Allergy survival guide!

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(for illustrative purposes only)

I've been managing my allergies a lot better lately, and I'd love to share my finds with you!

Some of these things ship FREE to Israel, and I'm trying to maximize that to help you find a good deal.

I've found that sometimes the Amazon deals are the PERFECT solution to finding what I'm looking for without traveling to multiple cities to check all the malls, AND if we do it right, we can get higher quality items and still save money! And with the new, higher tax free limit, I feel confident that we'll all be able to save more money!

Here are some of the options for dealing with allergies in Israel that I found with free shipping (although sometimes free shipping is limited to a certain size, color, or variation, so be sure to check carefully before you order):

Mattress encasers are super helpful but very expensive locally. Here's another option for you to check out 

Saline rinses are highly recommended to keep airborne allergies from ruining your life 

Consider getting hypoallergenic titanium flex glasses frames online that you can then get lenses for at any local optical store

Hypoallergenic medical tape is a very important household item to keep around if you have sensitive skin

Cetaphil moisturizer is a sensitive skin essential!

Fragrance free laundry detergent - these sheets are so easy to use and completely mess-free

Air purifiers REALLY help - if buying from overseas, make sure it's rated for 220V OR uses a USB cord for the power source. Here's one that's portable and battery powered (recharges using a USB cable)

Lotion tissues are ESSENTIAL! If you're up for ordering A LOT at a time, you can save by ordering from overseas! I compared with Rami Levi's lotion tissue prices and if you take advantage of the "order 2 or more, get 5% off" deal, you'll pay several shekels less per package than what I'm seeing as a standard local price.

I'll try to add more deals as I find them! Happy Savings!

Want more deals? Join my groups!

• Great Deals Israel WhatsApp group
• Kosher Frugal Facebook Group
• Israel Deals Made Easy (in English) Facebook Group
• Live in Israel. Shop Online Facebook Group

Chick Pea/Chummus Fritters (Vegan/Pareve, Gluten Free)

I made a ton of homemade chummus on Friday, and it was more than we could possibly use up quickly enough (homemade chummus spoils much faster than store-bought).

So today I decided to see if it could be repurposed into Chick Pea Fritters.

And it worked - they are quite flavorful!

I made a rather large batch - here's what I did:

Chick Pea Fritter Recipe

3 cups chummus (already made)
2/3 cup brown rice flour
spices - salt, black pepper, granulated garlic (and whatever else you want), to taste

Mix well.
Heat some oil in a frying pan. Drop the chick pea mixture by the large spoonful onto the frying pan, leaving a bit of space between each fritter, and pan fry on both sides. Continue until you've used all the mixture!

Serve hot. Or cold. With whatever dipping sauce you like (we use techina, or ketchup. I'm sure it can work with other sauces too)!

These make a great snack or can even be part of a meal.
Now I just need to remember to make these anytime we have leftover homemade chummus - before it spoils!

Black Bean Salad

This is one of my new favorite salads. I love dishes that are simple, easy, dairy-free, and wheat free, soy-free, and nut-free so that we all can enjoy them together.

The inspiration for this dish was a salad I had years ago when we lived in Texas, and I decided to finally figure out my own dressing for it - for truly the dressing is what completes this salad!

For the salad:

2 cups black beans, already cooked and drained
2 cups frozen corn kernels, lightly steamed or roasted and cooled
2-4 red peppers, diced (you can use a mix of red/green peppers, too if you like)
4 tomatoes, cut into cubes
(the original dish had raw onions in it, but raw onions are a major source of food poisoning, so they scare me, and my picky family won't eat it anyway)
(You can totally adjust this and use more or less of something as you like - go ahead and make this "your own"! - it's great with acocado, or lettuce, or quinoa, or all, or whatever inspires you!)


For the dressing:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
juice of 1 orange or clementine (I had a clementine in the house)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
Chili pepper flakes (to taste)
Smoked paprika (to taste, I used about 2 tsp)
salt (to taste)
ground black pepper (to taste)

Place all the vegetables in a pretty salad bowl. Mix the dressing together in a jar, bowl, or container. Mix really well. Pour dressing over vegetables and gently toss it all together. Serve cold. 

This salad can actually be a meal in and of itself, or is a great accompaniment to anything at all.
Let me know if you give it a try!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Squares (Gluten free, as well)

It's been a few months since I decided to go wheat-free as an experiment. And I finally decided that if I was going to make dessert, it should be something I can eat, too.
This may not have been my best decision - it is so much easier for me to exercise willpower when something is COMPLETELY off limits. But when it's allowed in small quantities? Uh oh.

But I did it. I made nut-free, pareve, wheat-free chocolate chip squares.
And they are pretty good, if I say so myself, and even got Michael's approval... So I'll share the recipe with you! (and since it's nut-free, unlike many wheat-free baked goods, it's pretty frugal!) (Oh, and all you need is a bowl and a wooden spoon to mix these, no fancy mixer required, because some days I am just too lazy to pull out the KitchenAid!)

Vegan, Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Squares

4 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 cup warm-to-hot water
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar (I used raw cane sugar)
1 cup potato starch
1 cup chick pea flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
chocolate chips, as many as you like - I used 1/2 a bag

First, mix the ground flaxseed with the water and allow to stand for 10 minutes. Then add oil, vanilla extract, and sugars. Mix well. Add remaining dry ingredients (except chocolate chips), and mix well with a spoon. Fold in chocolate chips. 
Transfer to 9X13 inch baking pan (you can use a bigger pan and make thinner squares - totally up to you!) and bake at 175 C for about 25 min. Make sure it's done (you want the pan to be fully set - no jiggly middles - when you take it out) before you remove it from the oven! BUT if you underbake it, you're ok. There are no raw eggs to worry about!

Enjoy your "shehakol" chocolate chip squares! (Perfect for sukkot outings where there's no guarantee you'll have a kosher sukkah!) 

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Vegan "Ice Cream"! (free of gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, and added oils!)

I miss ice cream. It's probably the hardest thing to give up when you give up dairy, at least for me. Especially when it's been such a LONG, HOT summer and everyone around me seems to always be finding their way to a scoop (or two) of ice cream!

So this week, someone suggested that we bring vanilla ice cream to a local get-together, as it would go well with all the apple-themed desserts that we're having there. And I did NOT want to be left out again, so I volunteered to create some vegan, nut free "ice cream" to share. And then I wondered if I was crazy to commit to this endeavor!

Yeah.
Well. What happened was this:

Non-Dairy Vanilla Bean Frozen Dessert
1 cup chick pea cooking liquid (reduced)*-see note below
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
2-3 vanilla beans

First, I put the chick pea liquid and cream of tartar in my mixing bowl, and set it to whip for a good 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime I put the sugar and vanilla beans into my coffee grinder and ground them up well.

Once the chick pea liquid had magically transformed, I added the sugar-vanilla bean mixture and whipped it some more. When it was all incorporated and seemed like it was as stiff as it was going to get, I scooped it out into a container, covered it, and dug out a spot for it in the freezer!


*Note: If you are using the cooking liquid from home-cooked chick peas, you will need to remove all the chick peas from the pot, bring the liquid back to a boil, and then simmer for about 1/2 an hour. You will see it "reduce" in volume by about 1/3. It should be about the right consistency at that point. Apparently, the liquid from canned chick peas is often already the right consistency. Done!

Now I just need it to freeze!

And it turns out it is not only dairy free and nut free, it's also gluten free, soy free and free of any added oils!

(I did taste it before putting it in the freezer, it was light and fluffy and very promising as a non-dairy frozen dessert!)

Have you ever tried out this new "aquafaba" technique? I'd love to hear about your creations with this amazing liquid we all just used to spill down the sink! (Making this creation "super frugal", as well!)