Leora

Multi-colored Markers

It’s fun to photograph magic markers. There is even a red one in there, so I can use this for Ruby Tuesday.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red:

Vegetarian Chopped Liver

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 2 zucchini, sliced lengthwise
• 1 onion, quartered
• 3 tsp. olive oil (experiment with amounts of oil – add a little at a time – you may need less)
• Sea salt to taste
• 2 hard boiled eggs

Bake the zucchinis and the onion in a stoneware dish in the oven for about 1 hour. You can do this the day before, or anytime you are baking other items in the oven. Take the baked vegetables out of the oven to cool. Chop the walnuts in the food processor. Add all the other ingredients except the hard-boiled eggs. You can see what this dish would be like without the eggs, in case you would prefer to have an eggless version of vegetarian chopped liver. I found it too watery, but when I added the hard-boiled eggs, oh, my, it obtained the creaminess of chopped liver. Also, the next day in the refrigerator it turns browner, so it looks more like chopped liver, too.

Alternative: use grilled zucchini and onions (I don’t have a pareve grill)

Have you made mock chopped liver? Any suggestions?

See also: Vegan chopped liver spread with lentils, walnuts and onions

Nature Notes Travels the World

In Australia, on Gemma’s blog – flooding	In Canada, EG Wow – snowy creek
In France, Ilana-Davita – cold, snowy park	In Israel, Batya – blue skies

In New Zealand, Sparrow Chatter – Wellington blue skies

For more Nature Notes:

Railroad Tracks – SOOC

I took several shots of these Teaneck railroad tracks while waiting for my middle son, who had spent the morning visiting the high school he will attend next year. My older son just told me trains really do travel on those tracks. Oh.

Review with Broccoli

On My Blog

      
– Book Review: Scapegoat by Eli Amir
– Spicy Popcorn

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• I enjoyed reading Debbie describe her salad.
• Ilana-Davita’s post on diet and habits prompted many thoughtful comments and suggestions.
• Need a book to read? Jewwishes has her 2010 books listed (as well as 2009).
• Cardomom coffee was featured in the book Scapegoat as well as on Batya’s post: Yummy! Middle-East Flavored Coffee.
• I “met” a blogger on Twitter today named Samantha – she has a blog called Samantha’s Jewish Journey.
• A disturbing video on Jewish Life in Holland on Israel Matzav

Spicy Popcorn

My daughter had her palate extender (an orthodontic device that resides in one’s mouth) removed this week; in celebration, we bought and made popcorn. One isn’t allowed to have popcorn (or chewy, goopy food) with a palate extender (or with braces), so it was exciting to once again be sharing popcorn. The popcorn my daughter picked out came in a bag, and I kept eating it. In order not to eat all of *her* popcorn, I made my own.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup plain kernels of popcorn
• 1 paper bag, lunch bag size
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric, garlic powder, cumin, and pepper
• 3 tsp. organic butter
• 1 bunch steamed broccoli

Put the popcorn kernels in the bag and fold it closed. Put it in the microwave – ours has a popcorn setting. When it is done popping, remove the bag. Prepare the butter with the spices and salt by melting it in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave. Pour it over the popcorn.

So why the steamed broccoli? After you finish all the popcorn, you are going to enjoy mopping up the spicy butter remnants with a piece of broccoli!

Snowy Sepia Rudbeckia

I love photographing rudbeckia (black-eyed susans); they are like sculptures in the winter snow. To achieve the see-through border, I added a 9px stroke to the Photoshop layer that had the sepia effect. Since the layer had an opacity lower than 100%, the border is also transparent. The default stroke effect is a bright red color; using the eye-dropper tool, I selected a color from within the photograph for the border.

Review with 2010 Favorites from Various Blogs

On This Blog, Recently

  

• JPiX – Post Chanukah + Babies Edition
• Calf, Swallow and Winds – about the song Donna, Donna, with Joan Baez singing
• Creative Dramatics

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere, Recently

• Batya: A mini-verision of the recent JPiX (guess the photo bloggers)
• Ilana-Davita: Hush – a book review on a novel with sexual abuse
• Carver: Birds in the Snow
• Cooking Manager: Challenge of Eating More Whole Grains

Some 2010 Favorites from Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• EG Wow: Canada Day 2010
• Ilana-Davita: Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
• Sparrow Chatter: Photographic memory – “Grandmother I never knew with two of her 7 children”
• Mrs. S.: Fake Holiday – do your kids lobby for more school holidays?
• Jewwishes: Stronger than Iron: The Destruction of Vilna Jewry 1941-1945
• G6: Purim in the 1930’s
• Baila: In honor of Coffee and Chemo (in memory of RivkA, z”l)
• Shimshonit: No Hate Zone
• Robin: Almond Blossoms
• Felisol: Postwar Housewife Poetry
• Rambling Woods: Difference Between Viceroy and Monarch Butterflies
• A Mother in Israel: Butterflies, Bees, Horses and Caterpillars at the Kula Forest (technically, the post was published in December 2009, but shh…. I love all the nature)

Nature Notes: Snowstorm 2010

This is a lovely blue jay I photographed about one week before the storm. And this is the post I wrote last week about a calf, a swallow and the winds, but I never hit publish until Monday morning, right before going out to shovel.

Here are rose hips during the early hours of the storm on Sunday afternoon.

Our street during the snowstorm

Our street the next morning – lots to shovel

My neighbor’s tree

Piles of snow one day later

I’m so grateful I live in a tiny little borough that plows its streets. Yay to everyone in Borough Hall or the Department of Public Works who ensures that this happens!

For more Nature Notes:

Thursday Challenge: Stuffed Animals

Snuck into my daughter’s room and took some shots.

The theme for Thursday Challenge is TOYS (Dolls, Games, Stuffed Animals, Athletic Equipment, Construction Toys, Art Supplies,…).