creative jewish mom

Baking With Kids: Spelt Pita Bread With Zatar

I'm so happy to report that today on a day off from school my  10 1/2 year old daughter decided she wanted to bake some pitas based on a recipe she saw in a magazine, and the results were so fantastic she just finished a second batch! And I have to be honest, this wasn't really baking "with" kids, as she really did everything herself! I stepped in to check the consistency of the dough, and to convince her to wait before putting the pitas in the oven. Oh and of course I also stepped in as a professional taster, and to my surprise the pitas tasted delicious! I'm so proud, and I'll admit, happy to have a little help in the kitchen!

Ingredients:

• 6 cups organic spelt flour (or the flour of your choice)
• 4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar/honey/date syrup
• 2 teaspoons salt (or a bit less)
• 2 cups warm water
• olive oil
• zatar (optional)

Preparation:

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water with the sugar/sweatener, wait until yeast is activated and  starts to form a froth.
2. In a mixer, combine flour and salt, and add water. Mix and when well mixed, add yeast mixture.
3. Kneed for roughly 10 minutes until a nice moist dough is formed.
4. Place dough in a plastic bag and set aside for at least an hour so dough has a chance to rise.
5. Remove risen dough from bag and make 16 balls.
6. At this point you can turn on the oven and pre-heat to 180c/350f  if you haven't done so.
7. Roll balls into pita shape, place on parchment lined baking tray, and brush with olive oil and sprinkle on some zatar (if desired)
8. To get slightly fluffy pitas, let pitas rise before baking (1/2 to 1 hour) and then bake for around 7 minutes at 180 C/350f. 
9. Hide the results or they will be devoured, really!

Note: These pitas did not form a pocket, but one can easily cut them in half for sandwiches. Some of our friends have had luck getting the pitas to form pockets by either using the grill in the oven and flipping the pitas over, or putting the pitas at the bottom of a hot oven. In any case, to form a pocket the pitas do need to be rolled out fairly thinly, but not too thinly, which kids may have a difficult time doing. So in my opinion, ditch the pocket!

If you'd like to read about how I make pitas that do form a pocket, and using a recipe that makes a huge batch, check out my whole wheat pita recipe, which can also be made using spelt flour or a combination of wheat and spelt, or any combination of gluten flours that suits you. Enjoy baking healthy and delicious bread for your family....there's no better feeling!

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday, an inspirational weekly linky party with great crafters from around the world! Last week from places like Portugal, Jakarta, The Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, The United States, The United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and Israel. (And of course we missed our regular contributors from Turkey, Greece, Muldavia, Macedonia, Sweden and Guatemala!) And now, there were so many great projects and recipes from last week's party, thanks to you all! Here are some of my favorites:

 Isn't this crocheted scotty from Anna Boo's house just the cutest? Now you can make one too as she has generously shared the pattern! And while you have the hooks and yarn out, why not give embellishing simple granny squares a try, with a tutorial from homemade at my place!

 

An adorable little crocheted strawberry pattern from aduo scriptum , and a simply cute crown hair clip from rema designs.

And for the first time ever at this blog party, two crafters posted the same project! Annaboos house, above right posted her original pattern for this fab crocheted matroyshka doll and the sweet pea family blog posted her version of Annaboo's matroyshka. Now friends, it's time for all of us to try our hand as this sweet little pattern, don't you think?

 

A fun crocheted garland from chris in de haak, and fabulous coffee filter flower hat from Aunt Peaches

A fabulous knit shell from ginx craft, and a clever and pretty door slam preventer from Anna simple crochet, made up of a flower that is often used as a pin cushion pattern, brilliant!

Aren't these tie dyed garments amazing? Follow the tutorial over at the tattooed ladies and you'll be on your way to making some too! And this sweet little pin is the perfect gift for the knitters in your life, from spoonful of crafts.

Love this fabric infinity scarf from happy in red, and this leather look mod podged frame using paper bags is brilliant, from mod podge rocks, of course!

Check out a bunch of thrift seed starter ideas from red ted art, and a little raised bed inspiration with this galvanized metal horse trough planter, from family home and life

Love this art gallery project from Se7en, and kid's art rag dolls from red ted art.

And look at this fantastic project, from aura verde crafts, perfect for outdoor celebrations, as are these fun tissue paper kites from Se7en.

Don't look at these photos if you're avoiding sugar! A nice recipe for banana pudding poke cake from Lambert's lately, and a heavenly looking flour free chocolate cherry cake from something sweet. That's all for now, what have you been up to this week? Don't be shy, we'd love to meet you!

Happy Birthday Cards From The Heart...For A Beloved Grandmother Far Away

Surprise, this post if for my mother, on her birthday, which is on April 28th. Happy Birthday Mom! We wish we could be with you, and we know you check out the blog once in a while, so we thought we put a little surprise for you here!

Wishing you good health and many many more years until 120. Lots of love from your grandchildren in Israel and your daughter, aka creativejewishmom, who owes it all to you!

Water Color Paintings For Lag B'Omer

The Jewish holiday of Lag B'Omer starts on Saturday night, so it's time to do a little crafting for the holiday! For starters my daughter and a friend made these sweet water color paintings depicting the traditional bonfire. Now I've got to come up with a few more activities to occupy the kids, as a holiday without crafting is just not a holiday, at least in my book!

Traditional subject matter for Lag B'Omer also includes bows and arrows, and anything having to do with the great sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who is remembered on this day for his great contribution to the Jewish people. Gotta run, I think I need some sticks for the next project!

Container Gardening: Dianthus (mini carnation)

Let's hear a round of applause for this this pot of Dianthus, who with absolutely no tender loving care whatsoever, is in full bloom! I bought a small  Dianthus plant last year, which I shared here, and transferred the plant at least once, before almost killing it numerous times due to lack of water. And honestly I didn't really expect the plant to live through the winter, and I remember looking at it in January thinking, wow, you're still alive! And what do you know, not only did the plant not succumb to the cold, all of a sudden there were tons of buds! 

So my friends, that means that Dianthus could be a great choice for you too— depending on the genus it can be hardy for zones 3-10. It loves sun but can do well in partial sun as well, and is self seeding if you leave the old flowers on the stems. Hmmm, it's a toss up since dead-heading (removing spent blooms) also encourages re-blooming! 

I hope you've enjoyed meeting Dianthus, and  I'll surely pick up some more this year if the opportunity arises!

Container Gardening: Nandina Domestica

Spring is here (well sort of, we've had a few days of uncharacteristic rain!) so it's time to start taking a peek outside in the container garden, and send a little positive energy to all the plants who are now waking up from their winter slumber! Oh and to all those aphids who I hope will find a home elsewhere, or just pack up and go, the sooner the better!

Lest I digress, I wanted to share with you a nice ornamental plant, called Nandina. I was given a tiny specimen by a neighbor who didn't have luck with plants, and it's been slowly growing over the past four or so years. At the end of last summer, I forgot to water it, and all of it's leaves fell off, but look at it now, phew!

N. domestica, grown in Chinese and Japanese gardens for centuries, was brought to Western gardens in 1804. Nandina is widely grown in gardens, as an ornamental plant, and is a shade/partial sun lover. The species is particularly popular in Japan, so it's a great addition to a sculptural or Japanese style garden. 

Nandina can be grown in USDA zones 4–10, and can take heat and cold, from 10–110 °F (-12–43 °C). A true low-care plant, it needs no pruning, and interestingly enough, this plant is commonly used in rabbit, deer, and javelina resistant landscape plantings.

Nandina has red berries (though my plant has yet to bear any) and while the plant you see here is quite small, it's most commonly seen as a shrub. Infact, there were two large wooden planters holding Nandina bushes next to the front door of my childhood home, which means I do have a soft spot for this little plant of mine!

That's all for now, hope you've enjoyed meeting Nandina! 

Crocheted T-Shirt Yarn Doily Rug — A Reader's Version!

Crocheted rugs are all the rage, and I'm so happy to say that last week a reader, Anneke Wiese from South Africa already had a chance to try out my crocheted doily rug pattern and share her completed rug on Facebook! I was so very very thrilled to hear from her, and the good news is that she said the pattern was very easy to follow, yippee! 

You will notice if you compare her rug to mine, that hers is more compact, and thus more suitable as a rug as opposed to a giant crocheted table doily, which is how I'm using mine. So depending on your desires, you can crochet a nice rug using one strand of  t-shirt yarn, and the hook size she did, which is 10mm, though just be aware the the resulting rug will measure around 80cm in diameter as opposed to 1 meter, point to point, as is mine. Also Anneke pointed out that not all t-shirt yarns are the same weight and you may need to use an even smaller hook, like 9mm to achieve the same results that she did.

If you're feeling brave and you'd like to make a bigger rug using my doily rug pattern, repeat some of the rows that produce the two bands in the center, before finishing up with the rows that produce the petals. I'm going to try that myself, though this won't be for some time as I'll have to find a source for the yarn, either in Tel Aviv, or Amsterdam or maybe the US.....we'll have to see which place I travel to first. Hmmmmm.......Tel Aviv is just a bit closer!

Enjoy, and I always love hearing from readers, so do drop me a line anytime, and especially with photos of projects you've done using my tutorials or patterns.

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday....an international crafty get together with fabulous contributors from around the world: last week from The Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal, Macedonia, Italy, Turkey, Greece, The United States, The United Kingdom, Jakarta, Gautemala and Australia! I always love compiling the list, and even do a little extra work to see where everyone is from as it's just so exciting! And talk about exciting, here's some of the projects from last week that inspired me:

Adore this glow in the dark jelly fish craft from craftiments, and this fun tissue paper cherry blossom craft from Organized 31. 

 Love this amigurumi bee from little things blogged and this spring creation from Anne Marie.

These spring nature pictures from red ted art are just fabulous, and would be gorgeous wall art if photographed well and printed actual size!

A super sweet decoupaged tea bag tag tray from aura verde crafts, and crocheted flowers made by rolling up a spiked strip, from aduo scriptum.

Two great recycling crafts: a plastic bottle bottom soap dish from Alessia, and a recycled egg carton dragon/monster from treading on lego.

 

Some fun wooden bead key chains from spoonful of crafts, and a clever rolled first aid kit for traveling from hong kong chic.

Love this surprise cake from something sweet,  and this magen david (Jewish star) shaped challah also from something sweet. The blog posts are in Hebrew but you can translate them to English and get a general idea of how she made the cake......basically you make a dough from crumbled white cake mixed with either cream or non dairy creamer, or even yogurt, and then you cut star shapes from the dough and freeze them. You place the frozen shapes in the pan and pour the batter to mostly cover, got it?

 

Chunky Knit Baby Blanket — Simple and Classic

The recipient of this luscious yet very simple chunky knit baby blanket is about to arrive for a visit, so I at long last got around to weaving in the ends and taking some photos of it. And fortunately for me, the beautiful spring weather has suddenly become wet and cold, so the gift of a warm chunky knit baby blanket that I started in January (and blogged about here) doesn't seem strange at all. Phew!

Though crocheting is my first love, once in a while the desire to knit washes over me, and this time I satisfied that desire with a cuddly soft baby blanket. I love the results, and had planned on embroidering some designs on the blanket, using duplicate stitch embroidery, but when a test didn't go so well, see my post here, I decided to keep it simple and classic.

This blanket was knit using two strands of chunky yarn (100g = 1oom) and size 17 US/ 12 3/4 mm knittting needles, though of course you can opt to buy some extra chunky yarn and achieve the same look with just one strand. 

Decide the size you'd like your blanket to be, either newborn/baby size or even toddler size, make a test swatch and then calculate the number of stitches you'll need to cast on to achieve the desired width. 

It's generally a good idea to make a garter stitch border to avoid edges that curl, unless you happen to love that look. And also worth noting is that vertical rows and horizontal rows are not equal, so in my case, two rows of garter stitch at the top and bottom of the blanket are not the same width as the garter stitch border which is two stitches wide. Next time I'll make three horizontal rows which will visually match the width of the left and right border.

So do give chunky knits a try, either with multiple strands or specialized yarn, and a baby blanket is the perfect project to get you started, before for example you decide to knit a chunky bedspread! Enjoy!

Crocheted Tiny Pouch For The Little Stuff

Make tiny crocheted pouches to hold the little stuff.....I'm sure everyone needs a few of these don't you think? They're so simple to whip up, and a great project for any level. And of course, you can make yours much cuter than this one by using multiple colors......I made this one with some yarn a neighbor dropped off at our house in the heat of house cleaning before Passover, but will make some more with colors that are enticing in the future.