Tahina (Tahini) Cookies

Adapted the peanut butter cookie recipe from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

1/4 cup creamy tahini
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon of sea salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using an electric mixer, cream tahini and butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add an egg and vanilla, and continue beating until creamy.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder. Gradually add dry ingredients from step 2 to wet ingredients in step 1, beating on low speed.

Cut a big enough piece of plastic wrap and wrap the cookie dough. Refrigerate for at least 8 minutes.

Prepare baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or lightly greased aluminum foil. Place sea salt on a  plate. Roll spoonfuls of cookie dough into balls, rolling each ball between your hands. Roll balls in salt to coat the tops of the cookies.

Place cookie balls 2 inches apart on a prepared baking sheet. Bake until cookies begin to puff up slightly, about 12 minutes, until cookies just brown around the edges and crackle on top. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool at least 10 minutes on baking sheet before transferring cookies to rack to cool completely. This helps the cookies crunch up on the outside while remaining chewy on the inside.

Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Cookies

I would double the recipe – we ate all of the cookies in less than 24 hours.

Ingredients

1/4 cup creamy natural peanut butter
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon of sea salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using an electric mixer, cream peanut butter and butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add an egg and vanilla, and continue beating until creamy.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder. Gradually add dry ingredients from step 2 to wet ingredients in step 1, beating on low speed.

Cut a big enough piece of plastic wrap and wrap the cookie dough. Refrigerate for at least 8 minutes.

Prepare baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or lightly greased aluminum foil. Place sea salt on a  plate. Roll spoonfuls of cookie dough into balls, rolling each ball between your hands. Roll balls in salt to coat the tops of the cookies.

Place cookie balls 2 inches apart on a prepared baking sheet. Bake until cookies begin to puff up slightly, about 12 minutes, until cookies just brown around the edges and crackle on top. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool at least 10 minutes on baking sheet before transferring cookies to rack to cool completely. This helps the cookies crunch up on the outside while remaining chewy on the inside.

Notes

Adapted from Martha Stewart

[In]Fertility

Some people call me a baby whisperer. I’ve always felt this connection to children and babies – even when I myself was a child. I can soothe almost any colicky baby – even if they do not know me. And as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mother. It just felt this was my ultimate path. To raise children and be their mommy. Love and career didn’t come close to my desire to be a mother.

So in 2013, after 6 months of trying to get pregnant after our wedding, my deepest darkest fears were coming true. I was not getting pregnant and I might not be able to conceive or carry a baby. This sent me down a deep dark tunnel that lasted 3.5 years. Life happened around me and I was in a haze. All I could see were the pregnant women or the babies and it made me so very very sad.

Life as an adult has been relatively… easy. Smooth. Serendipitous. I moved countries, found friends, established a career and met my partner for life. Sure, there have been some bumps in the road but for the most part – it all felt like smooth sailing. I have worked hard to get to where I am today, but it didn’t feel like a challenge, it just felt natural. I knew that one day my “luck” would run out – and I just didn’t know when that would be.

So when I realized that we needed to talk to infertility specialists, it dawned on me that my luck had finally run out. And it terrified me – this was the one thing I wanted desperately and possibly could not have.

We worked with one doctor for a short time and realized we were not a fit. Then we met our current specialist (Professor Raul Orvieto from Mercaz Danieli in Givataim) and I felt like we were in good hands. I got pregnant on our first IUI and it sadly ended in a miscarriage 9 weeks later. It took us another 4 months to figure out that I had a monster polyp in my uterus which was preventing me from getting or remaining pregnant. A week after that discovery, it was removed. It took us another 10 months until we finally conceived with the help of IVF.

I’ve been pretty vocal to my friends and colleagues about our fertility struggles – it is important to normalize this topic. Getting pregnant and staying pregnant is not the easiest feat for all of us. The more we talk about it – the more people understand it and can be empathetic to their friends/loved ones/colleagues when they too go through it.

We had the love and support of our family, friends, doctors and therapists to help us through this tough journey. I have to say – I have the most supportive partner in the world and I am beyond blessed that we get to love each other every single day.

And as I finish this post,  my gorgeous little girl is waking up from her morning nap. I am so utterly grateful for the powers that be that brought her into our lives and made us a family.