Day 23 brings rain to the desert!

It doesn't rain in Israel very often (hence sandstorms), but today we were blessed with a whole day of heavy showers.  My youngest son, who apparently has no memory of the first 6 years of his life in frigid, snowy NY, woke up this morning and said "Well, clearly we cannot go to school today because of this rain."  Hahaha

Here is how he dressed himself to "brave the weather":

It was 65 degrees Farenheit. Brrr

So as promised, here is the Vegan Lasagna I mentioned yesterday:

As I said, this is literally the most time-consuming lasagna recipe the world has ever know.  It IS really good though and I would have to say that yes, it was worth the effort.  Just don't start it like right before dinnertime because you'll end up ordering take-out.

The recipe is here.   It is from The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn:  http://www.theengine2diet.com/

Basically it's whole wheat noodles, layered with tomato sauce, a mashed sweet potato layer, a thawed frozen spinach layer and then a crumbled tofu-vegetable layer containing onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, corn, broccoli, bell peppers and lots of fresh herbs.  Is there a vegetable NOT in this lasagna?  I think not.  The top is covered with freshly sliced tomatoes and then ground raw cashews which make such a fragrant, delicious smell when they are baking and really do give a convincing parmesan-ish taste and texture to the top.

The gray weather made me sleepy (or maybe it was the giant trembling Labrador Retriever wedged under my bed all night who I clearly should have named Thunderphobia?)  Anyway, I made myself a pot of fresh Chai and drank the entire thing.

Vegan Chai
4 cups water
1 T black tea
1 cinnamon stick
6 green cardamom pods
1 tsp fennel seeds
3 black peppercorns
pinch ground cloves

Boil everything together 5-7 minutes.  Then add:
2 cups non-dairy milk (I used oat milk as in the picture)
2 tsps maple syrup or to taste

Boil a bit more, strain and drink.  Yum.

Lastly, I am really bothered by the lack of a spell check button.  Do I have like a ton of spelling mistakes each post??  How can there be a blog platform without a spell check?  It used to be here and now it's gone.  What the heck?