TurkSpinach Veggie Quiche Cups, Meatloaf Cupcakes

I guess this blog has turned into more of a food blog, but when you're inspired to do something new, why not roll with the newly found energy and write about it too, right??

Inspired by Manila Spoon's Spinach Quiche Cups, I wanted to spice up my breakfast routine with these cute guys. Super easy to make. 

To make plain egg cups Taft are great for breakfast sandwiches in the go, just spray your muffin pan with Pam and crack your eggs in. 

To make the other quiche cups, you can put anything you want in them. Mine had fresh corn kernels, wilted baby spinach, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced green olives and turkey. Spray Pam and pour each muffin tin half full with beaten egg (I separated 1 egg into 4) and then added any veggies I wanted.

For dinner I made Meatloaf cupcakes based on First Look then Cook's Meatloaf cupcake recipe.

They were soo yummy!!

...and I'm back!!! ...with a Spinach Mango salad

Sorry I've been away for so long!! We've had a great summer so far! Just to recap- we had an amazing trip to the states and I worked on a play in the park!

The mangoes in Israel now are huge!! I also bought a pack of baby spinach earlier this week to celebrate the purchase of my new blender. I was so excited to make this salad, so lets not waste any more time chit-chatting.


Spinach Mango Tomato Salad
1 serving

1 handful of washed and dried baby spinach; tear off any super long stems.
6 cherry tomatoes; quartered.
1/2 handful of craisins.
1 tablespoon of toasted sunflower seeds.
1 large chunk of mango, cubed. 

Mix all that goodness together in a bowl or plate and enjoy!

~Good Shabbos
Marina

Green monster Mango

Easy.

Green Monster Mango

Handful of spinach
5-6 strawberries
Banana
Half a teaspoon of honey
2 ice cubes

Blend! Yum!

 Have you ever tried or made Green smoothies? What are you favorite recipes?

Shalom!

-Marina

Green, Peach and Berry smoothie!

Hooray for my first official green smoothie!

Green, Peach and Berry
Handful of spinach
6 small strawberries
1/2 pink lady apple, skinned
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup peach yogurt

blend til smoothie

Smile because you are drinking healthy!!

Shalom

-Marina

Spinach straw-raspberry Smoothie

I finally bought spinach. I finally used it in this delicious smoothie! 

Frozen raspberries, strawberries, cup of milk and a cup of spinach. 
Blend til smooothe! Doesn't taste like spinach but soo refreshing.

 Shalom!

-Marina

Highlights of the week (April 14-20)

We're going to Florida this summer!  Time to get back into f***in shape!!

Saturday and Sunday (both each day)
1)  Victoria's Secret Models Full Body Workout 
     10-Minute Fat-Blasting Circuit - GREAT 10 minute workout. Plies & other ballet moves that will shred your legs!

2)  Sweat with Lauren Hefez
     Wedding Arms - I really like her. She is quirky and makes the workouts fly by!!

Sunday
-Evan came back from a secret trip to the Sinai Peninsula, Dahab, and Egypt!

 Monday
-Yom HaZikaron
  Memorial Day- On this day we remember all the fallen soldiers who fought for the State of Israel.  
-Tragedy in Boston

Tuesday
Yom HaAzmaut 
  Israel's 65 Birthday! Independence Day!! Party Day! We rejoice! 

Wednesday 
 Back on track.
1)

Thursday
1)  Victoria's Secret Models Full Body Workout 
               10-Minute Fat-Blasting Circuit

Friday
1) Smoothie of the day
  -half a cup of pink grapefruit juice
  -splash of orange juice and natural strawberry juice
  -3 slices of pineapple and its juice
  -4 strawberries, slice of apple
blend til smooth!!

2) Brisket for dinner with our friends Benjamin and Michal !!

Shabbat Shalom!

-Marina

Strawberry Banana Muffins

I woke this morning early and discovered my bananas were too ripe and I had to use them quick, or else hubby would throw them out. 
I've wanted to bake something for a long time and finally after washing all the dishes from yesterdays Independence day BBQ, I got to work. 

My muffin pan is only for 6 muffins so I halved this recipe for Strawberry Banana Muffins

They turned out nice and crispy and golden on top, and moist inside. 

Then I did the laundry. Then I worked out a bit and now off to work!! 

 Shalom!!

-Marina

If it scares you...

We all have something. Something that we put off doing or trying because we feat failure and judgement. 

What scares you? What are you nervous of? Do you have a hurdle you have to overcome?

Shalom!

-Marina

Pineapple Strawberry Smoothie

Pineapple Strawberry Smoothie

For my tasty treat this morning all I used was:

1/2 cup defrosted strawberries
3 rings of canned pineapple
2 ice cubes
1/8 cup strawberry juice
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
 
1. Place all ingredients in blender.
2. Blend until smooth and lump free.
3. Pour into glass and enjoy!

Good Shabbos!
-Marina

Meet Elisa; chicken enchiladas

Last night my friend Elisa came over for dinner, movie and a sleepover. Evan has been hanging with the guys lately, so I've had lots of time to hang out with the girls!! 

Elisa was a volunteer at our beloved Abraham Hostel. She is from Veracruz, Mexico, and so suggested we made something traditional. Let me just say, there are NO Mexican restaurants in Jerusalem, so when I heard *enchiladas* I was super excited!  We both miss traditional Mexican food. Being a traveling volunteer, she hasn't been home for six months and hasn't had a chance to cook. She is a great baker though!

When she was volunteering at the Fauzi Azar Inn in Nazareth she made these

 (chocolate chip and banana cake)

(strawberry and chocolate chip cake)

---

After finding a super easy recipe online for enchilada sauce, we gathered up ingredients and got to work.

As I worked on the chicken, she worked on the sauce.

We weren't sure how to get our tortillas to be super soft, but after finding out we shouldn't toast them (duh!) we tried them room temperature and the hot chicken and enchilada sauce did the rest. 

They turned out delicious!! Definitely making these again! 

Where has been your favorite place to travel? Any foods you miss while away from home??

Shabbat Shalom

-Marina

Clementine Delight

Thanks to Gimme Some Oven for today's smoothie inspiration!!

Clementine Delight 
2 oranges or clementines; pitted (peel off the skin and white stuff from each segment)
splash of milk
1/2 tsp of vanilla
a few ice cubes (I let mine melt a tiny bit before I put them in the blender)

I cut the recipe above in half when I made it, but forgot to halve the vanilla. To fix it up, I put in 1/3 of a cup of peach juice. 

Tip: I used clementines instead of oranges for this drink because that is all I had.  I recommend taking the time to peel off the skin and white stuff from each segment. We found that we had to chew a little instead of slurping the drink. =p

Sorry about the Hebrew, I live in Israel!

Some people say to try it with vanilla yogurt instead of milk and vanilla and if its too chunky to use orange juice instead. 

All tips and comments aside, it wasn't too bad!  Let me know what you think!!

Good Shabbos!

-Marina  

Berry Berry Peach Smoothie

Hubby has finally started to like my smoothies! I had a little round blender from Hemilton but it  got a chip around the top edge. It didn't hold as much liquid and it would leak out the top whenever I put liquid in it. I love my new Graetz blender!

Today hubs comes home from the gym thirsty for a post-workout smoothie. "Smoothie me!!", he says!!

Berry Berry Peach Smoothie
I mixed up strawberries, frozen raspberries and peach juice. He took one sip and ran away with the whole glass, I barely had any left to try or take pictures of!! 

It was so good!! I'm so excited to think up new ideas!

What kinds of smoothies do you like? Care to share some recipes??

 Shabbat Shalom!

-Marina

Peach Banana Berry Shake

Hello everybody! 
It's the start of a new week. Passover just ended and my mom and sister just got home from their trip to Israel. We had lots of fun touring and traveling with them. We visited lots of cool new places as well as showed them some of our favorite spots. It was also great to see lots of relatives!   Mom and Mich Do Israel Album


I'm back with another delicious shake recipe! I'm excited to share this with you all because this morning I bought a new Graetz blender and now I can make all sorts if yummy drinks.

This shake is all fruit. No dairy. Inspired by Jamba Juice but not as frozen. I find it hard to drink frozen drinks from a straw and finally wanted to try something with just fruit and juice.


Peach Banana Berry Shake

I mixed a cup of peach juice with a small frozen banana and behalf a cup of frozen raspberries and blended it all together til smooth. 

You can use any combo of berries and juices you like. What are your favorite smoothie recipes?? Comment below!!

Enjoy!

 Shalom

-Marina

Ferraro Roche PB Layered Pops

It's getting warm in Jerusalem and that means its OK to start eating ice cream. Hubby and I bought some vanilla bean ice cream and chocolate syrup. One day on my daily stroll through Pinterest-ville I ran into a recipe that made my mouth water. 

Here is my version of the recipe

Ferraro Roche PB Layered Pops- 
You can use any king of toppings/ fillings you like!!

Into two little paper cups I crushed several roasted peanuts. I then layered some ice cream, choc fudge, a Ferraro Roche ball, more ice cream, peanut butter and a final layer of ice cream and crushed peanuts. You can layer anyway you want! I put a little extra peanut butter for hubby and a little more Ferraro Roche for me. Insert your Popsicle stick in about 3/4 of the way and pop in the freezer for a few hours!!

Passover is only a few days away and my mom, grandma and sister are coming to visit!! We are so excited to have them here with us for the holiday!! We're gonna take them up north to Metulla, take a tour of Masada, Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea and show them all around Jerusalem.

and...we've booked our trip home to America at the end of June too!! Alrighty enough rambling, back to the ice cream. =) 

-Shabbat Shalom!

Marina

Veggie Bake

After posting a picture of the dish hubby and I cooked up for Shabbat dinner this past Friday, I got a large response of friends on Facebook. Our assignment from our friends, who were hosting the dinner, was to make something hearty with veggies. Hubby really had his heart set on making brownies but after we saw how easy this was to make and how delicious it was, I'm sure we'll be making this time and time again. The seven of us at the dinner gobbled it up in no time!

I found this recipe online at Olives and Bread. 
Here is her recipe: Baked Vegetables with Cheese

 -Shalom

Marina

EuroTrip- Sofia, Bulgaria & Bucharest, Romania

Sorry for the late update!

Our second and third stops on our trip

Sofia, Bulgaria

Train at the station

Excited for my first overnight train ride - Istanbul to Sofia

My hubby with some beer and rakia at Skara Bar in Sofia.

Delicious Bulgarian BBQ!

Basically a map of the trip we took

Gondola to Mt. Vitosha

Bucharest, Romania

We have a lot more pictures of our whole trip on Facebook. 

Here is of the the yummiest things we encountered on our trip. It's called "Papanasi"- cheese dumpling doughnut goodness with raspberry jam.

                                 

 Shalom!

~Marina

EuroTrip- Istanbul, Turkey

Sorry for the late update! As soon as we came back from our trip we were bombarded with Purim, the start of another semester for Evan, sickness and deciding weather we wanted to move early or not. 
Here are a few pictures from our trip. 

Istanbul, Turkey
  
Spice Market

Baklava

Blue Mosque

City on the Bosphorus

Delicious Turkish coffee

Shalom

~Marina