Cooking Tips, Part 2: Cutting an Avocado

Hey, I'm back with another tip for you!

Cutting an avocado can be tricky, but if you can get this method down, it's really simple.

I learned this from my sister's boyfriend's mom, who, by the way, is one of the sweetest women I've ever met.

So, you start with your sharp knife and your avocado. Cut length-wise all the way around the pit, then twist the two halves to separate them, like this:

Being very careful, strike the pit hard with the knife. Don't carve into it - strike it.
Grip the avocado firmly and twist the knife so the pit comes out.
Cut the avocado into quarters and just peel the skin off. This is a zillion times easier than trying to cut the avocado while it's still in its skin.
Hope this helped!

Iftar Ideas: Greek Pizza

I love this recipe, but it can take a while because there's really no multitasking between these different components.

I first made this with my cousin Alexandra for a small family party a few years ago. It seems like it's going to be plain, but it's actually super-tasty and it makes a perfect iftar. It's filling enough for after a long day of fasting, but light enough so it doesn't make you feel sick.

This is an incredibly approximate recipe. Amounts are not very important at all. It's pizza - it's flexible!

You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

-Several Tablespoons melted butter
-Crushed rosemary
-1 box phyllo dough sheets
-2 tomatoes, sliced
-About 1½ cups croutons, crushed up
-1 onion, chopped
-Olive oil
-2 cloves crushed garlic
-1 bag spinach
-Juice of one lime
-Goat cheese (feta or chèvre style - whichever you prefer)

Mix together the rosemary and melted butter. Once again, amounts are not important, so the amount of rosemary you put in is completely up to you. This is what mine looked like:












Start by laying out the phyllo dough, one layer at a time. Between each layer, paint on butter mixture, trying to get the whole thing covered in butter, but not soaked.












To crush the croutons, put them in a plastic zip-lock bag and crush them by hand. Then add the tomato slices to the bag and toss them around until they're coated with crouton crumbs.












Place tomato slices and diced onions on the dough.

Next, sauté the garlic cloves for just a few minutes. Don't let them get brown because they'll continue to cook for a while and if you burn the garlic, you'll have to start over.












Once the garlic has been cooking for a couple of minutes, add a large handful of spinach. Stir it around. The spinach will wilt and once there is sufficient space in the pan, add another handful. Continue until half the spinach is used up. Squeeze the juice of half a lime onto the spinach and stir it up well, then continue adding handfuls until all the spinach is in the pan. Then add the juice of the other half of the lime.












Make sure you keep stirring the spinach as it cooks. You don't want it to burn and even more importantly, you don't want the garlic to burn.

Once the spinach is all wilted, add it to the pizza.

Crumble up the goat cheese and spread it over the pizza.












Cook at 400°F for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

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Iftar Dessert Ideas: Banana Cake

This recipe holds a special place in my heart because when I was little my mom used to make this cake every year for my dad's birthday. When I was pregnant I made two or three of these cakes and I hadn't made one since... until now!

You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

-½ cup shortening
-2 large eggs
-¼tsp baking powder
-1tsp salt
-1 cup mashed banana (~3 bananas)
-1½ cup sugar
-2¼ cup cake flour
-¾tsp baking soda
-¼ cup buttermilk
-1 can chocolate frosting
-1-2 bananas extra

Remember, baking is a science. Precise measurements are more important than in most savory foods. Don't worry if you're a little off, but where most of my recipes are pretty fluid in proportion, this is not.

Start by mashing up the bananas (not the extras) - they don't need to me really smooth yet, so I usually just do it with a fork. Stir in buttermilk and combine well. Set aside.

Next combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set that aside, as well.

Then, cream together the shortening and sugar until it's nice and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs, very thoroughly.

Then add the flour mixture and bananas and buttermilk. Add each mixture a little at a time, alternately. Beat until pretty smooth, but if there are a few banana chunks left, it's not a big deal.

Grease the bottom of two 9-inch cake pans and pour the batter in.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Carefully remove the cakes and let them cool. Once they're cool, set out the bottom layer and frost the top of it with the chocolate frosting. Slice up the extra bananas and put the slices on top of the frosting.

Put the second layer on top and finish frosting.

Please, people. Eat this with a cup of coffee. It's just too perfect.

Enjoy!

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Iftar Ideas: Lebanese Kafta

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Aby, who just had a baby on August 6th! Congratulations, habibti, and here is your long-awaited kafta recipe!

I don't know what it is about kafta, but pretty much every culture has their own version of it! I actually found the Wikipedia article about kafta very interesting. Call me crazy, but...

Anyhow, so here is my recipe for the Lebanese version of kafta. One of my favourite things to eat!

You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

-1kg (approximately 2¼lbs) ground beef and/or lamb
-2 medium onions
-1 bunch parsley
-salt and pepper
-pinch ground cloves

We're going to start by talking about your ground beef. I used beef for this recipe because I don't generally care for the taste of ground lamb. So.

If you want this to work well, it's going to have to be minced. So, lay out your beef on a cutting board, take your trusty santoku knife (or something similar, but a santoku knife is the best), and mince up that meat. It will take a good few minutes, but it's worth it in the end.

Next step is to clean your santoku knife. Why? Because it is definitely the best knife to use to mince your onions and garlic. Maybe it's because I'm a slight person without much strength, or maybe it's because it's actually hard, but I worked up a sweat mincing the onions and parsley! Mince it up as small as you can without turning it into a mush.

Season the beef with your salt, pepper and pinch of cloves and then dump it onto the beef. Remember, this is an entire kilo of meet, so be generous!

Next, take your minced onion and parsley and dump it onto the seasoned mean and mix it up. Sorry to the squeemish - this has to be done by hand.

Perfectly minced and mixed ball of meat!

Okay, next you'll need some shish kebab sticks. This recipe will not be cooked over an open flame, so there's no need to soak them.

Take a large handful of the meat and roll it into a ball and skewer it with the shish kebab stick.
Then take it and roll it out into a large sausage shape. Once you have rolled all the meat into this shape, cook them a few at a time on a barbecue plate or a tawa.
Turn them regularly. You may need the help of a spatula so they don't fall apart. Don't overcook - they should be cooked through, but still moist on the inside. This goes great with thoom (Arab garlic sauce - recipe coming soon!).

My husband and I had leftovers the day after we ate this. We had a kafta rolled up in pita bread with thoom, hummus and tomatoes.

The night we ate this, however, we just served it with a salad, thoom and tomatoes. Very, very good, either way.

Enjoy!

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Iftar Ideas: Spring Rolls!

Ramadan Mubarak, everyone! Insha'Allah, my blog can be of use to some of you if you are strapped for ideas for the after-maghreb meal.

Today's idea is vegetarian spring rolls! They're super-tasty, though they do require some preparation.
You will need the following ingredients for this recipe:

-½ lb carrots (approximately two medium to large carrots)
-1 red bell pepper
-1 cup beansprouts
-1Tbsp vegetable oil
-1 red chili, seeded and finely chopped
-Zest and juice of one lime
-1Tbsp soy sauce
-½tsp cornstarch
-2Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
-Egg roll wrappers
-Peanut oil, for frying


Cut carrots and red pepper into thin slices. This took me forever so give yourself time.

Heat the vegetable oil in a wok and then add in the carrots, bell pepper and beansprouts to the wok. Stir fry for about two minutes, then remove the wok from the heat .

Take the lime zest and juice as well as the red chili and stir it into the contents of the wok.

Combine the soy sauce and cornstarch. In the original recipe from this cookbook, it calls for arrowroot, but cornstarch accomplishes the same thing. The difference is that cornstarch usually makes the substance cloudy as it solidified, whereas arrowroot doesn't. I used cornstarch because it is more readily available and I don't really care how cloudy the soy sauce gets.

So, mix the soy sauce and arrowroot as best you can, then add it to the wok and return the wok to the heat. Stir-fry until the veggies are well-covered with soy sauce (at least two minutes!). Stir in cilantro

Here comes the tricky part: folding up the rolls.

Start by making a thick, but not pasty mixture of flour and water.

Take a large spoonful of the stir-fry and put it in the middle of the egg roll wrapper. It should be facing you diagonally so it looks like a diamond. Take the flour mixture and spread around the edges of the wrapper.Next, fold in the two side corners to the center and dab the four corners with more flour mixture, as you see in the below picture.
Take the bottom end and fold it up. Pinch and fold in the corners at the bottom so the flour mixture will seal it up.
Finally, roll it up, starting from the bottom, folding in the sides so they're as sealed up as they can be.Voilà! Obviously, repeat this process until all the stir-fry is used up.

Okay, now you need to heat up your peanut oil for frying. Once it gets hot, drop in a few spring rolls and deep fry until crispy brown. It should take about 6-8 minutes.

I suggest serving this with white rice or even a fried rice dish would be nice. Also, serve with a sauce for dipping - whatever kind you like.

Enjoy!

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Slice carrots and bell pepper thinly. Add those and beansprouts to wok with 1Tbsp veg oil. Stir-fry two minutes remove wok from heat. Stir lime zest and juice and chili pepper into wok. Combine soy sauce and cornstarch. Return wok to heat. Add soy sauce mixture and stir-fry at least two minutes more. Stir in cilantro. Remove wok from heat. Add spoonful of stir-fry to the center of an egg roll wrapper. Roll up, using a mixture of water and flour to seal. Repeat until all stir-fry mixture is used up. Heat peanut oil. Deep-fry spring rolls until golden-brown.