Sruli's blog

This is a fleishig recipe based on ground beef and tomato sauce. I made this last night, and it came out good, so I am saving it here. It's a variation of something I found online, but I had to make several changes for it to work to our taste and in our kitchen. This recipe serves 3 or four people, depending on how hungry they are and whatever else is being served. With nothing else, two reasonably hungry people could eat this. We're making the sauce separately from the eggplants, so here are the two ingredient lists: Eggplant: 2 small or one large eggplants 250 grams of ground beef, more or less..the picture is misleading, because I actually used 500 grams of ground meat. 1 chili pepper, diced. Green for aesthetics. I left this out because not everyone likes it spicy and also I didn't have any. 1 red pepper, chopped up small, see picture some crushed garlic or a minced garlic clove 1 tbsp olive oil (more or less, I didn't measure) 1 tsp coarse salt ...

Okay, I'm no professional cook or baker, though my Mom was. However, I see that most of this blog is turning out to be receipies I want to save for myself or give to others, so here we are with one of my more recent (2018/2019) favorites: Chicken breast. Growing up the idea of eating white meat chicken was repugnant. To me, it was dry and tasteless unless it was 100% freshly roasted, and even then unless it was undercooked I wouldn't eat the stuff. In recent years I learned how to brine chicken breast. My wife, who likes chicken salad (not the stuff with mayo, the stuff with actual salad and pieces of chicken) had looked up how to prepare it the way it's done in the better take-out places, and showed me the YouTube video of a very simple method, which I then applied. Now it's one of my favorite reasonably healthy dishes. The chicken that comes from this recipe is moist and tender and can keep in the refrigerator for at least a week. What you'll need: A pan ...

This is the evil version, adjust to your personal prejudices: * a little more than 2 tsp yeast, maybe 2.5 * 3 cups flour Note: 1 cup flour is 113 gram as per the King Arthur website; they call it a "generous" cup, so about 340 grams. * 1 egg * 1.5 tablespoon vegetable (NOT OLIVE) oil * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1 cup warm (not hot) water Note: 236.59 grams according to Google. Note: Shani substituted soy milk instead of water, she says her kids loved them. * 2 teaspoons vanilla (or just slop in some brandy or bourbon or whatever) * 1 lemon's worth of zest (you can substitute orange I guess) * Whatever you're going to fill them with, in a container with a squirty tip like for icing Knead and let rise in a warm place, covered. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface. The dough will be sticky, don't worry. But make sure both sides get floured. Roll it out to about 0.5 inches thick. Use a coffee mug to punch out circles of dough (about 2 inch...

This is not an economical way to make salted butter.  I'm only posting because there has been a butter shortage in Israel this year, and when I can find butter in the store, it's the small sticks of sweet butter, not the salted larger sticks we usually use in the Shaffren residence. Making butter is fun, you might want to do this with the kids. This is a "quick and dirty" way to make salted butter.  You'll need: sweet whipping cream, sold as "shamenet metukah", 38%, I usually see this in 250 ml sizes in the local supermarket a milchig blender two small milchig bowls like the kind you'd use for your morning cereal a place to put the butter when you're done so you can mold the finished butter - you can use aluminum foil, I use a regular butter tray Leave the container of cream out until it is at least at room temperature.  It's better to leave it out overnight.  Yes, that's what I said.  But room temperature will do if you're ...

Posted by a friend on Facebook, this looks positively evil: Hershey's Brownies 3/4 cup oil 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla 3 eggs 3/4 cup flour 1/2 cup cocoa 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt Mix everything. Pour into 9 inch round pan. Bake about 40 minutes at 350. Take out when still slightly jiggly in the middle, if you like your brownies gooey.

WHOLE WHEAT PANCAKES 2 cups whole wheat flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoons salt 2 eggs (3 if they're small), beaten well 2 cups milk 2 tablespoons vegetable oil Stir together dry ingredients first, because once you add the wet stuff you don't want to see lumps of baking powder. Then add the eggs, milk, and oil. Stir until large lumps are gone. Small lumps are fine (and desirable). Spray a griddle with non-stick oil and pre-heat the griddle. Spoon pancake sized glops of the batter on to the griddle. I usually use a large soup spoon. Flip when bubbles form and edges start to dry. Cook until lightly browned. I tried this recipe this morning and it came out great. People who like sugar and syrup and stuff will want to use some maple syrup, but my wife and I had them plain while still warm, and they were yummy.

This is the Consumer Reports recipe I liked, as copied from the cyber-kitchen.com web site. I think I still have that issue of Consumer Reports around somewhere, but it was easier to cut-and-paste. In our house it's called the "warm cookie" recipie because we almost never let the cookies cool off. The Practically Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie We wanted a cookie with a chewy interior, crunchy edges, and well-blended flavor. Above all, we wanted a cookie with a high overall chocolate impact to give a sensuous rush to the chocoholic. After much experimentation and perhaps a few cumulative inches to staffers' waistlines, we created a cookie with all those assets. Our recipe makes 40 medium-sized cookies. * 2-1/4 cups flour * 1 level teaspoon baking soda * 1 level teaspoon salt * 3/4 cup each white and packed dark brown sugar * 2 sticks (1/2 pound) sweet butter, room temperature * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 2 large eggs * 12-ounce package...

More stuff to try one of these days. Water Bagels 3 ¼ tsp. yeast 1 Tbsp. sugar 2 2/3 Tbsp. malt powder (optional) 1 Tbsp. oil 4-5 cups bread flour 1 Tbsp.+ 1 tsp. kosher salt 2 Tbsp. cornmeal 2 Tbsp. sesame or poppy seeds In large bowl, whisk 1 ½ cups lukewarm water, yeast, sugar, 2/3 tablespoon malt powder and oil until yeast dissolves. Stir in 1 cup of flour. Then stir in 1 tablespoon salt and enough additional flour to make a soft dough, about 2 ½ cups. Knead dough on a floured surface, gradually incorporating more flour until the dough is smooth and quite firm, 10 to 12 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest 10 minutes. Divide dough into 12 pioeces. Roll and form bagels. Let rise about 20 minutes. Don’t let rise too long! Preheat oven to 450. Line 1 or 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper, sprinkle with cornmeal and set aside. In a large pot, bring 6 quarts water, and additional 2 tablespoons malt and 1 tsp. salt to a boil. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Slip se...

Recipes provided by a friend. I tried the regular pretzel recipe on the bottom, and while the kids liked the dough I apparently got too enthusiastic with the kosher salt, so they scraped it off. It wasn't hard to make but it wasn't trivial, so I'm not going to make it too often. I still haven't tried the Honey Wheat but I plan to do so; I have to wonder if brown sugar might be an acceptable substitute. Honey Wheat Pretzels ¾ cup warm water 1 egg ¼ tsp. salt 3 cups whole wheat flour 2 tsp. honey kosher salt or sesame seeds Combine all ingredients (except kosher salt/sesame seeds) in breadmaker and run through dough cycle. Roll into a 14 x 16 inch rectangle. Cut into 12 14 x ½ inch strips. Gentle pull each strip to make a rope 16 inches long. Twist into pretzel shapes. Place on greased cookie sheet. Brush with beaten egg. Sprinkle with kosher salt or sesame seeds. Bake 18-20 minutes. Soft Pretzels ½ cup + 2 Tbsp. water ¾ tsp. salt 2 tsp. yeast ¼ cup sugar 2 ½ cups flour 1...

I decided that this blog should hold stuff I'd like to record before the lore gets lost. I may change my mind, but here's the story of Leah and the cow, which happened almost 20 years ago: Leah and the cow: Like most kids, Leah learned "what does a (animal) say?" from picture books. So conversations would happen like this one: Parent: "What does a cat say?" Leah: "meow" Parent: "What does a duck say?" Leah: "quack, quack" Parent: "What does a cow say?" Leah: "moo" One day we took Leah to a farm that was open to the public. This was partly for us and partly for her; we were interested in seeing the stuff they do on "real" farms, and there was a little petting zoo for Leah, who was in a stroller. There were cows in the pasture on the other side of the fence. Cows aren't petting zoo animals and Leah wanted to see them, so we took her over to the fence to see the cows. One obligingly ambled over....

I should probably record this somewhere in a convenient place: Start with somone else's whole wheat challah recipe to see if there's anything you want to steal. There are plenty of good ones on the Internet. That's how I got mine; this is just one that I liked, with a bit stolen from here and there and massaged a bit. It works for me. 1.5 + 2 Tbs water 3 Tbs vegetable oil 1.5 tsp salt 3 Tbs non-dairy creamer (yes, evil but necessary) 1/3rd cup brown sugar (use a generous amount) 4.25 cups pre-sifted (I use frozen) whole wheat flour (unless you want to sift), don't overdo this; when in doubt use less, not more flour 1 packet of yeast, or 2.5 tsp if you don't have packets - you'll have to experiment OPTIONAL: 4 tsp gluten powder with Vitamin C 2 tsp lecithin granules * put in bread maker. I use whole wheat setting but I shut off the machine before it hits the bake cycle. The dough setting will probably work too. OR * knead, let rise, punch down, let rise, etc...

Yes, I know I have a Treo 600, though one of these days that might change. Yes, the 600 isn't Bluetooth compatible. But I needed a wireless headset to go with my home phone so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a Jabra A210 together with a Jabra BT800. The A210 is a flat, rectangular box with a coiled wire that plugs into a standard 2.5 mm headphone jack and acts as a Bluetooth base. Besides the on/off switch and the 'pair' button, there's also a three-position switch that controls sound quality. The BT800 is a very nice little earphone / microphone device that sits on your ear and communicates via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth-enabled phone or other device such as the A210. A nice feature is DSP. There are many reviews on the web so if you're interested, Google is your friend. The pair effectively adds Bluetooth headset capabilities to a non-Bluetooth enabled device like my Treo 600. It works just as expected with my Treo. Great sound, very convenient, a...

I hate tamper-evident plastic packaging! You know what I mean; the stuff that you have to hack apart with a blunt scissor for 20 minutes before getting at the tiny product within. (I bought a wireless headset for a phone.) Oh, BTW, I am changing jobs. More on that at some point.

Wow, what an interesting experience at Hadassah Har Hatzofim yesterday. As I reported earlier, we are trying to get Akiva accepted into the clinical trial of a new kind of back brace for his scoliosis. Yesterday we went through the beginnning stages of the process. I'm told Akiva will need a CT scan of two portions of the spine so as to measure the exact angle of the rotation of the apex. This is milder than the usual CT scan for this kind of thing, because it only focuses on two small spots, so he gets exposed to less radiation. He'll also need a similar scan at the end of the program for documentation purposes. One of the many things we were told by the doctor in charge of the program was that if Akiva's angle gets even 5% worse, we get booted from the program and he has to start wearing a conventional brace. Even though it's not uncommon for rotation to increase by 5% on even a conventional brace, they're not taking any chances. Fitting the brace The guy in ...

I guess I'm sure to update this once in a while because sometimes I forget to bring a book with me on the bus. That doesn't mean nothing ever happens, just that when things *do* happen I am usually too busy to take note of them here and by the time things calm down enough I don't remember (or care?) enough to blog them. Actually I have more to say now that I am here, but it deserves a separate entry. Meanwhile the search goes on for an affordable but useful digital camera for Leah and ditto MP3 player for Akiva. I have leads on both, let's see what develops. And my nephew still hasn't managed to visit, so I still can't comment on the Linksys wireless access signal booster as I had hoped to. I met with a potential new client for web hosting. He's going to need a small site but a big database and a nice chunk of bandwidth. I'm going to have to develop a special package for him but it's probably worth it for exposure. Business has been slow, and it ...

I really should update this thing once in a while or give it up altogether. But b"H life has been busy. Between the 9-5 and the evening/other work, plus a family life, things are kind of crowded. I know, excuses, excuses. But the other factor is that honestly, other than work and day-to-day living, not a lot has been happening. I've been getting settled in to the (still) new 9-5 (hah) job. I've been making long term plans to make life easier for Tzirel when she takes over more of the other business. Both are sort of fun. In my day job, I'm starting to see how I will fit in long term. Rather than being involved at this point in new development, I'm more on the operations/client side, responsible for cleaning up mistakes made, whether by us or by the clients, gathering information for reporting to the client, and in general being responsive to short term requests. The whole thing is kind of exciting. I can see where I will be an important part of the team as...

Well, the hurricane means we can't connect to the VPN in Florida today. Or probably tomorrow, for that matter. Let's hope that I can be productive here via locally copied data and schema which may be a bit out of date. I brought my own pepper shaker today! Yay! Oh, and by the way: the XP SP2 installation doesn't seem to have hosed my home PC. The downstairs PC and my PC now have it. Interestingly, the service pack seems to have installed some kind of firewall on the as yet defenseless downstairs PC, and complained that it doesn't have a virus scanner. On my desk upstairs, it seems to know that I have Zone Alarm Pro and PC-Cillin, and it's leaving me alone.

I've decided to load XP SP2... here goes nothing.

A new feature on my blog: Excerpts from my emails. This one comes from something I sent my boss today: Oh, and one more thing: The pepper in our kitchen is basically ground pepper. In chunks. If you ever try to sprinkle it on something cold (i.e. that you’'re not cooking), in order to taste the pepper you have to bite into a chunk of pepper, which isn’t a pleasant experience. A better solution (or perhaps an additional solution) would be to get pepper in powdered form. This allows sprinkling of the condiment onto cold foods and having the flavor imbued into the food without necessitating masticating a large chunk of pepper. There. Now you know I take my work seriously. Hmm, maybe I'll start another blog and call it Excerpts from the Outbox . Hey, it's a thought.

The kids are going back to school after a long summer. Early on there was some camp, but later on things dragged a bit. I guess Leah's blog will have more about that. But she's back at the dorm (and we miss her) now. Batya (does she still spell it with an "h"?) came and went off to school. Dani came and went off to school. And Ari is here as well. Yechiel will be coming back next week, and hopefully he'll have a Linksys signal booster and a USB 802.11b adaptor for me. It's for the new computer in the mamad (i.e. "protected" room). Oh, didn't I mention that? On one of my trips overseas, the laptop in the mamad went bad. The screen flickered badly. Later I borrowed a large (beautiful) Dell LCD monitor from the office and attached it to the laptop. It worked, but the positioning of the keyboard was problematic, because we didn't have a keyboard in the house that would fit the laptop, which only has USB ports. Later at some point ...