Ilana Shapiro's cookie recipe

The day we got engaged I went over to Ilana's house for Israeli dancing right after - my mom had to drive me I was so jittery. We were dancing up a storm and Ilana made these cookies. They were huge and thick and chewy. So So SOOOO good. Here is her recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 2 sticks unsalted butter

• 2 1/4 cups bread flour

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 egg yolk

• 2 tablespoons milk

• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

3. Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips (or whatever you want to add in).

4. Chill the dough for at least an hour, then scoop onto baking sheets ( Ilana uses a 1.5 oz scoop) , 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes at 375 or until golden brown, checking the cookies every few minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. This makes around 20 cookies...and they are big and thick. Enjoy!!

Modification - I made them a smaller the second time around because they were going to serve a lot of people, (I hosted a DG bbq at our house - by the way, our neighbor across the street is a dg alum!). I reduced the cooking time to about 10 minutes, and they came out really good, but a tiny bit browned at the bottom, so if you are going to make "normal sized cookies" I would suggest 8 or so minutes. They come out so good though when they are thick (they are chewy either way).

Enjoy!!!

a bit of cooking

A few weeks ago I decided to utilize our 'engagement" herb garden. A lot of the herbs had died from it just being too darn hot, but since I cut all the dead leaves off, and used a lot of the good ones, they have now grown back quickly and are staying nice and green! 

Above is the basil I was able to use. I made a pesto and marinated some chicken. It's in the freezer still - will use for a big batch of weekend cooking at some point.

This is the curry plant. A lot of it had dried up from the heat. I used this with some tikka paste and chicken broth and chicken in the crock pot. It came out spicy and delicious, and lasted us FOREVER. The last bit of it I served over pasta and mixed goat cheese into the sauce. Yum!

A week and a half ago we had the Schlossbergs over for Shabbat dinner. Remy was my student in 8th grade and she is now in 10th grade, and I still have a very close relationship with her. This year they have taken in a girl named Noa who is a junior in high shcool from a reform jewish community in Israel that my synagogue sponsored to come as a student ambassador for four months. I wanted to make an Israeli dinner so I had a specialty bread made that you always get in Jerusalem and eat with zaatar, I made cheese bourekas, served Israeli pickles and olives, fresh pita, and we had rice and "ktzitzot". Ktzitzot are basically "patties" of anything, and they are usually about the size of a meatball, but flat. They can be meat (usually) but you can also do turkey or chicken (what I usually do) and you can make them with anything! You can shred up vegetables and bind it with egg, coat it in breadcrumbs and pan fry it, and it's a ktzitza! I made two different kinds. 

In the left bowl is a packet of very lean turkey meat, a small bit of lean beef, an onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, and ketchup. You basically mix it all up in a food processor, add salt and stir it in (if you put salt in the food processor it can dull the blade), let it sit for a bit in the fridge, and then form it into small meatball sized patties, and pan fry it. 

On the right, I have ground chicken, peanut butter, fresh ginger, cilantro, green onion, an egg, and panko breadcrumbs. I had made these once before and they turned out good, but I used too much peanut butter this time and they came out dry. I also should have added some soy sauce or some liquid to the mix. Any suggestions? I mixed up the two ktitzot with sauce for leftovers though and this one was fine. The other was great!

I don't really bake besides cheesecake (although I have recently discovered Ilana Shapiro's cookie recipe, and they are the best cookies in the world - seriously, they are). I've wanted to make a peanut butter cheesecake for forever so I did! It was Gail's birthday, and Anthony/Jess were arriving later that night for the weekend and it was Jess's birthday, so I made two cakes. This was what was remaining - plain cheesecake (that came out too lemony for plain, but not lemony enough for lemon), and peanut butter cheesecake.

We had a great time having a few drinks with Anthony and Jess when they came in, and the next day we went to a huge breakfast together (Charlie completed a dish that was on man vs food). We both had stuff to do that day, but that evening we joined them at Fleur for Jess's birthday dinner. It was great to finally meet them and I can't wait to go to their wedding in Antigua next month!!!

Here is some homemade chocolate yogurt that I made about 5 weeks ago. 

I made this the same exact way I made the regular yogurt which I have referenced before, but I used chocolate milk instead. At the end of draining, I added a a teaspoon of vanilla, and splenda to taste (don't remember how much). It was SO good. I had a bowl one night and gave Charlie a bite, and he literally just took it away from me and ate it like he hadn't had a meal in days! I made another batch about a week ago and something didn't work - I even tried to restart it and it just failed. I think the milk was getting old and it only works with fresh milk. I'll try again and report - it was so good!

babies babies all around! (but not ours yet don't worry)

It's the season of babies!

I guess around our age you could expect that. On Friday we got a very exciting text from Sarah, Charlie's sister, with an ultrasound of a fuzzy little male organ! She is about 17/18 weeks, and we're so excited for her! She was too modest to post the picture on her blog so I won't post it, but you can read about the wonderful story of how she got to share the news that they were expecting a BOY!!!! on her husband's birthday to him, as his present! What good timing. You can read the story here.

Our good friends from a different squadron Nick and Jess just had baby Amelia Jolie a little over two weeks ago. We went and visited them in the hospital when she was two days old.

Jessica and Nick so in love with Amelia Jolie

She's still a bit swollen and "stretched out" from delivery - can't wait to see her on Friday!

Since I have fallen of the blogging bandwagon (again, reference this title in july), I have missed out on telling you about many amazing adventures with friends. We had a great little bbq at our house with some friends of Charlie's from his squadron, and the parents in the group brought over a few of their babies. Jeff and Allison have Grant (2) and baby Todd (brand new), and Jason and Jessie have a 2 and 4 year old. 

Allison and Jeff holding Todd

Todd is gonna be a ginger!

I also missed a whole day of adventures including going to the park with Olga and her 4 year old Adam (well, he turns for on the 27th, day before Charlie), and 6 month old Julia. Her other friend was there with her daughter and she's pregnant with twins! Here is baby Julia, who was fussy that day, poor baby teething. She's normally the happiest most smiliest (is that a word?) baby ever!

I also missed a whole cooking section and dinner parties and lunch with friends and Anthony and Jess's visit, but that's another post.

The dogs deserve their own bed

Charlie noticed that the dogs liked sleeping on the armchairs and they liked this specific blanket. So instead of cutting it into two, he put the chairs together and now they have a dog bed!

Spoiled Maya sleeps on the bed. If we don't let her in the bedroom she scratches at the door incessantly, and if we put here somewhere else she just follows us back into bed. Oh well, three's company!

The engagement story

Okay, where do I begin??? AH!!!!

Everyone has been asking me how it happened etc, so I figured I would just write it in this blog and tell everyone to read it.

This is from my perspective, so I am not sure what others were thinking during the whole process, such as Charlie and my parents.

Charlie and I purchased a new house, but because of issues with movers, the sellers had to delay their move out. We gave them an extra week, and then it took another day or two after that, because their movers broke their contract, blah blah, we're all victims, everyone's healthy, let's move on.

Yesterday (Sunday) Rose and I had been planning to get lunch because we hadn't seen each other in a while. We had lunch at Brio and Charlie called while we were eating telling me that they were totally moved out and we could go see it. I spontaneously asked Rose if she wanted to come see the house (Charlie said that was fine), and she came home with me. We met at my parents house, and Charlie quickly got shoes on, and we left for the new house (Me, Charlie, Mom, Dad, Rose). Rose drove separately, and my mom spontaneously said she would go with Rose (I thought it was just sweet, but in retrospect realize she wanted to fill her in on the details).

When we got to the house they took a picture of us right before we used our keys for the first time. 

First time using our keys

When you walk into the house there is a stair case on the left that leads up, and about 3/4 of the way up there is a ledge. On the ledge there were two balloons taped up that said "welcome" and "congratulations". I said how sweet it was that the sellers left it for us, and made a mental note about a small detail that makes a big difference for us for the future. I started telling Rose "We want to put the piano there and dining table by the bar etc etc" and Charlie said something along the lines of "hey why don't we go see what's up here". 

I walked up to the ledge and saw a few different things. There was a stuffed dog that looks like Odge, a mermaid Barbie, a bottle of champagne with two glasses, a magnetic grocery list notepad for the fridge, another balloon that was flat on the ledge that says "I love you", and a little herb garden. 

I sort of saw the dog first and got confused and then the barbie and herb garden and still didn't realize what was happening and was just confused and said "Wait Charlie, did you do this?" and I turned around to him and he was down on one knee holding the box with the ring!

I was so surprised and just did not expect any of this, and finally someone (my mom?) said "you have to say yes" and obviously I did! In retrospect, I think Charlie was really nervous too because neither of us remembers him actually saying anything!!

 

After hugs and kisses (and Rose recording it and my mom taking pictures), I yelled at my mom that she let me pain my nails royal purple the day before, and that my orange bra was showing through my shirt and she didn't force me to change it!! In retrospect, I would have maybe been suspicious that somehting was up, and I truly had no idea, so it was perfect!  My parents brought us the bottle of Dom and the champagne glasses. When they set it up, one of the glasses cracked, and my mom told him to save it because we can use it for breaking of the glass at the wedding! What a good idea mom. Here is us drinking their champagne while he explains everything.

So the symbolism now. The dog, well, that's Odge. Duh! Have you all seen that kitty commercial where the guys asks her to marry him with the cat collar? (Ps I still hate cats). If not I suggest you watch the link I put above! Anyway, he thought of doing something like that because Odge needs a new collar, so he got him a new one and on the tag it has both of our information and both our phone numbers, and the collar and tag is on the stuffed "odge". There was a mermaid barbie there because when we were moving to the US from Israel, I really didn't want to leave, and so my parents told me that they would buy me a barbie in the US (they were very expensive in Israel at the time). As a kid I was also very obsessed with The Little Mermaid and wanted to be a mermaid, so after searching for barbies with brown hair and blue eyes for far too long (apparently they barely exist), he finally found a mermaid barbie that had brown hair and blue eyes! He said that because I got one for my big move to the US, that now I get a barbie for my move with him. There was an herb garden because I am not a lover of flowers. I think that it's a waste of money to get flower that just die when you can spend your money on something that will last, so Charlie got an herb garden that even has FRESH CURRY for me to use while I cook! Perfecto! He also got a magnetic grocery to-do list for the fridge (which turns out to be not magnetic) for us to use at the house, and the balloons, which were very thoughtfully not blown up, but taped up (I am terrified of balloons). My parents brought the champagne, and then there was Charlie holding the ring, my parents right there (I couldn't have imagined them not there, thank you, Charlie for thinking of that), and one of my best friends, Rose, taking pictures. It was truly perfect! Minus the purple nailpolish and orange bra!

My parents are THRILLED to officially welcome Charlie to our family!

walking down the stairs (ps we are changing the color of the railing)

Me and the mother of the bride

Happy Charlie!

After all the excitement, we walked around a little - I had had a glass of champagne and was totally flustered and didn't even give Rose a tour, my parents had to. But I found these left in the garage!

So obvioulsy it was perfect. Charlie, I am all yours now and forever!

Hey Charlie, you're my cutie pie fiance!

I had a work committment at 6 pm and it was creeping up there so I quickly texted the individuals involved "I'm running late, I'll explain when I get there!" and we wrapped up at the house. I had to give him a few more kisses though.

Here is the ring w/my royal purple nailpolish. Charlie, you did freaking good man! It's exactly what I wanted, very simple, ginormous perfect diamond. (sorry if I'm being tacky by posting this....I knowwww, but I don't care!!!). It SHINES shines shines, my man did GOOD!

We camped out at the house that night and I had to take a picture of this. My close friends will understand. This was all that's in our fridge (the sellers left us that bottle of veuve).

This morning I had breakfast with my mom and I still can't take the huge smile off my face. Here is me on the phone with my grandmother in Israel and other close friends sharing our joy.

Thank you all for your well wishes. It is overwhelming! We are going to plan a celebration day so that we can celebrate with everyone soon!