National No Housework Day Online Blog hop

Welcome to the National No Housework Day Online Blog hop! If you have arrived not knowing until now about the hop, no problem...stop by If It's Groovy where this hop starts and work your way through. You may find games, prizes, projects and how do-you-dos along the path :) We would appreciate it if you sign up to keep in touch with us by "following" and would love your comments!

If you arrived here from Michelle's blog Everyday Me, welcome! Hope you enjoyed that stop and the others so far!!!
We celebrate this national holiday by scrapping today and into the weekend with projects that remind us of housework or getting away from it!!! Take the day off, put up your feet and let's hop!

For me housework means first of all cooking. This is not my favorite thing to do. I do like to experiment in the kitchen and try new recipes but cooking the everyday food - not so much. If you add 3 picky eaters that always complain and the never ending piles of dishes by the end of the day - definitely not my favorite thing to do. I decided to celebrate the National No Housework Day by no cooking ... on this day. Instead I cooked in advance. Few hours ago I put a big pot in the oven with Chicken and Noodle Hamin. It will stay there the whole night, cooking in the low heat of the oven. If you are curious what is Hamin you can read about it here and here

 

The recipe I used is from a Hebrew cooking book by Sherry Ansky called "Food". I will do my best translating it in English.

Chicken and Noodle Hamin

Ingredients (serves 6)

6 chicken drumsticks and 6 chicken tights

Oil for frying (I used canola)

2 onions, sliced

9 oz fettuccine pasta

9 oz short hollow pasta (I used mostaccioli)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp sweet paprika

4 medium potatoes

parchment paper and aluminum foil

1. Wash the chicken in cold water and dry with paper towels. Fry in hot oil in a large ovenproof pot until the chicken changes it's color and remove from the pot. Put the onions in the same pot and fry until golden-brown scrapping the pot from time to time.

2. Cook 2 kinds of pasta in boiling water with salt for about 5-8 minutes until it begins to soften. It should not be fully cooked. Drain and add to the pot wit onions. Add pepper, salt and sweet paprika. Mix well and remove from the pot.

3. Preheat the oven to 300F

4. Peel the potatoes and cut into thick slices. Arrange in a single layer on the bottom of the ovenproof pot. Season with salt. Add 1/3 of the pasta, chicken and cover with the rest of the pasta. Add 1/2 cup of hot water.

5. Cover the pasta with an oiled circle cut from a parchment paper. Cover with the lid and few layers of aluminum foil.

6. Bake for 40 minutes. Lower the oven to 200F and bake for 6-9 hours.

I am going to add the picture of the cooked hamin tomorrow. Do you have "make in advance", "one pot meal" recipes? I would love to hear!

Meanwhile, please head over to see Misty at  Love to create Enjoy!

Oh, I almost forgot! Prizes! Oh yes! If you leave me a comment I will put you in a drawing for surprise package from me. Not sure exactly what will be there. Maybe a punch or two, maybe some stamps, maybe something else, who knows? I will post a winner on Sunday , April 10th.

12*12*12 Holiday Blog Hop - Chocolate Coin cookies

Welcome back friends to my second and last post for this Holiday blog hop!

I am not a big baker but in the spirit of Hanukkah I decided to make chocolate coins. I found a recipe on Martha Stewart website, dig out of the closet my old Tupperware pastry sheet and rolling pin and got to work.

Here is Martha's recipe with my comments

Ingredients

Makes about 3 dozen (I used small cookie cutter and got about 4 dozen cookies)

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I am going to try semi-sweet next time or add more sugar)
  
• 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional) (I put the zest from the whole orange)
  
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg; mix until well combined.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, salt, and orange zest, if using. Add flour mixture to egg mixture; continue mixing until the ingredients are just combined, scraping down sides of the bowl.
3. Scrape dough onto a piece of plastic wrap; flatten into a disk. Wrap, and chill at least 1 hour or overnight. (1 hour was enough)
4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place granulated sugar in a small bowl.
5. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Using a 2-inch-round cutter, cut out cookies (My cookie cutter was a little bit smaller)
6. Carefully press each cookie into granulated sugar. Transfer cookies to sheets, spaced 1/2 inch apart.
7. Bake until cookies are firm, about 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Here they are, ready to be wrapped. I punched 2" circles from the gold paper and stamped them with Menorah and Star of David stamps. I don't remember where I bought the stamps, probably at Jo-Ann from the $1.99 bin.

Ella helped me to wrap each cookie in foil and we attached the stamped circle with adhesive.

I think it will be cute to put few in the baggie for the quick Hanukkah treat. I can also envision them wrapped in silver foil with cute Valentine sayings as Valentine party favors.

Ella loved the cookies, they are perfect for the pure chocolate lovers. I thought they came out not sweet enough. Next time I will try to use semi-sweet cocoa powder or add more sugar.

That's all for today! You have just one stop left - Julie from Just Our Story will share another fabulous project with you at 8pm exactly.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fifth Night

Tonight we were invited to celebrate with our friends, we had the full set - the menorah, dreidels, sufganiyout and latkes. Gabi made some delicious latkes that quickly disappeared during the lively discussion about latkes recipes. Most people that I know prefer them coarsely grated with onions and eggs, something like that (from chefkosher.com):


Ingredients
4cups peeled potatoes, grated
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 tspn salt
2 tbspn flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
1. Make sure to squeeze out any liquid from the potatoes.
2. Combine all the ingredients together.
3. Heat oil in a pan. Use a spoon to scoop the mixture into the pan making patties.
4. Fry until golden-brown on either side.
5. Serve with sour-cream



I personally prefer them the way my parents are making them - grated very very thin, without onions or eggs. I wrote about it last year here. I eat them with sour cream and my kids eat them with sugar. No apple sauce in our house! :)

My Ella is fascinated with Hanukkah. She read all Hanukkah books in the school library several times. One of her favorite books is "Potato pancakes all around" It is a story about a peddler that teachers the villagers how to make potato pancakes from a crust of bread. I read this book to her at least 20 times and every time she makes sure that we have the "recipe" :)


Traditional latkes are made from potatoes but they can me made from any other vegetable or vegetable mix. Sweet potato latkes are delicious!

1. latkes!, 2. Baked Sweet Potato Latkes, 3. Potato Latkes with Calvados Applesauce, 4. Latkes, 5. eggplant latkes, 6. happy hanukkah!, 7. Hanukkah latkes, 8. latkes, 9. Yam & Potato Latkes
Created with fd's" Flickr Toys.
Today's giveaway is again from Maya Road warehouse sale kit - a tin with some sheer flourishes and paisleys, a tin with velvet blossoms and rub-ons and 2 yards of green trim. You know the trick - leave comment to be entered into the random drawing.

Let's find out who is the winner of the RAK #4:

Here are your random numbers:
8
Timestamp: 2008-12-26 07:30:23 UTC

Comment #8 is by Michal. Congratulations! Please email me at maya.orendahan@gmail.com

Latkes and other stuff

Yesterday I finally finished my Christmas cards. Just need to buy stamps and mail them out. My Hanukkah cards were mailed some time ago already. Hopefully everybody will get them during the Hanukkah, not after.

The round Christmas cards are done using Cloud 9 paper, fiskars circle border punch and some cute reindeers from Michaels. I did the tree cards using the Jo-Ann kit that I picked up last year. I added Cloud 9 raindots and fiskars star punch. Oh, and I also played with the glimmer mist trying to spice up the background. The Hanukkah cards are just made from the strips of patterned paper by Heidi Grace.

Now latkes - we made some few days ago using the recipe in the book. they were good but not as good as my dad's latkes. So I had to call him and ask for the recipe. Here it is - the super-duper secret recipe:

1. Grate about 10 potatoes - very thin. I did it by hand.

2. If the potatoes give a lot of liquid add 3-4 tablespoons of flour. I added 3

3. Add salt. I added about one tablespoon.

4. Heat a lot of oil in the heavy skillet. wait till oil is hot.

5. Fry latkes from both sides till golden.

6. Add sour cream and enjoy.

What can I say - it was delicious! Just the way I remember them!

Don't you like this menorah with tall white candles? It's from Crate and Barrel. I need to stock on those candles - just love them!