Ole! Birthday!

It was my roommates birthday the other day and so we decided to have a festive dinner celebration with cake, wine and Mexican Food!!
I truly feel that a really nice way of getting a group of dinner guests together, is to serve a food that allows people to use their hands, get messy and not be embarrassed to take seconds, or even spill! And I don't think many food types are as accommodating as Mexican food is!
More specifically Tacos! We had everything one needs for a taco dinner, the ground beef, the purchased "taco kit", the guacomole, sliced tomatoes, sliced red onions, cherry tomatoes, grated cheese, salsa, soft taco shells, AND hard taco shells!!

I hate the way in which a hard taco crumbles, and due to my gluten intolerance I can't eat a flour tortilla, so I have in the past created a new "Lee Taco" which is really just all the Taco trimmings, including crumbled up hard taco shell on top of a taco salad. It's really just a deconstructed Taco! But since Elsa likes soft tacos only, we had to have the authentic mixings!
One of my favourite things to make when organizing a mexican themed dinner is homemade Guacomole! It's super easy, nutritious because it has nothing but fresh, fresh, fresh ingredients and is amazingly beautiful.
Lee's Guacomole Recipe:

3-4 Haas Avocados - unfortunately, it's hard to find Haas avocados in Israel, and so I am using a different kind, but ideally, Haas is my favourite because of its creamy green colour and rich avocado flavour

Juice of 1 and a Half limes

Fresh Coriander leaves

1 Tomato

Half a Large red onion

Half a Jalapeno Pepper

Salt & Pepper

Scoop the Avocados out of their skins into a large bowl, mash with a fork until the mixture is a uniform green colour, with no chunks

Add the diced red onions, chunked tomatoes, coriander leaves, Jalapeno pepper, s&p and Lime juice. Done!! Mix it all together and serve with Tortilla chips!!

The dinner was a great success, I also stir-fried some chicken with some paprika s&p in some Olive Oil, in case anyone wanted a Fajita sort of deal.

Going to Jerusalem this weekend, to show Jonah around and I am hoping we will also find great culinary adventures!

Elsa is now in Paris celebrating her birthday week with her family, so all the way from Israel I am wishing her a Happy Birthday and sending her endless kisses!

Stranded in Masada!!

Here we are, a week into Jonah's visit, and it has been nothing but great adventures. We spent the weekend in Haifa, looked around there which was beautiful, but ultimately not THAT exciting. I wanted to make sure that he got to see as much of Israel in his two weeks as possible, and so we ventured to Masada - which is supposedly where the Romans attempted to bring down King Herod and his people atop the mountain, but by the time the Romans built a giant ramp, King Herod has successfully instructed all his people to commit suicide, so there was really no one to conquer, gruesome I know - I take solace in the fact that that story is probably only 50% true, if that.

We ventured to Masada, of course stopping quickliy in Ein Gedi - which is the Oasis on the Dead Sea. It really was beautiful, and although we spent our time instead of in the Oasis, on the Dead Sea, we had a really nice time and it was stunning none the less.
Jonah, here shown enjoying the buoyancy! After spending the day, tanning (January 17th, and I said tanning! Ridiculous.) We took a bus to our beautiful hostel in Masada and decided to spend the day in the hostel, resting up for our 1.5 hour hike the next day up Masada. However, nature had other plans for us - it rained all night with thunder and lightening and by the time we got up in the morning to hike, the roads in both directions out of Masada were closed, there were no buses, taxis, etc. and we were not allowed to climb the mountain!!!! We were trapped!! Our hostel was right outside the mountain so we did have a unique and amazing view, and at the end we got a bus out and were home by Dinner time!

Now! Dinner time! The most important part of Any Day :D
We found some shrimp at the near by market the other day, which was a great find, since Shrimp isn't Kosher, and it's very difficult to buy non-Kosher products in local grocery stores. So we had big plans for this kilo of shrimp we bought, however, tonight Jonah felt like a creamy pasta with Shrimp and I wanted to attempt to remake my favourite Thai dish of Tom Yom Guong Soup! (With Shrimp :) )
Jonah's pasta was very simple, and doesn't require a recipe; he heated a jar of tomato sauce in a pan until bubbling, added a healthy dollop of Phili' Cream cheese, waited until combined added the shrimp, and there you go! Cook some pasta and it looked delicious!









Now, I have to say my soup was a real REAL triumph! I thought about what flavours were in my Thai soup, having simple ingredients, I used whatever I could to imitate those flavours, it came out A)looking gorgeous B) tasting VERY similar, if no identical and C) taking only about 15 Minutes to throw together!
Lee's Tom Yom Guong Soup:
2 Cups Chicken Stock
1 Inch Grated, Fresh Ginger
4 Large Cloves, Fresh grated Garlic
Handful of full mushrooms
Half a small Green Chili -Chopped as finely as possible
Handful of Small yellow cherry tomatoes
The Juice of one Lemon - FRESH PLEASE!!! it really makes a difference...
LOTS of fresh Coriander leaves
Health splash of Soy Sauce
10 Raw, De-veined, skinned Shrimp

Boil the stock with the grated garlic and Ginger; add the Soy Sauce.
Almost right away, add the chili, tomatoes, lime juice, and half of the coriander leaves. Simmer together until everything is soft. Then, once the broth is finished, add the mushrooms so they don't soften too much, and the shrimp as to make sure they don't get overcooked! That's it! It's spicy, lemon-y, and amazingly comforting

All in all, it was an eventful two days, and exciting none the less. Accomplishments in the kitchen, to me, are the best sort of adventures anyway :) Perhaps if it hadn't been for the Masada fiasco, I wouldn't have craved this sort of comfort food, and found out how easy this favourite of mine truly is to make!

Awaiting the Guest..

Today my friend Jonah comes, and I always like to have special things in the fridge for special occasions, and this is certainly a special occasion! Because I know that my guest has an appreciation for good food, and I want to be able to enjoy nice meals in the apartment not only out on the town, I thought what better way to get a leg up on the next few meals then make a large pot of Soup! Yesterday Elsa bought something that we have needed TERRIBLY and it has already changed our lives :) A Hand Mixer!!! It's amazing, we've already made three different soups since yesterday.

We bought a copious amount of Avocados in the last few days (that's what happens when you don't discuss the grocery list before you both go shopping individually...) So we decided that we were sick of Guacamole, so what else does one do with Avocado? How about Smooth, creamy cold avocado soup?

Avocado Soup:

Avocados - as many as you like

Zest of 1/2 a Lime

Juice of 1 Lime

2 Peeled cucumbers - amount of cucumbers obviously depends on the quantity of avocados you use.

Now, I didn't lime i just had lemon...I should have used less of the lemon juice because it was SO-UR! But it has this amazing GREEN colour, and wonderful creamy texture and took 5 minutes with our magic blender:)

Anyhow, Elsa then proceeded to make her father's carrot soup, sans recipe I might add, and it came out Amazing!! Thick because of the carrots, had a bite from the tomato paste, and a bright orange also from the carrots. It was really good, and she inspired me! This morning, I woke up and decided I also wanted to attempt a soup, Pea Soup that is! (My favourite I think :) ) I also didn't use a recipe and the blender was a Treat to use! The soup was a wonderful green, creamy and so smooooooooth! I felt like a real chef! Or at least I felt like my dad when he makes a pea soup...

Pea Soup Recipe(not really recipe...just ingredients and process that I made up):

4 Cups of Chicken Stock

2 Large peeled, grated carrots - gr

ating them really speeds up the cooking time.

1 Medium White Onion

6 Large cloves of garlic

1 Small Yellow Bell Pepper

A LOT of Frozen Peas - I really did not measure at all, I poured in the peas and stopped when I thought I had put enough :D

First, cut all the veggies. Once the pot is hot put a little touch of Olive Oil and saute the Onions and Garlic until they are soft.

Add the carrots, peppers and peas; Saute these just for a little while, approx. 5 mintues.

Add the chicken stock - I say

4 cups, but I also just eye-balled this, so feel free to do the same; adding more will give you a thinner soup, and less a thicker one.

Allow the veggies to come to a nice simmer in the pot; add salt, pepper, lots of Dried Basil and a little Curry Powder.

Once all the veggies are super soft, and the broth is to your taste, Blend away!!

* Make sure to keep the spinning blade of the mixer submerged in the liquid the entire time or...well...you'll have a HUGE clean up:)

And that was it!! Beautiful Pea soup!

After the Soup success I decided why not make some lovely cookies? I already had a huge amount of frozen homemade sugar cookie dough,

so all I had to do was spice them up with a little Chocolate Ganache

To Make the chocolate, I did it a little unorthodox but it turned out glossy and smooth:

Milk Chocolate chips

White Chocolate chips

2 Tbsps of Butter (Unsalted)

1 Tbsp of 3% Milk (preferably Heavy cream)

Melt over a double boiler until really shinny, without Any lumps.

Dip the baked and cooled sugar cookies in the hot melted chocolate

Once cookies are dipped, sprinkle with chopped Honey glazed pecans and raw almonds! :)

It's Been TOO Long!

I realize that it has essentially been eternity since I last blogged, and for that I don't have an excuse, other than finals and the semester ending and having more work than is healthy. Anyhow!! I am back and ready to blog!

Now, just because there may be no time to blog during exam period, that certainly does not mean there is not time to eat - in fact, if anything, it means there is more time to eat, because one is feeling like they deserve treats, etc. and its a good break from the studying.

Anyhow, since last I blogged, we have welcomed a new year, and while the Party itself was nothing too too special, Yair sent me roses even though he was stuck on the base, with a lovely note apologizing for his absence. Well it was just so sweet of him, and he sent me lovely Yellow roses, knowing that I think red ones are slightly cliche and overly mushy.
Here they are, Aren't they lovely?? Well, you can imagine how special it made me feel, and that he got many "thank you thank you thank you" text messages :)

Back to the most important thing, Food. During a particularly grueling study session, I decided what I needed was a pasta dish that was super salty, but guess what I didn't have? SALT!!!! That is a travesty a) because I have an addiction to salt, which I know is unhealthy, and b) salt just enhances flavours, it's a fact. So boiling pasta in unsalted water, making a sauce without salt, it just felt wrong, and sad.
I knew, however, that this gave me the opportunity to experiment with different ingredients that would make my dish salty without a grain of actual salt.
So, here we go. I boiled my rice pasta in CHICKEN STOCK, Salt? CHECK! which made the pasta nice salty, and gave it a really nice depth of chicken flavour.
The Sauce:
1 Medium white onion
A handful of cracked green olives
1 small red chili
5 cloves of garlic - or to taste, because that's a lot of garlic, so take account of your surroundings before hand :)
4 Large Mushrooms
1/2 Cup of frozen Peas
1 Tbsp Soya Sauce
Handful of Alfalfa Sprouts
Handful of Fresh basil leaves, torn. - careful not to cut fresh basil with a dull Knife, it bruises really easily, and then it gets brown, and sludgy, nothing like its crisp, fresh self when torn nicely.

I sauteed the onions and garlic until the onions were transparent and the garlic was nice and brown - but not burnt! There is nothing worse than Burnt garlic, it's so bitter, blech! :(
Once the onions and garlic were cooked, I added the peas, the mushrooms, the olives and the chili; and when it was almost cooked, I added the basil and voila! it was done!
Now, although the chicken stock helped with the salt, it wasn't good enough! So once I had mixed the pasta and the veggies, I added a generous splash of Soya Sauce. Now! it was salty, saucey and had so many different complementary flavours, it was really nice. I added once it was in my bowl ready to be eaten a very generous HEAP of alfalfa sprouts which added an amazing crunch and a great freshness.
So that was that! A perfect, homey lunch for a tough day of studying!
Tomorrow I have a friend coming from Denmark, who is really a friend from Toronto, who is doing an exchange like me in Copenhagen - He will be here for two weeks, and like me has a love for good food and for cooking and Baking, so I look forward to the adventures and blog entries his presence will provide :)

Oh Holy Night...

Christmas has come and gone, which is always a sad reality. However, it doesn't feel like that this year, since it never really came and thus never truly went! I am still humming away to "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" (the Brenda Lee version of course) and sucking away on my candy canes. In any event, Elsa and some friends and I managed to bring together a lovely Christmas Eve meal that was both festive and brought friends together in the way I love around christmas time.On the menu:

Roasted Asparagus - lightly drizzled with Oliv

e oil, salt and pepper

Sauteed Potatoes with Thyme, Olive oil and S & P

Guacamole - not truly fitting I know, but definitely Delicious :)

Pan fried Kebabs with Onions, Garlic and Mushrooms

Dessert:

Bananas, Frozen Blueberries, Strawberries, Apples dipped

in melted white and Milk chocolate

And of course, lots of wine - we know that Red wine would have gone better with the meat, but my French roommate doesn't drink red wine, can you believe it?? I know, she must not truly be Parisian!

The Potatoes were a recipe from France that Elsa brought to us and they were cooked as followed:

Cut as many potatoes as you like into small 1 inch cubes - the more uniform the pieces the more even the cooking process

Through them into a screaming hot pan layered with Olive Oil - or Butter :)

When the potatoes being to brown, add sliced onions and garlic - being careful not to burn, easily burnable garlic

This takes a fairly long time, I would say about 30 minutes, until the potatoes have cooked, and become nice and crispy

About 5 minutes before the Tatters are finished, add a handful or two, however much you like of S &P, and fresh Th

yme.

Serve HOT and Enjoy! :)

These turned out so nicely, and very crisp and satisfying!!

The fruit with the melted chocolate was just to die for, Now I am allergic to milk chocolate, but white chocolate is ok since it really isn't chocolate at

all, and just a synthetic sub

stitute - but a delicious s

ynthetic substitute, of which I ate far too much. We melted the white/milk chocolate chips just in two coffee mugs in the microwave, which, I know, sounds totally déclassé, but it was easy and worked like a charm. The only tip I have for

this process is to be VERY careful not to burn the chocolate, because it is VERY easy to do, and burnt chocolate tastes just as awful as burnt ga

rlic -bitter, sour and just awful, which is why true chocolate melters use a double boiler, but oh well there was no burnt chocolate for us!!

The dinner was lovely, felt very festive and satisfied my need for familial bonding and overindulgent eating that, to me, go hand in hand with Christmas. Finally, when I went to my brothers the next day to celebrate his wife's 40th birthday party, low-and-behold, he had found me a LARGE (over 6 feet!!!) christmas tree which he had adorned so sweetly with lights and a lovely hand made stand. I was so touched. So, all in all, my Holy Land Christmas turned out quite nicely, and I learned that although it wasn't the same as the christmas I am used to at home, as long as I made sure that I ate well, spent time with family and friends, and kept the Christmas tunes blaring, I wasn't missing much :)

Cookies fit for an Officer...

*sigh* The weekend draws to a close once again, which is a tragedy because I just have so much school work these days since the semester is coming to a close, and somehow I managed to do absolutely none of it!

Anyhow, I baked the "better-than-brownie-Cookies" on thursday night, and although I couldn't taste them, since I'm allergic to almost every ingredient in them, my audience (before the boy came on Friday) said that they were good, but could be better! This was to my dismay, since Yair (the Boy) has been eating Tuna in the desert for the last two weeks, the idea of serving him sub-par cookies devastated me! Anyhow, they assured me that it wasn't that they were not good, it was that the cocoa powder had added to bitter of a texture, and that perhaps they would have been better with a little less. I ended up not using the brownie-cookie recipe I had planned to based on

the fact that I had hoped to use cocoa powder, as I wanted to have them as chocolatey as possible, and it was an ingredient that I had never used before and I wanted to try it!

In the end, I decided just to use a regular chocolate cookie recipe that included cocoa powder, nuts and chocolate chips.

Here is the Recipe

I used:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, melted, plus an additional 1/4 cup
2/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted salted cashews
2/3 cup coarsely chopped Oreos
1/2 cup M&M's

* I didn't add Oreos, or salted cash

ews, OR m&m's for that matter! Instead, I added dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and Smartie

s and chopped almond slivers. Of course, the added goodies are whatever suit your taste.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat cookie sheets with cooking spray.

In a medium sized bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together butter and sugar until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla and eggs until combined, about 1 minute; beat in melted chocolate chips until combined. Reduce mixer speed to lo

w and beat in flour mixture until combined. Stir in remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips, cashews, Oreos, and M&M's until combined.

Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto cookie sheets, about an inch apart. Bake 12-13 minutes or until set. Cool 2 minutes before transferring cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen

Now, Yair said that they were good and compared to canned tuna they tasted like heaven which was a relief:) However! making these cookies, taught me a very valuable le

sson - You know how usually a recipe will tell you "refrigerate for at least 3 hours", well I've always thought that that was a waste of time and not an important aspect of the recipe WELL, it turns out it is.

My second batch of cookies taught me this - the second round of cookies I made were regular chocolate chip cookies, but I added white chocolate chips, dark and a few mini chocolate bars - I baked one round without refrigerating the dough and it was a liquidy disaster! They tasted nice apparently, and yet they didn't look like cookies, they looked like sheets of golden brown dough with

chocolate chips! Then, I placed the rest of the dough in the fridge for about and hour and Voila! They came out perfect, golden brown, fluffy, soft chocolate cookies! SO bakers all over the world - let it be said here first, that refrigerating dough is REALLY important!!

Here is the Recipe for Round Two of the cookies:

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Preheat the oven to 160 degreeC (or 325degreeF). Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Then beat the butter and sugars until combined. Add the eggs, yolks and vanilla. Scrap down the bowl as needed. Reduce your mixer speed to low and mix in the flour slowly, around 30 seconds. Mix in chocolate chips until incorporated. Chill the batter for at least 30minutes so that it's easier to scoop them. Scoop them into balls on a baking sheet/aluminium. Bake for 17-20 minutes

These cookies are probably the most beautiful ones I've ever made I was really proud of them, and He loved them and by the end of the weekend I managed to send him to the base a) looking like this:

and b) with two large containers of Delicious cookies, which made me feel very accomplished!

Tonight, I am off to a family friends for dinner, where they will present me with the Candycanes they brought me from Toronto!! Thank goodness!! Finally! A little taste of the christmas spirit I have so missed!!

The Day of Starch...

Today's weather was very strange. Sunny, and yet dark that is nonsensical I realize that but I have no better way to describe it!! It was sort of damp and yet chilly all at once. Anyhow, I've recently realized that the weather really effects what I want to eat and how I cook. Today all I wanted was carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs , carbs! Which generally isn't what I crave.

Anyhow, I made myself Rice pasta (since I can't eat Gluten)

for lunch with just olive oil, dried basil and salt and pepper

- it was simple, but warm and comforting and totally hit the spot. However, it didn't seem to satisfy me so, what did I make for dinner? MORE rice pasta.

For dinner however, it was much more sophisticated. I decided to make a light tomato sauce with Yellow cherry tomatoes (I'm allergic to red tomatoes), lots and lots of fresh garlic, onions and Fresh Basil which happens to be one of my favourite ingredients.

Here is How I made the Sauce:

-15 Yellow Cherry Tomatoes

-1 tbsp of Olive Oil

-4 Large Cloves of Garlic

-1 Whole medium white onion

-a handful of Fresh basil (I cut the leaves instead of slicing them, giving it a more rustic look)

-Saute the onions and garlic in the Olive Oil until they are soft

- Add the tomatoes and half of the Basil - Along with Salt, Pepper and dried basil to taste

- Cook until the tomatoes have created a sauce in the pan (you can add a tablespoon of pasta water if it's not saucey enough for you - BUT only a tablespoon at a time, you don't want it to be runny and flavourless)

- Toss with cooked Pasta!

Et Voila!

I boiled the pasta in some salty water until it was tender; this may seem like an easy task, however rice pasta is difficult to cook because undercooked it's very hard and chewy,

and overcooked even by the slightest amount it gets mushy and awful and the line between those two options is very thin.

This is a really great method for making

fresh tomato pasta sauces because the tomatoes sort of melt away leaving their bitter skins separate from their sweet juice making a really flavourful sauce. I also added a fair amount of dry basil, because I think it tastes really different from the fresh stuff, and I love them together!

basil, and let me tell you! This round of pasta REALLY hit the spot! I was completely satiated :)

Well, Tomorrow is the day that I attempt to make brownies for the boy. Now, because I don't have any brownie pan per se, so I am going to attempt to make brownie cookies which I think will be divine.

Thursday tomorrow! Thank Goodness, it's felt like a long week, despite the fact that 4 of my classes were cancelled and I probably could have got a tan on Tuesday. Ahhh the hard life :)