Three Moments Of Thanks

Coming home to find these beautiful roses

This week I am thankful for being loved by my wonderful husband, family and most of all by my God. I am thankful for little moments that bring joy into life. I am thankful for the holidays and time off. This week we celebrated the Jewish new year, the holidays are one of my favorite parts of living here. The streets become quite and the stores are all closed. Everything is peaceful. We spent the evening of Rosh Hashana with family and friends. It was also so nice to have a couple days off, to rest and enjoy the peacefulness. 

Cutest bottle stopper

Celebrating the new year

Home Inspo: Ladders

Last week the Ikea 2015 catalog arrived in the mail. I love looking through it, as it is always full of new and creative ideas. I really liked these shelves, they look like a ladder but are are also a great way to add shelf space. Our bedroom is lacking some decor to it. The main point of focus is the wall behind our bed which is navy blue with a big white frame, while the rest of the walls are white. Right in front of our bed is the closet and next to it there is an empty space, were right now we put our shoes. I have been thinking of how to add something to the space without making it look overwhelming. I have a few ideas in mind, and once I saw the Ikea shelves it made me think of either adding them or getting a ladder and using it to hang things to the space next to the closet. I love the use of ladders for decor, especially the natural looking ones. These are my favorite four ways of using a ladder for decor, the third one is from Ikea. 

I love all of them but I think the first and last ones are my favorite, which one do you like? 

Images via: 1 (unknown if anyone knows please let me know), 2, 3, 4

Ricotta Sweet Buns

In Israel these sweet buns are simply called yeast pastries, they are like a combination of Challa (Jewish bread) with its soft texture and cake with the touch of sweetness and ricotta filling. I admit I have a minor addiction to yeast pastries, Max knows one of the first things I do when returning to Israel is stop by the nearest bakery to buy a few cheese filled pasteries. I have saved this recipe for a while and finally decided it was time to make it. I can really only say they are amazing, and after making these I decided my search for the perfect sweet bun recipe can end here. The recipe is from one of my favorite bakeries in Tel-Aviv, Dallal Bakery. If you are ever in Tel-Aviv, go to Neve Tzedek my favorite neighborhood in Tel-Aviv and look for this bakery!

See the recipe below...

Ricotta Sweet Buns
Makes 10-11 buns
*Notice dough has rest in the fridge overnight)
(please notice this recipe is in grams, cup measurements in brackets)

For dough:
500 g. (3 1/2 c. + 1 Tbsp.) flour
70 g. (1/3 c. + 1 tsp.) sugar
10 g. (2 tsp.) salt
25 g. (5 tsp.) instant dry yeast
5 large eggs
200 g. (1 c. minus a Tbsp.) butter (at room temp.)

For syrup:
100 g. (1/2 c.) sugar
120 ml. (1/2 c.) water

For Filling:
70 g.(3/4 c.) softened butter
450 g.(2 c.) ricotta cheese
90 g.(3/4 c.) powder sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 yolk
2 tsp. cornstarch
80 g. (around 1/2 c.) dried cranberries or chocolate chunks

Make the dough:
Add flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a mixer bowl and beat together. Add eggs one at a time and beat at low speed for 4-5 min. until you get an elastic dough. Add butter gradually and beat on medium speed for about 10 min. until the dough is smooth and shiny. Place dough in a bowl and cover, let rest overnight in fridge.

Once your dough has rested overnight make the syrup:
Bring the water and sugar to a boil, lower the heat and cook for 5 min. Let cool.

Make the filling:
Add butter, ricotta cheese, powder sugar, and vanilla and mix together. Mix in egg and yolk slightly. Add cornstarch and mix until just incorporated.

Prepare baking sheet with baking paper. If you would like your buns to keep their shape bake in a round cake baking pan.

Make the buns:
Roll the dough on a floured counter top into a rectangle of 70 cm. length and 25 cm. width, thickness of 3 mm. Spread the filling evenly on rectangle and sprinkle cranberries or chocolate on top. Gently roll the dough to make one long roll. Cut into 10-11 rolls with a sharp knife. Place buns in baking pan. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise for an hour or until double in size.

Preheat oven to 170 C (340 F) degrees.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately after taking them out of the oven brush with syrup and let cool before serving them.

Enjoy every minute and crumb!

Three Moments of Thanks

Running to this view makes it 10 times more enjoyable

This week I am thankful for getting back into a routine. For the past eight months our life had been change after change after change. But we are finally settling back into life, although it is a sharp adjustment to make having a routine has really helped me in this process. For the first few weeks I felt like my body was here but my head was not really here. I couldn't really bring myself to do things, I was really excited to do things like organize our home and paint etc' but just didn't have the motivation to actually start doing those things. So I made a little a schedule for the week, made a to-do list and slowly built a little life routine. It really helped my head feel more organized and able to do what I want to do. 

A wonderful evening making delicious food with friends

Being back with an awesome youth group, making homemade pizza

I'd love to know what are you thankful for this week? And do you have a weekly routine to help organize your head?

Chocolate Molten Cakes

Three weeks ago we moved in to our new apartment. We are so amazingly blessed to have this cute little apartment in a great location and with such a great community around us. I am beyond happy to finally have a home to ourselves. A place to relax and of course bake amazing things. So to celebrate our first Saturday at home I made these chocolate molten cakes. I was looking for something chocolaty but easy to make since we still had a lot of unpacking to do. These molten cakes are pretty much made of chocolate bars and some butter, with the perfect soft and pudding-like center. Along with a scoop of ice-cream these make a great Saturday afternoon. See recipe below...

 

Chocolate Molten Cakes

makes 6 medium cakes or 12 small individual cakes

2 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 Tbsp. cocoa
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup cream
5 eggs
3/4 cup sugar (I used 1/4)
2/3 cup flour

Butter the cupcake pans and sprinkle the insides with cocoa, coating completely.

To make the batter, place chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl, then top it with butter and cream. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the chocolate is smooth. When chocolate has cooled slightly, stir in eggs, sugar and flour. Pour into prepared cupcake pans. Refrigerate for 1 hour (at least) and up to a couple of days.

Bake at 230 C (450 F) degrees for 10 minutes for regular 12 cupcake pan size and 15-18 for jumbo 6 six cupcakes pan size, just until the outsides and most of the top have set, and the centers are still slightly runny. You can insert the tip of a knife to test. You just want a bit of the very center to be a thick pudding like texture. Let them cool for 5 minutes, then place a sheet pan on top of the muffin pan and invert them.

Serve with whipped cream or ice-cream.

Three Moments of Thanks

Having a place to call home, and enjoying adding personal touches to it

Three moments of thanks is a new series I want to start, every week I will (hopefully) post three moments that I am thankful for. When I was in the Netherlands I did a small speech about being grateful and when I was preparing for it I found out from a few researches that people who are grateful are happier, especially when you express your gratefulness. So I hope to share every week three things I am grateful for. 

Being with my mom to celebrate her wonderful life

Letters from a friend across the ocean

Home Inspo: Indoor Trees

I love plants and what they add to a space! I think I inherited this love for plants from my mom who always has as many plants as she can fit in her home. I love the idea of an indoor tree, right now in our home we have a couple indoor plants and we are planing on getting a couple more plants and some herbs for our tiny porch. But I have one corner in mind for and indoor tree and am trying to decide which one I like best. These are my favorite fiddle fig tree, eucalyptus, olive tree, and lemon tree. I think my two favorite are the fig tree and the olive tree. Which one should we go for? I think I'll go to the plant nursery and decide there. 

Images via: 1, 2, 3, 4

Salt And Rosemary Crusted Potatoes

Potatoes are a standard dish that I usually don't follow a recipe for and just cut them up put salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic and whatever else I feel like at the moment and let them sit in the oven for a while. But I have been wanting to make this standard dish into something more enjoyable and these potatoes are truly amazing. They turned out so soft in the middle but perfectly crunchy on the outside. 

See the recipe bellow...

  

Salt and rosemary crusted potatoes:
serves 6

• 6 large or medium sized potatoes
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 c. kosher salt
• 2 Tbsp. chopped rosemary
• butter for serving

Preheat the oven to 200° C (400° F). Scrub the potatoes clean and dry them with paper towel. Pierce the potatoes several times and brush with olive oil. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Combine salt and rosemary into a medium bowl, roll potatoes in mixture to create crust. After rolling all the potatoes in the mixture use the extra mixture to create six mounds on the lined baking sheet. Place each potato on a mound of the mixture. 

Bake for 1-11/2 hours depending on the size of the potatoes. Test with a skewer to make sure they are baked through, being careful not to damage the crust. 

Serve hot with a dollop of butter in the middle.