The Chanukah (Tevet) Kosher Cooking Carnival!

Let's start with a better turn down the volume  latke making demonstration:



If you haven't yet seen this, here's your chance.

I've long ago lost track of what number Kosher Cooking Carnival this is, but I do know that we're in Chanukah so it's Tevet.  KCC comes out monthly, according to the Jewish Calendar.  If you'd like to host one, then please contact me.  To submit an article use blog carnival's form or via the instructions on our facebook page.  Next month, Shvat, will be hosted on Frugal and Kosher.  Who can host Adar?  Please let me know, thanks.

The Kosher Cooking Carnival includes all sorts of posts about kosher food and kosher cooking.   It's more than just a collection of recipes.  I include halachik issues about kashrut,  reviews of kosher cookbooks and restaurants, too.  Enough of an introduction, here it is:

special for Chanukah or any time

Yosef presents Onion Bhajis and Cilantro Chutney posted at This American Bite, saying, "A great alternative to potato latkes."

I posted about low-carb latkes, which are worth trying.

desserts

Jay3fer presents Pareve Sugar Cookie Mix for (not exactly) a Year posted at Adventures in BreadLand, saying, "Make ahead and store in your freezer for a quick homemade mix to have cookies in minutes!"

Yosef presents Easy Apple Pie posted at This American Bite.

Mrs. S. presents Ceasefire Pie posted at Our Shiputzim: A Work In Progress, saying, "A recipe for chocolate mousse pie. Thanks for all your hard work!"

any time dishes

I present Simply Delicious posted at me-ander.

Jay3fer presents Happy Easy Tomato Egg-Drop Soup posted at Adventures in Mama-Land, saying, "Mmm... with or without chili flakes/sauce, a great way to warm up a chilly fall evening!"

Here's a new version of my vegetable soup, which I managed to make when I could barely use my arm.

anything kosher!

Leora Wenger presents Bok Choy Red Cabbage Salad - Here in Highland Park posted at Here in HP.

Chaviva Karon presents Grilled Thai Chicken posted at Challah Maidel, saying, "Save yourself from the excess amount of MSG,sodium, and calories by making your own Thai sauce for this simple but delicious grilled Thai chicken recipe."

economical use of left-overs

Yosefa Huber presents Cooking Outside the Box: Southwest Chicken Salad posted at Cooking Outside the Box, saying, "With this technique you can make soup and Shabbat lunch at the same time, or use leftovers in a fun, low-fat way."

Jay3fer presents My Brilliant Friend Rachel’s Brilliant Freezer Burritos posted at Adventures in Mama-Land, saying, "Make from scratch or use leftovers - freeze these for quick delicious HEALTHY lunches!"

Restaurant or Cookbook Reviews

Yosefa Huber presents Cooking Outside the Box: A walk in Tel Aviv, lunch at Armando posted at Cooking Outside the Box, saying, "I review a kosher fish restaurant in Tel Aviv."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of kosher cooking carnival-kcc using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Chanuka Scenes, Israel, 5773, 2012

From my album...

 

Enjoy

Low Carb Latkes

OK, for some people that's an oxymoron but there's no requirement to eat potatoes on Chanukah.  Actually one isn't even required to eat latkes.  It's not like matzah on Passover.  But for many of us, it isn't Chanukah sans latkes.

Since I started eating a low carbohydrate diet/way of living, our family custom has been to make a batch of low carb latkes.

In my daughter's enormous food processor I shredded all sorts of veggies and greens.

And I mixed them with eggs and some salt and a bit of matzah meal.

Then the older grandgirls made "patties" on the baking sheet to reduce the oil, and we baked them.  They were very delicious!

PS there is no such thing as exact ingredients in this sort of recipe.

If You're Still Looking For A Good Chanukah Game

Try

PIN THE CANDLE ON THE CHANUKIYAH!

The kids had great fun playing it.  We had prepared candles for everyone, yes, including all of the adults, but the kids were happy to share them and light/stick the candles on for all of us.

Admittedly, I'm not that great at arts & crafts and not everyone could guess what that poster was for, but once the kids started the game, it didn't matter.  The older grandchildren remembered it from previous years and the younger ones caught on quickly.  I had the children decorate the "candles" and write everyone's name, one on each.

Chanukah isn't over yet, so you can still play!

Enjoy!!!!

Why Do I Eat So Much?

So far this Chanukah has been awful for my low carb "eating regime."  I don't call it a "diet."

Diets are temporary, and if I would consider my low carbohydrate eating, which I started about four years ago, "temporary," yes, a "diet," then I would have gone off it and regained all the weight I had lost "with interest" as the Israeli saying goes.

Most years I have maybe one day I eat what I shouldn't, but we're now on the third day of Chanuka, and I ate too many carbs and sugars and oils and calories on each of the first two.  This is not good.  I think this started even earlier at something last week, where the dessert was just fattening stuff and no fruit.  (Yes, now I remember; I was at a staff party after Shabbat, and only the fattening stuff was served.  I should have had brought a fruit platter along.)

Normally, if I eat enough fruit, I won't have a "sweet tooth" for the restricted stuff.  I wrote "restricted" rather than "forbidden," because sometimes it's better to have a taste or more in order not to agonize, obsess, think about the foods.  When I'm doing well, just a taste is enough.

The key to staying on track when trying to keep weight off is to have lots of healthy, low fat, low sugar alternatives.  If the choice is between being hungry (not having anything to eat) and eating the wrong foods, most of us will end up gorging on what should never be eaten.

So, I'm going to the kitchen right now to make myself food to take along with me today, food I like, which is good for me to eat!

Israel, Such a Small Country, I Can Make a Day Trip to The South

Yesterday I met f2f some friends with whom I generally meet on the internet.  We may use facebook for daily group contact, but we, even the youngest who are my childrens' age, prefer the real thing, f2f meetings.  The social media doesn't rate compared to sitting around a table together talking and eating or walking around checking out stores together.

A couple of months ago we met up in Jerusalem, coming from as far afield as the Netivot area, Gush Etzion, Beit Shemesh, Hashmonayim and Shiloh.  We decided that the next f2f get-together would be in the south, Netivot to be specific.  And yesterday was the day.  We came from as far north as Netanya and Elon Moreh, making my Shiloh look a lot more convenient.  There were also women from Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim, Jerusalem, Beit Shemsh, Shiloh and the south.  I hope I didn't leave anyone out.

We're all busy people, but we made time for this get-together.  I'm embarrassed to say that I wasn't the only one who admitted that I hadn't really been in Netivot before.  You'd think it on the moon or something. 

Being carless, the logistics of getting from Shiloh to Netivot and back, by a combination of buses, tremps, aka rides and a healthy dose of Siyate d'Shmaya, the help/hand of G-d, can be rather nerve-wracking at times.  But even after my ride from Jerusalem to Netivot had to cancel barely twelve hours before take-off everything ended up beyond fantastic. 

Risa aka Isramom ended up leaving from Jerusalem by car, and I had a fantastic tremp which left me off a short walk from her apartment.  We had a great time together, and Netivot ended up much closer than we had expected.

We've all gotten a different perspective of the trip.  Miriam, who lives near Netivot wrote this on her blog.

Living in the South, I want to tell my friends, how much I appreciated your effort and enjoyed spending the day you. You are always welcomed in my neck of the woods.

Miriam mentioned that I entered one of their portable bomb shelters and stretched out my arms to show how narrow they are. 

You must understand that I have very short arms.  Three quarter length sleeves look long on me and long ones just hang over my hands and get dirty. 

I don't think too many people can fit in these bomb shelters.  And considering how busy Netivot is and how large and how many stores, there certainly aren't enough of them or other safe options when attacked.



Yocheved and Miriam in a portable bomb shelter.

After walking and shopping on Netivot's main drag, we went to lunch at Greg's.

The food was delicious and the company even better.  Another of the bloggers in the group was A Soldier's Mother.

The jewelry was sold for charity.





And then after eating we went to the Tomb of the Baba Sali, who had been the main spiritual leader of Moroccan Jewry.

 

We heard amazing stories about him from one of our group.  There was constant "traffic" as people came in and out to pray.  We were even offered food for a bracha  blessing by one.

Photo by Ruti on the way to Beersheva

And then, sadly, too soon, we had to leave and make our ways back up north.  Ruti and I got a ride to Beersheva with Reesa.  We discovered the Beersheva bus station in the midst of major renovations and had to run to the nearby train station for a "pit stop" before taking the express bus to Jerusalem.  I got to the Jerusalem bus station just in time to catch a bus home.  I quickly set up my chanukiya, Chanukah menorah, made the blessings and lit it.

Chag Chanukah Sameach to all!

Here's The HH-appy Hanuka to Empower Yourself!

Yocheved has given us a great Havel Havelim to celebrate Chanukah, however it's spelled in English.  Actually I think it's spelled two ways in Hebrew, too,

  חֲנֻכָּה   חנכה
 and the more popular חנוכה

Nowadays, "full spelling" is very accepted.

But let's get back to Yocheved's Havel Havelim, which is very party like, the perfect blog carnival post for the first day of Chanukah!  Please take a look and check out the posts.

Here's this year's Chanukah celebration:

Instantly Chanukah After Shabbat

I was very rushed for time yesterday before Shabbat.  I never got around to setting up the Chanukah menorah aka chanukiyah before Shabbat, which is what one is supposed to to when the first lighting is on a Saturday night.

But I'm not a newcomer to these things.  I manged to get everything ready between Shabbat's end and my husband's return home from shul.

Chag Urim Sameach

May You Have an Enlightened Chanukah!

Hat tip Rafi

Not Quite "Bend it Like Beckham"

Since there wasn't anything worth watching as I did my cooking yesterday before leaving for Jerusalem to watch my son play American Tackle Football, I pulled out a DVD.  Yes, I ended up watching Bend it Like Beckham, which is a fantastic movie about a young gifted Indian woman in Great Britain who plays soccer against her family's wishes.

It's of the genre of members strict religious cultures and how people assimilate to the new culture and society they live in.  The Jazz Singer is of that genre.

Actually I chose that movie, because it wasn't too long.  Even though I've seen most of our movies many times, I didn't want to have to leave home before the movie was over.  But as I got into the story I enjoyed the irony of the situation.  I was about to go to a game which is very American, but my son plays on an Israeli team.  Many of the players on the team are strictly religious, keeping kosher and Shabbat.  If they were living in America they couldn't play on this level.  Granted the level here isn't all that high by American standards.  There aren't any Shomer Shabbat, Sabbath observing tackle football leagues in America if I'm not mistaken.

When IFL founder, Steve Leibowiz, first started American football in Israel, he was thinking less about Shabbat and more about bringing his favorite bit of America to Jerusalem, football.  Today American football is played all over the country.  And there aren't any league games on Shabbat.

Last night, starting close to 10pm the Jerusalem Lions took on the Beersheva Swarm at Kraft Stadium. and the game was over around midnight, Lions 80-Swarms 44.

Bus Changes, Again, Finding a New "Pit Stop"

AKA Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #2

In an effort to keep the bus-riding public from going senile, a very important public service, Israel's Egged bus company has recently changed some of its most popular routes.  You must have read that being forced to learn new things keeps the mind young, so I have no doubt that these route changes, no matter how annoying are really "good for me."

For the past few years, even before the Jerusalem lightrail began to run its route, I've been traveling to Matan with a pit stop at the Jerusalem Municipality.  From there I'd walk to Shlomzion Hamalka or King David Street to take a bus 18, 49 or 13 or walk the entire way when time and weather permitted.  I can no longer do that, because the 18, the most frequent of those bus routes now travels on King George St. and Shlomzion Hamalka no longer has bus service.  Of course, if I get to Jerusalem early enough, I can still stop at the municipality and walk the entire way from there to Matan, but I haven't gotten in that early for a very long time.

Now I must take the train one more stop and then catch either the 18, 4 or 21 on the corner of Strauss Street and Jaffa Road.

And with the help of G-d and my bladder, I must make it safely to Gan Hapa'amon, the Liberty Bell Garden.

There are public toilets there.

The changes have also made the #18 a longer route for me, since it took over the Rachel Imenu detour from the #4.  The #18 still gets close to Matan than the #4, but the route is less direct.

The Sun is Always Shining!

winter dawn in Shiloh

Even when it's cloudy and raining and storming, the sun is till there bright and shining.  We really must never forget it.  We need the rain.  Without it we would all die.

It's now winter, and Baruch Hashem, thank G-d it has been raining.  This is the season we must have rain and lots of it.  That's how G-d designed/created the world.

When it rains in the winter, its a beautiful day.  We must complain only if there's too much sun and it seems like summer. Dry bright days are for summertime, while wet, cloudy days are for winter.  Regardless of the weather, and quantity or thickness of clouds, the sun will always rise on the east and set on the west.



sunset in Shiloh

Around the Neighborhood

I always have my camera with me when I take walks.  I find my neighborhood totally irresistible.

 

 

Don't you?