Snowy Breakfast

Since I have (yet another) snow day from work, I made my new favorite breakfast. It's a bit odd, and I don't know why I feel in love with it but I did, nor do I know what made me want to make it in the first place. It's whole wheat pita, sliced apple and hummus. And it's DELICIOUS. Basically, I toast a frozen whole wheat pita and slice up an apple. I then make little sandwiches (I'm sure I could do a big sandwich, but I like playing with my food) with the apple slices and hummus. And it's really good. I get fruit and protein in one meal! I've had it like 3 days this week (since I have time for breakfast). I do feel a bit like Zohan.

The Pedant made himself a barley breakfast where he cooked barley, melted some cheddar cheese, added some whole-grain dijon mustard and some chopped walnuts. He really enjoyed it.

Now we both have mugs of tea and are watching the snow fall down while doing work.

More Lunch News

I too have an exciting lunch today - in fact, I had it for dinner Tuesday so I know it'll be good. It's a sandwich with hard boiled eggs (which I relearned are very tasty on sandwiches while in Scandinavia), roasted garlic hummus, Bittman's caramelized onion chutney and lettuce. And I'm quite excited. The chutney is much spicier this time than I've had it before, mostly because the hot peppers were very hot. But it's quite tasty. And the bread gets all soft and saturated with hummus which is fun.

The Thrill of Organic Vegetables

I hate insects. I hate having to touch them, especially. Even through gloves.

So the fact that our CSA farm is organic leads to some unfortunate surprises, like today, when we did not get a single ear of weevil-free corn. I salvaged some of it, discarded the rest, and basically flushed the weevils themselves down the disposal. There's also a ladybug flying around the apartment from where I brought up the courage to flick it off of our lettuce.

That said, the veggies and fruits that are not bug-ridden (the vast majority of them) are delicious. I had a tomato from our box today with hummus on bread, and it was quite tasty.

Food News Roundup!

1) Tribe and Sabra want every American to eat hummus. I'm game.

2) They still do not sell chive Bagel-fuls™ at The Teet.

3) They now make Splenda with fiber. I had some in my eggnog-flavored tea (which the box says is kosher dairy) this morning. I do not yet regret doing so.

4) La Tasca is not as good as Spain. Especially the patatas bravas, but also the paella. The cheese plate's good, though.

Brunch 2: The Brunchening

Yesterday the Sherbs and I made brunch for about ten people. Our menu, revealed now that the guests are no longer surprised by our cooking ability:

1) Mini Fritatta from our super-difficult vegetarian cookbook. This recipe puts sauteed leeks and cubed sweet potato into an egg/feta mixture, then bakes them in muffin tins. They were crumbly, but delicious.

2) Shakshouka from the Sherbs's personal recipe.

3) Egg salad with caramelized onions, also from the Sherbs.

4) The corn, snap peas, pepper, and dill salad from the diet blog that had done so well for us in the past.

5) Home-made pita chips (whole wheat pita) coated with a little bit of olive oil and zatar, then baked. Served with store bought hummus and babaganouj, and home-made lima bean dip.

6) Fruity couscous from a Weight Watcher's cookbook. You can put in three times as much orange juice as the recipe requires and it will turn out OK.

7) Fruit salad.

Other people brought desserts, including some delectable lemon squares, and delicious fun was had by all. Today the Sherbs and I had Brunch 2, where we ate the leftovers; the mini fritatta went quite well with two strips of Morningstar fake bacon and slices of toasted blueberry breakfast bread spread with Smart Balance "spread."

Food Photo Post - Israel!

Here are our Israel food pictures!


Here's what the appetizer course at Samir's looks like about 2/3 of the way through. If you come for dinner at Samir's, there's still more food. Lots of it. Notice the multiple kinds of hummus and the foul, which my mom makes a version of.

This is what my meal at Burger Ranch looked like. Had I known that they also gave out packets of barbecue sauce and sweet and sour sauce upon request, I would totally have done so. Here they only gave me kosher for Passover ketchup and that most Israeli of condiments, thousand island dressing. No, really. They love that stuff on everything.

Update

So if I don't blog tonight, The Pedant will be quite mad at me. So I will do this quickly as we had a busy day today and a busy one tomorrow. And I'm tired.

First and foremost, a hello to a fan we met today at BurgerRanch! YAY! :-)

Next, and importantly, the food. Here's a quick run-down:

Thursday/Friday: Plane food. Actually not bad. On the Iberia flight for the vegetarian meal I got a small bottle of lemon olive oil as a condiment. Quite delish.

Friday: Dinner at Aunt and Uncle's. Tasty. Plus an Aunt Belle's chocolate cake. Which is heaven in a cake. My mom makes it for special occasions and it's great, but my aunt (who is the great-niece of Belle) doubles the whipped cream and it's fantastic. Take a hint mom.

Saturday: Samir's for the best hummus ever. Really. This is the way all meals should be eaten - with hummus and pita and salads. We are hopefully going back this week for more. YAY! Passover meal was incredible. Hard Matzah balls, rice during the meal (usually a no-no for us of Eastern European decent) and tasty tasty sides.

Sunday: Leftovers - amazing. Plus a "light" evening meal and a walk on the marina. Fun!

Monday: A meal with distant relatives of TP. I was forced to eat the shakshuka which was amazing. (By forced I mean I was looking forward to just a hearty soup but was quilted into a soup and a shakshouka by the elder relative. I was also forced into a delicious coffee afterwords.) A nice walking tour of Tel Aviv. An amazing dinner at a cousin's house.

Tuesday: The BurgerRanch excursion was fun. I ate the fries. Not bad. Then a real meal at home base - Matzah, hummus, quiche, salad, etc. Then off the the shuk for fun crafts and a walk, an afternoon "limonana" - lemonade with mint - and a fish dinner (salads and "chips" (fries) for me!) and dessert here. Ready to burst!!

Only problem we've noticed is the lack of iced coffee. "Iced coffee" here is a blended drink with condensed milk and water and sugar and Turkish coffee. Since the coffee is all fabulous and Turkish there are no Starbucks on every street corner serving crap. Only the best here. It drove my father crazy trying to get an "American" iced coffee.

Felafariffic!

Luggage is still not here because the lost baggage people are dysfunctional. They should give me another bag of toiletries to make up for it.

This morning I went to Samir's, a restaurant in the kind of slummy part of Ramla. Samir discovered during a renovation that his restaurant was in a twelfth-century crusader building, so the old stonework is now on display and is very attractive. We arrived for the last pre-Passover pita, so he didn't have any meat products ready, but we did have plenty of salads (which means something different in Israel than it does in the US - more like dipping options), hummus, and felafel, all of which was tasty. The felafel was properly green inside and there were a variety of hummus and chickpea products for each chickpea-related desire.

The best news I've heard recently is that Burger Ranch, an Israeli fast food chain and one of the few companies to realize the ultimate deliciousness of adding hot dog bits to french fries, will have kosher for passover food. This is the exact reason why I am in Israel right now, and I am, as the English say, chuffed.

Who Moos?

Last night for supper, The Pedant joined in a family ritual: Israeli food and guessing how many falafel balls my dad can eat. He wasn't supposed to witness this top-secret event (which takes place a few times a decade) but thanks to a weather-related problem, he witnessed it.

My mother had decided to get humus from Costco, so we needed to eat it around a meal, which is exactly what we did. We supplemented it with falafel, Moroccan eggplant, Israeli Salad, tabouli and an assortment of pickles and olives (only the 2 former I enjoy...). Then, my mom made a really tasty cold minted pea soup, which was tasty and green!

Dinner of Israeli food = good
My dad eating 8-10 falafel balls = normal (!!)
Lunch of leftover humus and Moroccan Eggplant = AMAZING

The Always Snack

If I haven't mentioned it before (and I think I haven't), I've been remiss: I have a hummus-based snack on a regular basis when I can't think of anything else to eat (and my food aphasia is a post for another day). It's very tasty, and I recommend it to everyone (except the Sherbs, who strongly dislikes tomatoes):

• sliced bread (usu. toasted)
• hummus
• sliced tomatoes

I eat the whole thing open face, because I'm really all about the hummus and tomato (and the bread is just a foundation), but now that I'm reading this and thinking about it, I think the addition of sliced green onion would go well, too. With a lot of effort (and Bobby Flay-level plating skills), it would make a classy hors d'œuvres on thin crackers.