Lahmacun

So now I work at a cooking store.  My coworkers own every cool cooking tool that exists, and one was nice enough to lend me their Emile Henri pizza stone.  After baking a bunch of wonderful soda bread, I decided to try to reproduce a delicious flatbread pizza I'd eaten in Istanbul last summer.

I doctored the topping, adding more chili pepper flakes, cumin, and red bell pepper with the tomatoes.

Then I baked it on the pizza stone, making a really crispy crust.

It was delicious.

I will add the recipe soon.

Hubby's birthday!

In honor of Paul's birthday, I baked him America's Test Kitchen's Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake (via Annie's Eats).

Yum. 

It was so good I forgot to take a picture of a slice showing all the layers (you can almost see them in the second picture.)

Delicious.

AF's Fabulous Chicken Salad

As promised in my previous post, here is my favorite chicken salad recipe, courtesy of my good friend, AF. 

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
honey
2 granny smith apples
2 small cucumbers
1 shallot
1 red bell pepper (optional, can be roasted too)
dijon mustard
mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste
turmeric and cumin to taste


Coat chicken in honey.  Broil 4-5 minutes on each side, until done.  Let cool. Shred into bowl.  Meanwhile, dice apple, cucumber, shallot, and red pepper if using. Add to bowl with chicken.  Season with mustard, mayo, and spices to taste.  Chill and enjoy!

The High Holidays!

Since it was just me and the hubby this Rosh Hashanah, I decided to go all out.

Two kinds of challah.

Apple:

And my regular challah recipe, but made roll-sized and round!

[The leftover apple stuffed challah makes fantastic bread pudding!]

For the first night, I made a persian chicken, apple and cherry stew, a khoresh.  It was a bit too sweet, and a bit too watery, but the chicken was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

The persian rice with crispy topping [tahdig] was more successful.

We had a really nice Riesling to go with the meal.

Since I was trying to be economical, lunch consisted of my friend AF's fabulous chicken and apple salad (recipe will follow in another post!)

Night two started out with the traditional apples and honey with an unusual fruit (starfruit in this case, I couldn't find pomegranate):

There is a Jewish tradition to eat a "new" fruit on the second night of any holiday.  Some popular ones are pomegranate, star fruit, kumquat, etc.

We had a traditional brisket for dinner.

All in all a delicious holiday with lots of leftovers!

Brudder's Birthday!

In honor of my baby brother's birthday, I cooked his favorite dinner:

Baked potatoes, Steak, and Asparagus:

And when I say cooked, I mean my dad grilled.

But I did make an amazing birthday cake! 

Annie's Eats Cookies and Cream Cake

Since Brudder is an incorrigible chocoholic who eats gallons of Cookies and Cream ice cream every summer, I decided to combine his loves, to delicious result.

Despite trying to frost with warm frosting and almost pulling the cake apart in the process, a quick trip to the fridge to solidify and some careful doctoring resulted in this:

Which my brother seemed to enjoy:

Cut yourself a slice!

Sometime in July

Eager to relieve the glories of Dad's kitchen, and to live down past kitchen disasters once and for all, to save face in front of my brother and his friend A, I borrowed my Dad's girlfriend's Syrian Jewish cookbook and went to town.  On the menu:

Phyllo triangles stuffed with spinach [Im'warah b'Sbanech]

Rice with crispy bottom [Riz]

Meatballs in tomato cumin sauce [Kibbe m'Kamuneh b'Bandoorah]

Jewish Sabbath bread [Challah]

Pistachio rosewater cornstarch pudding [El Mazeeyah]  {Least successful dish, tasted more like a palate cleanser than a proper dessert}
Phyllo nut pastry [Baklawa]


And no dinner party would be complete without a Menage a Trois!
Just kidding...

Simple, Classic French "Gateau au Yaort" (Yogurt Cake)

It seems everyone has a family recipe for "Gateau au Yaourt" (pronounced gah-toe oh yah-oor).  You might ask what is so special about a yogurt cake?  It is a recipe, whose measurements are proportional by volume, so it is easy to remember and even simpler to make. 

Ingredients
1 single-portion container of plain yogurt
2 eggs
vegetable oil
sugar
flour
1 sachet baking powder (11g, or appx. .5 oz or 1T)
pinch of salt
vanilla extract
grease or spray for pan

Supplies
Baking dish
mixing bowl
spoon
 
Flavoring options: rum, diced apple, sliced banana, pineapple, cinnamon, cocoa, nutella, nuts, extracts, etc...

Directions


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160C).

Crack two eggs into the bowl, gently beat.
Empty yogurt container into bowl, stir into eggs.
Fill yogurt container halfway with oil, stir into eggs.
Splash in some vanilla extract.

Rinse and dry yogurt container.

Measure 2 yogurt containers of sugar and stir into liquids.
Measure 3 yogurt containers of flour and stir into batter.
Add sachet of baking powder and pinch of salt, stir into batter.

Add your desired "extras".

Pour smooth batter into greased baking dish.  Bake for 1 hour.
Enjoy!