Looking back to my trip to Israel in May, here is a street scene with a Jerusalem light rail train. And lots of people. It’s Thursday night, so many people have finished work for the week.
This is actually the newer section of Jerusalem. The old city can be seen on this post, and if you like really, really old, visit The City of David.
Thursday Challenge theme is MONOCHROME (Black and White, Sepia, Old Looking,…).
Autumn – it has arrived. Time for a new stuffed squash recipe!
Bake the acorn squashes whole until they are easier to cut in half. After about twenty minutes of baking, cut them in half. Continue baking until the squash is soft – you can test it with a fork. It took a little over an hour in my oven at 350°. Peel and cook the yam(s) in enough water to cover. Peel the garlic cloves, and cut off the ginger root peel. Cut the ginger root into little pieces. After about 15 minutes of cooking, add the garlic cloves and chopped ginger root. When both the yam(s) and garlic cloves are soft, remove them from the heat and cooked water (I used a slotted spoon). Mash in a bowl, and add salt, pepper and a fresh, chopped herb (I happen to have basil from my garden). Pile scoopfuls of this orange mixture into your baked squashes. Warm before serving.
On the one hand, this recipe takes a while to make because you have to bake the acorn squashes first. On the other hand, you can do it when you already have the oven going, and you can do it a day before you plan to serve the stuffed squash with yams. It’s an easy recipe.
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This recipe was served at a dinner with other blog dishes. Laura and family came for lunch on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, and she made her Five Grain Three Seed Gluten-Free Sesame Sticks and Two Tone Brownies by Mrs. S. We also enjoyed these homemade Kit Kat bars (though my daughter did not because she dislikes peanut butter), and I made Apples ‘n Honey Cake from Hannah’s Nook. I also made a pea salad (I used a bit of fermented pickle juice in the dressing – not part of my original recipe), beet salad and a version of my potato salad (this one did not have peas – I haven’t used peas in potato salad in a while). Update: here is the recipe for curried beans.
It is Jewish holiday season, and ideally, I would be writing a lovely post about how the Jewish holidays are related to the seasons. In reality, I feel I am constantly preparing for the next holiday (in between having more than plenty of web work). The flower above is one of the gerber daisies my daughter gave me for Mother’s Day (with my husband’s help), and I have managed to keep it alive for the whole summer. Yay, me.
The upcoming holiday this week is called Sukkot, and we do indeed interact with nature. Here is the little booth called a sukkah that we eat meals in for seven days. We cover the top of the sukkah with light natural material called schach, and through this natural material we can sometimes see stars at night. Some people actually sleep in their sukkah.
Here are some of the decorations inside our sukkah. This is from last year – on Wednesday, it will be a mad rush to finish cooking and decorate the sukkah. In New Jersey, it often rains, so we don’t want to decorate too early. Hard enough to keep the decorations going.
This was our old sukkah, that we no longer have. It took too long to put up, so my husband gave it away. We now have a pre-fab sukkah, but I can’t paint the walls. I have to decorate with this velcro tape. I don’t enjoy that as much.
As this post is related to nature, here are some not yet shared nature photos from Israel:
Those are rocks on the top of Mount Meiron. Learn about my hike on Mount Meiron.
Love these delicate pink flowers from Mount Meiron. No idea what they are. Any guesses? Update: might be a bindweed – convolvolus oleifolius.
These trees had bright red blooms in front of the Tel Aviv Museum last May. Any guesses? Flame tree (Delonix regia)? Seems quite similar to the red trees in this Tel Aviv image. Tel Aviv in late May probably has a similar climate to southern California (maybe warmer and more humid).
Getting back to Jewish holidays and nature, the holidays follow the lunar calendar. So the moon is important. Tonight my daughter noticed the moon looked quite full, but it’s not quite the 15th of the month. It’s 13 Tishrei, so I suppose that is close. This year Thanksgiving and Chanukah will coincide, but according to this post, it will not happen again until … year 79,811. Will you be around to celebrate?
For more Nature Notes:
This recipe for cucumber garlic salad is an adaption of a recipe from Mama Nazima’s Jewish Iraqi Cuisine cookbook by Rivka Goldman. It is the only Jewish Iraqi cookbook I have read, and the recipes seem simpler than those of, say, Jewish Syrian cuisine. Rivka Goldman was born in Basra, Iraq and now lives in the U.S. Her recipe does not have cilantro or basil; I added basil because I have some in my garden, and I like the basil flavor with cucumbers.
I have had quite a few cucumbers this summer as I am growing them in my front and backyards. My plan had been to make them into pickles, but they usually grow too big so I have been enjoying this cucumber salad and Israeli-style cucumber/tomato salads as well.
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Toss and chill a few hours before serving. Enjoy.
This is a guest poem post by Daniel of Adventures in Jewish Thought. The salt shaker is totally my idea. Hoping his poem will evoke some good comments, ideas, reflections.
The Lament of the People of Sodom
Because we did not see
The poor,
The orphans,
The widows
And the strangers
In our midst
We were struck blind.
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As we are approaching Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, I would like to share with you these links:
Finally, a badge for Sam, who has undergone a lot, much more than any child should:
