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White Chocolate Almond Cookies-Gluten Free

Saturday 14 Apr 2012 | 1 Comment
Filed under: Holidays, Sweets Tags: , ,
almond cookies

By: Deanna Linder A few weeks back I had quite an eye opening experience. I was at Danya’s house one afternoon when her husband was out of town. It was just about bath time and I requested to help her with the typical house chores while she bathed the boys. Let me fold laundry, do dishes, tidy up, I said. She hesitated and then finally gave me a job to do. She hands me sheets and asks me to change one of her kid’s beds.  Perfect. Just after getting the first corner tucked in, I feel a pull at the other side. There she (Danya) was, helping me, helping her. It was a weird moment; I actually saw myself in her. All of the times my family/friends have tried to help me with something, and me, being the control freak I am, didn’t let them do it all the way. How many times (not many) have I asked friends to bring something to a party I throw, and when I do, I change the serving plate or add seasoning. Besides our names starting with D and being control-challenged, we have a whole lot in... 
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(Matzah) Lasagna- Two Ways

Friday 6 Apr 2012 | No Comments
Filed under: Holidays, Main course Tags: , , ,
ragu matzah lasagna

By: Danya Weiner A week of having to eat only unleavened bread (matzah) poses a challenge to all home cooks. Every year I discover though, that there actually is something to do with the stuff, besides the good old matzah brie (an egg and matzah scramble). A few years ago I shot a promotional Passover magazine sponsored by the Israeli meat company,“Adom-Adom”. The chef of the company, Avi Shteinitz, created a surprisingly tasty ragu matzah lasagna. Since then, it’s been in my Passover repertoire and I always get major compliments, the most prominent being the revelation of how similar matzah becomes to lasagna noodles in texture once baked. For this holiday I decided to create a dairy version of the matzah lasagna using the wonderful seasonal greens available during this spring season. Spinach leaves, fresh garlic and leeks found their way into the lasagna, along with fresh ricotta and mozerrella. It was obvious that the veg lasagna version would be just as delicious as the meat... 
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Gingit's Chopped Liver and Some Herring

Tuesday 4 Oct 2011 | 1 Comment
Filed under: Holidays, Salads, Side Dishes Tags: , ,
herring

By: Deanna Linder Growing up in the states, to be defined as Jewish, you had to fulfill certain criteria. As in all places and religions, there were different levels of observing and in our community it goes as follows; there are the orthodox, who generally stick to their own, there are the conservatives who send their kids to Jewish school, go to synagogue on the high holidays and sometimes on Fridays and there are the reform who go to synagogue only the high holidays. Then there are those who call themselves Jewish, and practice their Judaism only through food- having dinner on the holidays and visiting the Jewish deli. I grew up somewhere in between the last three categories. I went to Jewish school, but only to synagogue on high holidays (if that), and ate a lot at the Jewish deli. For this high holy day, Yom Kippur, I decided to share with our readers some very “Jewish” food. Chopped liver is one of those foods which took me some time to like. I may have tasted it a few times... 
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Banitsa- Bulgarian Feta Pastry

Wednesday 1 Jun 2011 | 3 Comments
Filed under: General, Holidays, Main course Tags: , ,
Banitsa

By: Danya Weiner A year and a half ago, when I started researching blogs before creating this one, I would find one blog which would lead me to the next, and that one would lead me to another one, and it would go on like this until I had seen/read/researched too many to remember. Almost every blog has a links section, with links to other blogs, which really surprised me at first. Since I come from a very competitive line of work, I was delighted to see that in the blogosphere, the rules were quite different. In light of this camaraderie and the upcoming Jewish holiday, Shavout (the celebration of the harvest) we decided to join forces with two other popular Israeli bloggers, Maya Marom from Bezek Alim and Roni de Leede from Home in Style (both blogs are only in Hebrew). We met at Roni’s beautiful, pastoral house, where we cooked and photographed three recipes, one from each blog. On Shavuot it is customary to prepare dairy-oriented dishes, so I decided to make Banitsa, a Bulgarian filo... 
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Chestnut Stuffing

Wednesday 24 Nov 2010 | 1 Comment
Filed under: Entrees, Holidays, Main course, Side Dishes Tags: , , , , ,
Chesnut Stuffing

By: Deanna Linder From the time you are in preschool in America, children are taught about the holiday of Thanksgiving. We were explained the story of the pilgrims, who came from England on their ships, who happened to meet the friendly "Indians" upon their arrival to America. The two foreign groups then decided to have a feast to celebrate the pilgrims’ arrival and the Indian's making of new friends. This large feast included the eating of turkey, yams, cranberries and other such native items to the East Coast. Ironically, as you get older, you find out that absolutely none of this is true. A. the Indians weren't in fact Indians, but the indigenous people to America, also known as Native Americans. B. The pilgrims did not make friends with the Indians, instead slaughtering them in an attempt to civilize and claim stake to the occupied land. C. One can easily concur that given A and B, that there was no such feast with turkey and the likes. So once you figure this out, you are left with... 
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  • Food photography and food styling is what we do for a living. Day in and day out we work for a variety of clients, creating images made to order. This blog gives us the opportunity to work for ourselves, something that truly exhibits our work, through photos and stories.

    A love for aesthetics and passion for food… that’s what makes Matkonation.

    Enjoy, Danya (photography) and Deanna (styling)

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