Hello Friends and Happy Monday!  I returned this past Friday from a two-week trip to Israel!  This was our second time to visit and tour this beloved land, and it was incredible!  I feel like a little more light of understanding was able to peek into my mind and heart, giving  me an even greater love for my God and His Word!

Since I was away, I haven’t had anything going on in my oven, but I thought I’d share a little of my food diary from our trip to the Middle East.  The food there is good, just different.  The places where we stayed tended to have the same kind of foods available, with a few exceptions.  Let me give you a visual of what we ate:

There was always a buffet for breakfast and supper at the places we stayed.  Believe it or not, you will always see a salad bar at breakfast time.  They have lots of wonderful cheeses, spreads, olives, and greens, vegetables and other salads made up.

That wasn’t exactly my style for the first meal of the day, so I usually had some type of egg.  Most places offered  an egg station where they would make you a fried egg, scrambled egg, or omelet.  It was important to get protein for the long days of hiking and traversing, so I usually always had an egg of some sort.  Often there were egg casseroles, as well.

There is no bacon, but there is fish, and I learned that pickled Herring is really good, plus it’s another source of protein!  It’s surprisingly good with breakfast!

The produce there is amazingly fresh and delicious!  Their avocados were huge and delicious, and made a great accompaniment to the eggs! I had an orange almost every day- they were so flavorful!

Coffee was a “Cappuccino,” unsweetened, but made from a real cappuccino machine, it had frothy milk and caffeine. I just added artificial sweetener and it was perfect!

Lunchtime didn’t offer a great deal of variety.  We usually heard that there were two choices – Falafel and Schnitzel.  Here they are:

In case you’re not familiar with falafel, it is made up of pureed chick peas and herbs and deep fried.  It’s usually served in a pita bread and accompanied by lettuce, salad and sweet peppers.  Sometimes there is a Tahini Sauce to add, which is made from Tahini paste (Middle Eastern sesame paste), lemon juice, olive oil and a few spices.

The other choice is Schnitzel (bottom right picture), which can be made from chicken, pork or veal.  It is pounded thinly and fried and served the same as the falafel.

One day we were offered a “Quesadilla” – a large “tortilla” spread with goat cheese and herbs and olive oil and grilled (Top right picture).  It was good and a nice change.  We found out that the herbs that are spread on each of the lunch choices really didn’t settle well, so we opted out of lunch most days, eating the snacks we had taken with us.

The other choice that was on a menu board was a “cheese stick.”  It wasn’t really flavorful, but the cappuccino that accompanied it made up for its lack of taste!

Now for supper in Israel:

There was always an incredible choice of salad options.  I loved the olives, cucumbers and peppers added into my lettuce.  Also, the olive oil and vinegar option for dressing was a light way to enjoy the salad.

Bread and hummus were present always, as well as a variety of hot dishes with meat or fish.  Rice, Couscous and potatoes were sides offered.  Then the desserts were many and delicious.  Thankfully, they were small portions, so you could try a few different ones without feeling too guilty!

So, we definitely didn’t starve, but at the same time, do you know how good a Longhorn steak and baked potato tasted the night we returned??!!!!  My taste buds love the American cuisine!  I look forward to stirring up some things in my kitchen and warming up my oven for some of our favorite dishes this next week!

Have you traveled outside of the US?  What foods did you love?

Happy to be home!