we dry the dishes on. Once everything was dry I decided to bake something to make the house smell good so I put together a pan of 'Oatmeal Cookie Pizza'.

At around 6pm our landlord arrived. It's that time of the year when we settle our accounts and sign a rental contract for the next year. We sat down around the table and I offered everyone a cold drink. Once the paperwork was done I offered some of the desserts I had prepared - then I realized that it was 6:30pm and that it was very likely that our landlord had come straight from work and was hungry - so I offered him dinner and that's how we introduced him to calzones. He was extremely appreciative and his visit was quite delightful - we spent about an hour sitting and shmoozing then he had to leave.

I made some 'Kaskasoon' for Zsh for dinner (p'titim with sauteed onion and chickpeas) and we watched some tv while he ate. (We're watching Season 11 of Good Eats - we love this show!)

Overall a very busy and productive day.

So far so good and in just a few days we'll be in The Sun House!

Professional Crazed Fan

2011-07-31T21:14:00.001+03:00

Woke up early this morning. It was already HOT outside and inside.

I did all of the laundry (we even changed the sheets) so that I wouldn't have stuff sitting around for the duration of the 9 days.

I ate a barley roll with 1 Tbsp of fresh chumus for breakfast, Rice & Chicken Salad for lunch, and chicken soup with rice for dinner. That's 3 meals in 1 day - first time in about a week and a half that I could stomach that much food.

I forgot to water the plants (though I watered them well on Friday) but I did remember to take my multi-vitamin.

I shmoozed with Freddie on the phone for a little while and then we spent about an hour 'skype-ing' while she made chili for ''Mexican Night' - mmmm, tacos and tortillas!

Tomorrow is another day - I'm ready for it.

Really though - the heat can go...

Cows Say 'Moo'

2011-07-30T22:06:00.001+03:00

Well - it wasn't quite the Shabbos I'd expected but it turned out alright in the end.

After a decidedly bad hour and a half leading up to leaving the house and candle-lighting we ended up cancelling on our hosts. I felt horrible about it but was really not feeling well enough to walk all the way back up the mountain. They were completely understanding about the whole situation and told us that if anything changed we should still feel free to come.

Thankfully when it was time to drive Z down to shul I had managed to pull myself together and stand upright. I dropped him off then zoomed off to our would-be-hosts house to drop off the desserts package that I had made for them. (I packed up some of the almond meringues, lemon meringues and a batch of caramel corn.) When I knocked on the door she was so surprised to see me - I apologized profusely, and she was amazingly wonderful, gave me a drink told me to sit - I reckon my not-so-healthy-pallor worked in my favor. Anyway - 'early minyan' takes about an hour to daven and then a 35 minute walk home so I figured I had some time to get back to the house and light candles. I spent a delightful 45 minutes shmoozing and meeting a whole bunch of one of the daughter's dolls. She sent me home with rice and a container of soup (a 'temani-esque' chicken&beef stock).

Shabbos passed by so ridiculously slowly I felt like I lost 2-3 weeks instead of just 1 day. It was a whopping 90F inside the apartment today and even with the fans going we were hot. Stupid heat-wave - it wasn't like this last summer or the summer before either! It was too hot to sleep last night and today was worse than the night-time so no restful naps for me. I am absolutely exhausted.

We played Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Rummikub to try and pass the time but nothing really helped. Finally at around 8:30pm the temperature (finally) dropped to the mid 80's.

This is going to be an interesting week. I just hope my stomach can keep up...

Mannitol Hatred

2011-07-29T14:06:00.002+03:00

Thursday was hot and long. Z & I walked all around the lower campus dropping things off and saying hello to friends. Then we went out to Yesh to pick up some groceries (since I hadn't done that in about 3 weeks.) They finally finished paving by the new traffic circle - which we found amusing, because they could have done it weeks ago but the sign said that the project wouldn't be finished until August so they actually waited until the project was supposed to be done to finish it.

I haven't been sleeping well for the last 2 weeks. I'm not sure if it's the heat or the dryness or something I'm eating or what. All I know is that I am beyond exhausted and never feel rested. I have an impossible time falling asleep during the day and when the night comes and I crawl into bed I find myself staring at the dark blank wall - even if I'd been falling asleep on the couch 5 minutes earlier. Maybe it's my bed? I don't know.

Anyway - I woke up at 5:30 this morning with a pretty bad stomachache. Not a clue what it could be from considering I haven't eaten anything 'bad' or even 'questionable' this week. I tried to be really careful with my food intake so that I wouldn't have any problems since we're eating down out 'in the city' tonight. (Yup - just like 2 weeks ago - except we're eating by different people - and then the same 45 minute walk home - in the pitch blackness. Juuuuust delightful. *sob*) I spent about an hour sitting on the floor next to the toilet feeling like garbage and wishing I would just die.

I don't want to cancel our plans to eat out (mostly because I feel obnoxious cancelling a few hours before we're supposed to show up and because she tried so hard to make food that I could eat - another thing that makes me worried it's going to be an awkward "eat eat eat" meal even though I KNOW that I won't be hungry.) I also feel bed because they've been inviting us to come for a meal for about a year now. *sigh* There's really no 'easy' way out of it. Also Z refuses to make the call and insists that I'll be OK once we 'just do it' - I'm really not so optimistic (considering it's 2pm, I've barely eaten and what I did eat is still sitting in my throat and threatening to come back up.)

It's been 6 weeks since we had a nice simple quiet shabbos at home. Next week we'll be in The Sun House and the week after we're having guests - so chalk up another 2 months to 'noisy' weekends.

I really just want a peacful and quiet Shabbos - and a little bit of restful slumber wouldn't hurt either.

For now - I'm going to lie down - I doubt I'll actually be able to sleep, but maybe the world will stop lurching around and the stuff in my throat will miraculously go away...

People Soup?

2011-07-27T18:10:00.000+03:00

I seem to have gone on some sort of insane meringue making binge. Mostly because we had some 18 egg-whites sitting in the freezer in disposable cups that kept falling on my toes every time I would open the freezer to forage for FF food.

I woke up at 7:00 this morning when they started making noise out back. It was a delightful 78F and the air was pleasantly moist. I decided to bake myself some barley rolls before the heat kicked on for the day. I ate 2 of the rolls as they came out of the oven. They were delicious.

I let the oven cool a bit then whipped up a batch of lemon meringue cookies. I piped them, sprinkled them with a little colored sugar (cause 1/2 a cup in 2 eggs whites whipped into a stiff foam didn't quite seem like enough.)
I baked up a big tray of french fries for lunch and split them with Z when he came Home after tutoring in English class. He was only Home for about half an hour before heading out to meet up with some classmates to work on a project which is due next week.

Left to my own devices I weeded in the 'porch garden' and watered the plants. Then I whipped up my third batch of meringues. This batch I flavored with mint extract and tinted green. I figured that if I was going with a mint-chip theme that I might as well go 'all the way. After piping them I sprinkled them with chocolate sprinkles.
For dinner I'm thinking we'll enjoy the last of the food that we took from The Sun House when we left on Sunday. I guess I'll cook up some rice or pasta or something else starchy and delicious.
Tomorrow I should probably go out to the grocery store - considering we've actually run out of potatoes and potato-chips.

I also really have to figure out what to make for Shabbos lunch. The temperature is supposed to rise and we're supposed to go eat dinner down in the city on Friday night. I feel too bad cancelling (since the people have been trying to get us for a meal for close to a year) but I'm kind of dreading the heat. Especially on Shabbos when we can't move fans around and/or change the settings on them. Not to mention that the heat is wreaking havoc on my already-sensitive digestive tract. *sigh* really don't know what to do.

Peanut Butter in Bed...

2011-07-26T21:31:00.001+03:00

For today's experiment we played around with the 'trissim' - all of our Israeli neighbors claim that if you shut the light-tight window-covers in the early afternoon while the 'morning cool' is still wafting through the house (and spend your entire day in darkness) that you will be rewarded with cooler temperatures inside the apartment. I'm not sure whether the tris is doing its job or whether the weather is actually cooler today - but yesterday afternoon it was 88F and today it only got to 84F. At a certain point I gave up and opened the shades because I was feeling claustrophobic and really wanted some fresh air. (Sadly none of the air outside was 'fresh' it just sort of stank of burning-garbage - wafting in from a neighboring village I'd guess - as well as dust, a lot of it - thanks to the construction.)

I pulled pesto rolls out of the freezer for Z for breakfast and then pulled manicotti out of the freezer for his lunch. He went off to school to take him moed bet for physics and to go to his Tuesday afternoon 3D modeling course.

I know I said I wouldn't be turning on the oven this week - but I really needed a snack to eat. There are an overabundance of egg-whites in the freezer on account of all the ice cream we've been making. I decided to use a few up and whipped 2 of them into a batch of almond-meringues. I honestly couldn't decide whether it would be better to have the oven on at 350F for an hour or at 100F for 2.5 hours. Decisions, decisions. On a bright side - thanks to the ridiculously low humidity the meringues came out deliciously crispy.

I ended up cooking up about 1&2/3 cup of persian rice (quick fried in canola oil with some salt, pepper, turmeric and a tiny dash of garlic powder) then I threw in a chicken breast (diced into small cubes) and about 1/2 cup of frozen baby peas. Finally I added the water, gave it all a quick stir, slapped on the lid, turned the fire down to low and let it all simmer for around 16 minutes and 30 seconds. (I'm very precise when it comes to timing - can you tell?) It turned out pretty good - inspired by that amazing chicken and rice salad that I've made for shabbos the last few weeks that we were home. We enjoyed the first half of it as an 'early' dinner and then polished it off for a 'night-time snack'.

We deserted the office at around 6pm. It was just too hot to sit on the couch anymore. Instead we moved onto a cloth covered surface and waited for the temperature to drop. By 8pm the thermometer was down to 80F (and though it still feels hot and somewhat hard to breathe it's decidedly better than it was earlier in the day.)

I'm feeling sort of jealous of The Freddies - they're in SwissCheeseLand and rumor has it that the temperature last night was a little below 50F. Though it makes me sad to not be able to feel my toes for months at a time...deep down I really do favor the cold. (Especially if there's central heating, down quilts and hot water bottles.)

Here's to hoping that tomorrow is better. Man I wish we were going to be somewhere with air-conditioning for the weekend.

Next Week Will be Wednesday...

2011-07-25T14:29:00.003+03:00

Wandering around my apartment in short shorts and a tank-top seems to be the only way to ~~beat~~ deal with the ridiculous heat. It's 88 degrees in my kitchen (with the oven off - and I refuse to turn it on even though I am totally out of barley rolls and crackers.) As a matter of fact I refuse to cook until it cools down and if that means only eating potato chips and whatever half-melted chocolate that we've got in the cupboard well then - so be it.

Last night I crawled into bed at 8:45pm exhausted. Somehow I was unable to actually fall asleep until close to 10. I managed to sleep until 7am -when the crazy construction people decided it was a good time to start hacking away at the mountain behind our building again.

We're signing on to rent the apartment for another year which is news. (Good for the people who are happy to have us feed them - Not-as-good for the people who wish we were closer to them so that we could be feeding them instead...)

We took a stroll down to the sales-office for the building project that is going on behind our current haunt. Turns out the noise will be continuing for the next 3 years or so. They are building in 3 'waves'. The first wave (mostly 6 and 7 room cottages) are supposed to be ready in 2 years from now. he last wave is due to be completed in 3 years from now. We even got to see the plans - nice looking homes - front & back yards - the works. When everything is said and done it will be a nice little neighborhood in a clean and green city - about 15 minutes walking from the 'Anglo-shul', 8 minutes walk from the 'netzarim' community, 10 minutes from the university campus. Not too shabby if you ask me. (So if any of those old pals of mine want to move to the middle of nowhere - here's your chance. Though the asking prices are pretty steep (what else is new in The Holy Land nowadays?) The smaller cottages are going for about 1.5million shekels and the larger are going for 1.6million. Still - if anyone has a small fortune and wants to move...here's your chance!

Just in case you wondered how loud the noise is from the construction outside...our neighbor knocked on our door and we didn't hear the knocking - so he called us to ask if we were home and screening people at the door. Z opened the door and apologized but he was completely understanding about the whole situation - after all - he lives right upstairs, it's not like it's any quieter up there.

Gingybiteus...

2011-07-24T18:07:00.000+03:00

Friday was super busy. I went to the dentist in the morning then The Crazy Lady & I went up to RBS (where we bought all sorts of fun disposable foil-pans in all sorts of fun single-serving sizes.) Back at the house we cooked and baked up a storm. I made the roasted garlics and baked up a double batch of the FF barley rolls. (They turned out quite nicely - 18 rolls with a 'bread-like' texture. Very very exciting!)
Friday night was delightful and relaxing. We played a game of Settlers after the meal (to give Phil some time to digest before going to sleep.) Shabbos morning started early but lunch was nice and we spent all afternoon playing games too. Settlers & 'Categories' (a new game which was introduced to the fambily by The Freddies.)
Little Brother came over and we were a little too enthusiastic about presenting his birthday cupcakes with some serious flourish. Bob and his gal-pal came over to visit too - thanks to the card game I'm still trying to list various pieces of furniture found in a house and keep imagining road-signs in Israel.
After Havdala Phil, Z and I all watched a movie from 2006 called 'Flushed Away' - Phil & I enjoyed it immensely. Z was less amused, but laughed a couple of times nonetheless.

All was good until around 10:30 when the lights all sort of flickered out - then came back on at 30% capacity - then flickered down to 20%, up to 60% and finally sputtered out along with all of the other electricity. We lit some candles and pulled out the flashlights. Timmy had just passed around (army-issue) 'glow-sticks' for taking to bed or to the bathroom (much safer than candles after all, and less bulky than flashlights) but within 10 minutes power had been restored. For the fun of it I took my glow-stick into bed and the little stuffed animals had a pow-wow around it.
Sunday morning started an hour earlier than planned on account of the power-outage resetting the clocks in the house. (We thought it was 7:30 but really it was 6:30.) We lazed around for a while before packing everything up, gathering all of our stuffs and heading Home. The drive took us an hour and 10 minutes (but we stopped to fill up on petrol and to put air in our tires too.)
Sara D happened to be in The-Middle-of-Nowhere taking care of a few 'end of year' loose-ends. So when she had finished everything she came over to visit. We already miss her and I can't hardly wait for the summer (and hot weather) to fly on by. I say, let the fall semester begin already!!!
In other news - did you know that as a Jewish female you will be unable to be actually fulfilled in your life until you have had a baby? That doesn't work for you for any reason - regardless of whether it's physical/emotional/financial...? Well, that's just too bad. That's just the rule.

(Haha, and you thought you'd be able to be 'fulfilled' when you got married - well, that's just what they told you to get the process started...sucker!!!)

Not Italian?

2011-07-21T23:23:00.002+03:00

I woke up bright and early this morning to the sounds of heavy machinery clanking around outside. After about 45 minutes of aimlessly rearranging all of the attachments they turned off the big machine and left - for the day. Utter stupidity.
I had a long list of things to accomplish but only got about 3 done. Thankfully Z was great and actually did his chores in a timely manner of sorts.

In the meantime I baked up a couple of things and had a brainstorm with regard to a fun project.
As you may or may not recall - we'll be in The Sun House for Shabbos. I assumed that we'd be heading over there early Friday morning but at a little after 4pm we got a call saying, "S&S and The Freddies are coming for dinner. Maybe you want to come too?" I briefly freaked out, threw my clothes into a suitcase and tried to straighten up the stuff I'd been leaving to clean when it cooled down - then by 5 we were in the car zooming down the highway.

It was more or less clear sailing (aside from the last kilometer and a half on the major-est highway) and we made it to the fambily Home smack-dab in the middle of dinner. There was still plenty of food though so we just pulled up chairs and dug right in.
I completed my fun project while team-effort of Phil & The Crazy Lady did the first steps of FF Milano Cookies. I had free hands by the time the cookies were ready to be glazed/iced and sandwiched. We did half with chocolate/mint and the other half with chocolate/almond. They are pretty darn tasty!

Tomorrow there's loads to do - hard to believe it's Friday again.

If you're trying to get in touch with me - don't be sad if you can't. I'll be on a screen-diet until some point late on Sunday afternoon (if not Monday morning.)

Life without technology is so very relaxing.

Except for air-conditioning - of course...

SecretKeeper = RiddleMaster

2011-07-18T22:26:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was a decidedly quiet Sunday. Z & I walked down to the mailbox then I trudged Home while Z went to print out physics notes - a lot of physics notes.

The most exciting thing to happen was when Z called Freddie at around 9pm and asked her what her plans were for today. She said she'd be willing to come and visit if we'd make her favorite things.
And so it came to pass that at 10:30pm on a Sunday night, Z & I slaved away in the kitchen preparing ice-cream custards of the French Vanilla & Mint Chocolate Chip varieties.
I was up bright and early (a little before 7) this morning. I kneaded up a batch of bagel-dough while Z churned the ice-cream.

Fact: When it is over 80F at 8am your KitchenAid ice-cream-maker attachment will not stay frozen long enough to churn 2 batches of custard into delightfully dreamy ice-cream...
Z had to 'teach English' this morning so he was out from 8:30 until a little before 1pm. While he was out I went out to the grocery store (to buy some whipped cream - because what is an ice cream party without whipped cream?!) I also shaped/boiled/baked 1.5 batches of bagels. Then I mixed up and piped a batch of milano-cookies. Z got Home and put up the birthday sign (all spazzy-like) and I wrapped up the super-useful present.
Finally The Freddies arrived. HaPpY EnGlIsH bIrThDaY FrEdSo!!! We lunched on fresh bagels with all of 'the works' and washed it all down with some delightfully refreshing homemade unsweetened lemon-nana iced tea.
Eventually the cookies cooled completely, so I was able to sandwich them with their chocolate and mint fillings. After lunch and ice cream nobody really wanted cookies - so I sent most of them home with the birthday girl. (In the meanwhile - about an hour south of Home -Phil baked up a FF batch of milano-cookies using barley flour in place of wheat-stuff. it worked amazingly well - so I'll be making myself a batch in the not too distant future.)

We all relaxed for a while and enjoyed the (cross)-breeze for a couple of hours. Then The Freddies had to go. We said out 'goodbye-for-now's and they were off. Z helped me straighten up and even washed all of the dishes.

I was a super-nice-wife and made him an amazing (smelling) dinner of pasta primavera. (So that he'd have a nice filling meal pre-'fast' - like I said, I'm just too nice sometimes. There's even enough leftovers for 2 more meals which will carry him neatly right to the end of the week.)Really not looking forward to this whole 'fasting' business... Nothing planned for tomorrow since it's supposed to be a real 'scorcher' and we're not 'allowed' to drink. I'm thinking bed and a nice cool towel on my neck and forehead. Yeah - see - there are perks to not having kids after all.

Must remember to water my plants bright and early in the morning though. They're going to need it.

Tiny Turtles...

2011-07-16T23:59:00.000+03:00

Thursday was really hot - weather-wise I mean. We stayed home and tried not to melt. We consoled ourselves by keeping in mind that it's only July and that the heat will continue to be the same (or worse) until sometime around November (though if it's anything like last year the heat could last until March or so...)

Friday morning was extremely relaxed. Z took a bus into town to pick up the last minute groceries. I put together a super-easy lunch and had more than enough time to scrub down the bathrooms and do a complete wash&scrub of the kitchen counter and stove-top.

About 15 minutes before Shabbos we drove down to Ora&Shlomo's house. I handed over the keys and gifts (a late wedding gift, which was a copy of the cookbook in its 'new format' and a nice big bag of caramel popcorn.) The guys headed out to shul. Dinner was a cute affair, they have such a cozy little home. All food was FF in my honor and Ora was awesome about the whole 'might or might not actually eat' thing. Honestly it was a really nice 'change of pace' for me. Even though we made 'regular' Shabbos, we finished the meal by 10:15. Then Z and I 'dined & dashed' with apologies so that we'd make the walk Home before I bottomed out on energy reserves. The walk itself wasn't too bad all things considered. We walked up the 'security path' along the fence, there were enough lights to see where we were going (and the full moon shed a lot of light on the situation too.) We made it Home (from the 'inner' traffic circle at Sheshet Hayamim) in just 40 minutes and we walked at a relatively leisurely pace. Thankfully the weather had cooled off significantly so the walk was actually quite enjoyable.

The cooler weather continued on Shabbos day. We enjoyed a nice lunch at the 'late' hour of 12pm. Then we had the rest of the day to laze around and read a lot. It was amazingly relaxing and delightful. We played a game of Scrabble at some point but the rest of the day was spent deep in books.

Shabbos ended and we made havdala. Then Z straightened up whatever he could (there wasn't much to do) and I sliced up some vegetables. At around 10ish, Ora&Shlomo arrived for some Saturday night fun. We decided to watch 'Despicable Me' (since Shlomo hadn't seen it yet.) It ended shortly after midnight so I gave them a ride Home to spare them the shlep down the hill.

Lunch this Shabbos included:

Roasted garlic, chumus (Abu Dushi), challah/barley bread, sauteed chicken breast (FF), honey-mustard crumb shnitzel, chicken&rice salad

Z made 4 liters of iced tea and 2 liters of lemonade

Dessert was a FF oatmeal cookie pizza baked in a 7x11pan. (I think I'm going to bake it like that from now on - it's more like amazingly good oatmeal blondies (which I stirred crunchy-peanut-butter into) - even Z enjoyed them. A lot.

Gosh now I'm in the mood for a piece of that oatmeal deliciousness...

Scrapzanya...

2011-07-13T19:17:00.002+03:00

For some funny reason Manicotti always makes me think of my Savta - so do salmon croquettes, unbelievably amazing omelettes and matzah balls. But for today - it's the manicotti that matters.

As you may (or may not) know - there was a cottage cheese strike for a while here in The Holy Land. Consumers refused to buy the dairy staple after dairy-companies raised the price to about 8nis for 250 gram containers. (That's about $2.30 for every cup of the stuff.) As a result many stores started having crazy sales to get the cheese off of their shelves before the expiration dates passed. The dairy companies finally agreed to lower the price to something 'more reasonable' but the sales continued so that the back-up could be cleared out.

I picked up 2 containers for 10 shekels last week. I always figure I'll make yummy stuff like lasagna, calzones and savory tarts, but I somehow never seem to get around to it. (Must be because I can't eat them.)
Anyway - I didn't want the cheese to end up going in the garbage so I decided to use it up. Unfortunately I was out of Parmesan cheese and didn't have any mozzarella to grate. Luckily I had a package of sliced Gilboa cheese.

I cooked up a big pot of chunky tomato sauce and even decided to use one of my boxes of 'American Lasagna' that I've been holding onto like a crazy miser.

I diced the Gilboa cheese and mixed it in with the cottage cheese and 2 eggs. Then I seasoned the mixture with some salt, pepper, parsley and a dash of nutmeg (the best-kept-secret lasagna ingredient) and also mixed in about 1 Tbsp of seasoned breadcrumbs (because the mixture looked a little too liquidy to me.)
After rolling everyone up I ended up with 6 tiny-tins of 'mini-cotti' which I wrapped well, labeled and stuck in the freezer. Z loves lasagna and manicotti so it's great to have these single-serving tins in the freezer stash.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm a huge fan of tiny tin-foil pans (especially ones that come with cute little tops? I can't help it. I know - I have issues.
The day was pretty boring. I gave myself a delightful at Home 'spa-treatment' but aside from that and a couple of hours of graphics work I didn't do too much.
Z had his first day of 'teaching English' today. He's essentially a TA for the summer - it's the same job he had all year - and now it's paying for his summer course. Wednesday is his 'long day' he has class from 9am-3pm. So - he was hungry when he got Home.

Luckily for him I made a little lasagna out of the extra scraps which I didn't use for the manicotti.

He claims it was a good lunch. All I know is that it smelled amazing, so I'm willing to assume it probably tasted pretty good.

Though truth be told - I don't think you can really go wrong with noodles, sauce and cheese.

What's a Hond Brayik?

2011-07-12T23:54:00.001+03:00

I was up bright and early this morning. The whole house smelled like french toast and I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven - then I remembered that I couldn't eat any - which kind of made me wonder how bad H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks could really be... and all before 9am on my birthday.

Yo'Abba and Z came with me to the 'auto-test' place were I took Ceed-y for his very first inspection as a Nemoy. He passed with flying colors (even though I was convinced I was doing the wrong thing at the wrong time since I couldn't hear what the technicians were telling me to do in an echo-y tunnel, over the roar of machinery and car engines.) We dropped Yo'Abba off at Home and before leaving he did a super-awesome favor and scraped off the old inspection stickers to make room for the new one. After applying it we hopped into the house to say good-bye one last time then got on the road.

The ride Home was relatively quick. It took us 1 hour and 2 minutes from when we pulled out of the gas-station parking-lot on Rt. 38, right across from Tzora. We ate some delicious Chicken & Rice Salad leftovers for lunch then Z had to run out to his very first summer-class. I spent about 9 hours on graphics work and when Z got Home I told him to enjoy some meatballs and twisty-pastas for dinner.

We're all playing around with Google+ now. It's like a newfangled version of Facebook (except that it's rudimentary like old-school-FB) but it's convenient because it's Google-driven... I'll have to decide what to do with it.

Tomorrow is another day. I've got big plans for it though.

Peehil & Roscoe

2011-07-11T23:47:00.001+03:00

"Glitter is the herpes of the art world."

Because it's been an interesting few days.

Shabbos Menu (just so I don't forget) -

Friday Night: roasted garlic, chumus, matbucha, chicken soup with matzah balls, meatballs with pasta (white & ww), white rice, green beans, savory roasted root veggies, 'simple roasted chicken' wings

Shabbos Lunch: roasted garlic & cherry tomatoes, chumus, matbucha, lemon-pepper & basil chicken wings, roasted chicken breast with potato slice stuffing, chicken & rice salad, sliced veggies, broccoli salad

Seudah Shlishit: vegetable sushi, sliced veggies, chumus & matbucha, pesto rolls & ice cream

Desserts: barley chocolate chip cookies, chocolate almond torte, brownies (a'la Ita) & ice cream

Shabbos was really nice, though the weather was really hot. It was very relaxed and enjoyable. Ita brought her 'Knights & Cities' expansion for 'Settlers' so we got to 'test-it-out' (it was really intense.) We also played Phase 10 and Scrabble. There was a nice long 'rest' period and we had a late lunch which turned out really great.

Sunday morning I was woken up at 5ish thanks to a pesky mosquito. I watched the sun rise before making a batch of chocolate chip cookies for A&E's 'wedding night survival kit'. At a little after 10 I took Z down to the local hair-dresser for a pre-3-week hair-cut. We were home again half an hour later then I wrapped the presents, we packed up and headed out to The Sun House. We stopped off at BIG to pick up a 'bedtime story' for A&E's gift then made our way across town to the fambily house.

A&E's wedding was in Jeru (right by The Old City) - it was a small affair - but funnily enough I knew a whole bunch of other people who were attending. (Must have something to do with her having gone to Afikei... Go figure.) We stayed until the very very end and dropped Ayala off at her dorms before heading back to The Sun House. It was a little before 2 by the time we went to sleep.

We were all up bright and early Monday morning. Z & Yo'Abba took our car into Jeru to get the '75,000 km tune-up'. In the meanwhile Mean'ma and I went out to Super-H and to check in on Patches and the fishies including the little one named Sam. Phil made 'baked-oatmeal' for breakfast and I spent a whole lot of hours agonizing about where to begin with this graphics project (another instance where Lorelai bit off slightly more than she could chew...taking on a 'rush-job' with 2 other jobs not-quite-finished when she's not even going to be home for 3 days of the 5 given to get the project done...yeah, just a bit silly on her part - but what else is new?)

In the late afternoon Phil and Mean'ma dragged me out to the clothing store at Tzora (where I bought a pretty new top for Shabbos) and then to BIG (because it's always fun to go to bookstores and arts-n-crafts places.) When we got back to the house there was a big surprise waiting for me - streamers and a pretty (awesome) sign (with glitter) wishing me a happy birthday.

Z took charge of grilling all the meat for dinner and there were potato wedges and rice too. Then the Freddies arrived (another surprise for me!) and we all had an amazingly delicious birthday dinner together. Dessert was also a surprise - for me anyway - an amazingly moist and decadent FF chocolate cake and delicious cinnamon-spice muffins garnished with a whole pecan each and oh so pretty! There were also a whole lot of candles involved. I suppose turning 26 will do that to a cake...

After The Freddies had left and everything was straightened up we watched some of our favorite cooking show. Z, Mean'ma (the amazing) and I learned all about the art of cinnamon-bunning. Then I went upstairs and organized the suitcase and all of the goodies that I've accumulated in the last day and a half.

Tomorrow is another busy day. Car inspection, drive Home, then some serious buckling-down and working - because that graphics project needs to be in the client's inbox by tomorrow afternoon - the earlier the better. Wish me luck - oh yeah, and a happy birthday!

Free For All...

2011-07-07T19:57:00.001+03:00

For anyone interested - I finally uploaded ~THE~ cookbook to 'Facebook'. I uploaded in high-resolution so right clicking on a photo will give you an option to save the high-quality photo wherever you choose. You can then print the photos (10x15cm here in The Holy Land) - I'd recommend printing them 'glossy' so they don't lose any of their awesome shine. Then all you need is a 200-slot album to stick them into. TaDa - cookbook!

In other news - Today I spoke to a guy about a job and will actually be making some money in the coming days. (Round of applause people. It's about time.)

We've got 2 guests coming for Shabbos. Ita is coming (for the first sleep-over at our house ever) and SL is coming back again (cause she knows Ita and cause I'm just so ridiculously awesome and she misses me so much when she's not here. Well, she either misses me or the awesome tasting tap-water - but between the two of us - let's pretend she comes to see me.)

I made chicken wings for Z for dinner tonight and he finally finished the couscous from last Shabbos. (Just in time to make some more tomorrow. Just joking, we're having rice and pasta this weekend. Menus will be posted after the food is made.)

Summary of the day:

I asked Z to please wash the dishes that had accumulated over the last 2 days - since I last washed dishes.

He agreed on the condition that I would clear the dry dishes off of the draining-racks before he started.

I put the pareve pots in their cabinet and tossed the plastic containers onto a shelf.

Then I thought of something interesting - it was so intriguing that I wanted to look it up online straight away.

As I walked towards the office I heard Z ask, "are the rest of the dishes on the rack still wet?"

I walked back to the kitchen completely confused - thinking I had completed the task at hand only to realize that I hadn't.

Is ADD contagious?

I think I might have caught it from - oooh look - shiny squirrel!

fml ftw...

2011-07-06T10:31:00.001+03:00

At 2:30 this morning a rowdy gang of teenagers were throwing glass bottles and all sorts of scrap metal around the construction site behind the building. Needless to say they were yelling and shouting too. It woke me along with a horrible stomachache. I took 4 max-strength pills and managed to fall back asleep by 3:45ish.

At 6 I was up again. Still feeling sick though better than I had felt earlier.

I proceeded to cancel my fun plans for the day (meaning that the car won't be getting looked at this week and messing up my entire schedule.) In addition it means I don't get to go anywhere or do anything fun this week. I'm beyond bummed and I hate myself for it. Kind of depressing if you ask me.

I think the very worst purchase I have ever made might just be the car. It's a financial drain, an added pressure, and it kicks up my anxiety level exponentially. I can't even use it reliably when I need to - which is totally my own fault. An even worse investment than that year in voodoo school or that second year of seminary.

On that note - I have no clue how the heck I'm going to drive us to that wedding on Sunday in Jeru.

Cause it's not pathetic enough that I can't eat (at home or otherwise) now I can't even get more than 30 feet from a toilet - again. Yeah - life is absolutely awesome.

Jeremiah

2011-07-04T23:14:00.001+03:00

Yesterday I did something silly. I decided to trial eating dairy with some lactaid. Only after downing the pill did I realize that it contained mannitol. Silly me downed the pill with the ice cream though - so when the reaction hit 16 hours later I wasn't sure exactly I was reacting too. It wasn't too pleasant. I think it's just easier to stay away from dairy. Oh well - I tried.

On the bright side - I'm considering the sweet potato experiment a success. Now it's time to see how much of it I can eat at once. Since the 2 Tbsp went down ok - I'll up it to 4 - and that's 1/4 cup (which is about how much broccoli I can tolerate in 24 hours.) Isn't this fun?

Today I just about finished the layout of that book cover that I'd been working on. There are a couple of other random things to finish up in the next few days. On Thursday I'm meeting with a new/old client about some work that he's been holding for me. It should be fun to work with him and I'm rather looking forward to the opportunity.

Z and I had a marker-war this morning. I'm not sure who won - but we both got drawn on. Funnily enough the ink on my arms has been scaring me every time I see it out of the corner of my eye. I'm sure it'll come off in the shower with a little scrubbing. (Though, the stripes I landed on Z's arm didn't completely wash off...)

I've got to go to Petach Tiqwa one day this week. The car needs an over-haul type check-up before 'inspection' (which also needs to be done this month) and the closest KIA place is in PT. I figure I can drop the car off early and then hang out at the mall for a while. I could always visit Freddie if she's not busy.

Not sure whether we're having a guest for Shabbos this week. Hopefully I'll find out by Wednesday night so I can figure out whether I need to go shopping or not.

Why does it always smell like smoke outside? Cigarette smoke floating in from the neighbors downstairs, BBQ smoke from the neighbors downstairs, shnasty smoke from the surrounding willages burning their garbage... It's gross. Just in case you were wondering.

Hopefully I'll get out of the house tomorrow. I've been bad for the last 2 days, sitting around on my lazy tuchus.

Paul?

2011-07-02T23:26:00.001+03:00

Phil left on Friday morning and I was sad to see her go - but she claimed that clean undercloths were an integral part of shabbos to her and that she had to get home.

The cooking didn't take long at all and I even took SL into town for a little bit.

We made 'early' shabbos which was great and I picked Sara up at the campus on my way Home from dropping Z off at shul.

After the meal Friday night Sara left to study with some friends and a friends of Z's came over. We played 2 games of Settlers - because what else is there to play on Shabbos?

The Menu included:

Friday Night: roasted garlic, salatim, chicken soup, spice-rub chicken, white rice, peas, roasted vegetables

Shabbos Lunch: roasted garlic and cherry tomatoes, salatim, sliced veggies, zaatar chicken, couscous, white rice

Seudah Shlishit: melon, veggies and salatim

Desserts (all FF though not all dairy-free): chocolate chip cookies, mint thins, ice-cream (pb &/or vanilla+)

Drinks: 6 liters not-quite-snapple

The food came out great and we stuck to 'few' desserts (since both guests were on diets.)

Shabbos day was quite long but it passed pretty quickly. We read a lot then played some Scrabble and some more Settlers. Naps help pass the time too - but they also result in inability to sleep on Saturday night...

After havdala SL ran to catch a bus back to Jeru. Z straightened up the house and then we watched a completely pointless (yet amusing) movie.

Tomorrow Z's friends might be coming over to study for an upcoming physics final. If they're actually coming I think I might bake a batch of pesto rolls just for the heck of it. I mean - guests means that they'll get eaten and they just smell so good!

Not quite sure what's going on this week. I should probably try to figure that out...

Snatching Eagles...

2011-06-30T21:54:00.001+03:00

I woke up at 6:30 this morning. Phil got up a little before 8 and I waited until a little after 8 to wake up Z.

Phil and I watched some tv (and Z insisted on Peanut Butter Ice Cream for breakfast.)

Eventually Z went out to school to take care of some things. Phil and I took it as an opportunity to go out and have some fun of our own. We headed into town where we picked up some roasted/salted nuts to nosh on and some chumus for Shabbos.

Back at Home we coated the mint thins with minty-chocolate goodness. Then we had a delightful lunch of shnitzel or little white fishies with french fries.

I made the chicken soup for Shabbos and took chicken out of the freezer to thaw. At least I can pretend I started the cooking.

I also did 3 loads of laundry and I finally organized my clothes closet (mostly because it was so messy that I couldn't fit the clean clothes on the shelves.)

SL arrived at a little before 4 and after settling in she started doing some homework and studying.

For dinner I made 'eggplant parmigiana lite' in single-serve ramekins and for the Fructozoids - more chicken!

Phil and I played a lot of Scrabble and eventually we all agreed to watch 'The Proposal'.

Tomorrow is another day...erev shabbos again? Gosh.

Lobster-Killer...

2011-06-29T18:15:00.004+03:00

By 8:50 this morning I was on the road. I picked up Sara and Shlomo and off to Yesh we went. Z came too. The shopping trip didn't take very long and I was very excited because all of the potato-chips were 25% off.
We dropped everyone off at their respective places and then rushed Home to unpack the groceries. Then I pack up my flip-flops and drove off to Petach Tiqwa to pick up Freddie. Then we said g'bye to Mr. Freddie and headed off to Modiin.
We made it to the mall in no-time and met up with The Crazy Lady, Yo'Abba and Phil. We walked into the nail-salon right on time for our appointments. It was a really nice place - a whole row of pedi-chairs and a lot of colors to choose from. Phil went Lilac, Mean'ma chose pinks and I opted for a slightly redder version of my favorite magenta-y shade. It was highly relaxing and deeeelightful.
Then we wandered around the mall for a little bit before heading back to the cars where The Crazy Lady surprised me with a super-awesome jumbo FF Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie. We snapped a couple of pictures then piled into the car and headed towards Home.
Back in Petach Tiqwa we detoured to the car wash (because cars deserve showers sometimes too.) Then we dropped Freddie off and drove Home.
Did I mention that I kidnapped Phil for the night? She requested peanut-butter ice cream and Z was just the person to make it. He put together the custard and we churned it while dinner was in the oven.
Getting chocolate flakes into the mix was a fun part - but it seems to me that the best part was the 'tasting'(s).
Now it's setting up in the freezer overnight while we enjoy a meat meal of deliciousness. Z did a great job making dinner. (I should leave it up to him more often.)
All in all a highly successful and extremely enjoyable (english) birthday day!

I wonder if the Hebrew one will be able to top it.

Hint hint - wink wink - nudge nudge - to nobody in particular...