197 replies to this topic

[Lior]

My daughter is a fussy girl and does not like the yolk runny, so I cook the shakshusha for a minute or two, then I cover the egg with a bit of sauce, and then with a lid for a minute



cover with sauce




I forgot to add the photo of the spices I used in the sauce


Chop vegies






Serve salad with a squeeze of lemon juice,salt and olive oil



up close


breakfast is ready!!! COme down and eat before it gets cooold!!!

Attached Images

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Edited by Lior, 19 December 2011 - 06:18 AM.

[nikkib]

I love how you get so many vegetables into breakfast - sure beats a bowl of coco pops!

[Hassouni]

Ahhhh the cucumbers of the eastern Med...the best anywhere

[Lior]

absolutely. They are so differnt to those in the U.S. , which are HUGE!! Here they are so much smaller!!

[Pam R]

Ok, first of all, great start. Second, I love that you can actually buy sauce for shakshuka. Is this your standard way of making it or do you mix it up? (I like to roast poblano peppers and add garlic, which a Moroccan Israeli told me was not correct, but it is delicious. )

Third, is there any chance you'll have time to show us some sufganiyot? I'd love to see some of the interesting flavours available. Todah!

[Lior]

I will show sufganiot, of course! This is my standard way of making it. Often I will make my own tomato sauce, but it tastes quite similar in the end, to be honest. In the morning I need to be quick!

[Shelby]

Beautiful chocolates and I love the hedgies!!

[Lior]

About coffee. I usually don't drink black or mud coffee, and if I do, I add milk. This is horrible to some people (MILK??) akin to the american reaction to milk in tea...

My boys do drink it, but lately they like macchiato. Anyhow, here is how we make the mud coffee.

Finjan and a small glass of water


At least one pregnant teaspoon of coffee


Sugar to taste, I dont like it sweet, most do...


Put in finjan over flame and start heating it all up, stirring here and there


after a short time




When it all rises then it is ready and the aroma is fantastic!


pour into a small glass! I held it up so that you can kind of see the mud at the bottom (sediment...)


Post coffee

[Dianabanana]

Wait. What? So there is no straining? The coffee looks like it's really super finely ground, though. Do you feel the grinds in your mouth when you drink it? Or is it more like sludge?

ETA: Something interesting--the newish Starbucks Via instant coffee lists its ingredients as "instant and microground coffee." So I guess they are doing something similar to this, really!

Edited by Dianabanana, 19 December 2011 - 12:20 PM.

[Pam R]

I will show sufganiot, of course! This is my standard way of making it. Often I will make my own tomato sauce, but it tastes quite similar in the end, to be honest. In the morning I need to be quick!

That's great. I wish I could get the sauce here -- I would make shakshuka more often. As it is now, it's a special treat (which I suppose can be a good thing).

[Hassouni]

Wait. What? So there is no straining? The coffee looks like it's really super finely ground, though. Do you feel the grinds in your mouth when you drink it? Or is it more like sludge?

ETA: Something interesting--the newish Starbucks Via instant coffee lists its ingredients as "instant and microground coffee." So I guess they are doing something similar to this, really!

That's essentially just Turkish coffee from the looks of the coffee and pot - the coffee is ground to a superfine powder, and the grounds settle at the bottom of the cup (best to wait a minute before the first sip). When you reach the end you definitely get the sludge, and it's best not to try to get the last drop!

How strange that in Israel the pot is called finjan. In Arabic, Turkish, and possibly Persian, finjan is the cup!

For Lior: in Israel, is it ground with cardamom? Very often in the Arab Levant it is, but never in Turkey.

Edited by Hassouni, 19 December 2011 - 01:07 PM.

[Lior]

The coffee is as Hassouni described it-exactly. Funny about the finjan! I looked it up and it said that we mistakenly call the pot instead of the cup finjan. The pot is Jazba (?). But that is what it is called here, it seems by mistake... Lots of words here are taken from other languages and then misused in some way. A sweatshirt is called a "svetsher" - a sweatsuit is called a "trenning" (training...)An Applause car is an "apple house" SO finjan isn't all that bad!!

Yes, very often it is with cardamom- the red packet is without, green packet with!We call cardamom-hel

Edited by Lior, 19 December 2011 - 01:16 PM.

[Lior]

Well, back to chocolates. I wanted to show the hedgehogs filled with hazelnut milk and dark chocolate ganache:



I need to "close" the bottoms of the hedgehog. It looks like the top of the mold, but it is actually the bottom. I use tempered chocolate at its highest temp while still keeping it in temper. If I take the temp too high, it will not be tempered and then it won't be shiny, hard and this is a sin!



After pouring chocolate onto the mold, I kind os shake and wobble the chocolate along the mold so it runs as far as it can towards the bottom of the mold. If needed I add more chocolate. Then I give it a bang or two with the end of the utensil and then I swipe of the extra chocolate.





It is important to keep the molds as clean as possible!

[Lior]

The closed shells now need to crystalize for a few mimutes and then I can un mold them!



the bottom side, which was the top that I "closed" before



Mr. Hedgie

[Hassouni]

The coffee is as Hassouni described it-exactly. Funny about the finjan! I looked it up and it said that we mistakenly call the pot instead of the cup finjan. The pot is Jazba (?). But that is what it is called here, it seems by mistake... Lots of words here are taken from other languages and then misused in some way. A sweatshirt is called a "svetsher" - a sweatsuit is called a "trenning" (training...)An Applause car is an "apple house" SO finjan isn't all that bad!!

Yes, very often it is with cardamom- the red packet is without, green packet with!We call cardamom-hel

Jazba must be from the Turkish cezve, meaning the same, (pron. jez-veh, sort of), which is ultimately an Arabic word but never actually used in any dialects. I suspect the Arab Israelis and Palestinans would call it "rakweh." Hel is the same in Arabic and Persian, also. What's an Applause car? I like the sound of apple house!


And, lest I forget, the finished hedgehogs look AWESOME! Perhaps I missed this, do you run a shop or is it more like a catering thing?

[Lior]

Daihatsu Applause car... maybe you dont get them by you? Thanks for your kind words!

[Lior]

Yesterday's lunch, for my daughter mainly as only the two of us are at home for lunchtime during the week and neither of us eat meat... so it was steamed broccoli, a baked potato and green "fool", which I believe are broad beans, but not dried ones, not big ones,I think they are young ones. I sprinkle the broccoli with olive oil,salt, and some combination of spices, including paprika and powdered garlic. I cook the fool till soft, with a slice of lemon in the water, drain off the water, and add lemon juice, salt, and cumin. My daughter and Ilove them this way. They are fun to eat because it is finger food. We eat them one by one, sliding the skins off as we pop them into our mouths. You can eat the skin, but we don't.





add spices and lemon juice after draining off water







discarded skins

Edited by Lior, 19 December 2011 - 11:27 PM.

[Lior]

Dinner at our house is almost always the same! I always wait for my husband to come home, which is usually late-around 8:30 in the evening. SO the kids always eat earlier and this became the tradition many years ago. Dinner is a light meal here, as I mentioned earlier, lunch is the main meal. Since I am the "multi-tasked" parent, my husband quickly acquired the job of making our dinner, or go hungry! After around 9pm we get ready for dinner.

Let's begin with the salad, the central part of dinner!



























Now onto to the Tehina and etc.

[Lior]

We use Tehina, humous, cottage cheese, mashed eggplant that was burned whole over the flame (messy), Tsfatit cheese, which is a solid but soft white cheese, and either a fried egg or a boiled egg-usually boiled eggs.

The Tehina gets made by adding water in increments and mixing till just right.

SO we take out some Tehina paste



Add some water and start mixing. It takes 2 minutes and there is no need to make a huge amount for a few days.












We usually add cilantro or parsley to our sald and sometimes to the Tehina, chopped finely,of course. We were out of both yesterday... I prefer parsley and my husband prefers cilantro.

[Lior]

We set the table, and finally at 9:30 or so pm we sit down together for dinner and chatting.



Cottage cheese. We only use this brand now as ever since the social strikes (tent city)many people refuse to buy the other more popular brand as they are responsible for the price hikes of cottage cheese. Cottage is a basic here, there is almost no home without a few containers of it. It comes in 1/2%, 3%,5% and 9%. Guess which tastes best?



Homemade humous. This I do make in large quantities because it takes time so I cannot make it every night.



The Tsfatit cheese





Dinner is ready at last



Hubby loves extra peppers and red onion...

Edited by Lior, 20 December 2011 - 12:18 AM.

[Lior]

Daughter's breakfast today



Why do they never come when it is still hot??

[Lior]

Schools here have a break at around 9:50, for about 20 minutes. Kids eat a mid morning sandwich at this time. Then at around 2 hours later they have a 10 minute break and they eat another sandwich. SO here is my daughter's school sandwiches for today

mid morning snack


noon snack


packed up


I got some yummy sufganiyot pictures which I will post later.

[Lior]

Well I not only bought delcious looking sufganiyot for this evening, I got lots of photos of them!! I will soon be making levivot (latkes in Yiddish), potato pancakes kind of, although they are not doughy!

At Kinnamonim bakery:

a table with all kinds of sufganiyot


jam filled- a very common type


chocolate filled


Dulce de Leche filled


patisserie cream filled, white and chocolate

Edited by Lior, 20 December 2011 - 06:11 AM.

[Lior]

One of the jam ones was a bit smeared and the owner of the bakery asked me why I took a picture of it (it was with all of the jam ones...) so I told him "so if it is ugly why are you selling it?" He understood I was teasing him and we both laughed. I explained to him that we all like to see it, the way it really is (I do for sure!).

Some more-Patisserie cream filled







My choices

[Lior]

At the supermarket bakery, checkin' out their sufganiot. The women behind the counter were very excited about the sufganiot being photographed for an "international food forum" ("Our sufganiot? But surely America has better! They have donut- Dunking donut! " WHat do they want to see sufganiot for? I have a relative in Manhattan and she said they have big donut!" SO I told them they also want to see who made them... lots of laughing!!



The women holding the mini sufganiot








The most common species of sufganiot




A close up of the mini ones

Edited by Lior, 20 December 2011 - 06:27 AM.

[heidih]

The freshness of your meals and the incorporation of lovely vegetables is very appealing. I am curious about your comment that hummus takes time. Are you starting with dried chickpeas? Can you give us an outline of your recipe?

Edited to correct typo: dried not fried chickpeas!

[Lior]

I start with dried Hummous beans (garbanzo/chick pea). If I remember I let them soak overnight, but usually I forget so I simply cook them for about 2 and a half to three hours. I change the water once in the middle- save the water at the end though! Blenderize garlic to taste- 1-3 cloves,salt and black pepper.Then you need to blenderize/process with the beans! For around 2 and a half cups of beans you need around 2-3 cups of liquid- I use the cooking water from the humous. You may want to save a few whole beans to decorate at the end. I add the liquid as needed to allow it to be processed and to get the right consistency-according to taste. Last time mine was too thick for some reason. Add about a cup of Tehina paste. Add lemon juice to taste- upto about half a cup. You can add cumin and/or paprika, a bit of olive oil, and parsley either in or after. Serve with olive oil, za'atar etc.

[Lior]

For lunch today I made a quick cous cous-vegetarian one. I almost always make it this way as this is how the kids like it. I didn't have pumpkin, but that is okay.

I simply make a veryquick tomato base-not thin but not as thick as sauce. I use whatever I have around-tomato paste, spaghetti sauce and crushed tomatoes is what I used today. I added a bit of water and mixed up and put on med flame



Then I chop vegies into chunks






broccoli stem from yesterday... (waste not want not...)

[Lior]

Of course, as I cut up the vegetables I add them in

[Lior]

I cook this until the vegetable are just done-not mushy!! While this is cooking, I make the cous cous which is the quick way, forgive me Morrocan grandmas out there!!!

I pour the couscous into a bowl and add 3 tablespoons of olive oil




Then I add a teaspoon of a very concentrated soup broth/paste I made in large quantites a while back as it lasts for months in the fridge.

\

\


Mix as much as poss and then add boiling water and mix well.



cover with lid and let steam for 5 minutes



After about 5 minutes take the lid off and just leave it for another 5 minutes



then rub it between your palms so that all the grains get separated