Afternoon Delight

So I have been meaning to start this blog for a few weeks now but my laziness combined with my borderline alcoholism work has made it difficult. However, my surprise iPad has made blogging a subway activity which is much more convenient for my daily habits routine.

So my boyfriend-who I will further refer to as "the Israeli" (original-no....accurate- aaaabsolutely) decided to host a beautiful brunch this past Saturday. He happens to be an excellent chef which is both attractive and practical, given my lack of cooking skills coupled with my need to eat at least once an hour. The only problem is that all of his friends continually speak Hebrew and I, the little American, do not. This makes brunch with them equivalent to dining with Ewoks, although not as cute. The good news is that all it takes is a good meal and some decent wine to make me happy, so all was well.

To start of we had Sabich. For those of you readers who are not adept in Israeli food, let me explain:
Sabich is an Iraqi dish which Israeli's like to feast on some Saturday mornings. It must include eggplant, hard boiled egg, potatoes, parsley, tahini and pita bread to "wipe" it up with.

We decided to take the more healthy approach and instead of frying the eggplant, we cooked it in the oven.

WARNING!!! DEPENDING ON THE SENSITIVITY OF YOUR FIRE ALARM, YOU WILL BE ANNOYED BY THE CONSTANT RINGING.

The carbon monoxide alarm was going off as well, but, hey, I'm still here.....

Then scrape out the eggplant, add some olive oil and salt and voila! Behold the golden eggplant!

On separate dishes, so everyone can add their desired amounts, put the hard-boiled eggs (cooked for at least 8 hours), the tahini (preferably Lebanese), roasted potatoes, parsley, some salt and pepper and the deliciousness is all yours....
Easy enough
Drooling yet? If not, let me proceed. Next we had Shakshuka, which if you live in NYC then you probably have had:

Fry up some garlic (about 8 cloves), add some oil, 2 tablespoons of sweet paprika and cook until golden.

These are the times when I wish our technology was sophisticated enough for you to smell the aromas wafting through the apartment because, if you could, I guarantee you would be licking your computer screen right about now.

Add about 6 tomatoes, either from a can or fresh and cook for 20 minutes. Next you can add jalapenos to your desired spiciness, add a half cup of oil, some black pepper and cook for another 10 minutes.

When adding the eggs, only use half of them with the whites still attached. The egg whites can absorb the flavor of the sauce and, well, that's the best part so just don't do it. And here you are......

So beautiful......
To add to this meal, we prepared mimosas- which are as necessary as milk in you cereal in a proper brunch and a bottle of amazing wine, that I accidentally opened and was later reprimanded for. (Seriously people, if you don’t want me to drink something, then you must hide it, otherwise it’s going right down the gullet).

And that was my beautiful Saturday afternoon which I ended with a long nap. Now that I am sufficiently sweating through my winter coat on the subway and the guy next to me has begun picking his nose with a pen cap, this post is officially over until my next meal…..in approximately 5 minutes.