Strawberry Greek yogurt

Happy Sabbath Day!

Oh yes, I've been back from Jerusalem for five months, and I still call it Sabbath Day.

I think I will forever and ever.

Also, where did Greek yogurt come from? All of a sudden every one is eating it!

s'okay though. I'm in love with the stuff.

I substitute it for everything. Just the other day I used it in my cookies

instead of butter and it worked like magic.

Strawberry Greek yogurt

1/2 Cup Greek yogurt

1 Cup frozen strawberries

1/2 Cup Kashi Cereal

Chocolate cake & DIY cake stand

Happy August 12!

I made you a cake.

Along with a cake stand that you can easily make yourself.

Directions:

Step 1: get a candle stick and candle plate from the dollar store

Step 2: buy cute colors to paint it

Step 3: hot glue gun the stick and plate together

Step 4: bake a cake (or cupcakes) and bodda-bing bodda-boom. magic :)

The chocolate cake was made from a box (6" an 4" pans) and chocolate butter cream frosting. 

Healthy Flat Bread Pizza in seven minutes

I invented this recipe when I was just a 'lil freshman in college (so like a year and a half ago..) and I've

 been eating it ever since. I got the idea to use flat bread as pizza dough when I forgot I had told the

 sister missionaries I would make them dinner. I had to do some reaaally fast thinking and this is what I

 came up with! It's healthy, fast, cheap and it makes the stomach happy.

What more could I ask for in a meal?

Ingredients:

flat bread

Turkey Pepperonis

Pizza Sauce

Mozzarella cheese 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350

2. pour desired amount of sauce onto the flat bread

3. sprinkle on the cheese and pepperonis

4. cook for 5 minutes 

 izzzz good!!!!!

Healthy Flatout bread recipe #1

The great thing about bread is that it can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It goes with anything from

 Nutella to eggs and in my opinion, it is delicious :) I LOVE Flatout bread ('cause whenever I eat it I

 feel healthy and it's yums). Over my years in college I've created multiple recipes that are quick, 

easy, cheap, and taste good that involve Flatout bread.

Yesterday, for example, I created this little wonder.

You KNOW it's healthy when you ask your little sister (the queen of all health) if she

 would eat it and she says yes. 

Minty Creamy Brownies

I don't know about you guys, but I get all of my recipes from pinterest. All of 'em. 

 I never feel like I can take 100% credit for the things I create since I get the idea from someone else.

So I decided "Enough of this!"

and I created my own recipe.

I kind of made it up as I went.

But...I used cream cheese and Oreos so I felt pretty safe. 

Cream cheese and/or Oreos always makes things better.

They're like the windex of food.

So here you have it, Minty Creamy Brownies. SJ Style.

Exploring

An Israeli cow. trying with all of his might to escape, but the barbed wire fence
 continually gets in his way. Sorry little guy.

Jerusalem and Washington DC (two cities that have grown dear to my heart over this past year)
on the same sign

   

Nimrod's castle

We ended the day with a bonfire on the beach.
It's been decided...Israeli smores are much better than American smores.
Then again, I'm the only one who voted, but it's my blog so I get to decide.

Just Soak it Up

Yesterday evening I went out on my balcony and found a great place to hang my feet while I do my homework.

 New favorite spot for sure.

 

The weather was warm enough to eat lunch outside today

 After our bellies were full we soaked up the sun whilst being entertained by Boone.

In other, completely random news, happy first day of Lent!

 I'll be giving up Nutella during the next forty days in honor of the holiday. 

Pray for me.

Passover in February. It's fine.

I had no clue what I was getting myself into last night when I sat down for our three hour seder meal.

 I found myself pouring wine (grapefruit juice) over and over again, eating bitter herbs with horse radish (with all due respect to horses....it was disgusting), reciting out of a book, listening to Hebrew, washing my hands, searching for a "hidden cloth"and eating really, really good food. In the end I was a happy girl with a (little too) full belly.

 Thats a rap, kids.

All I wanted was a doughnut

Taste buds can be stubborn. You know what I’m talking about. You get in in your head that you want a certain food and there is no other food item that can satisfy your taste bud’s desires. I had one of those moments today. All I wanted was a doughnut. I didn’t even know I wanted a doughnut until I was told that I “just had to get a doughnut in the Jewish Quarter”.

So I set out with four other friends today on a quest to find a doughnut in the Jewish Quarter. In my mind I saw it being an ooey-gooey warm doughnut with chocolate dripping down the edges. My taste buds were getting anxious, and don’t ask me why…‘cause I don’t even like doughnuts. After searching every pastry shop we were only able to find one—one measly shop—that would sell me a doughnut. The five of us bought one to split and eagerly sat down as we cut into the ginormous wonder.

  

Before you get too excited just know that It was disgusting. 

Imagine stale breadsticks with hard chocolate that kept falling off. 

Yeah…stupid taste buds. I shouldn’t listen to them so much.

But of course, the buds weren’t satisfied and kept complaining. (I swear, they’re never happy).

 So I bought one of these guys and they were good! 

Mission satisfaction complete.

Marhaba.

I would have spent Arab night in some sweats tied with elastics at the bottom to look like genie pants, but luckily my roommate let me borrow her authentic genie pants and somehow my thrown-together costume worked out. 

Last night the students at the Jerusalem center were able to watch the call to prayer be recited live and were also able to interpret the meaning of the call to prayer. The call to prayer is recited five times a day.  The devotion the faithful Muslims have to drop everything they are doing five times a day to pray is one of those things that inspire me be a better person in my own religion.

The evening continued with an Arab dinner and folk dancing…which sort of turned into one huge dance party.

This is Ayman my Arab teacher.
No words could accurately describe him.

Haatirkum.

Party in the Pita

It doesn’t matter if it’s a falafel, turkey, egg, PB&J, nutella or even plain.

We party in the Pita.

Everyday.

the Shuk

On Sunday we were able to watch our  branch president, President Ohman play the Caroline Bells for his last time.

Then we voyaged over to West Jerusalem and shopped through the Shuk (basically an outdoor market)

I (definitely) scream, you scream...

...we were all screaming for the ice cream. I heard rumors, but I dared not believe. Let’s be honest, talk of ice cream had been in the air for weeks and yet we had received none of it.

So can you imagine the excitement I felt when I saw that there was ice cream for dessert in the Oasis tonight?!

 

My stomach is content.