Happy Easter

This weekend we were lucky enough to spend a second Easter Sunday at a service in the Garden Tomb, Jerusalem.  It's hard to imagine a place more conducive to imagining what it was like on the first Easter - when you are listening to the message and looking at an empty tomb that is exactly like the one they would have found (or even the actual one...).

The empty grave

probably Jesus' exact view when he woke up... hey guy... (look closely)

Oh hey, giant grapefruit

Pink grapefruits in the spring are glorious here :)

Scuba Diving in Eilat

My wetsuit was a bit short...

I finally took the plunge (hah) and got my Scuba certification!  We went down to Eilat for a week for me to complete the course.  In Israel, diving regulations are pretty strict - they require you to complete 6 open water dives as opposed to the 4 required almost everywhere else.  This means that I got to do 6 real dives, with 2 of them purely fun dives (the other 4 had some tests in them).  I found the most amazing scuba club - run by a woman out of her home that she has converted to a dive school.  If you are ever in Eilat and want to go diving, look up Shulamit's Eilat Diving Adventures. She was so friendly and made the whole experience amazing.  There were only 3 of us at first, and after 3 days (out of 5) one of the people left (they were doing a short intro course).  So the course felt like a private one.  This also let us spend a lot more time diving because during the dives you have to practice the skills that you learn.  This can take quite a while if you are part of a large group, and for our tank sizes and depth we only have about 45 minutes to dive before the air runs out.

The Red Sea is the perfect place to learn to dive.  The water is super calm and not too cold (since it is winter here it was about 22C but the air temp was about 30C so it was nice).  In the summer the water gets much warmer.  The visibility was ok (spring means algae) but usually it is ridiculously good.  Also, the area is a coral reserve and protected so there are tons of fish and coral, and the fish are used to divers so you can swim right with them.  These pictures were taken by Shulamit (our dive master) on our last day:

 

A Moray Eel!

Lion Fish - these guys were all over the place.  They poison/sting you if you touch their fins.

Zach swimming with a little fish friend

Finished our last dive - we are certified! (I'm on the right)

OCTOPUS!  This guy was big enough that he didn't feel the need to camouflage into the coral.

Jerusalem Half Marathon

This weekend was our much anticipated half marathon!  A first for Zach and a second for me - although a first in terms of hills!  The reputation that this new marathon has (this is its 3rd year) is certainly true.  Jerusalem is a city on many hills and it seems like this race runs all of them!  Although we hill trained in Tel Aviv, there are no hills there that can quite compare to the steepness and shear length of the ones we encountered along our route.  But despite the hills, this was an amazingly beautiful race.  Even the weather was perfect: overcast and slightly chilly 13C or so.  It started at the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) and ran through the Old City - in Jaffa Gate and out Zion Gate.  When we left the old city, the views were breathtaking - which was unfortunate since I already couldn't breathe... buhdum ching!  From there we ran into East Jerusalem briefly and then through some fun looking neighborhoods, before finishing back near the Knesset in the large Sacher park.  The finish area had music, zumba groups and lots of delicious fresh fruit.  About 20,000 people took part in the marathon so there was a great atmosphere.

Getting our race kits.

Excited to start running!  

The best parts to me were the places where bands or DJs were blaring music and people were cheering.  There were lots of little kids giving out high fives along the route which made me smile. Lucky for me, my wonderful husband decided to run it with me (even though he is much faster than me) and was a major encouragement along the way.  After about the half-way point the hills started to do me in mentally (another one!  I can't even see the top!  My legs feel like lead! and so on..) but he kept encouraging me and keeping a good pace.  It was a really fun thing to do together, and will be a great memory of our time here.

Excited to finish :) !

I remember after the Toronto half ("fast and flat!" is its slogan) I thought - man, these are fun!  During this one I thought why am I doing this?? But once we finished (at the top of another long hill) I couldn't help but feel how fun the whole experience was.  Right after we crossed the line Zach said something along the lines of "This is awesome - it would be fun to do a full marathon!" ahhhhh.  I don't think I'm there yet!  I like the half because to me it still feels like a challenge and I don't really race for a specific time - I like the fun of running through a new place in a big crowd with music; and having a race gives me a good goal to keep me motivated to run and stay fit.

pre-race pasta dinner with obligatory Israeli cover band :)  

Neve Tzedek

These are some pictures of our recent travels around Tel Aviv.  It's crazy that we have lived here for over a year now and haven't really explored one of the most famous areas - Neve Tzedek.  This is a historic area that is full of Bauhaus architecture (the white buildings which give Tel Aviv its nickname - The White City).  It was the beginning of Tel Aviv and was lived in by many artists.  Once Tel Aviv started growing the affluent moved north to the newer areas and Neve Tzedek became a run down area.  However, in the '80s, the neighborhood started to be restored and is once again considered an artsy, trendy area to live.  We rented some bikes and took advantage of the gorgeous warm, sunny weather to go exploring :)

This is one of the many bike paths that go through Tel Aviv - it is a very bike friendly city!

Even in February the lemons are out.

A Bauhaus building downtown.  I bet these looked amazing when they were brand new - before the dust turned them all orange!  Although I still love the detailing.

Below is Zach's picture of Nachalat Binyamin - on Tuesdays and Fridays there is an artisan market here that sells the coolest things.  You have to be a registered artist with the city to get a booth, and your product must be hand made in Israel.  This is a great place to buy soap and jewelry among other things :)  It looks deserted in this twilight picture, but on market days you can barely walk without bumping into everything.

The next pictures are taken by Zach of Shabazi Street which is in the heart of Neve Tzedek.  It is the kind of street that has art stores and antique shops intermingled with cafes.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Bars

One of my favourite things is Reese's peanut butter cups - they're the kind of thing I can eat myself sick on - so I try to minimize temptation by never buying them!  Unfortunately I found this recipe that looked so easy, oh man.  Dangerous.  Don't make this recipe if you aren't prepared to eat a crazy amount of peanut butter and chocolate.  Although, technically they are a quarter peanut butter so that's pretty healthy right?  :)

The original recipe is from Cast Sugar.   Basically you just make the filling (no bake!), then melt chocolate chips (or dipping chocolate) and put together, so there are a bunch of ways you can do it:

1) Use a candy mold or a mini cupcake tin to make fun shapes
~pour melted chocolate into form, chill in freezer until set, add a bit of filling (not out to the edges) - chill, pour melted chocolate on top of that and let set in the freezer
2) Chill the mixture and roll it into little balls, then freeze for a bit, then dunk in melted chocolate - chill in freezer until set
3) Make bars - this is by far the easiest and less time consuming option.

I really wanted to make cute little shapes but I don't have anything that I could re-purpose into molds, and my only cupcake tray has just 6 spots so that would have taken too long.

The truffle ones (like the one on Cast Sugar) are pretty awesome, but they are super time consuming.  I did about half the batch like this first.  I even tried molding them by hand into hearts, but it took waaaay too long, and I got really bored, and this recipe makes a ton, so I decided to make bars instead.

For bars you just melt some chocolate, pour it into a casserole dish (lined with parchment paper! this is important!) then you let that set in the freezer.  Next, smooth the peanut butter filling over the hardened chocolate.  I think this would go way smoother if you melt the filling a bit (just microwave it or something so it sort of pours).  But I don't have a microwave so I just smooshed it around with my fingers which was also pretty great.  Then chill in the freezer while you melt some more chocolate.  Pour this chocolate over the filling and freeze again.  It's also easier to cut them before they fully harden.  I etched hearts into mine because I'm cheesy like that.

Recipe (this made a 13X9 pan of bars and about 3 dozen individual ones...so you could easily halve it):

2 cups peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
2 cups icing sugar
2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup butter, softened
dipping chocolate (I use chocolate chips and vegetable oil)

That's it!  Then you just mix the peanut butter, icing sugar, crackers and butter together until it makes a crumby mixture.  I substituted butter cookies and just smashed them into crumbs using a ziploc and my rolling pin (wine bottle).  They tasted great - I think they are just there to make the texture a bit drier like Reese's - to soak up some of the peanut butter oil.

Melting Chocolate:
I'm no chocolate expert - I can't be bothered to temper it properly, and usually it siezes on me. So I use a shortcut that I think works just great...for every cup of chocolate chips, add 1 Tbsp of oil (not one with a strong flavour) and then just stir over simmering water until it's melted.

To finish, follow one of the above methods to make shapes, balls or bars.  Enjoy!

Butterscotch Pudding

Has anyone ever made pudding from scratch?  I honestly never thought about it before - it's always just been a mysterious, delicious powder in a box to me, so when I saw a recipe for butterscotch pudding I decided to try it.   It helped that I was having a sweet craving and there is nothing weird in this recipe that I would have to try and find in Israel!

Side note - I have been trying to find graham crackers here and having no luck.  None.  I have gotten used to sifting through baking recipes carefully now so I don't get my hopes up for a certain thing and then discover it is impossible (for me) to find a crucial ingredient (I'm looking at you, corn syrup).  I realize there are many things in specialty shops somewhere downtown or out in a big box store in the suburbs but that is seriously not happening just so I can bake something!  I think I'll have to get creative with substitutions - can you substitute butter cookie crumbs for graham crumbs?  I'm about to find out.  heh.

So anyway, turns out homemade pudding is delicious!  Although this was a bit too sweet for me, in small quantities I quite liked it (yes, I did try at first to eat like half the recipe in one go, it tasted good). This recipe is also super simple!  It's dead easy and no fail.  Except I failed a bit...but that was my own fault because I made my usual substitution of demerera (raw) sugar in place of dark brown sugar, but oh well.  Mine ended up very vanilla. The dark brown would have made the colour better and the taste more "butterscotchy" because of the molasses.  Also I love that this uses whiskey - it adds a nice flavour.  Zach said he couldn't taste it, but since I still think a sip of straight whiskey tastes like gasoline, I noticed it!  If you are a whiskey enthusiast like Zach, you may want to add more to taste :)  If your palate is not quite as "whiskey acclimatized" (like me) you will probably like the tiny bit called for in the recipe! (or don't put it in at all)

This stuff is not cheap in Israel - but it is cheap in the Pearson Airport Duty Free! Score :)

From Joy the Baker the recipe is:

4 Tbsp butter
1 cup dark brown sugar     **I recommend not substituting light or raw sugar since you need that dark,
3/4 tsp salt                               molasses flavour
3 Tbsp cornstarch
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp good vanilla extract  (Thanks Charlotte!)
1 Tbsp whiskey (optional)

You can see here how white it is!  Dark brown sugar it is, next time...

1) Melt the butter in a medium pot, add the brown sugar and whisk until it is combined (the sugar won't really melt), then take the pot off the heat
2) In another bowl, whisk the salt, cornstarch and 1/4 cup of milk until there are no lumps.  Whisk in the eggs
3) Put the pot back on the heat (medium low) and add the above mixture and the rest of the milk and cream - stir very often until it simmers (it will get thicker).  As it simmers, whisk constantly until it is the thickness of hot fudge
4) Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, stir in the vanilla and whiskey (if using) and then cover with plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding (keeps it from getting a gross skin)
5) Let it cool and thicken in the fridge for at least an hour