Parev Vanilla Ice Cream

My friend Elisheva in Ramat Beit Shemesh always had the best desserts. When we ate by her, I secretly waited the whole meal for her elegant yet simple dessert spread. Well that's not completely true...I enjoyed the first course and main course very much too! 

One thing that I learned from my friend Elisheva is that practicality is KEY. Sometimes it's not about having different exciting desserts- it's about having the same dessert that just works every time. And every time we went it was the same basic template of cake, ice cream, and fruit. BUT IT WAS SO GOOD! 

Turkey Challahs

Happy Thanksgiving! Today’s turkey challah tutorial is a guest post by my cousin Ita. Besides for being a baker in her community, Ita teaches girls and women to play Jewish music on piano using her easy and fun method. You can find free tutorials and sheet music on her blog at www.playjewishmusic.com.
Whether you’ve never played a note in your life or you’ve been playing for years, learning to play Jewish music on piano should be fun!

Eggplant Salad

This is deeeeelicious! My husband raves about this salad.

In Israel, it's all about the salads. Not like lettuce salads, though. They are more like small bowls of random salads and dips, like cooked beets and peppers and tomatoes. My neighbor's main dish Friday night is her eggplant dips. She spends hours making different dips made from eggplants/chatzilim, and the punch line is that she doesn't even like eggplant! She makes them for her husband and boys, bless her.

Shepherd's Pie

**I wrote this post at the end of last winter and I am only posting it now! I wanted to write a post so badly about the pivotal role of rain in this country and how exciting the first rain fall is and I had such a difficult time doing it! And then I remembered this post and how I had already wrote about the rain! So here is my thoughts on rain and Shepard's pie from the end-of-the-winter perspective. 

The difficult thing about living in Israel is needing to listen to everyone from the US bemoan their terrible, freezing weather, while you are sitting outside in the strong, beautiful, Ramat Beit Shemsh sun watching your children play on their riding toys and color with chalk. It’s really an exercise of patience, but I’m slowly getting used to it.

Pesach is coming...

Ok, let’s talk pesach. There are approximately 21 days until the big day arrives, where our homes need to be completely sterile of all crumbs, stickiness, cherrios, or anything that means dirty. This is hard to digest now, while my toddler parades through the house with all his meals. I tell my 3-year-old that she’s helping me clean by eating in the kitchen, and this satisfies her!

I was talking with my sister in-law and she requested that I post some recipes for pesach. I decided that I might as well begin with the basics of pesach that we all look forward to. The pesach specials that don’t really require a recipe. The one’s that everyone could participate in making.

-        Matza and cream cheese

-        Matza pizza

-        Scrambled eggs

-        Matza and coffee

-        Shnitzel (dipped in egg and matza meal)

-        Please comment with more because my mind is drawing a blank!

Here are some recipes on this blog that are pesachdik. Please note, that you may need to make sure your ingredients indicates that they are kosher la’Pesach.

-     Sephardic eggplant salad

-        Flounder roll-up

-        Yapchick

-        Meatballs

-        Applesauce

Remember keep calm and pesach-clean on! No promises with my bad record, but hopefully some yummy kosher la’pesach recipes to come….

Bubby's Cheese Blintzes

Cheese blintzes are one of my Bubby's specialties! Every year for Shavuous she makes a pan for all her grandchildren, at least in my family. They are seriously deeeelicious!! 

I don't like to be left in the dark when it comes to something good, so I asked my Bubby for the recipe. She shrugged and said, "I can't just give you the recipe. you have to watch and see how it's done." I didn't argue (no one argues with Bubby), and we set a cheese blintz making date! To give my grandmother credit, making the actual crepes was a bit tricky, so I'm happy I got to watch. Plus, what wonderful Bubby and granddaughter bonding time we had! 

Portabella mushroom salad

 I hope everyone is having Chanukah that is filled with family, friends, good food, laughter, and warmth! Here is a recipe that you could add to your Chanukah party menu…

I loooovvve a good salad. A good salad enhances any meal from ordinary to elegant or festive or balanced. Not only do I like a good salad but I like a funky salad with tangy tastes, interesting ingredients, and unique toppings.  So I am just so ashamed that this blog barely consists of any salad recipes. The reason for this is that I generally make my special salads for Shabbos, so they are assembled and put together on Shabbos, hence no picture taking.

Tips on Toilet Training:

Learning to "Stay Dry" 

Toilet training. Those 2 words say it all! I really went into the process pretty confidently. I mean, they say girls are easy. All kids do this and I am a capable mother, right? No big deal!

Oh. My. Goodness! 1 year later after starting the process, and I’m still trying to tackle toilet training! Toilet training has been a real challenge for us, but I have heard from others that it went easily and smoothly for them.  Every child will progress at their pace; however, because my experience was especially hard, I have acquired many helpful tips for first-time toilet trainers.

Pickled Salmon

We just came back from an amazing weekend with my brother in-law and sister in-law. We pretty much always stay home for the weekends because my husband’s in medical school and can’t afford to lose out on any studying time. This week happened to work out, and we spent Shabbos in a lovely hotel up north. It was nice to be surrounded by Hashem’s beautiful creations of nature and to have a break from regular Shabbos chores of clearing the table, washing the dishes; you understand my drift, right?  

Pumpkin Muffins

Hello again. Thanks for not losing hope in me. So many things have happened since we last spoke. There has been Rosh Hashana, yom kipper, and succos; Esther and Noach started gan; I found a very part time job as a therapist in an alternative girl’s high school; and currently terror attacks are happening rampantly throughout Israel.