Middle Eastern rice casserole (pilaf)

This is a wonderful one pot complete dish that needs only some veggies or pickles on the side to make it a full dinner experience.



2 ½ cups rice (preferably Basmati)
2 cups green lentils
1 pound ground beef (lamb is even better)
2 large onions
2-3 potatoes
1/3 cup raisins
a handful of dates
salt, pepper
saffron (or a pinch of turmeric)

For this dish you wash the rice until the water stays clear to make sure that there is no starch left that could make the rice sticky. Then you have to pre-soak it for up to four hours, until the grains will become nice and plump. Finally you bring a big pot of lightly salted water (about 6 cups) to boil, add the rice and bring it back to boil. Keep checking the rice while simmering it on low for a few more minutes, the grains should be slightly al dente when you drain the rice off in a colander. When drained properly, pour it back into the pot, add a little oil to keep the grains separate, taste for salt and pepper and adjust if necessary.

In the meantime, cook the lentils until tender but not falling apart. Drain.

When you have the rice and lentils both ready, chop the onions and saute them in a little oil until translucent (some like it fried to golden). Add the ground meat, some salt and pepper, and saute it until looses its pink, then add half a cup of water and let it simmer, stirring occasionally, until the water evaporates. Wash the dates and raisins, then chop the dates into quarters or smaller, and mix them into the ground meat, together with the lentils. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust.

Now generously oil a Dutch oven, peel and slice a few potatoes, just enough so you can cover the bottom of the pot with the slices. Pour half a cup of water over them, then pour in half the rice. Now add the meat mix and top it with the second half of the rice.

Poke a few vents into the mix all the way to the bottom, place a folded kitchen towel over the pot and place the lid on top of it. The reason for this is that if you just cover it with the lid, the water gets condensed, drips back and will make the rice soggy. On the other hand, if you cook without the lid, the top of the casserole will get too dry and not completely cooked through. Now put the pot over low heat and let it cook for about 20 minutes. At that point lift the lid and towel and smell. You should smell a bit the fried potatoes at the bottom. If not, let it cook just a little longer.

Remove the pot from the heat, dissolve the saffron (or turmeric) in a bit of warm water, pour it over and lightly mix the rice and meat, while making sure that you do not scrape up the potatoes from the bottom. Turn the mix out onto a platter, then lift out the potatoes and arrange them in a circle around the edge, golden side up.

Gingerbread Pumpkin Bars

Since this year we bought a couple of oversized pumpkins for Halloween, I decided to make good use of them. One of them is processed already: I peeled it, cut it into inch thick cubes, steamed the whole thing in a large pot, then I left the cooked mass in a colander for a couple of hours, until most of the liquid drained off. Then I mashed the pumpkin into a puree and packed it in plastic containers that went in the freezer. I left one box out.

The next step was to look for a recipe. The boys wanted pumpkin pie but I felt that this time maybe we should do something different, so I promised them a pie for next week. Then I looked around on the net. I found this easy recipe on the blog called Culinary in the Country.



It sounded good, so I decided to try it. We did not regret it. Very nice! The recipe is definitely staying in my repertoire. It did turn out looking a little different, though. The pumpkin layer is much lighter in colour, and the 3/4 cup topping was not enough. Next time I will use only 2/3 of the dough at the bottom, and 1/3 on top, or maybe even half and half. As for the recipe, you can just go there for it. One more thing, the 16 tablespoons of butter is actually half a pound, no need to fiddle with a measuring spoon.

Super easy banana ricotta ice cream

Wow! I just discovered a great new, and what is also important, super fast and easy ice cream recipe. We had a long hot and steamy stretch of weather here in Toronto and I looked around for something easy to make. Since I did happen to have a few frozen bananas in my freezer, this recipe at "the minbaker" caught my attention. I did make ice creams with frozen fruit and whipping cream before, but that is too calorie rich to have it too often. This idea of using reduced fat ricotta really works! I made it for the family today and it was an instant success. No time for taking pictures, though... This photo is from the source of the recipe...


Easy Banana Soft Serve

2 ripe frozen bananas
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon sugar

In a food processor, combine frozen bananas with remaining ingredients. Process until smooth. Divide into 4 serving bowls and serve it right away.

Blog hopping

I have been cooking a lot of East Indian dishes in this past year. As such, I have visited a lot af good blogs that offer Indian fare. The last such successful contribution to my family's culinary experiences came from Show Me the Curry. We had their Chicken kofta curry. It is particularly helpful that they have a lot of videos that demonstrate the right techniques for preparing their recipes.



Another Indian blog with very detailed explanations is Kajal's Dreams. I am planning on preparing her spinach dhokla sometime in the next few days.

I also discovered a set of Jordanian blogs that each focus on certain dishes. One of them is the Hummus blog, another one is dedicated to Falafel, while another one is dedicated to Rice recipes. So I suppose my direction is in the process of changing...

Balsamic Mushrooms

I make mushrooms as a side dish often, but I just found a recipe with a very simple extra ingredient that can make a whole lot of difference. From Cherry at sakurambokitchen. It is very quick, just as good at room temperature as hot off the stove. And it is nutricious. What else do we need?

Balsamic mushrooms

1/4 cup olive oil
12 ounces to a pound of white mushrooms, halved, quartered or sliced
1 tsp garlic
1 corn
1/4 red pepper, diced
3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (the magic ingredient)
salt, pepper

Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Fry garlic. Add mushrooms, and cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in vinegar, salt, and season with pepper. Add corn and red pepper. Cook 1 minute more.

I served it as a side dish for meatballs, with rice.

My best ever scalopped potatoes

This was one of those inspired moments when you add a bit of this, a bit of that, and you end up with a dish that turns out better than any other version you ever prepared before. I must put it up here to make sure I will be able to repeat it again, to make sure I will not upset my family with lesser casserole. This is what I did:

cca 9 lbs potatoes
½ to 1 lb dry sausages, preferably smoked, like a Chabai
½ cup oil
¼ cup bacon bits
5-6 eggs
1 pint (500 gr) sour cream
2 cups milk
1 Tbs chicken soup powder, or Mr Dash, or any other flavour enhancer
salt, pepper

Cook the potatoes, let them cool, then peel and slice them. While the potatoes cool, slice up the sausages and fry them slightly in the oil. This will make the sausages tastier and the oil will be infused with the sausage flavour. When you take it off the heat, stir in the bacon bits, also. Scoop the coins out with a slotted spoon, the bacon bits can stay.

Oil a large casserole dish. I prefer the wider, flatter variety, as that produces a casserole with lots of crunchy corners and surfaces. As you peel and slice the potatoes, they can go directly in the pan. Layer them down alternately with the sausages so that the top layer will be potatoes.

Now take a bowl and whip the sour cream in it until smooth. Add the eggs one by one, then the oil with all the bacon bits. Stir in the milk, eyeballing it to have approximately enough liquid to cover the top layer of potatoes also, then flavour this sauce, making sure that the flavours are quite stronger than normal, because the potatoes will absorb and mellow them.

Pour a spoonful or two of extra oil on the top, and bake it (350F-) until the edges are golden and the top is crunchy. In our family this constitutes a hearty meal, served with pickles, beet relish, or tomato salad.

Pesto crescents

This recipe will yield a relatively large amount of crescents. If you want, you can fill half of the dough with jam, a nut or chocolate filling.

2 lbs flour
2 Tbs fry active yeast
2 c milk
1/2 c white wine (or soda water)
1/2 c butter (margarine)
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp salt
2 or 3 egg yolks
a jar of pesto (basil, olive, or sun dried tomato)

Knead all these together to get a nice, smoothly elastic dough. If too stiff, you can add a few spoonfuls of sour cream. If sticky, add a little extra flour. Let it rise till double.

Separate into balls and roll each ball into a circle. Cut the circle into wedges, smear a little pesto on each and roll them up. Arrange them on parchment lines cookie sheet and let them rise a little. You may brush the tops with egg wash and sprinkle some Parmesan or sesame seeds over them.

Cardamom coffee cake with almond filling

(Picture) – to follow

flour, altogether 3 ¼ - 3 ½ cups
1 package active dry yeast
2/3 cup milk
6 Tbs butter or margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1 ts salt
1 egg + 1 yolk
½ to 1 ts ground cardamom


Heat the milk, butter, sugar and salt together in a cup. It should be still comfortably warm to your hand. Take a large bowl, put in it 1 ½ cup flour, cardamom, egg and yolk, and beat it with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes. Then add enough of the remaining flour to have a moderately stiff dough. Turn this out onto a floured surface and knead it for another 3-4 minutes. Now put it in a greased bowl and let it rise to double it original amount.

In the meantime prepare the filling:
½ cup almonds
½ cup sugar
1 ts cinnamon
1 egg white

Toast the almonds spread on a sheet of aluminum foil in a toaster oven. When cool enough to handle, grind it in a grinder or blender. Beat the whites to stiff, gradually adding the sugar. Then gently fold in the almonds and the cinnamon.

Now take off 1/3 to ½ of the dough. Roll out the rest into a 10x10 inches rectangle. Spread the filling over it, then roll it up jelly roll fashion. Make a ring and place it on a parchment lined sheet. Now make a rope out of the smaller ball of dough, wet the top of the large ring and form a ring on top of it with the rope. With a pair of scissors snip diagonally into the rope at regular (cca 2 inches) intervals, then twist these leaf shaped sections one outward, one inward, all around.

Let it rise again a little, then bake the cake at 375F for about 25 minutes. You can put some aluminum foil over it if the top seems to brown too quickly. When done, let it cool, then drizzle the icing over it.

Brown butter icing

Heat 2 Tbs unsweetened butter, stirring constantly, until it turns brown. When cool, gradually add 1 cup powder sugar, adding ½ ts vanilla and further easing it with drops of milk to get it to drizzling consistency. Now pour this by tablespoons over the top of the cake and let it dry.

New Year's Day open house

We had a great New Year's Day open house. It is a recent "tradition" that our family started a few years ago. Our doors open at around lunch time (12:30 this year), and goes on for whenever the last guests leave. There is a little detail about this year that I did not appreciate: the first guest arrived at 12:20, ten minutes before the official opening... Please, people, don't do that! (...they are my relatives and I know they won't mind my public disclosure here :) Give a little extra time to the hosts, they are NEVER ready right on time, there is always something forgotten that they remember in the last minute.

Anyway, aside from me still being in the shower when guests started to arrive, we had a successful open house this year. The fireplace was crackling invitingly, the buffet table was laden, the coffee machine was exuding its heady aroma, and the mulled wine was gently warming on the stove. For the earlier guests we had finger food, both savoury and sweet, then around dinner time we had a few warm, more substantial dishes added to the menu.

This is the list of this year's offerings: cold turkey breast stuffed with chicken liver pate, olive pesto rolls, almond rice, cabbage salad. On the sweet side: cardamom coffee cake with toasted almond filling, the all-time favourite Bacardi rum cake, brownie-cheesecake slices, walnut slices, and peanut brittle. For the later warm fare I always make a big pot of chili, because that always tastes even better when prepared ahead and reheated. We also had an artichoke cheese cake that was reheated in the toaster oven, and I had some puff pastry cups that I filled with a salmon-scrambled eggs filling, both prepared ahead of the time, just assembled and heated before serving.

I managed to take only a few photos, I will post those recipes in the coming days.

Happy New Year!