Quickie Kosher Cooking Carnival

I haven't done this for a very long time, so I'm just grabbing a few recipe and kosher food posts. I'm listing the titles only and hope that you'll visit and comment and share thanks. And please remember that I run a KCC- Kosher Cooking Carnival page on facebook. If you'd like to get more involved, then please email me, shilohmuse@gmail.com, thanks.

Honey Mustard Roasted Fennel and Cabbage Wedges- Paleo, Vegan Options
Easy "Fancy" Cooking
Shabbat Menu
The elusive quest for a Passover beer
More than "Just a Meatloaf"
Soup Glorious Soup Take II - Thenthuk Soup
Homemade "Airplane Food"
Catching Cold

German Pancake
Oops, Kosher Clams Advertised at Ami Magazine
Hit The Spot Lentil Soup

Again, you're invited to send me links and kosher food blogs to be used in the next Kosher Cooking Carnival. And I'm sure you'll like the posts included, so please visit, comment and share, thanks.

Easy "Fancy" Cooking

No doubt you know that I love "bake and serve," easy "one-pot" meals. And I'm always trying different variations of it.  This dish was polished off by me and my husband today for Shabbat noon meal. I served it with a big fresh salad, a cooked vegetable that had carrots, squash, cauliflower, onions and mushrooms, plus I baked some pumpkin. And my husband also had some rice. But I think that most people would find this plus a salad to be a very complete and filling meal. 

Ingredients: (Vegetables are all sliced thickly, since the turkey takes longer to be fully cooked, and I didn't want the vegetables to be overcooked and unrecognizably mushy.)

• two turkey legs
• a large sweet potato
• thick carrot
• large zucchini
• onion
• about 1/4 cup of very sweet red wine poured at the last minute on the turkey

Directions:

• cover with foil and bake in hot oven until almost ready
• turn off oven and let it finish baking
• if you're afraid it will burn lower heat, but usually the foil keeps it from burning
• ready when the turkey is cooked-- every oven is differnt so I don't give time or temperature, since mine isn't accurate

Sunset, Sunrise...

I reversed the usual order, because according to Judaism the day starts at night. And last night on my way home, when I was waiting for a ride at the Shvut Rachel-Shiloh Junction, I caught a lovely sunset. And a very sweet woman (neighbor's daughter-in-law) took me to my door, even though she was on her way to someplace else in Shiloh, picked me up after I had taken these pictures.

And this morning I took sunrise photos in two batches. One when I first prepared my coffee, and...

...the next when I got my second mugful.

One never knows what good surprises Gd will give us. When I took the first batch this morning I thought they were truly gorgeous. Sorry that the photos don't do the majestic scene justice,  but then just minutes later when I returned, the same view was super stupendous. As you can see from the last batch of photos. Yes, things can get even better with Gd's help.

May this foretell a wonderful day and week to come.

The Snowstorm that Wasn't

I guess you can say that Israel suffers from "snow envy." The syndrome most probably doesn't appear in any of Freud's writings, but I think it should. This week, and not for the first time, Israeli media and various localities and the Capitol Jerusalem went totally gaga over the possibility of a snowstorm. To illustrate it, they didn't show the usual delicate dustings we get in Israel, they used the very recent Jonas storm in the eastern seaboard of the USA.

I missed a day of work, because my regional council recommended taking a road that didn't connect between Shiloh and Sha'ar Binyamin. And they had insisted that we should be off the road by 5pm. So I stayed home and lost money.

The truth is that there wasn't much snow at all on Monday, and Tuesday had barely more than that.

The above photos were taken first thing in the morning, but by the time I went to Jerusalem, there was no sign of snow at all. But soon after getting on the bus there were a few flurries. Of course, the driver reported it as "heavy snow."

No surprise. And I'm glad I went up to Jerusalem, because my Wednesday classes aren't cancelled. We've never had snow so many years in a row, whether furries or more impressive. Nu, would you call this "global warming?"

Shot From Below, 52Frames

Here's the photo I chose.

"Aiming High"
This is the bottom of a special Sabbath and Holiday Prayer Readers Platform of an Cochin Indian synagogue reconstructed in the Israel Museum. It juts out of the Women's Gallery. https://scontent-frt3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1618614_10208642893212546_8440354879599021488_n.jpg?oh=ba309a8b03d0df7bd69b45410828e84b&oe=572C2B73
The title I gave this photo, "Aiming High," is a pun; it has double meaning. Not only do I have to aim my camera high when shooting from below, but I photographed a place of prayer. And don't we "aim high" when we pray?

And here are some of the "rejects." Did I choose wrong or right?

Opening Night! Very Off Broadway

Off, Off, Off Broadway extends as far as Jerusalem for sure. My husband and I were privileged to be among the lucky ones to attend opening night of “The Ghosts of Mizrachi Bet Street” by historian Zev Golan.

I must say that more than history came alive. Yair and Roni Stern came alive, too. I don't know how their son and his family felt sitting so publicly in the audience. My seat did not give me views of their expressions, but I felt that Zev Golan did a stupendous job in writing the play, and the actors,  just two on the stage, Steven Schub and Ayala Shiftan, played their roles amazingly well.

It's only going to be performed a few times, so get your tickets now and enjoy!!

TU B'Shvat? Where are the Flowers?

There's a traditional Israeli TU B'Shvat song that most probably everyone who has gone through the preschool system here learns to sing, השקדיה פורחת Hashkeidia Porachat, The Almond Tree Blooms.


This year, being a leap year and all--which means that an extra month of Adar is added to postpone Passover-- it's no surprise that my almond tree looks far from blooming.

I just wonder if there will be flowers in a month.  Or will it take even longer?

TU B'Shevat Festivities Cancelled in Shiloh

Last night, instead of getting together to celebrate TU B'Shvat and 38 years of renewed Jewish life in the Holy City of Shiloh over wine and fruit and nuts and cakes, we mourned. And we gathered together in the large sports hall and then slowly marched under the cold, weeping sky at a funeral.

A young man, born and raised in Shiloh had been killed in a terrible road accident, only minutes from home. His family, friends and the soldiers he had led all gathered together to bring him to his resting place, until the Moshiach arrives and tichiyat hamettim, resurrection of the dead. May it be soon in our time...

Shiloh Cemetery, photo taken a few months ago for 52Frames, Theme: Future, titled "We Will All Die"

המקום ינחם

HAMAKOM YINACHEM

MAY GD COMFORT THE MOURNERS

New French Press and New Coffee!

My old French Press seemed about to crack, so I trashed it, and it took awhile to get a new one, since they are very expensive (ns100+ which is at least $25 or double?) here. Buying one was high on my "must buy" list when I went to the states a few weeks ago. I knew that they were about $20.

HomeGoods

I was not too good about looking at my shopping list, so towards the end of my visit while in Scottsdale/Tempe, Arizona I noticed a store that seemed to have potential. We were in a rush. My sister said that she had never been in it, so I promised to run in very quickly and only look for a French Press. I hadn't noticed any when wandering around Target, and I wasn't going to buy from Starbucks.

Imagine my surprise; they had them and the price was amazingly low. Yes, that's $7.99, and even the original price is only $16- for an 8 cup size. If I had a larger and safer suitcase I would have had bought more than one.

My suitcase is soft, so packing something so breakable was a challenge. But, B"H, it survived the trip. And one interesting thing in the instructions I hadn't paid attention to in the past. They recommend taking apart the filter after each use.

And today was the day for finally drinking the coffee I had bought. I just had to decide which one to open first.

In the end I opened the archer farms French Roast, Dark Roast. And when googling I discovered that they actually ship to Israel, which is something to think about.

Nu, you must be wondering how it tasted. Good, smooth. And yes, strong, so I can use a bit less and still get a full flavor.

PS after using it twice, I'm sure that it's label of 8 cups isn't accurate, unless you're talking tiny demitasse size. It's not the end of the world for me, since cutting down a bit from two full giant mugs to two giant mugs only about 2/3 or 3/4 full still means a lot of coffee. No, in case you're wondering, I don't have high blood pressure, bli eyin haraa, Baruch Hashem.

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More than "Just a Meatloaf"

This is the meatloaf I served to guests Shabbat lunch.

It was very easy to make and meatier than musaka. The layer of squash and pepper on top make it fancier and more impressive. There's also a layer of squash underneath.

Here's what's in the meatloaf:

• 800 grams (2 pounds) of chopped meat
• diced onion
• diced garlic, a few pieces, but you can use whatever dried garlic you want if you don't have any fresh
• small container/half cup tomato concentrate, the 28% paste
• 2 eggs

Mix it all up, and put in your baking pan. I had a layer of cut squash underneath, but that's optional. Eggplant makes a good base, too. If you want to serve on a different dish, not the baking pan, then I recommend lining your pan with baking paper for easy removal and cleaning. Sliced tomatoes or onions also look nice on top. The important thing is color contrast, so it doesn't blend into the brown of the meat.

Bake in a hot oven until the meatloaf moves from the side of the pan. Then lower the heat a bit and keep baking. Make sure that the middle is cooked before removing it from the oven. You can cover with foil if the top is ready before the middle.

 

Of course, for me, the best thing about it is that it's a "bake and serve" dish, which I always love to make.

And if you try the recipe, please let me know how it came out and how you varied it. Thanks

"Coming and Going..." My Most Successful 52Frames Photo So Far!

I'm going to be perfectly honest, IMHO, some of my other photos are just as nice, and I don't understand why this one got so many great comments and likes. It's rare for any of my photos to break out of the teens in comments and likes, so I was rather surprised to see this one I took "walking home" in the airport taking off so nicely.

Batya Medad
"Coming and Going..."Greeting from Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport! Yes, I'm home, thank Gd. As you can see, the airport is designed so that passengers coming and going can view each other easily. I love photographing the airport; it is so beautifully designed.
Camera: Canon Canon IXUS 145
--------------
A new photo challenge in your inbox, each week. Join this amazing global community. Start here:http://bit.ly/52f-fbstart — with Batya Spiegelman Medad.

During the week I could take photos for the "" theme, I was in Arizona and then flew home to Shiloh, Israel. And I took lots of pictures with the theme in mind. It was hard to choose. I like these airport photos:

And I also thought it would be nice to shoot the view from the plane, but it looked a bit boring, especially since I was on night flights and had very little opportunity to look through a window.

There were also some amazing photos I took in Scottsdale, Arizona walking to the memory center where my father lives.

When I asked other framers for advice I just included the Arizona shots with the one of the Israeli airport. Advice was mixed. Considering the praises I received, I guess I chose well.

What do you think?

PS until now, my most successful/popular photo was the self-portrait from  2015.

It's not a better photo. The popularity was more because people were interested in how much I've changed in the almost half century since my high school graduation.