Apples & Bananas Cake

I've been eyeing up those apples for a while now. 4 apples sitting nicely in a matching green plate on the coffee table waiting for someone to eat them & for the past 3 days I pass by them & think...cake/jam/something? today I thought it was time!

A quick google search for Apple Cake Recipe lead me to see "Apples & Banana's cake", I look over to the kitchen to see if there were bananas in the fruit bowl...2? yes!!!

Now I can make this recipe (which I hear about for the first time but thought was delicious by name only)

Another Chocolate Mousse?

After the last chocolate mousse I made, I still had a pack of chocolate chips. So I thought I'd try to make it again (just to check if it was really easy or it the beginners luck was present that day)

Sawah

I heart Bahrain

It's been a long week in Bahrain.

Karak...

What is Karak?

Karar Tea or Chai Karak is a really heavy red tea with milk and lots of sugar usually made is quick serving food places, costs around 50 fils (around 15 cents) per small paper cup

Eggless Chocolate Mousse

I've always been scared to think about making chocolate mousse, or mousses in general. Their texture makes them seem so difficult to perfect at home. Everytime I looked up a recipe, it had "eggs" as a third ingredient  and that was exactly when I would stop reading & decide let me just order some when I'm out next..UNTIL I saw something on Hershey's website and couldn'tbelieve there was an alternative or better I say an Eggless way to make chocolate moussee..

Breakfast for dinner

Nothing healthier (I believe) than having a breakfast dish for dinner. Few days ago I bought Grape Tomatoes, which are slightly smaller than Cherry Tomatoes (shown below),

Turkish Coffee time..

Sunday is the first day of the working week. Being unwell on Sunday morning is not the best idea (if you had a choice I mean). What could open your sleeping eyes? and switch your brain on? and make sure the signal between eyes, brains and other parts is working and clear? Coffee? not this time...Black coffee? maybe...Red Bull? I'm not into energy drinks...looks like very Bitter Turkish Coffee is it!

Tortellini...

Still in winter food mood, making sure I ate pasta's, creams, sauces, etc... (I blame the weather). Is there a direct relationship between the outside temperature and appetite?
Midnight snack? yes it was the perfect time for a snack, it was very cold, reality TV was on, why not make something? Tortellini? why not? I just bought some few days ago..

Coming from a country that respects comfort and laziness, we buy our own fresh pasta's. Not that there is anything wrong with making them from scratch, it's just that the available ready made version is really good, so why go through the hassle?...

Winter Food

The cold month, or should I say the cold week, usually introduces a number of hearty dishes. Soups, hot sauces, pasta, potatoes, casseroles & lots of them, beans, pies, etc...

Winter-warming cooking seems like the best option to celebrate the 14hrs of non-stop rain. I wanted pasta...cream..something I could see the smoke coming out from when serving and that is the perfect time to put cheese over it and enjoy the melted texture over the soft pasta...yummm That was it! to the kitchen I go!!

No time to eat? snack!

Coming from a healthy wannabe family, snacking on food other than fruits and nuts is a big No-No. Now that we are old enough to make our own food (and decisions), things have changed slightly (when Mom is not around).

Hommus is a very popular dish in the Middle East. Not only it tastes good, but it is east to make, eat & store. All you need now is Chickpeas...

How to Make...

Brrrrr!

It's cold, dark, raining, did I say cold? It is the perfect weather for eating something warm in front of the TV. But before I do so, there is something that I have been craving since the first drop of rain. Hot Chocolate.

Stuffed Basboosa

Basboosa is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made with semolina and yogurt, then soaked in a rose water syrup. One of my all times favourite desserts to have. I love basboosa in all it forms (except the coconut version), I really do.

When I went to Egypt last month, I made sure that everywhere I went I tried thier basboosa, It was kind of my way to grading the cafe's/restaurants. I even brought some back home.

This recipe combines Basboosa and Baklava (sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup). I always looked at the picture in the book and thought to myself, this is good. And it really was...

I enjoy Turkish Coffee

I allow myself 1 cup of coffee a day (mostly during working hours), I can only properly function at work after my cup of caffeine.

Every Ramadan I promise myself that I won't get to attached to coffee and teach myself to live happily without it. However, between the parking lot & the office building, a Starbucks is strategically located with fresh coffee aroma tickling the brain as you try to focus on your destination but never works as you always go back for that latte.

Early last year, I tried to minimise fattening things in my diet. So my regular caramel macchiato became a latte, then a skinny latte, then espresso from the coffee machine at work (which was too light for me) and finally a Turkish Coffee.

If you haven't tried Turkish Coffee yet, I think you are missing out. I always thought Turkish Coffee was bitter, but if you order a medium or sweet, you can live. And as a mean of entertainmet, we read the coffee cups for fun after we finish. Today, it wasn't the best looking cup (but I took pictures anyways).

What Turkish Coffee cup looks like


that's a google picture - I forgot to take one before I start drinking

The Packed Lunch

To take homemade lunch to work or t order anything from anywhere? that is the question...

if you work the normal 9 to 5 (or in my case the 8:30 to 4:30 & beyond) then your choices for lunch are: the sandwich/salad from the trolley or the sandwich/salad from the place downstairs or the tasteless whatever from wherever...by time, you'd get fed up and really bored from the same orders. Lunch then becomes the 15 minutes when you have something to chew.

Once a cookie, now a cupcake

After the success of my Brownies, I thought Why not cookies? I always thought cookies were easier to buy than to make, you can then eat them right away (while walking, shopping, driving, etc...). A day before, I went and got all the ingredients (the right sugar, the right flour,...), now I was technically and mentally prepared to start the mission of making cookies.

First, which recipe to use?
Why not the Hummingbird bakery cookbook.

I followed the recipe very carefully considering that I am making this for the first time (and deep inside I wanted it to be a success), actually I felt proud that I am making a cookie dough from scratch.

on New Year's Day

On Jan 1st, 2011, the day I was supposed to begin writing about food, cooking and eating, I was busy celebrating the new year and meeting friends evey hour of the day. Towards the end of the day, we met at Cafe Ceramique, a place where you choose an item and colours and the staff there bring over the chosen colours and brushes & you just paint away!

So why is this coming up here? I felt bad about ditching my promise on day 1 and decided to make something food/kitchen related. Not sure what the real name of this thing is, I've been refering to it as cutlery holder.

3 hours of flowers drawing (and a week later aftering being baked), I share with you my cutlery holder.

So excited that on the day I went to collect this I made a matching napkin holder, will post a picture once it's ready - and I might go back to make matching salt & pepper shakers ;-)

Chicken Parmigiana

When making something new, I normally read through a number of recipes to see what are the common ingredients, cooking times, additons people introduce and reviews. And by doing so, and when making the same dish over and over again, you can begin to put you own personal touches without disturbing the original taste. Today, I went by the book. The process of making Chicken Parmigiana was very long. The preperation time is longer than cooking and eating times together.

Eggs

So excited about the date, I'm writing 2 entries!

Eggs will be a popular ingredient in this blog for the boys here consider it a post dinner snack. For me, breakfast has to have eggs in order for it to be a complete breakfast. Some of the books that I have contain eggs recipes, it might sound funny, like how creative can you get making eggs? the answer: very...

Boys, this is for you...

11.01.'11

During my last trip to Dubai, I stopped by Kinokuniya (a book store if you're wondering). With no reason or intention to buy anything, I left with 3 books one of which is BAKING one step at a time by Marianne Magnier-Moreno. What made me buy this without even thinking was the pictures. Every step in baking the 70+ recipes had a picture showing how it was done. I felt this was excellent, as one major issue I have with baking is that sometimes I'm not sure if the batter is supposed to look like this? or how is it cut? coloured? covered? and all...

To test the book, I made Brownies (something I never made before because I thought it was too complicated).