Rain, Rain, and Peanuts

As I told you yesterday, Succot starts tonight. The weather here is a bit dreary - it's supposed to rain today and tomorrow. The upside to the rain: I don't have to do laundry. Well, that's not really an upside. the REAL upside: I can play in the kitchen ALL DAY LONG! Usually it's too hot to hang out in the kitchen and bake. This holiday, that's exactly what I'm going to do!

I have a lot of food allergies and I've found that it's much easier to just make stuff on my own than it is to buy it in the store... only to find out that it has something in it that I'm allergic to! The common allergy: soy. I'm terribly allergic to tofu and certain soy by-products. I don't break out in hives or anything like that, but my stomach starts getting all funky... let's just put it that way.

The other reason I prefer to make it rather than buy it is because it's often cheaper to make than to buy. While it may not always be a true statement here in Israel, for the most part it is. My delicious sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds) costs a whopping $6.50 at the local grocery stores in America. In Israel... well, you can't find it. It doesn't exist and I loathe almond butter. It tastes like almonds. Not like peanuts. Sunbutter is a great alternative to peanut butter (and has 30% less fat). With peanut prices skyrocketing, you peanut butter lovers may want to take note and start trying to find an alternative.

A few months ago I scoured the Interwebs trying to find a recipe to make sunbutter - by chance, I found one today. I've been trying and trying and trying to make this recipe for about a year and one blogger (PrudentBaby) gives an amazing step-by-step pictorial on how to do it. You can find her recipe here. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm also going to be trying my hand at cinnamon rolls. My dad is amazing at baking cinnamon buns but I seem to lack the patience to do it. I guess I'll be making a lot of things that require dough - focaccia bread and bread rolls to boot. I also have some bananas that I need to get rid of so that's getting thrown into the mix as well.

Here's what I love about Israel - flour is relatively cheap to buy and the self-rising flour is usually made from a potato base, not wheat. I have a sensitivity to wheat-based products right now (thanks to the pregnancy). I'll be buying a lot of flour for this weekend.

Here's an unofficial list of what's being planned:
Cinnamon Buns
Sunbutter
Milky (it's basically pudding with whipped cream on top)
Cheesy focaccia bread
Banana bread

It seems like a lot of this stuff might go in the freezer but it'll likely be consumed by Craig LONG before it even makes it into the fridge. I think my father (and father-in-law) would be proud.

I'll keep you posted on my DIY kitchen experiments.