We boarded our flight to Ethiopia at 9:00pm Eastern on Monday night. We had an hour layover in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire where we had to stay on the plane before flying to Addis Ababa. We landed in Addis at 4:00pm eastern (11:00pm local time) on Tuesday — 19 hours on the plane.
It’s a weird feeling to lose an entire day. I slept some, worked about eight hours, slept a little more, watched tv, watched a movie, played some word games, chatted with our seat mate and Lewis, ate dinner, ate breakfast, ate lunch.
I wish we had a little more time here in Ethiopia so I could see more of this country, what I’ve seen so far was beautiful. The air was cool this evening when we disembarked, and would have been refreshing, if not for the overwhelming scent of jet fuel.
We’re flying Ethiopian airlines, and they have a lovely program where if you have a long overnight layover they will put you up at a hotel (a really nice one) and give you vouchers for dinner and for breakfast. It took a long time to get checked-in, but we’re finally in our hotel room, and looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep in a bed before our flight into Malawi tomorrow morning.
Dinner was lovely, especially because I got to have injera. I love injera (there is a wonderful family in our congregation in NYC that are from Ethiopia and they’ve made it for us before).
Injera is a staple here, and is a sourdough flatbread that looks similar to a pancake, but much more spongey, it’s typically rolled up after cooking and you tear off a piece and use it to pick up and eat your food.
In the bus from the airport to the hotelDelicious dinner with this handsome guy (injera is the roll on the right hand side of the plate.
I’ve been experimenting with meringue cookies lately. I made a batch on a whim, and they were pretty good, but I wasn’t obsessed with them until a month or so ago.
Lewis and I decided to have lunch after our dentist appointment at a little cafe in Bay Ridge (a neighborhood in Brooklyn), and I noticed some ugly looking cookies that *might* have been meringue. So I asked our server, sure enough, it was different flavored meringue cookies. So I got one of each to try (I’d only made vanilla and chocolate swirl to that point), and I was so disappointed. The texture was terrible and the flavor was so subtle. So I decided to start experimenting, because clearly these could be done better (not that I plan on telling them that their cookies are terrible, but still… why have bad cookies when you can have great cookies?). And these are great cookies! They’re sweet with a crispy outside and a bit of a chewy center.
This is one flavor version, the base cookie recipe can be adapted pretty easily. I’ve made green tea, pistachio (still perfecting that one), and cherry almond so far.
I’m trying not to be the annoying blogger that forces you to read ten years of background on a dumb recipe. So here it is:
Ingredients:
4 large egg whites
1 cup of cane sugar (I use Domino brand because it’s a more fine grain)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of mint extract (this will produce a very mild mint flavor, add more if you want a stronger mint flavor)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon of cornstarch
2-4 ounces of dark chocolate chips
Instructions:
Melt chocolate chips and set aside to cool
Heat oven to 350°
Line a large baking tray with silicone baking mats or with parchment paper
In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, whip egg whites for a couple of minutes until frothy
Slowly add sugar and whip until glossy and stiff (you should be able hold the whisk and the egg mixture won’t move)
Add vanilla and mint extract and whip until stiff again.
Sift the cornstarch and cream of tartar onto the egg mixture. And fold over with a rubber scraper until combined.
Drizzle the chocolate around the edges of the pastry bag with a star tip.
Fill with the pastry bag with the egg mixture
pipe cookies into a swirl pattern onto prepared baking tray
Place pan in the oven
Turn oven down to 200°
Bake for 90 minutes
Turn off the oven and allow the cookies to cool in the oven until completely cooled (oftentimes I’ll make the cookies in the evening and leave them in the oven overnight to cool)
I made up a recipe tonight. I’ve been craving lentils, but didn’t feel like making soup again. So I decided to throw something together. It was so good! I tried it warm (great) and chilled (still great).
Ingredients: * 2 cups green lentils * 2 boneless chicken thighs * 8 oz. baby bella mushrooms * 1 medium onion * 1 orange bell pepper * 2 baby cucumbers * 1 avocado * 1 lemon * olive oil * salt * pepper * pressed garlic (or garlic powder if you prefer) * cayenne (optional, but I think cayenne goes in just about everything)
Directions: Cook lentils in a pot per instructions (I did five cups of water to two cups of lentils on high until the water came to a boil, and then reduced to low to simmer). You want to cook the lentils until they are tender, but not mushy. Mix juice from one lemon into lentils and chill. While the lentils are cooking dice chicken into bite-sized pieces and cut onion into strips (I like my onions super caramelized, so I sauteed them in olive oil by themselves in my cast iron skillet). Once tender and charred on the edges remove from the pan and set aside. Then add a bit of olive oil and the chicken to the skillet, add salt, pepper, and cayenne. Slice mushrooms and add to the chicken. Once the chicken is cooked and the mushrooms are tender add the crushed garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the chicken/mushroom mixture to the onions you had set aside and chill. When you’re almost ready to serve the meal dice up bell pepper, cucumbers, and avocado into bite sized pieces. Stir the vegetables, and the chicken/mushroom/onion mix into the lentils. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne to taste.
This recipe makes 6-8 servings.
Like I said, this was good served warm or served cold, although cucumbers warm is not my favorite thing in the world. I would probably add another bell pepper in a different color, just to give it more of a pop and pump of the veggies a little bit. I’m sure cherry tomatoes would be a good addition if you are going to be serving it cold.
So… I HATE being cold. hate. hate. hate. hate. Hate being cold. Which is why we live in the balmy paradise of NYC.
Just kidding. We live here because this is where God has placed us for the time being, I really do hate being cold though. But here’s the thing, if it’s going to be cold, I think it should snow. At least it will be beautiful while I’m freezing my tuchus off. But we live in southern Brooklyn, not far from the Atlantic ocean, so we rarely get much snow. A dusting here and there, but in the three years we’ve lived here we’ve only had one decent storm, but even then it only lasted a day, and had melted within a day of that. But, for the last week they’ve been calling for a big snow storm, like 6-10 inches big storm. Of course I have been skeptical because, well, we don’t get much snow here. So my lovely Lewis and I made a bet. If we get just a dusting of snow he has to serve me a bowl of rocky road ice cream. And if we get at least two inches of snow, I have to serve him a bowl of rocky road ice cream. Yeah, for as long as we’ve been married, whenever we make a bet on anything, we bet on a bowl of ice cream.
I’m in the midst of losing our current bet, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Lewis and I drove down to Brighton Beach because neither of us had ever been to the beach whilst in the midst of a snow storm.
As much as I hate being cold, I have a commensurate love of the ocean. And if we lived somewhere warmer than NYC, I’d like to think I’d spend more time down by the water. I also love the quiet of the falling snow. I find so much peace in these two things. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when I started crying when we were down by the water. Seriously, tears just started rolling down my face. It was so beautiful. At 41 years old it’s not often that you get to experience something entirely new, but tonight I did. And it was so beautiful. The only thing that would have made it better is if we had been alone on the beach and could have experienced the serenity of falling snow in the quiet. There are a couple of things that are hard to find in the city: quiet and darkness. I miss both of those things sometimes.
I should start this post by saying that I don’t actually like bananas that much. I like the idea of them, I guess. Or I like them in certain scenarios, like smoothies, banana pudding, and fruit salad. But to just eat a banana? Blech. And yet, I always buy bananas. My husband does eat them, but usually not fast enough, so I throw the brown bananas in the freezer.
And they sit. And they sit.
I’m always going to “make banana bread.” But I never make banana bread. Seriously. I’ve literally never made banana bread. They just sit in my freezer until I run out of room, and I might use them in a smoothie, but more likely than not, they eventually get thrown away.
I hate throwing away food.
Anyway, we have a member in one of our congregations that is in a nursing home. The pandemic has been really tough on her since she can’t have visitors, and she’s not really able to leave the nursing home either. We receive her mail for her, so Lewis was going to take her mail to her and I decided I wanted to make a special treat for her. I opened my freezer to see what ingredients I had available, and this is when I spied several bunches of brown bananas, just sitting there, mocking me.
I scanned the internet for recipes for banana bread, but none seemed to have all the ingredients that (in my mind) should go in banana bread…. so I made up my own. So here it is, along with photos of the process. At the end of the post I’ll mention some things that I would change.
Ingredients:
8 frozen bananas (thawed)
1 cup of sugar
1/2 a cup of brown sugar
1/2 a cup of butter (softened or melted)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of Himalayan salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of mini chocolate chips
1 cup of chopped walnuts
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F
Grease two loaf pans (I use coconut oil)
I always just throw my bananas into the freezer with peel and all, so I run the bananas under hot water until they are slightly softened; I peel them and then fully thaw them in the microwave for a minute or two.
Mix thawed bananas (along with juices) with softened butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla
Mix in eggs
Stir in all dry ingredients
Add chocolate chips and walnuts
Divide batter between two loaf pans
Bake for 60 minutes or until a knife comes out clean
Frozen bananas (also when I realized I don’t have any microwave safe mixing bowls)
thawed bananas and juices
Mixing the bananas and sugar
Sugar
Brown sugar
Vanilla
Eggs
Flour
Mini chocolate chips
Mixing in
Walnuts
Cinnamon
In the pan
Fresh out of the oven
Slice of bread
Things I would change: I think I would use more brown sugar and less white sugar, and cut down the total amount of sugar by just a bit (maybe 1 1/4 cup instead of 1 1/2 cup). I would do two teaspoons of cinnamon, instead of one. I would add another 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I would add another teaspoon of vanilla. I would use regular sized chocolate chips, rather than the minis. And I would toast the walnuts before mixing them in.
Otherwise, this is a decent loaf of banana bread. The texture is good, with a nice crust on the outside. The chocolate chips are a great pop of flavor and the walnuts add a nice crunch.
Thursday was another early start for us, but it probably wasn’t necessary. We started off from Loon Lake and followed Loon River to Little Vermillion Lake. We only had one portage, and it was pretty easy. Just filled with mosquitoes, like everywhere else in the Boundary Waters.
Compared to Wednesday’s challenges, the Loon River was a breeze. A meandering river separating the United States from Canada. We had a hard time finding a beach to stop and have lunch at, so we pulled off to the side and held each other’s canoes while we ate. We were technically in Canada, even if we didn’t get out of the canoes.
Further on, we saw a bald eagle hunting! It was amazing and beautiful. I don’t think any of us got pictures of it, but we were all very present in the moment, and I love that.
We made it to Little Vermillion Lake just in time for the rain to start pouring down. We quickly got off the water and huddled in the woods, attempting to stay dry. We weren’t planning on staying at the first campsite, but the rain took long enough to stop, that we decided to set up camp. Everything was damp, but we managed to get a fire going. We had a lovely chat around the fire. It was really nice to get a chance to know each other and bond.
I also got to set up my hammock tent. Yeah, you read that right, a hammock that is also a tent. It was wonderful! I loved swinging in the breeze while being protected from the bloodsucking mosquitoes.
Since we had a short trip planned on Friday morning we slept in just a bit. It was nice to take it easy for the morning. We canoed from Little Vermillion Lake to Sand Point Lake. We arrived at our camp site on Friday right around noon. It was so wonderful to have a nice peaceful place to spend the Sabbath. The camp site is on a small strip of land between Sand Point Lake and Lake Makooda; we camped on the Makooda side.
Besides having access to running water, an inside toilet (basically an outhouse), and bear boxes (no floating our food out on the lake for two whole nights!), we also had a lovely visit from Ms. Marlette Kielczewski. She brought us a really beautiful salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and cookies. You can’t understand the joy of freshly prepared food until you’ve subsisted on freeze dried meals for a week.
Which is the perfect segue for talking about food. If you’re considering taking this trip, or one like it, there are some tips I can recommend.
First, you want your food to be as light and as nutritious as possible. Second, know yourself. I know this seems silly, but sometimes you bring food because it’s convenient and it’s something that has been recommended, but if it’s not something that you like to eat, you’re going to end up carrying extra weight for no reason. Also, the less clean up the better. For example, I expected that I would eat oatmeal for breakfast each morning. It’s easy, and will stick with you for awhile. I didn’t eat oatmeal until the Sabbath. It just wasn’t worth the time and effort to have to wash dishes after breakfast. So I would eat an applesauce pouch and some beef jerky. Quick and easy.
We had planned to eat peanut butter on tortillas for lunch, but again, it was a pain to pull out the utensils and things needed to make them. We ate nuts, applesauce, and beef jerky for lunch. Lewis would have a peanut butter tortilla as a snack while we set up camp, so it wasn’t a total waste of space and weight. Tuna or chicken packets are another great choice.
For dinner Lewis and I would share a Mountain House meal (I’ll link their website at the bottom). These meals are great, just make sure you follow the directions and use enough water, and let it sit long enough, otherwise you’re going to have crunchy chicken. If you need a little boost, instant cheesy mashed potatoes are always a good option.
One of the other participants carried little sandwich bags of pre-portioned lunches in her fanny pack. It was perfect, she had cheese, nuts, and dried fruit. I would highly recommend doing something similar. It makes eating lunch on the water much easier. I was a little weirded out by the unrefrigerated cheese, but she lived, so I’m assuming it was fine.
I highly recommend having Gatorade powder to mix in with your water. It helps with the lake flavor, and it replaces electrolytes. If you drink coffee or hot chocolate, bring enough packets of both. I hate coffee, and love hot chocolate, and I found even the coffee drinkers would ask if they could have some of my hot chocolate packets.
I’m terrible about remembering to document my steps… so this will only have photos of the finished product… hopefully I’ll get the hang of this blogging thing soon! 😳
I made the cupcake recipe as was published (the link is below). It was fine. I wasn’t super wowed by it, but it will do the job as a basic chocolate cupcake.
I did not, however, use their frosting recipe; I used my own (which I will include below). Overall a pretty good combination. Be aware that my frosting recipe uses less sugar than many standard recipes call for, so it will be a somewhat tangy frosting, especially with the addition of the cocoa powder.
Cream Cheese Frosting
2 Sticks of butter (softened at room temperature)
2 8oz packages of cream cheese (softened at room temperature)
1.5 cups of powdered sugar
2.5 teaspoons of vanilla extract
.5 cup of cocoa powder
Cream together butter and cream cheese. Mix well after the addition of each of the following ingredients: add vanilla, add powdered sugar, add cocoa powder (for a swirl frosting — as pictured — remove 1/2 the frosting before adding the cocoa powder).
*If you want a more sweet frosting add an extra .5 cup of powdered sugar to the recipe above.
I post a lot about desserts that I make, but that’s because they’re fun and everyone can get behind a good dessert! But, truth be told, we typically only have dessert once a week or less. So, I thought I’d make a post about what we typically eat.
My hubs has been doing a keto diet, and I have gall bladder issues and can’t process as much fat, so we typically try to find something that can be slightly modified to suit both our needs.
Tonight’s menu? Mixed green salad with fresh veggies and baked chicken breast. The husband’s salad had cheese and sour cream on top.
I have yet to find a better recipe for chocolate chip cookies than the one you find on the nestle bag.
And I love a good homemade cookie… I mean, given the choice, I’d rather eat pie or, honestly, something savory anytime. But a good, homemade cookie is tough to beat. So, when your 72 year old friend asks you to make pecan chocolate chip cookies for her husband’s 73rd birthday, you make pecan chocolate chip cookies for her husband.
Tips for great cookies.
Use real butter
Take the time for your butter to soften at room temperature
Bake your cookies for the lower end of the recommended time (10 minutes in my oven).
Tap the pan when you pull the cookies from the oven
Allow the cookies to cool for 10 minutes on the pan before moving them to a wire rack
Dough, pre-chocolate chipsAdding chocolate chips Adding the pecansAll mixed upReady for the ovenIn the ovenPost “tap”All done!
These are great for parties, or just as a snack. They’re a little spicy, but not overwhelmingly so. I definitely recommend wearing gloves when you make them, and do not, I repeat, do not touch your eyes or nose!
Recipe:
10 Jalapeños (cut in half lengthwise and de-seeded)
8 ounces of cream cheese
3-4 ounces white cheddar
5-10 slices of turkey bacon
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin to taste
Mix cheeses and spices together until well blended.
Spoon filling into jalapeño halves.
Wrap bacon around the cheese filled jalapeños
Bake at 400° for 20 minutes.
Broil for an additional five minutes (or more or less depending on your oven) to crisp the bacon.
L & L Shenanigans 