Tidbits

Especially for Shavuot, Tnuva is marketing its traditional kit to prepare a baked or non-baked cheesecake.

By EVA BEN-DAVID
Especially for Shavuot, Tnuva is marketing its traditional kit to prepare a baked or non-baked cheesecake (NIS 26). In the box you'll find a cream cheese mix, biscuit crumbs, forest-fruit mix to top the cake and instructions how to prepare the cheesecake. You'll have to add ingredients such as whipped cream, butter, sugar, eggs and gelatin. New this year is the kit to prepare a tiramisu cake (NIS 29); this box contains two types of cream cheese, whipped cream and biscuits, plus instructions. You will have to add instant coffee, sugar and some cocoa powder. Tnuva also has a limited edition of cream cheese with Roquefort or with walnuts (NIS 9.49 for a 200-gr. container), and a cream cheese in the Napoleon series, containing 30 percent fat, with pepper, onion and garlic (NIS 10.29 for 225 gr.). In the Hachef Halavan series, you can find grated cheese that is especially suitable for pizza, but good also for other dishes with cheese. And due to the demand, Tnuva is finally putting crème fraîche back on the shelves, which is good news for chefs. Strauss also has a lot of special offers, such as a reusable box containing three 250-gr. containers of Ski cream cheese, together with a booklet of recipes assembled by the Lehem Erez bakeries (NIS 18.96). New this year is the Symphonia cream cheese with roasted tomatoes (NIS 9.17 for 200 gr.), and Lorenzo ravioli filled with feta cheese or with goat cheese (NIS 19 for a 400-gr. package). Also new are the salads with pecan nuts or with cubes of nectarine (NIS 12). The Ben Ami bakeries have a choice of delicious cheesecakes and pastries, for example cheesecake with crumbs on top, a cake covered with chocolate or tiramisu. You can also find cheesecake with raisins, cheese brownies, pie with dill and chives and a wide range of vegetable quiches, also with whole wheat crust. The salted cookies with different types of cheese are quite yummy. The goodies at Ben Ami are not cheap, but worth the splurge. The English Cake bakeries have the classic versions of cheesecake with crumbs or with chocolate, cheesecakes with fresh fruits such as lemon, strawberry, passion fruit or blackberries (prices starting at NIS 48), as well as cheesecakes without sugar. You can also find blintzes with cheese and raisins or with chocolate and nuts (prices starting at NIS 20 for four), or a variety of cheese cookies. If you're looking for an extra dish for your Shavuot meal, you can buy quiches and lasagnas as well (prices starting at NIS 40). Osem offers a mix to make blintzes, enabling you to prepare them fast. On the back of the box you'll find some suggestions for the filling, such as sweet cheese, banana or apple with cinnamon and nuts. The price for a box of blintzes mix is NIS 13.85. In the frozen food department you can find Ma'adanot blintzes, filled with cheese and raisins (NIS 27 for 500 gr.) and mini cheese burekas made out of whole wheat (NIS 24 for 700 gr.). If a cheese platter is part of your Shavuot meal, you can serve it with different types of crackers. Bagel Bagel has a new variety, whole-wheat with rosemary (NIS 8 for a 160-gr. package). Other flavors are crackers with sesame seeds or with flax seeds. Our favorite fruit, available only during a short period of time, is definitely cherries, and they can be part of the desserts for the holiday or be an ingredient in your pies. Bereshit offers prepacked, washed fruits that are ready to eat. The Bereshit cherries come from the Golan and Galilee, and cost NIS 33 to NIS 39 a kilo.