Peanut Butter & Chocolate Pie -Pareve/Vegan, no-bake, easy

 This is a super-easy pie to make. All you need is a bowl, a whisk, a way to melt chocolate, and a fridge.

Ingredients - for each pie
1 pre-made graham cracker crust

Filling:
1 cup coconut cream (if you want dairy, you can use regular cream)
1 package vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup peanut butter (CREAMY, not crunchy, Skippy is fine, natural is ok, too, but if it's salt-free, you might need to add some salt to balance the flavor)

topping: 
1 chocolate bar (bittersweet) + 3 tbs of the filling

Method: 
In a large mixing bowl, whip (mixer if you have, or whisk if you don't) the coconut cream until it's fluffy - if you can make it into whipped cream texture, that's best, otherwise, just do what you can. 

Add the vanilla pudding mix and keep whipping.

Add the peanut butter (if you're whipping by hand, you might want to warm the peanut butter in the microwave or place the peanut butter in a cup inside of a bowl of hot water as it will make it mix better) and mix until everything is well-blended.

Reserve 3 tbs of the filling for the topping. 

Pour the mixture into the pie crust and refrigerate for at least one hour. 

Once pie is chilled, take 1 chocolate bar, and break it up into a bowl, add the reserved filling. Warm in microwave (or put bowl into bigger bowl of hot water to melt), and mix well. you can add milk, coconut milk, or even a little of water to make it thin enough to pour. 

Pour over pie. 

Refrigerate until chocolate sets (1 hour) 

 

A Quiz for Middle Schoolers in 2050

Here are some sample quiz questions for history teachers teaching about the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. 

Please feel free to use them. I'll be about 70 then. Please drop me a line. There's an answer key included in the post. Good luck finding it. 

During the 2020 Corona Pandemic, which products were hoarded?

1. Toilet Paper
2. Surgical Masks
3. Alco-gel
4. All of the above

Which of the following hobbies was not popular?

1. Baking sourdough bread
2. Tie Dye
3. Drone Fighting
4. Making Tiktok videos

Which of the following groups was most vulnerable to Corona?

1. Babies
2. Children
3. Teenagers
4. Senior Citizens

Which vaccine was approved first by the FDA?

1. Moderna
2. Pfizer
3. Johnson and Johnson
4. Sputnik

What was the first moniker given to the Coronavirus?

1. Ground Glass Pneumonia
2. Covid-1
3. Wuhan Flu
4. Captain Tripps

Which country was the first to vaccinate half its population?

1. Israel
2. Sweden
3. Trinidad
4. USA

How many Chinese residents died of Coronavirus? 

1. Around 5000
2. Around 40,000
3. Around 2 million
4. The true numbers were never released

What is "social distancing?"

1. Not talking to friends
2. Staying at least 6 feet away from people
3. Wearing a mask
4. Wearing gloves

Answer key: 4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 1, 4, 2 

Airplane Food Review (TAMAM) Part 2

Chicken-Potatoes-Vegetables

 
The chicken was slightly saltier than I like, and I like my chicken barely cooked - this was well done, but not overcooked. The potatoes were great. The vegetables were flavored well, but I didn't like the peppers. Overall 7/10 I'd eat it again, but I wouldn't look forward to it. 

Blintzes 

This morning, I tried the Blintzes - One sweet cheese, one apple, in vanilla cream, not overly sweet, but definitely sweet. I thought it was delicious. Kinneret (13) didn't like the apple, and didn't try the cheese, because I was already eating when I discovered that there was a second one, and we're germophobles. 9/10, yummy dessert or breakfast.




Bulgarian Salad

Fresh and good.
There was lettuce (not pictured) and the peppers were ... not yummy (according to me and Kinneret) 
There was no zaatar on the cheese, and the dressing was Thousand Island (good). Kinneret said the cheese was too salty... but um. it's Bulgarian cheese.  Overall, good salad, certainly for the price - I've paid 30 for less impressive salads. The salad is a full meal for someone who isn't a big eater, or would be good with a sandwich for someone who eats the entire universe (like me). 8/10 -would definitely eat again, would absolutely throw out the peppers again.

 

Meatballs-String Beans- Rice

Fry said the meatballs and rice are good, but found the string beans chewy. (undercooked?) 
He says he'd eat it again, but it's not his favorite. 

I tried it and the meatballs were good, not great, and the string beans were slightly undercooked and oversalted. The rice was fine

7/10 - Satisfying, reasonably tasty. too much salt. 

Airplane Food Review (Tamam) Pt 1

I have a crazy love of airline food, so when I saw Tamam was offering to let people buy airline meals, I ordered a whole bunch of different things, and I'll be reviewing it here: 

.

Cornbeef bagel - the "bagel" is a regular roll with a hole in the middle. It has a tomato-pepper sauce on it that I didn't like. Lots and lots of pickles, and sauerkraut. Not tons of meat, but I wasn't expecting a New York deli. Rating it 6/10. I'd eat it if I were hungry, but it's not great. 

Meal with Schnitzel, Couscous, and Vegetables:  This seems to not exist on the website, so I am putting the closest picture I could find. I had a bit of schnitzel and it was pretty good, but I can buy that at any supermarket. My son said he didn't like the couscous and veg. I'll have to check it sometime. 

Fresh vegetables with thousand Island sauce - yum 10/10

f

Fresh Fruit - tasty and clean, good mix. 10/10 - would be great to keep in a cooler on a tiyul

I look forward to updating more in the future. I ordered a whole bunch more stuff. 

Successful Aliya

Aliya -- to rise up. 

For a Jew, moving to the land of Israel is considered rising up, going home.

Recently someone asked what constitutes a successful aliya.

Often people come from America, England, or other countries, and end up miserably regretting their decision or even leaving Israel and returning to their country of origin

That's obviously not a successful aliya, but what is? How do you define success?

So here's my definition: 

It's successful when you've finished the honeymoon, been through rough parts, and are still happy to be here and wouldn't prefer to live somewhere else.

Someone responded that they'd never seen an "aliya honeymoon" so I described my experience, one which resonated with many of my friends. 

Have you never talked to a new oleh "fresh off the plane" who thinks that all the eligible singles in Israel are more attractive, the food tastes better, and even the air is sweeter here? Who still cries every time they hear a child speak Hebrew. Who gets weepy just thinking about the kotel? Who looks like Maria about to sing "the hills are alive" on erev Shabbat when they're walking to shul?

Because I've been that girl, and I've seen it many times.

And then reality sets in. And you would give your right arm to visit your friends/family back "home" and a root beer or a Snapple makes you so homesick it literally tastes like longing..

And you actually miss Christmas Carols, even though they used to bug the heck out of you.

and then... there's stage 3...

When a root beer tastes like childhood memories, but it doesn't overwhelm you, and you can imagine it might be fun to take a vacation someplace other than your country of origin. And when the cheese and bread and vegetables here seem normal, and the fruits and vegetables back where you came from seem weird... and you realize that you're a tourist there, and an immigrant here, and that you're never 100% going to be Israeli, but you belong to Israel more than you belong to your old country.

Pass the falafel. I'm home.

Fibro and the Amba* Clinic

Amba is a savory condiment, based on mango, fenugreek, and turmeric. Sadly, there is no Amba Clinic. There is no Ketchup, Mustard, Hummus, or Tehina (Tahini?) clinic either.

I did recently read a book put out by a famous clinic named after another condiment.  Yes, the Mayo Clinic put out a book, and I read most of it (skimmed parts)

So here's what the book said for those of you who don't feel like spending a couple of hours.

1. Yes, fibromyalgia is real and it hurts.
2. It's somehow caused by either physical or emotional trauma or both, but it causes neurological changes to the brain structures, mainly causing brain receptors to be overactive
3. There is no cure. 
4. There isn't really any particularly good treatment
5. Therefore the top standard of care is to: 
1. Do CBT to convince you that you can convince yourself that it's possible to tolerate being in unthinkable pain at all times by the power of positive thinking
2. Do Physical therapy so that even though you're in unthinkable pain at all times, you don't allow your body to weaken
3. Do relaxation, so that you don't kill the idiots who keep telling you that this is the best that they can do for you and really there's no reason you need pain medication for your extreme pain. Deep breaths now.
   

I read this with the extreme skepticism of someone who's really in a lot of pain and doesn't want to continue to be in such pain. And then I went to a pain doctor here - one of the few who is authorized to prescribe cannabis in Israel, and he said "well, this is the gold standard of care..." 

According to him, pain medications and cannabis (which actually blocks the over-active pain receptors mentioned above) are off-limits to people like me. So here I go, CBT and Physical therapy. and let's see how this works. 

You can see I haven't yet started therapy to learn how to think positively about the feeling of glass shards in my joints...

I start intake on Wednesday. At some point soon, the doctor in charge is going to want me to go off of the pain medication I'm on, which terrifies me beyond belief. My pain is already beyond what I can handle more of the time than not. Take away the last life line, and I... I just don't know.

A Little Nonsense, Now and Then

It's winter. It's cold. You might need a:

heater

Some people don't like them. That's a:

heater hater

Cannibals are attracted by the smell of cold humans. The one coming at you now is a: 

heater hater eater

But if a buddy tries to rescue you, and has to resort to violence, that would be a:

heater hater eater beater

And a grifter, seeing that your buddy is violent, thinks he isn't very smart, and tries to sell him a bridge, that person would be a 

heater hater eater beater cheater

The grifter also heads many grifting organizations, making him a:

heater hater eater beater cheater leader

And the grifter is named after Leningrad, making him :

heater hater eater beater cheater leader Peter

And you, wasting your time on this are: 

heater hater eater beater cheater leader Peter reader