The Bunny Box

Last year, I went all out and made a really nice Chanuka greeting. This year, I have a 3 month old baby, so going all out for anything is kind of not happening. I haven't even baked cookies since she was born. So instead, I'm just going to link back to last year's post here . Have a wonderful Chanukah, everyone! Edit: You also may notice that my blog has undergone some changes. I felt like it was time to move myself out of the "elementary HTML" look and move on to something that hurts a little less to look at. Hope you like it! More changes will probably come soon.

Since the Huz had the day off on Friday, I took the opportunity to try cooking real shabbos meals again while he watched our daughter. I came up with a couple of pretty awesome recipes on the spot, and I'm kind of proud of myself so I wanted to share them with you. Sweet and Sour Chicken Ingredients: Chicken (I used a whole fryer, but you can use whatever parts you want) Ketchup Sweet and Sour style Duck sauce Srirachi sauce Soy sauce spices: onion powder, garlic powder, sage, oregano 1 onion, sliced Instructions: Use onion slices to line the bottom of your pan (got this idea from my SIL. HI! ~waves~) Clean chicken and place it on top of onion slices. Season chicken with the spices above to taste Mix duck sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, and srirachi sauce together in a bowl. I don't have measurements because I just do everything to taste. The ratio is LOTS of duck sauce to a medium amount of ketchup to a SMALL amount of srirachi sauce and just a DASH of soy sauce. Mess around w...

Last night, I decided to cook my SECOND meal since having a baby. When I had gone grocery shopping earlier in the week, I had gone a little crazy with the Fall squash selection. Well, not too crazy. I saw spaghetti and acorn squash and felt the pull of Fall cuisine. So I pulled it together and made a really awesome Fall dish last night from the squash and a few other items in my pantry. I didn't know if I was really going to like it, but it turned out pretty excellent. It's healthy and, actually, vegan. It's also easy, which you know makes it all that much better. Spaghetti Squash with Acorn Squash and Chick Peas Ingredients: 1 Large Spaghetti Squash 1 small acorn squash 1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed 1 8oz package of mushrooms, sliced 1/2 small onion, diced olive oil Garlic powder salt & pepper nutmeg cinnamon Instructions: Preheat oven to 375. Pierce both squashes all over with a small sharp knife, then place in the oven for about an hour until they...

It's been a long time since I've updated, but I have a good excuse. You see, 6 weeks ago I had a baby girl. She's small and cute and sweet and full of so many exciting bodily fluids. She's also incredibly time-consuming and tends to occupy at least one of my typing hands, making blog entries more annoying. Right now she's sleeping in her swing (thanks to the Huz's coworkers for that!) so I'm actually able to type. Admittedly, I haven't cooked a single thing since she was born. But I'm gearing up to make my first dinner tonight. Isn't it exciting? I'm thinking mushroom soup with some bread/breadsticks? I'd best get on it though. I'm also getting ready to head back to work tomorrow. Scary stuff. Good thing I have so many relatives eager to spend time with the new baby. :) More updates next time my hands are free!

When trying to decide what to make before the fast of Tisha B'av, I reached out for advice and scoured the internet for suggestions. After a little research and a little thought, I settled on something that would be easy, filling, and healthy, containing things like fiber and protein: Whole Wheat Veggie Calzones. I threw them together on Monday evening and we quite enjoyed them. Whether they helped us fast any better, who knows. But they were good. As it happened, I had some of the filling leftover tonight. Enough to make one calzone. Since I had some leftover Chinese food to eat myself, I figured I'd make a calzone for Yaakov. The problem is that my pizza dough recipe makes enough dough for two large calzones, not just one. So I thought, "What can I do with the rest of the dough?" Bread sticks of course! I can't take full credit for the idea. The same person who shared the pizza dough recipe with me also gave me the idea for turning it in to...

Today is the first day of the 9 Days, during which, as a sign of mourning, we do not eat meat. Normally, this doesn't bother me because I'm more of a dairy person anyway. But this year, silly me, I cooked for Shabbos anticipating leftovers to tide us over through some of the week. So...we've got some chicken that may become soup next shabbos... Anyway, the point of this riveting story is that I had to come up with something for dinner tonight. I had bought some ingredients for making calzones a couple weeks ago and had never gotten around to it, so I offered that as a dinner option to the Huz. Needless to say, he got a little excited. The thing about calzones is that they're very easy to make. You whip up a batch of pizza dough, make your filling, fill, fold, and bake. The process usually takes between 30-45 minutes. I used some guidelines for my filling, but I did my own thing for the most part. It came out very tasty, but I'm concerned that the filling did...

Since it's been two weeks since my last update, I figured I should write something to keep my readers interested. I think that's what blogging is supposed to be about. If you've been in Baltimore this week, you know that the weather here is kind of miserable right now. It's been in the 90's all week, but with humidity it feels like it's over 100 degrees. Well, this Shabbos, the temperature will actually reach 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Now I don't want to hear anything from people in Arizona saying 103 degrees is pretty normal by their standards, or people in Israel complaining about 105 degree weather. I'm not trying to start some "who's hotter?" competition, I'm just stating facts. Regardless of whether there's worse weather elsewhere in the world (you like that use of homonyms, don't you?), the weather here is still pretty awful. Anyway, these kinds of miserable mid-summer days get me thinking about food. Primarily foods l...

I don't know what came over me, but tonight I was really in a kitchen mood. I had been looking for inexpensive dinner ideas yesterday, and someone suggested rice and beans. I couldn't imagine that being a dinner on its own (my own failing) so I decided it must be accompanied by soup. I decided on a simple corn soup recipe (found here ) and used two bags of frozen corn instead of the fresh corn it calls for, added a little dash of MimicCreme, and decided to leave the "salting to taste" to individual tastes. I can't rave enough about this soup. Yaakov and I both loved it and it was so incredibly simple to make. It took all of 30 minutes and only cost me about $5 to make about 6 servings. For the rice and beans, I went to an old favorite of mine, Skinny Weight Watcher's Girl . I've made a number of her recipes in the past, and they tend to be pretty good. Knowing the nutrition facts is definitely an added bonus. So I knew that if I made this, I'd ...

Hello everybody! As you may recall, a couple weeks ago, I went cherry picking . Well this week, I went peach and plum picking! And I wanted pie. So badly. That I broke out some mini frozen pie crusts. Here's the result: All this is is frozen pie crust, sliced peaches, sugar and a little pumpkin pie seasoning, topped with a lattice crust. Now, here's the problem: SOGGY PIE BOTTOM! If only I'd added a little flour or corn starch! Anything to soak up those nummy juices! I'll know better for next time. For now, this is a pretty darn tasty pie. :) In other news, THIS IS POST #100 ON THIS BLOG!! Get excited! I'm throwing a little party in my brain. ~wiggle to the left, wiggle to the right~ I hope you've all been enjoying it. See you later at post #1,000. :-D

As I mentioned in yesterday's post , I recently went cherry picking and decided to use some of those cherries to make an ice cream recipe I'd been contemplating for a while. I also promised in that post that I would share my results today. :) Let me begin by saying that I took a very basic recipe (basic vanilla ice cream + cherries + chocolate chunks) and did it my own way, as usual. The result is, I believe, an acquired taste. Let me explain what I mean by that. You see, my original plan was to take a container of Sweetened MimicCreme , add a little vanilla extract, put it in the ice cream maker and then add cherries and chocolate chunks. But then I was thinking about the last time I made ice cream that was JUST MimicCreme, and how it had frozen solid. It was delicious and creamy, but you had to let it soften for a while before you could get at it. So I thought, what can I add to keep it from getting so hard? My brilliant idea? A tiny dash of white cooking wine that I ha...

As some of my Facebook followers are aware, I recently went cherry picking. If you've never gone fruit picking before, let me tell you that it's incredibly fun, and it's a family friendly activity, too! But here's the thing: You end up with a lot of fruit! So what to do with all those cherries? Well, I know what I want to do! I recently saw a fantastic sounding recipe for Chocolate Chunk Cherry Ice Cream. The recipe was pretty simple, and I knew that with one of my favorite secret ingredients, I could make it pareve to boot! So tonight, I went ahead and broke out my ice cream maker. Now, I can't really give you results on it yet because it's still hardening in the freezer, but rest assured that tomorrow you'll be seeing an update with the outcome and the recipe. But to tide you over.... Tonight I wanted something easy for dinner because I didn't get home from shopping with my mother until after 7. (I got SHOES!!!!) I had bought some "Spicy Ita...

Ok, so I should have posted this last week, but I got distracted by cheesecake. Really good cheesecake. Really EASY cheesecake. Really, deliciously rich and fattening cheesecake. Yum. I found this recipe on Gourmet Kosher Cooking . It's called "The Best Plain Cheesecake." The name says it all. All I did to change this recipe was to bake it in little cupcake tins for 25-30 minutes, and I put some frozen berries in before pouring in the filling. But let me say, the plain ones were great too. All around, this is going to be my go-to cheesecake recipe. Next time I make it (which could be quite a while from now) I'll experiment with using it as a base for various flavors, like peanut butter or almond. If you do any experimenting, let me know how it goes.

I recently discovered a blog called "Unconsummated" . It is written by an Orthodox Jewish girl who is struggling with a sexual disorder called vaginismus . I'm linking to it on here because I think it's important to spread awareness about these issues. Women who struggle with this issue often feel very alone because, even outside of religious circles, it's difficult and often shameful to speak about with others. (One article which she refers to in her blog states that Orthodox Jewish couples are more likely than other couples to seek treatment for the disorder because of the emphasis placed on sex in the marriage relationship). She discussed in a recent post that many of the people who have linked to her blog have done so for the purpose of blaming Judaism for her condition. These people made false claims to the effect that these issues only exist in strict, religious circles. Forgetting the fact that sex is not a taboo topic in Judaism, as many of these peo...

I apologize for failing to update. I'm sure my throngs of fans have been weeping with anxious anticipation. Sorry to disappoint, but I have nothing fabulous to write about today either. I haven't done a whole lot of cooking lately, but I did cook for this past shabbos and will gladly share the recipes I made with all you. I was having a vegetarian friend over along with two couples and decided a pareve lunch would be nice. The vegetarian friend eats fish, so that made things a lot simpler. My menu was simple: Minestrone soup , two types of fish, and cake. I had one couple bring a side dish and the other bring a salad. All in all, the meal turned out very nice. For the minestrone, I tweaked it to leave out the veggies I don't like and added in veggies I DO like. So I left out the canned beans and green beans and added in acorn squash. I also left out the cheese, because my crock pot is still fleishig. For the fish, I made a pan of salmon filets baked with dill, kosh...

I was on a YouTube bender today and it got me thinking about the wonders of the internet. I mean, the web has opened up this whole world of possibilities for those with the talent and inclination to pursue them. I sometimes think about my talents, though they are few and unimpressive, and whether I have a chance to leave my mark in the world of webs which are wide. As you may know if you've paid close attention to this blog, I have long considered starting a web-comic. I've actually drawn about 5 strips on Gimp, but I don't have the patience or the drive to keep going with it. I've been pressed by some to commercialize the Bunny Box, getting an actual copyright on it and trying to sell T-shirts and things. But the problem is, unless there was some kind of background for it, I just don't think anyone, other than my friends, would buy it. But who knows? It could just be weird enough to become a meme if I gave it the chance (like Three Wolf Moon, maybe?). But if ...

I'm waiting for the Huz to finish writing his paper so we can go to sleep, and I'm in the mood to write something myself. Nothing in particular. I don't really have anything to talk about. But I guess I could just talk about Pesach cleaning. Yaakov and I have a policy to keep our Pesach cleaning as simple as possible. We vacuum each room, make sure there's no actual chometz, and call it a day. Except for the kitchen, obviously, where more scrubbing goes on. But even there, we have a policy of "wipe with bleach and cover." In this way, we avoid driving ourselves crazy. Pesach cleaning becomes very doable. So that's why I don't feel so bad about procrastinating today and completely avoiding my cleaning duties. I have two weeks. But I DO want to get started soon. It's not fun waiting until the last minute. That said, I'm tired. Going to sleep. I hope this was as interesting for you to read as it was...for me to...write...~snooooooore~

The undercooked bunny The other day, I felt a sudden need to start some kind of project. Since the colder seasons are rapidly getting away from us (even if the weather is trying to convince us otherwise) it didn't seem practical to start on things likes gloves, hats and scarves. So instead, I thought, why not journey into the unknown? Why not try something new? Why not make a stuffed bunny? So I did. It took up my free time for about 2 days, and the result is, well, kinda adorable. Right now, I only have one picture of the finished product because my camera battery died, but when it's recharged I'll take a couple more. I was just really eager to share. The picture up top is the bunny before getting it's ears and nose. I think it looks a little like Gir from Invader Zim. But behold the finished product! The pattern I used can be found here .

As many of you are well aware, a horrific tragedy occurred in Israel this past weekend. Five people (a mother, father, and three of their six children), were stabbed to death in their home in an Israeli settlement. For more information, go here . Since these attacks, I have heard a lot of people expressing outrage. And why shouldn't they? These were outrageous attacks on innocent people. But one theme that I've noticed in this outrage is the comparison of the murderers to animals. I'm not comfortable with this. Not because I think it's wrong to compare humans to animals or because I feel any goodwill towards these butchers. Rather, because I think that to compare human beings committing horrific acts to animals is to undermine just how terrible the act truly was. I want you to imagine, just for a moment, that this act was actually committed by an animal. Imagine that the Fogel family was preparing to go to sleep that night when suddenly a mountain lion jumped th...

I started off posting this as a comment over at A Blob of Something Different in response to this post , but then it got so long that I figured I'd just post it on my own blog. It's an old post, but I'm sort of new to the blog, so I hope to be forgiven for my delayed reaction. I married at 19. I was lucky. I never had to shidduch date because my husband and I were close friends and never dated at all. But had I not been in that position, I wouldn't have felt ready for marriage for a very long time. In fact, in the weeks leading up to my wedding, I felt EXTREMELY unprepared for marriage. Terrified of it, even. I remember calling up my best friend in tears on multiple occasions asking her if I was making a huge mistake. In the months following my marriage, as my husband and I went through the normal adjustments that newlyweds must endure, I questioned my readiness some more. Thank G-d, I DID make the right choice, and clearly I WAS ready for marriage because we...

This past shabbos, I was expecting to have guests and was trying to plan a menu which would include the apples I had in my fridge. I was considering a waldorf salad, but it seemed too boring. Then it hit me: What if I made a waldorf salad...WITH QUINOA?! I know what you're thinking. "Woah, Sara! Don't go crazy now!" But I made it. And it was wonderful. And you will love it, too. Quinoa Waldorf Salad Ingredients 1 Cup uncooked Quinoa 1 and 1/2 Cups apple juice 1/2 Cup water 2 Granny Smith apples, cubed 1/2 Cup Craisins 1 stalk celery, sliced 1 tsp oil 1 Tbsp vinegar 1 Tbsp sugar candied pecans (optional) Instructions Pour the quinoa, juice and water into a saucepan and cook according to package directions. Let the quinoa cool, then mix the oil, vinegar and sugar and add to quinoa. Mix in all other ingredients. Eat and enjoy. :) Corn Salad (Recipe from Talia) Ingredients 2 cans of yellow and/or white corn 1 red pepper, diced 1 yellow or green pepper, diced 1/2 pu...

Tonight for dinner, I decided to try out a recipe for making pumpkin gnocchi. Gnocchi is another one of those blogosphere fads that's going around right now (kind of like the flu) and it looks pretty easy compared to other pastas and also sounds really tasty. I have never eaten gnocchi and have certainly never made it myself, but I decided to give it a try anyway as a starter recipe for pasta-type-food-things. My experience with this recipe was kinda "eh." The result was tasty, but nothing truly phenomenal. The texture was soft when hot and pleasantly chewy when cold, but it really didn't impress me any more than just plain ol' pasta. It's definitely denser and more filling then regular pasta, and had that subtle pumpkin/nutmeg flavor, but it just really wasn't anything to write home about. Now granted, my dissatisfaction may have come from my reluctance to pair it with a fresh, homemade sauce. Many of the recipes for pumpkin gnocchi recommend using ...

For a long time, I've been hunting for a simple, slightly sweet butternut squash soup recipe. After hunting for a while, finding recipes with obscure ingredients and trying others that came out too savory or, even worse, too bland, I decided to create my own recipe. I took a look at some of the common ingredients used in these recipes and picked out some of my favorites, throwing in a few of my own along the way. I came up with the recipe below and tried it out tonight. The soup came out just the way I like butternut squash soup to taste. It was just slightly sweet, a little bit savory, warm and creamy. Enjoy! Butternut Squash Soup Yields: about 10 servings (depending on the size of your bowls) Ingredients: 1 tsp olive oil 1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into small chunks 1 large parsnip, peeled and sliced 2 medium size carrots, peeled and sliced 1/2 small onion, diced 2 inch cube of ginger, sliced 1/4 C brown sugar 1 C pineapple juice 4 C water 1 C Sweetened Mi...

When you read as many food blogs as I do, you begin to notice food trends that everyone writes about. Around December, everyone is writing about gift-able recipes like cookies, fudge and various candies, all with seasonal ingredients incorporated in (like ginger, peppermint, etc.). You also notice non-seasonal food trends, like baking certain types of breads or utilizing newly popularized ingredients. Right now, one of the popular trends seems to be homemade skillet (or pan) pizza. This style of pizza is made using a homemade dough and is cooked in a cast-iron skillet, often with toppings like olive oil, vegetables, marinara sauce, and sparse cheese. My theory is that these have been popularized by the recent movie, "Eat, Pray, Love" which featured a scene in which Julia Roberts ate just such a pizza. Somewhere along my ramblings through the blogosphere in the past few weeks, I stumbled across a recipe for a pizza fitting the above description that appealed to me simply b...

A while back, I discovered a new substitution for heavy cream that, supposedly, can be used in any recipe where one would normally use cream. The ingredient is called Mimiccreme and is a non-dairy (and pareve) nut-based cream. Shortly after discovering it, I mentioned it to my father who checked it out online and discovered that their warehouse in Albany was changing the packaging for their sweetened version and as a result were selling the old packaging for a $1 per carton. Considering that this stuff usually sells for closer to $5 per carton, it was a no-brainer that if I planned on experimenting with this stuff, it would be useful to get it dirt cheap! So naturally, when I heard that my husband's uncle would be coming down to visit from Albany, I asked him to bring me a couple cases. Unfortunately, the week he was supposed to come he got into a nasty car accident while driving through New Jersey. While he was fine, his car was destroyed (along with one of my poor container...