The Bunny Box

Well it certainly has been a while since we've had a good recipe post, huh? How does shakshouka sound? Okay, I realize not everyone has heard of this dish, but it is a Moroccan staple, according to Wikipedia , and pretty popular in Israel. The dish consists of eggs poached on top of a sauce consisting of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spices cooked up in a cast-iron skillet. Sound good to you? Then proceed... The idea to make shakshouka was born of a conversation with my boss about "Jewish" food, and after discussing various Ashkenazi (Easter European Jewish) dishes, I mentioned that Sephardi (Spanish and Middle-Eastern Jewish) dishes are a bit different. After briefly discussing shakshouka with my boss, I went to see if I could find a recipe, since I'd never actually made it before. The recipe I found was over on The Shiksa in The Kitchen , and I started out with that recipe followed to a "T" and then made a few minor changes based on personal ...

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine steered me towards a produce subscription service called Washington's Green Grocer  (H/T to Diana).  If you've never heard of a produce subscription before, here's how it works: You sign up to receive a box of produce, select the box size and the types of produce you would like to receive ( Organic , Local , etc .) and how frequently you would like to receive it (weekly, on-demand, etc.). They determine which specific produce will be in each variety of box for a given week and provide you with a list. You then have the opportunity (up until the night before delivery to your area) to remove items which you don't want to receive and replace them with extras of the other produce being offered. You can also order other items at no extra shipping cost (though you must pay extra for the items). The box is then delivered and the rest is up to you. After snooping around their site for a bit, I figured I could give it a try, an...

This is going to have to be a quickie post, because I have to go to bed. You see, our upstairs neighbor is in the habit of blasting his music at odd hours on Sunday mornings Today he was blasting it around 4:30. I was not amused. Tomorrow I have a long day, and as you can imagine, I'm tired. So this will be quick. Cookies. Gingersnaps. Made them on pure impulse (and some other ingredients). Recipe below. Gingersnap Cookies Ingredients: 1 Cup whole wheat flour 1 Cup all-purpose flour 1.5 tsp baking soda 1.5 tsp ground ginger 2 tsp cinnamon .5 tsp salt .5 tsp pepper 4 Tbsp butter/margarine 7 Tbsp canola oil 1/3 Cup sugar 1/3 Cup Splenda (or other bakeable sugar substitute) 1/2 tsp vanilla 1/4 Cup molasses 1 Large egg Extra sugar for rolling Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the dry ingredients (all except the sugar) in a bowl (or in a tupperware container, and s...

Rosh Hashana has come and gone, and Yom Kippur is coming fast. How did all this time just fly by me? Two years ago, I used this time to work on myself, pray as hard as I could, take on resolutions to do better with everything, in the hopes that G-d would see and finally let me have a baby. It must have worked, because almost exactly one year later, I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl. I had hoped to spend that Rosh Hashana thanking Hashem for this amazing blessing, but when the time came, I was just such a mess, so exhausted, and so overwhelmed, I barely noticed the holidays pass by. And then we get to this year. I am exceedingly grateful for my daughter and all the amazing gifts I've been given, but as Rosh Hashana approached, I was yet again too busy to properly prepare myself. I still have almost a week until Yom Kippur, and my goal is to use them as best I can. If any of you have suggestions, please let me know. How DOES a wife, mother, student, intern, etc., m...

I know, I know. It's been a while since my last post. I'm supposed to be better about keeping up on it, but I'm not. For what it's worth, I have a lot to talk about today! My first story is kind of sad and tragic. You see, a few days ago, I decided to try making "Coffee Pops." I'd seen the idea on several other blogs and thought it would be a good way to get my coffee while holding my daughter without worrying about scolding her.  So I brewed a pot of coffee, mixed it with milk and splenda, and poured it into my bunny Popsicle molds. I had high hopes and I was eager. Perhaps TOO eager. The next morning, I went to remove a popsicle from one of the molds, but it hadn't loosened enough and my dear, sweet bunny pop cracked in half. In honor of the bunny's memory, I wrote a poem.   Ode To A Popsicle Stick    Little Bunny Fu-Fu  That's what I might have called you  But your life was cut too short to have a name.  ...

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...

Well, here I am in the midst of what would be midterms if I had any. Instead, I've got more than my fair share of papers to write before Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean I'm not more than happy to distract myself by cooking something interesting for dinner and then blogging about it. So come on. Enable my procrastination and read on. On Monday I announced on Facebook that I had made pasta with a "creamy pumpkin sauce." I also mentioned that I hadn't perfected the recipe and wouldn't blog about it until I had. Here's the problem with that. I'm unlikely to remember to perfect it later on if I don't blog about it now. So here goes: I wanted to make pasta, but I didn't want to make boring ol' pasta with cheese. I wanted something quick and easy, but interesting and tasty. Well, let's say I got 3/4 of it right. It was quick and easy and definitely interesting, but it was definitely bland. In the following recipe, I'm ...

As promised, I return. I started out the night planning to make a minestrone soup that sounded amazing, but realized that since I have a paper due on Thursday it might not be the best idea to make something which requires so much prep work. So instead, I decided to make homemade pizza. It all started out innocently enough. I whipped up the dough in a matter of minutes (recipe below), preheated my toaster oven and took some pictures. Then, I rolled the dough out, placed it on a little baking sheet and put it in the toaster oven to prebake the crust a little to avoid sogginess. I start cleaning up and suddenly, my toaster oven breaks. It just shuts off and refuses to turn back on. Now, I don't have a milchig oven. My toaster oven (which was a wonderful wedding gift from my father's friend) was all I had for milchig baking. But I didn't have time to mourn that loss just then. I had pizza dough to save! Now here I was, two small pizza crusts all set, and my only option...