Remember the last green Tex-Mex dip on TMTP? I’ve got another one today.

I’m visiting my family now for my sister’s graduation, and we need lots of party foods.

This dip is my mom’s knock-off version of Chuy’s super-secret creamy jalapeño dip. It’s spicy (though adjustable) and toned down with tangy buttermilk. We had it for lunch today with quesadillas and carrots. Make a big batch – it’s great for a crowd.

Would you like more party food ideas? Sausage and cheese balls. Honeydew melon salsa. Beet hummus. Almond crescents.

Creamy Ranch Jalapeño Dip

makes about 4 cups

-2 packages dry Ranch dressing mix (like this)

-1 c. buttermilk

-2 c. mayonnaise

-1 bunch of cilantro, stems removed

-canned jalapeños to taste – We used about 8 oz.

Method

Add all ingredients to your food processor or blender. (If you’re worried about making it too spicy, go easy on the jalapeños at first). Taste, and adjust jalapeño amount.

The dip will thicken if chilled an hour or two before serving.

Variation: My mom plans to try adding a tomatillo sauce or stewed tomatillos to this dip. Please report back to us if you test this option out!

Remember this ridonkulous photo of my brother?

Well, I am hereby creating a new series on TMTP. I’m naming it Ridonkulous Photos of My Brother. For the purposes of his safety, security, and street cred, I shall not be revealing my brother’s first name. However, his middle name is Ridonk – just sayin’.

Now, behold:

Today I hope to dispel a commonly held belief, one that you, in fact, might believe, namely, that living abroad is glamorous. While it’s true that living abroad is awesome, it is certainly not glamorous. Nor is it one big party (unless you’re an American undergraduate studying abroad).

For example, if you weren’t living abroad or least very far away from a place you visit often, you wouldn’t have to deal with these problems, all of which I had to deal with in the last six hours, while in transit:

• Hiking boots won’t fit in suitcase. Must wear them for the next 48 hours until arrival.
• The electronics checks list: three cell phones – check. Three European adapters – check. One camera – check. Four chargers – check. One US adapter – check. And so on.
• Hitchhike (yes, yes) to bus to half-hour walk to shared taxi to two hours of security, all with approximately 250 lbs. of flesh and suitcase.
• Enduring the stare-down of the petite security girl as she inspects, nay judges, my suitcases, which are filled, not with summer clothing appropriate to my destination of Florida, but instead with a huge winter coat, a down comforter, 30 clay lamps, 12 bags of spices, and, inexplicably, a box grater.
• And this process ends, of course, with the inevitable question OF MY LIFE: “So, umm, why do you study Hebrew anyway? Actually, why do you even study Jewish history?”

NO! The question with no answer! Thrown at me at 4:45 am!

Oh, did I mention that all of this has to be done between the hours of 1:00 am to 6:00 am?

No!?

Well, good morning from Ben Gurion Airport! It’s 5:13 am and time for Israeli cheesecake!

Now, this recipe I made at a time when living abroad was awesome. I was at the Dead Sea with a group of friends, only a couple of weeks ago. It was late and dark, and we were barbecuing kebab and chicken and sausages, while looking out over the eerie lights of Jordan, only a few miles beyond us across the sea. Of course we needed dessert so I brought cheesecake that I made at home.

I’m sharing this recipe now for two reasons, first, it’s perfect for Shavuot, considering that it is essentially cheese wrapped in butter, and, in fact, Janna Gur wrote the recipe specifically for the holiday. I’m also sharing it because there are lots of other celebrations coming up that deserve extra-special treats: graduations, Memorial Day, and Mother’s Day.

A word about the cake itself. Don’t go into this expecting New York-style cheesecake. Israeli cheesecake is fluffier and lighter and perhaps more custard-like. It is topped with a crunchy, buttery topping, which you’ll want to steal pieces of before you serve the whole thing. Like New York cheesecake, though, it needs to be chilled for several hours before serving.

I’ve Americanized the measurements, and I offered good substitution suggestions for a couple of the ingredients which you can’t find outside of Israel.

Israeli Cheesecake

recipe from Janna Gur

Ingredients

Crust

-1 stick (8 tbsp.) butter

-2 sleeves of petit-beurre cookies (club crackers, butter cookies, or an equal amount of shortbread will work), crumbled

-2 tbsp. sugar

Filling

-1 stick (8 tbsp.) butter

-1 c. sugar

-1 egg

-1 egg yolk

-1 c. gvina levana, a.k.a. white cheese (I used 9%).

NON-ISRAEL SUB: 5 tbsp. plain yogurt beaten with 3 tbsp. cream cheese OR 5 tbsp. cream cheese beaten with 3 tbsp. milk

-1 c. sour cream

Method

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Melt one stick of butter in the microwave, and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add the crumbled cookies and 2 tbsp. sugar. Combine well, with your fingertips if necessary. Press half of the mixture evenly into the bottom of an 8×11-in. baking dish. Put this in the freezer to set.

In your mixer, cream another stick of butter and a cup of sugar together for the filling. Add the egg and egg yolk, and beat for another minute or two. Next, add the gvina levana or substitute, and the sour cream. Beat until the mixture is smooth.

Remove the crust from the freezer, and spread the cheese filling over top. Sprinkle the remaining crust crumble over the cheesecake.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour or until the top is golden and the cheese filling is no longer liquid. If the cookies begin to become too brown, cover the cheesecake with foil for the remainder of the bake-time.

After baking, refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 6 hours, long enough for the cheese to set and the cake to chill, before serving.

I finally updated my “About” page here.

Now you can figure out what’s up in 2012, rather than 2009, when I first wrote the thing.

Awesome.

Some days are entirely built around the anticipation of being able to sit down to a nice dinner long about 7:30 pm. It seems to me that days often built out of two things: routine (turn off the alarm clark, brush your teeth, get dressed, coffee, email) and a hundred million moments of feeling (happy, sad, angry, bored, excited, and anticipatory). For me, sometimes, I notice that all of these minute actions and feelings lean forward to the meal. That might happen on days where a higher percentage of those feelings are of boredom or exhaustion, and other times I know that I’m simply in a mode of high anticipation, for a special recipe or company. Sometimes I’m just ready to sit in from of my computer while I eat.

Here’s a beef stew I made a few days ago. It’s of Sephardic origin, similar to hamin, but it doesn’t require quite as much cooking. And bonus, if you have the spices on hand (spices when aren’t very exotic), it’s more or less a budget recipe since the beef is the only expensive ingredient.

We altered this a little bit, to make it slightly healthier, and we cooked it over coals for the last two hours. This is a really good, really easy recipe to serve for a dinner with company. It takes about 3 1/2 hours to make, but the preparation time is short, maybe 1/2 hour or so.

Sofrito (Sephardic Beef Stew)

from The Book of New Israeli Food by Janna Gur

serves about 8

Ingredients

-3 lb. beef brisket, cut into big chunks

-1/3 c. olive oil, divided

-8 small whole onions, peeled

-10 large cloves garlic, peeled

-3/4 c. chicken/beef stock or water

-1 tsp. paprika

-1 tsp. turmeric

-1/2 tsp. curry

-1/2 tsp. white pepper

-1/2 tsp. allspice

-salt and black pepper, to taste

-8 potatoes

-oil for deep frying, optional

Method

Heat 4 tbsp. olive oil in a wide saucepan over med-high heat. Brown the beef chunks on all sides.

Pour the remaining olive oil into a large oven-safe pot. Coat of the bottom of the pot with the oil, and put the browned beef, drippings, onions, and garlic into the pot. In a separate bowl, mix together the stock/water and all the spices. Pour over the meat, and cover the pot. Bring the water to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook on a simmer for about a hour. If the liquid gets to low, add a little more to the pot.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Slice the potatoes into uniform wedges about 1/2-in in thickness at the thickest point.

[At this point, you can deep fry the potatoes which helps them hold their shape when they will be baked later. We decided to skip this step. Perhaps we lost some of the deep-fried goodness, but we didn't miss it one bit. For the optional deep frying, heat oil for frying, and frying the potato wedges in batch. Drain on paper towels.]

Layer the fried or unfried potatoes on top of the onions and meat. Use a spoon to lightly baste the potatoes. Bake the dish, covered, for about two hours in the oven – OR – bake, covered, over coals for about two hours. During this process, you’ll want to open the baking dishes two or three times to check the liquid-level, to baste the potatoes, and to rearrange any meat that isn’t covered in sauce.

When the meat and potatoes are soft, the sofrito is ready.

Note: Janna Gur, the cookbook author, notes that you can sub the beef with 16 chicken drumsticks. I haven’t tried this – please report back if you do!