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).

Spaghettie Loaf

This is your basic spaghetti bolognese recipe, the only difference being the presentation.

In a saucepan brown 4 chopped onions & 8 chopped garlic cloves (season with salt, black peppers, anything else you like - I put a teaspoon of red chili powder), to it incorporate 500g of minced lamb until brown. Add 2 chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and 1cup of water, cover and leave o cook for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, boil the spaghetti, drain and put a spoon of butter. Then mix with one beaten egg.

How to assemble: in a greased loaf tin, put a layer of the pasta, a layer of the sauce, a bit of grated cheese, then repeat. Bake for 20/25 minutes and flip onto your serving dish.



it looks good enough for me!

 And there you have it, a Spaghetti Loaf.

Personally, I prefer the old school spaghetti, but I guess this is good when you have people over to minimise the mess (and looks presentable as well).

Hope you enjoyed.

Cheers!

Kunafa

It was a long week, followed by a short weekend. I woke up in time for lunch and I had a series of places to be in before bedtime (funeral, charity market, ceramic cafe, laundry) and all were 30 minutes drive away from each other.

If I don't make something now, most probably I won't make anything till the coming weekend (which I realised I will be out of country then). Being a challenge seeker, I wanted to make something that I have never made before & never though about making. So Kunafa was it.

We have a friend that specialised in Kunafa making, being Lebanese of course, and she doesn't ind making for us whenever we felt like it. Kunafa for those not familiar with it, is an Arabic dessert (Levant and Egypt to be specific), it has different variations and different fillings. I chose to make the easiest, made of bread and mozzarella cheese. Everyone was napping after heaving weekend lunch, perfect opportunity to experiment (so if I fail, no one would know).

The recipe required 8 slices of bread, we had only7 & since they were slightly bigger than the regular bread it wasn't an issue. So bread and butter crumbled in the bottom of the greased cake pan, topped by a layer of cheese, then I heated 1cup of milk together with 3 tablespoons of semolina until thicken and poured over the cheese layer (this is to protect the cheese from burning) and into the oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, I made the very easy syrup. 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water & 1 tablespoon of rosewater heated until the sugar is dissolved and then left to cool. The 25 minutes are now over, flip the Kunafa onto the serving dish & pour the syrup over it or serve on the side.

you could decorate the individual slices

And there you have it, a successful Kunafa & a proof that I'm still doing what I promised to do :-)

Cheers

Love Food Hate Waste

Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign from the UK that raises awareness of the need to reduce food waste. The website suggests simple ways/things (meal planners, recipes, storage tips, etc...) to reduce waste. However my favourite part was portioning.

This tool asks you what food you'll be cooking and for how many people (and children) and then the portion calcultor it recommends the portion size. For example: if you are cookin rice for one all you need is 1/4 mug. this is the healthy amount for an adult to have. Also, you can add what will you have with it, for example Chicken, and it'll suggest 140g

As an Arab, we tend to triple the portion per person. If we are inviting 10 people the food will consist of 27 dishes each enough enough for 50 which traditionally makes one the perfect host who then gets extra points forcoming up with ways to dispatch the extra food. The new generation is woking towards amending this rule and working out something that is balanced between traditions, generousity, health, the environment and common sense.

Love Food Hate Waste is definately providing good guidelines to achieve our goal in reducing food waste. By having the two weeks meal planner you would have an idea of how much shopping you need to do beforehands. "Planning meals, keeping the cupboard and fridge stocked with basics and keeping an eye on the 'best before' and 'use by' dates can take some of the hassle out of shopping. It saves us time and money and helps cut down on food waste".

I can go on about the recipes page, but I'll jut quote them: "cookery advisor Caroline Marson and Love Food Hate Waste supporters make economic use of all the odds and ends that invariably get leftover from previous meals or forgotten in the fruit bowl or the back of the fridge". Another great thing is that the meals are categorised into Vegiterians meals, Kids meals, Lunch, Parties, for Freezing, etc.. or choose meals by the main ingredients (meat, fish, cheese, etc..).

By reading the facts & figures you'll realise by managing the food before, during and after cooking not only you'll be saving money, but also reducing the environmental impact in the long run.

I really liked this campaign and hope to see a local or regional version of it soon :)

Enjoy reading http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Eggplants? no problem

After a long day at work (which came after a long holiday), coming back home was the happiest thing to do.
It's almost 6 pm now and I'm not ready to cook anything....let me go to the gym then, I had plans to use gym as an excuse and come back and write about it but unforunately I was way too tired (in other words took a nap/or fainted).

By the time I managed to get myself together the time was nearing 8 o'clock, everyone had eaten already but I was hungry. With no time to defrost or to do anything complicated, the internal voice said: go vegetarian. I look over to inspect the farm my mom bought and all I could see was the shiny eggplants. So eggplants dinner it was.

First Attempt

Promising to commit isn't easy. Especially straight after new year's weekend.

I was tired, bored, home with everyone here feeling the same....then I thought, let me start today, it's only the 2nd (I kind of gave up when I didn't do anything on the 1st Jan). Close to 7 pm I searched through the books I have for something I can make using the very little stuff we had at home, no one was willing to volunteer to go to the supermarket and I definitely wasn't willing to drive either, I found a very simple chicken recipe that didn't require a lot of ingredients, Chicken Arayes Wraps. By reading the method it sounded easy, actually it was, apart from the time-consuming chicken boiling part during which I managed to make my usual Banana Cake (which I got from a Kids Cookbook I was given when I was 11).

decoration as per the picture in the book