Friday, September 19, 2008

Prepare for the invasion...

Of dogs that is. David's whole family is coming out this weekend, which will make for a total of 7 dogs in our house! *shock* His sister and her husband, plus two dogs are on their way up from Georgia and his parents and younger sister, plus 2 dogs, are coming out for the weekend since they still don't have power in Cincy from Ike. So add those 4 dogs to our 3, is going to make for a crazy night! Thankfully I already had the house mostly clean since I knew his parents were coming out anyways. So I guess you could say we are having a mini family reunion before we move.

Moving, yes I said it. David got a job offer in Cincinnati last night. He said he will give them an answer by Tuesday, which will of course be yes. He is trying to see if he gets another job offer from his other interview and try to get a better salary. So it looks like we will be moving by the middle of next month. Of course, this couldn't have come at a better time, since I now need my wisdom teeth taken out! I feel a very stressful month coming on! PLEASE PRAY for my sanity!

Fatteh with Hommos - فتة الحمص



Finally I'm back!!!! Gosh it's been a long vacation, but now I'm back to cooking and blogging!
Fatteh is a dish that has fried or toasted bread in it, as well as plain yogurt (or as we call it: Laban). We have several kinds of Fatteh not only in Lebanon but in the Arab world too, like Eggplant Fatteh, Chicken Fatteh etc... This one that I choose today has no meat in it, it has whole chickpeas (or hommos as we call it).
This recipe serves 4-5
Ingredients:
1 can of chickpeas (about 400g) (or soak chickpeas overnight then cook them)
1 container of plain yogurt (about 900g)
Flat bread (about 3)
Vegetable oil
2 handful of pine nuts
2 tablespoons of crushed fresh garlic
1 cup of fresh chopped parsley
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

- Put some vegetable oil in the pan and fry the bread until it's golden, then remove and transfer to a paper towel to drain. (Another option for less calories, is to brush the bread with olive oil and toast it in the oven or microwave). Once the bread cools off, break it into medium pieces and place in the serving dish. Add the chickpeas on top. In a pan, place about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, garlic and pine nuts and roast them until brown, add salt & pepper to taste. Now add some salt to the yogurt and stir then add it on top of the toasted bread and the chickpeas. Then add the roasted garlic and pine nuts, then sprinkle the parsley on top and serve immediately while the bread is still crunchy.

Friday nibbles - Let's call the whole thing off?

Before we get onto the important business of Friday nibbles, I couldn’t possibly go any further without talking chickens. Our brand spanking new Eglu chicken house arrived this morning and by this time next week we should have two real live egg-laying hens. Having never owned so much as a hamster, I am ball-bouncingly excited about doubling the number of residents at our little house. And even more excited about the prospect of nipping out every morning to collect a couple of fresh eggs.

Anyway, onto more pressing matters.

For this weeks nibble we are going back to basics. Cooking 101, if you will, to borrow an expression from American parlance.

The tinned tomato is a true hero of the kitchen. I believe that any self-respecting cook would be utterly stuck without a ready supply of these canned wonders. They are a truly versatile heavyweight of the store cupboard and I start to get a little antsy if our own supply dips below two tins.

Not only are they amazingly cheap but they can also form the basis of a virtually endless number of meals from stews and pasta sauces to soups and pizza toppings. Casseroles, chillies, curries, the list goes on almost ad infinitum and that’s just dishes beginning with the letter ‘C’. Move onto ‘D’ and you’ve got daubes, dal, and dumplings. ‘E’ gives us…you get the idea. I don’t think I need continue.



The history of canning and tinning as a method of preserving food goes all the way back to when the Napoleonic Wars were ravaging their way through Europe during the early 19th century. Somewhat amusingly, the can opener wasn’t invented until about fifty years later, which led to a number of hair-brained methods for accessing the goods inside the little metal boxes. The bayonet became very popular, although the prospect of eating food that has come into contact with a piece of metal that had been used to disembowel an opposing soldier just before lunch isn’t particularly appealing.

In terms of its green credentials, tinned tomatoes score fairly high too. Whilst the initial canning process releases a significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere, once inside they sit happily being very green indeed, without actually going green. They need no cold storage, can be kept indefinitely and it allows us to munch on out of season tomatoes without having to freight them over from overseas.

If you have a tin of tomatoes then you have a meal. Cooked down with a little garlic and olive oil, perhaps a splash of balsamic or wine too and a twist of salt and pepper and you have a great pasta sauce. If you are feeling really lazy, blitz it up and eat it as a soup, that way you don’t even have to cook any pasta. Spread it onto toast, top it with cheese and after a couple of minutes under the grill (broiler for my chumlets across the pond) and you have an insta-pizza.

Speed and convenience are all well and good, but tinned tomatoes really undergo an amazing transformation when they are slow cooked. Ragu sauces such as Bolognese and its various relatives, are a great example of the alchemic nature of slow-cooking when the finished product becomes so much more than the sum if its parts.

So, whether you say ‘tomarto’ or ‘tomayto’, these amazing little tins of brilliance are more than worthy of a place in the larder of even the most discerning chef.

裏技カステラ/ urawaza kasutera

19 september 2008, jumat pagi,

Nyempetin bikin kue buat oyatsu Mei , liat2 di buku resep urawaza, ada kasutera, nyobain deh resepnya...

Bahan
10 gr 麩 fu
100 gr hotcake mix

3 bh telur

80 gr gula

50 gr madu

2 sdm minyak goreng


Cara

- Masukkan telur di blender, blender . Masukkan fu, gula, madu, minyak, blender selama 1 menit

- Dalam wadah, masukkan hotcake mix, campur dengan adonan telur, aduk rata

- Oven selama 30 mnit

- Setelah dingin, dipotong2 sesuai selera

Met nyobain deh.. husband bilang kayak kue jaman dulu...haha, jaman bahuela kali ya?