Hawaii Hangover

I seem to have a Hawaii Hangover. It's a malaise that afflicts every soul that visits this curious archipelago of eight major islands and many more uninhabited islets. Given that we only visited two of those spectacular islands, I am afraid to think of what might have happened had we visited the others.

In Kauai, we attempted to hike the treacherous Kalalau Trail. Our goal was short, the first two miles of the 11 mile hike, to Hankapiai Beach. It should not have been a big deal. We typically hike trails that are 5-6 miles round trip, between 6,000-10,000 feet in elevation. This was at sea-level and a mere 4 mile round trip. How difficult could it be?

It was very difficult. The conditions made it dangerous. It was muddy and slippery from the incessant winter rain. If there is one thing we drop a fair amount of money on, it's hiking boots. Despite wearing hiking boots with excellent traction, we decided to turn back after barely 3/4 mile. There's a reason why it is considered one of the 10 most dangerous trails in the US! The views of Kauai's Na Pali Coast, though, were unbelievable!

Read on...

Ring It In With Some Spice

I couldn't let 2012 fade away without a recipe! But, first, let me wish you all a very Happy New Year!

May good health, happiness, success and joy be yours in 2013!

Read on...

Eat Me, Said the Cardamom Cake

Dearest Anita,

Every year, you call on us to celebrate your blog with a Mad Tea Party of our own. I tried my best to celebrate in the month of August and in the month of September but I just could not make it happen. Until last night. It all came together. And how!

Four mad hatters: me, me, me and me

Read on...

In The Kitchen With Lisa and Zarah

It's not everyday that you get invited over to make Pho. That may be partly because authentic Pho is not made at home as often anymore. It's a day-long process—one that involves chopping, toasting, grilling, simmering, with a healthy dose of patience. It could be turned into a day of laughter, sharing and bonding. And that's exactly what we did.

Back in August, when my friend Zarah offered to teach us the Art of Making Pho, my lovely neighbor Lisa and I signed up instantly. We were already hooked onto the Vietnamese shrimp rolls with dipping sauce, both of which Zarah makes effortlessly. Born in the Philippines, Zarah married into a traditional Vietnamese family, where her mother-in-law trained her to cook homestyle Vietnamese food. Zarah is a woman of many talents, apart from being very hard-working. She used to own and manage an ethnic Asian grocery store, working long hours to sustain her family. Today she is a successful real estate agent in Boulder County. As charming as she is funny, there's never a dull moment when Zarah is around!

Lisa is an angel. She's also my neighbor. If I had to describe Lisa in a few words, I would simply say this: Lisa embraces. She casts a supportive net and welcomes you into her clan. I am particularly in awe of her parenting skills. Her three children, each very different from the other, stand testimony to the sheer breadth of her skills.

Lisa and Zarah, two awesome women

Read on...

Classes, classes and one more class

Yes! I've been busy attending classes. I blame Jen Yu. It all started with her Food & Light Workshop early August. Then my friend Teri signed me up for a canning class through Boulder Valley School District's Lifelong Learning program in September. Last week, I attended a Cooking 101: Cooking Basics class at Whole Foods Market, Boulder.

This week, I have another class at the Denver Botanic Gardens, except this time I will be one of the lecturers and demo instructors, along with Jen Yu, Todd Porter and Diane Cu.

Three Food Blogs, Three Cuisines, Infinite Inspiration. That's what it's called! I am both very nervous and very excited! There are two events: a lecture on October 20, 2011 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm and a cooking class on October 21, 2011 from 10:00am - 2:00pm. There are still some spots open, so if you are in the area and you can make it to the lecture or the demo or better still, both, I would love to see you there!

Bonfils-Stanton Series

Read on...

Thai Cooking Class at Culinary School of the Rockies

I'm taking a break from recounting my India trip to tell you about something I have been wanting to do for the longest time — I signed up for a Thai cooking class, Thai One On, at the Culinary School of the Rockies. My friend Teri agreed to go along with me and it turned out to be a fun evening, led by Chef Suzanne Rudolph who was assisted by the dish-fairies, Jordan and Tiffany.

Tools, tools, and more tools

Read on...

Love Thine Inspiration

I have been submitting pictures to the Life in Louisville Photo Contest ever since it first started three years ago. Ten pictures per individual, some of which may win special mention; all of which may be used in any promotional material that the city may create from time to time. Some may say that the City is crowd-sourcing images for free; we call it community involvement and giving back to the community we live in. We feel a strong sense of pride in seeing our pictures on the city's web site, catalogs and brochures.

Davidson Mesa, 2008 - see original image

Even though we sign away our pictures to the city to do with them as it pleases, it is very endearing to see that they do give credit where it is due. The original image had won 1st Place in the Open Space Category at the very first Life in Louisville Photo Contest, 2008. (Preserved land is called open space in these parts.)

Read on...

Double Happy

Yes, I am! Very Happy!

Thank you all very much for your wonderful thoughts and wishes on my birthday yesterday. You touched my heart and made this the best birthday yet! I hope to get around to replying to all of you soon but I must make this post before the carriage turns into a pumpkin again.

We didn't quite finish the celebrations as planned for Medha's birthday earlier this summer. The high of the evening was supposed to be a marshmallow roast by the fire out on our patio, with the girls singing songs and telling ghost stories, while pretending they were out camping. Instead they had to troop to the basement, play Guitar Hero and eat backup dessert - vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce. I promised that I would make it up to them before summer ended. And I did.

It was after Labor Day but definitely before the vernal equinox, which is the official end of summer and start of fall. A sleepover was planned at my house on September 11 and it soon became clear that they had not forgotten. I heard whispers about a fire, marshmallows and even setting up a tent in the backyard. Uh, no. For the tent. The fire and marshmallows? No problem!

One Mom offered to bring a little craft for the girls to do and while they are perfectly capable of amusing themselves, I thought this would be a great wind down before dinner. Each girl painted a wooden letter, her first initial, and they were thrilled to put their first initials together to make a very positive word:

Medha, Anna, Kendall, Emily - a little shaky but the best pic we have

Dinner was not what they thought it would be. It was (Vietnamese) spring rolls, Chinese cold noodles and scallion pancakes - all recipes from Jen's Use Real Butter. I used tender chicken breast and substituted the fish sauce in the marinade with mirin, as two of the four girls did not like fish sauce. I am sure the taste of the meat is altered drastically but this was the best I could come up with. It was either mirin or soya sauce and I went with the milder mirin. I also skipped the fresh herbs because the local grocery stores had wilted fare and I didn't have the time to make it to the Asian market.

Double Happiness

Spring Rolls

• 2lbs chicken tenders
• marinade for chicken, see below
• 1 packet rice spring roll wrappers
• 1lb bean sprouts
• 1 red bell pepper, cored and sliced thin
• 1 English cucumber, cut into thin strips
• 1 bunch of fresh lettuce leaves, washed
• hoisin peanut dipping sauce, see below
• warm water in a large shallow bowl

marinade for the chicken

• juice of 4 limes
• 4 tbsp brown sugar
• 8 tbsp mirin
• 8 cloves garlic, grated
• chilli-garlic paste, to taste

hoisin peanut dipping sauce

• 8 oz bottled hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, pounded into a paste
• chilli-garlic sauce to taste
• warm water, as required

Rice paper, before soaking

1. For the marinade, whisk all the ingredients together until the brown sugar has dissolved.
2. Add the chicken to the marinade and marinate in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
3. Broil the chicken till done. Allow it to rest and then slice into thin strips.
4. To assemble the spring rolls, dip the rice paper into the warm water for a couple of seconds and lay it out on your plate. It will soften as it absorbs the water, about half a minute or more.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Put a lettuce leaf down on the rice paper first, about a third of the way down from the edge nearest you. This is important as the lettuce prevents the other veggie sticks from poking through the rice paper.
6. Layer red peppers, cucumbers, bean sprouts and top off with chicken in a neat row on the lettuce.
7. Gently pick up the rice paper from the edge nearest you and fold it tightly over the stack of ingredients, rolling and tucking as you go. Be careful not to tear the rice paper.
8. Fold the sides in and contine to roll to the other end of the rice paper. (See how the White on Rice Couple do it.)
9. If you can hold off, make another one or dip into hoisin sauce and eat right away! That's what the girls did!

Spring rolls

Notes:

• I used Romaine hearts which were long enough to cover the length of the roll. If you use smaller ones, overlap them to prepare a bed for the roll.
• You can add any fresh veggies you like to these spring rolls. The girls started reaching over for the ingredients for the Chinese cold noodles and some of their spring rolls had grated carrots and even strips of egg. And why not? It only tastes good!
• To make these vegetarian, use tofu instead of meat.
  
• It helps to stand when you are rolling your own spring roll.
• It also helps to lay out all the ingredients so that everyone has easy access to them.

These spring rolls are a terrific healthy burst of veggies making this something that I will be making again and again. Cutting and chopping the veggies takes a fair amount of time but the bottomline is that they are very healthy, making it worth the effort.

The girls were not shy with their opinions. They felt the spring rolls rocked and were the best thing they had had to eat that evening. Better than the Chinese cold noodles, only slightly better than the scallion pancakes. The marshmallows? They were a hit, too because I found hazelnut sauce, aka store brand of Nutella, that they poured over the roasted gooey gelatin. But there was not a single doubt that the spring rolls took the crown. I think a lot of it had to do with being in charge of preparing their own spring roll. I heard comments like:

This is a truly international meal!

Wow! I love how the hard paper becomes soft and piable like that! Isn't that cool?

This is soooo fun!

And it is. Why wait for a sleepover to make your own spring rolls? Do it now!

Not quite Diwali fare

The universe does not want me to make chivda. Not yet, anyway. On Sunday, the big packet of pohe turned out to be the wrong kind - thick instead of thin. The Indian store is closed on Monday and the news of Bri's passing came as such a shock that I was paralyzed into inaction. I lit a candle for Bri yesterday. I didn't light any diyas.


On Sunday night, I couldn't understand what was going on until I realized that the din in my head was cranberries calling out to me from the deep recesses of my refrigerator. A recipe for Cranberry-Oatmeal Bars in the latest issue of Cooking Light had caught my eye. However, the use of sour cream did not appeal to me. Also, I had fresh cranberries and I had no clue what rule of thumb to use for substitution. I figured if I left out sour cream, 2 cups of fresh berries would provide the moisture. I really don't know if my reasoning made sense but the bars turned out to be just right for us: tart and not too sweet. The original bars are meant to be not too sweet and not too tart.

Apparently, sour cream makes these bars almost cheesecake-like so I might give the original recipe a try some time later when I have recovered from the current overdose of sour cream. Many of my friends use it in everything: from sauces to raitas and frankly, I am sick of it. I also wanted to use my brown molasses but I didn't know quite how well the flavor would work with cranberries. I thought it worked well and might use only brown molasses in the filling the next time.

Cranberry-Oatmeal Bars

based on a recipe from Cooking Light's November issue


For the Crust:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 6 tbsp butter, melted
• 3 tbsp pomegranate juice
• Cooking spray

For the Filling:

• 2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup pecan bits
  
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1 tbsp brown molasses
  OR
  1/2 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten

1. Preheat your oven to 325F.
2. Grease a 9x9in baking tray using cooking spray.
3. Lightly spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup and level with a knife.
4. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon.
5. Drizzle melted butter and juice over this mixture, stirring until it is completely moistened. The mixture will be crumbly.
6. Reserve 1/2 cup of this mixture and press the rest into the bottom of your baking tray.
7. In a large bowl, combine cranberries, pecans, granulated sugar, brown molasses, if using, all-purpose flour, vanilla extract and the beaten egg white. Stir until the cranberries are well coated and the brown molasses has been mixed well.
8. Spread this cranberry mixture over your crust.
9. Sprinkle the reserved crust mixture evenly over this filling.
   
   
   
10. Bake at 325F for 40 minutes or until edges are golden.
11. If you can wait, cool on a wire rack.

These tart cranberry oatmeal bars are a treat with coffee or as a snack between meals. Medha is not completely sold on cranberries but she did say that she never thought oatmeal could taste so good!


Notes:

• I used pomegranate juice because that's what I had. I did not have orange juice or oranges at home. Therefore I did not use orange rind in the cranberry filling and quite frankly, I missed neither.
• Since I used fresh cranberries, I stored these bars in the refrigerator. These bars have lasted a little longer because they are on a shelf higher than some people can reach. Unlike the cranberry-apple crisp.
• If you try this recipe with my variations, then remember that my version is tart and less sweet. Ideal for us but not necessarily palatable for those with a sweet tooth. The bars taste less tart the next day.
  

Yesterday was Narak Chaturthi, the second day of Diwali.

Today is Laxmi Pujan, the third day of Diwali. This coming Sunday, we will be participating in a mass Laxmi Pujan at Balvihar, just like we did last year.

I think it is high time I made nankatai again.

Happy Diwali to you all!

Lavender Love: May It Grow

You know who your friends are when you are in trouble. Especially the kind of trouble where you totally put your foot into your mouth. They stand by you and send you recipes for ingredients that you have only heard of till now and brushed aside with "probably tastes like soap. Or potpourri."

The lovely and enterprising Suganya of Tasty Palettes is one such - and only - friend. All the others threw their heads back to guffaw in delight, put their feet up, and settled down to watch the spectacle. The recipe Suganya sent me was for a Lavender Coffee Cake but as luck would have it, my oven has been on the blink for what seems like forever. There's nothing wrong with the oven but the circuit trips after 8-10 minutes of use. The resident electrician has had no time until late yesterday to take a look at it. He thinks he has nailed it and I hope he has. If he has, this post may grow. If he hasn't, it won't. So the long and short of it is that I haven't been able to use the recipe she sent me. But this is what a good friend is all about. She doesn't wait to be asked; she goes ahead and does.

Thank you, Suganya!



The Joy of Cooking doesn't have too many recipes with lavender since cooking with these flowers is a relatively new phenomenon, aside from using it to make herbes de Provence. I could have used lavender mint tea but it's already been done by Andrea for the GYO event. Then I found what I was looking for - a no-bake no-cook recipe - in Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings by Margeaux Sky. Perfect to reciprocate the love: to Suganya! And, to Bee, without whom I would never have done anything with lavender flowers.

Lavender Mint Love Sauce

• 2 cups of plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup softened cream cheese
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1.5 tbsp dried lavender flowers
• 2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped
• 1/8 tsp red chilli powder
• salt to taste

1. Combine the yogurt, cream cheese and honey in a large bowl and mix well.
2. In a smaller bowl, combine the lavender, mint, chilli powder and salt.
3. Add the herb mixture to the yogurt mixture ad mix well.
4. Serve at room temperature with sandwiches or as a topping on toasted bagels.

Notes:

• This is adapted from the recipe in Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings. That recipe has more ingredients like green tea, sage, basil and even curry powder. I preferred to stay with simple flavors and went with lavender flowers and mint but added a dash of red chilli powder for some zing.
• The next time I will use much less honey or skip it entirely. I prefer the subtle sweetness that these lavender flowers bring to the sauce instead.

This is my entry to Grow Your Own, made with some mint from my backyard, some lavender flowers from Bee's backyard and a lot of love from Suganya.


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Rat-a-what no longer

Thanks to Remy, the medley of vegetables that is ratatouille that had been indelibly imprinted on my taste buds almost a decade ago, was no longer just another unpronounceable French dish. I empathized completely with Ego as he ate every spoonful of ratatouille, even though I prefer the chunky version to the layered confit byaldi that was served to him in the movie. Mmmmmm!


Recently I came home with $10 loot from the Louisville Farmers Market. It contained 7 green bell peppers, which by themselves would have cost me $7 anywhere else. Then there were large succulent zucchinis and gorgeous farm fresh tomatoes. All locally grown. I supplemented these with an eggplant from the grocery store and other veggies that I had at home to make the best ratatouille ever! Most of this ratatouille went to one of my neighbors whose little boy decided to announce his arrival 2 months before his time. Along with it went lentil stew, pasta salad and Greek pitas. I think I was really lucky to have chanced upon such fresh, locally grown veggies just in time for my turn on the dinner calendar for my neighbors. I think I received well before I was able to pay it forward.

Ratatouille

(based on Ratatouille Provençale from The Joy of Cooking)

• 1/4 cup olive oil (+ another 2 tbsp, if desired)
  
• 1 medium eggplant, diced into 1 inch pieces (approx 1lb)
  
• 1 lb zucchini, also diced into 1 inch pieces
• 1.5 cups sliced onions
• 2 large red bell peppers, cut into 1 inch squares
  
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
  
• 1.5 cups fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped or
  1 can diced tomatoes, drained
  
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper, to taste
  
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley, optional
  

1. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large pot over high heat.
2. Add eggplant and zucchini chunks. Cook until golden and just tender, stirring frequently, about 10-12 minutes.
   
3. Remove cooked vegetables carefully to a large plate, draining the oil back into the pot as much as possible. Turn down the heat to medium-high.
4. Add additional 2 tbsp olive oil only if required.
5. Add sliced onions and cook until the onions are slightly softened.
   
6. Add bell peppers and chopped garlic and cook until just tender.
   
7. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to suit your taste.
8. Add the diced tomatoes, rosemary and bay leaf.
   
9. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
10. Add the eggplant and zucchini and toss to coat the vegetables with the onion and tomato mixture.
11. Cook for another 15-20 minutes until everything is tender.
    
12. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.
    

Ratatouille is often called a vegetable stew. Serve it over rice or with thick crusty bread or warm pitas to soak up the delicious juices. It can be made dry, too. The choice is yours.



Notes:

• I chose to use green bell peppers instead of red bell peppers since that is what I had on hand. Red bell peppers add color to this dish.
• The original recipe called for peeling the eggplant but I chose not to. If you have issues with the thick peel, take it off and then dice the eggplant into 1 inch chunks.
• Once I had shared with my neighbors, I added some crushed red pepper to the ratatouille to up the heat a little bit.
  

To those who thought and still think - and there are quite a few that fall into the latter category, believe me - that the animated Rat Chef was called Ratatouille? I am really sorry for you. Truly. But don't let that stop you from recreating it.

I am sending this colorful ratatouille made mainly of locally grown vegetables to Beth of Muffin Love for her event, Living la Vida Local.

Tomorrow, July 15, is the last day for the fund raiser for Bri.

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Tunisian Lamb Stew

I have raved about my sister's refrigerator before. She's a maniac in the kitchen. Otherwise, too. Just like my other sister. Our husbands seem to think that it's a trait that runs in the family. It's amazing how corny and tired that conversation is but they never fail to rewind and replay every time they talk. Each has a story that they are sure will win them the award of having married the craziest of the lot - like it's some sort of competition or something! - and that tells me who is totally off his rocker. But after I tell you this story, you might agree that it is my eldest sister who is truly nuts.

She got a call from her podiatrist insisting that she come in to show them the toenail she hurt while playing tennis. They said they would squeeze her in. She shuffled her own patients and went for her appointment. While she waited, she says she started salivating as she read a recipe for a spicy stew, a Tunisian lamb stew. She read and re-read the recipe. 15 minutes passed. She went back to it and read it again. More time went by. She closed her eyes and started testing herself on the ingredient list and method. Soon, she could recite the recipe backwards. After 45 minutes, she couldn't wait any longer as she had patients of her own to see; so she left without seeing the podiatrist, but with a recipe imprinted on her brain. To this day, she insists that she was called to the podiatrist's office just for that recipe.

If you are like me, you might be thinking: why didn't she ask for a pen and paper and copy it down? But she's not like me or you, so she memorized it. It's a skill that works well for her patients, too, because she remembers obscure information that helps her make a pre-diagnosis that the specialists only confirm.

She also left the podiatrist's office in a very calm frame of mind. Again, not like me or you.

The last time we visited her, she had made this Tunisian lamb stew specially for me. I recreated it over six months later and it's vying with marag for the spot of the ultimate comfort food. It's that good!

Tunisia is in North Africa with a coast along the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisia has a rich cultural heritage as well as history, having been conquered by the Romans, the Arabs, the French, and the Turks until the country finally won its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Its people are known for their hospitality and they also have a deep regard and love for spice. Tabil is a popular Tunisian spice mix of onions and garlic dried in the sun. I am still looking for the original recipe as a project for the summer of 2008.

Tunisian Lamb Stew

• 2lbs lamb meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 6-8 cups chicken broth
• 1 bunch spinach, chopped
• 1 cup bulghur (cracked wheat)

1. In a large bowl, season the lamb with salt and very liberally with fresh coarsely ground black pepper. The more black pepper you add at this stage, the better it tastes. But don't add more than you can handle, of course!
2. Dust the lamb with flour so that it is well-coated.
   
3. Heat olive oil in a large kadhai at medium-high heat.
4. Add the lamb, shaking off excess flour.
5. Cook the lamb, turning occasionally, until the meat is brown on all sides. This takes between 10-15 minutes depending on how tender your lamb is.
6. Transfer the lamb to a large platter or bowl. What you will be left with in the kadhai is a thick dark brown roux.
7. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add chopped onion, minced garlic, grated ginger, cumin powder, coriander powder, and red chilli flakes.
8. Cook for 5-10 minutes to toast the spices and soften the onions.
9. Add the tomato paste and 2 cups of the chicken broth and stir well.
10. Return the lamb to the pot, increase the heat to medium, cover, and cook until the lamb is fork-tender. It took about half hour for me.
11. While the lamb is cooking, cook 1 cup of bulghur in 2 cups of chicken broth. Adding more broth, if required.
12. Also, clean, chop and steam the spinach and set aside.
    
13. Add the remaining 2 cups broth (4 cups, if you want a real stew, one that is not dry) and bring to a boil.
    
14. Turn off the heat, add the spinach and bulghur and stir well.
    
15. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.
16. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
    
17. Serve with warm whole wheat pita bread.

Notes:

• It helps to do your prep work in advance and have everything ready for use. Mise en place, if you want to get all French and fancy.
• I used low sodium organic chicken broth, sold in tetrapaks. Usually there are about 4 cups in each tetrapak. Using 6 cups of broth would have left me with 2 cups of chicken broth languishing in the refrigerator, so I decided to use it. It was a great move because the stew thickens and the bulghur also absorbs a lot of the liquid as it expands further after adding it to the stew.
• I roasted 1 tsp of whole coriander seeds and 1 dried red chilli (byadgi), allowed it to cool and then pounded it coarsely in my mortar-pestle. Don't do this if you prefer coriander powder to coarsely ground coriander.
• I added 1 tsp of red chilli powder in addition to the red chilli flakes.
• I followed Anita's recipe for whole wheat pita, except that I did not use any all-purpose flour (maida). I used 2 cups of King Arthur's whole wheat flour and 2 cups of King Arthur's bread flour. That bread flour is so smooth and silky, it's unbelievable! I needed more than 2 cups of water to knead the dough. I used my convection oven at 475F and the pitas puffed up every time like a charm! These are the best whole wheat pitas I have ever had! I am going to be making them over and over again! Not only are they easy to make, the clean up is a snap. Nothing compared to the mess that goes with making rotis, even though the pitas have to be rolled out.
• I wondered whether we really needed the whole wheat pita when there was bulghur in the stew. I tried eating it without pita and you have to believe me when I tell you that there is something very wholesome to dipping a piece of warm pita in that stew, and carrying it to your mouth. It makes the dish complete on some levels that I cannot describe or explain.

I found the original recipe and I am not surprised at what a great job my sister did at memorizing it. After all, you have to be a muggoo to get into med school in the first place. More so in India...

Doing the Secret Santa Rounds

Yes! It's time for Secret Santa, already! Some of you might remember the nameplate that Medha and I made last year. And the Secret Santa game that the kids in the neighborhood play every December. We pulled names for each of our kids when we went for the gals night out at Juju Beads, in downtown Louisville. And, I pulled a boy's name.

Mumma! He's a boy!

But it's not that bad cos she tolerates older boys better than younger boys. Um, maybe that's not such a good thing! But this kid is a good kid. He even plays chess!

So two homemade gifts need to be made and delivered secretly; the final gift (under $10 or is it $15?!) to be kept under the tree on the day of the party.

What does one give a boy?! You can't give him a beaded necklace or earrings! A nameplate would just give it all away. He is Jessie's older brother. All the artsy-crafty stuff would be lost on him. Boys like food, said Medha. She remembered selling him snow cones for $1 in summer. Why don't we bake cookies? Yes! And, a perfect time to try the Stained Glass Cookies that I have been seeing in my dreams, ever since I saw Deeba's cookies on Susan's Christmas Cookies from Around the World event.

Stained Glass Cookies

Recipe from Passionate About Baking

• 3/4 cup butter ( 1.5 sticks)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
• 10-12 brightly colored Jolly Ranchers or Lifesavers or any other hard candy, crushed.

1. Ensure all ingredients are at room temperature. If it's winter and you have your heat set to 69F, then - like Medha - you, too, might wonder what room temperature means!
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until it is smooth.
   
3. Add the salt and vanilla extract and beat till mixed.
4. Add the egg and beat till well mixed.
   
5. Mix in the flour to form a firm dough. If you are doing this part by hand, then gather it together firmly and knead it a little bit to bring it together. Otherwise, it will fall apart and it will be difficult to roll it out later.
6. Press the dough into a rectangular shape, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it for at least 10 minutes or so.
7. Preheat your oven to 350F.
8. While the oven is pre-heating and the cookie dough is a-chillin', separate the Jolly Ranchers according to colors and put them in baggies. Crush them using your mortar-pestle. Or just hammer them with whatever works for you. A mallet, maybe?
9. Line your cookie trays with parchment paper.
10. Cut the dough into thirds and roll it out to about a quarter inch thickness. I had to knead my dough a little bit to make it easier to work with.
    
11. Cut with your favorite cookie cutters.
12. Cut out smaller shapes, but not too small, like triangles or circles or hearts from each cookie.
13. Transfer the cookie to your baking tray and fill each cookie with different colored crushed candy.
    
14. Bake for 10 minutes. Pull out the tray if you see them getting too brown. It's way cool to see the melted candy bubble away in the oven!
15. Remove the tray from the oven and let the cookies cool on the tray for a couple of minutes. If you see gaps in the melted candy, use a toothpick to spread it before it cools and hardens again.
16. Transfer the cookies along with the parchment paper to a wire cooling rack. Peel off the parchment paper only when completely cooled.
17. This recipe makes approximately 4 dozen 3" cookies. Less if you use an assortment of shapes and sizes.

The cookies were delivered on Monday right after school in an unassuming brown paper bag, with a thoughtful note explaining that these were basic sugar cookies with melted Jolly Ranchers. There were no escapades like those from last year or the previous year. And I am very relieved because we had a storm over the weekend that dropped about 4-5 inches of snow and the sidewalks were icy from the thaw and freeze.

Notes:

• We didn't know how much candy we could use to fill up each cookie. The first time the girls did it, they used very little candy. Part of the problem was also that the cut-outs were rather small making it difficult to fill. So no amount of spreading with a toothpick would help. In the next batch, we stayed with the star shape and heaped the candy. You don't want to do that as the candy bubbles over onto the cookie itself. Tastes just as good but doesn't look quite as pretty.
  
  Fill each cookie till the crushed candy is about level with or just less than the thickness of the cookie. More like so:
  
  
• These cookies can be used to decorate your tree, too! If you want do that, make a small hole at the top with a straw. I don't particularly like to adorn my tree with edible stuff so we passed on this.

The party is next week and we are the hosts this year. The kids usually make gingerbread houses or forts. Some come up with outlandish designs. Medha has never been able to erect walls that stand up for more than 2 minutes. So she has a pile of graham crackers, lots of frosting and decorations. Some of the children eat their gingerbread houses. Most of it is destined for the trashcan. I wish I could say I like this part of the event but the truth is that I don't. It's the only part I have an issue with.

Medha is playing a variation of this at school, too. Secret Snowpeople, they are called. They have to bring in something special for their Snowperson. It could be a cinquain or a couplet that they wrote specially for their Snowperson. It could be a snack or a craft. They will do this for 3 days and the final gift, which will be shared on the day of the Holiday party, has to be under $5. I guess I will be baking a lot this weekend!

My post on Secret Santa last year led to a fair amount of discussion about secularism in schools. Last year I said:
If the schools acknowledge that religion exists, our children will grow up to be more accepting of others' beliefs.
And,
I am not saying that the onus of teaching religion should rest with the schools. What would help a great deal is acknowledging that there are several paths to God and maybe not, for those who don't believe in God.

I am really happy about some of the changes I have seen that I believe will lead to more acceptance and tolerance of cultural and religious diversity. In the past several months, Medha has come home with books from the library about Diwali, Eid, Hannukah and Kwanzaa. They get Time for Kids in school and one of the issues focused on India and its heritage. The Kindergarten teachers in her school are putting together a talk about different cultures and traditions. I might be asked to talk about Diwali.


As you can see, winter has really set in this year. We have already seen about 10 inches of snow. Over the plains in Kansas, they have been dealing with ice. I think we all need a Secret Santa to bring us some warmth!

The kids in Lesotho could certainly do with a Secret Santa who makes it possible for them to have a warm, nourishing lunch at school every day. It's been proven over and over again that food keeps the children in schools, ensuring that they get an education along with the nutrition. If you haven't already donated for Menu For Hope, please consider sharing some of the warmth in your homes with these children in Lesotho. Check out the prizes I am offering, along with Ammini Ramchandran. See what other bloggers are offering. This is an excellent cause and every $10 will buy you a raffle ticket for all these fabulous prizes.

Think about. Consider it. And, be a Secret Santa.

Arabian Nights: Before-I-Die Bedouin Mensaf Lebeneh and Sambusik Cookies

It's very rare for my husband to ask me to cook something and he's always very appreciative of whatever I put in front of him. And even more appreciative if he didn't have to do anything to bring it to fruition. If I ask him for a farmaaish, it's almost always khichadi, not to be confused with kichadi, and potatoes in a sweet and tangy tomato sauce. Needless to say, I've stopped asking him.

So when he came up with Bedouin Mensaf Lebeneh as one of the dishes he would like to eat in this lifetime, I was really taken aback. Not only had he asked for something other than khichadi, but this was a dish that had meat in it. Given a choice, he prefers to be a vegetarian but has learned to eat fish and meat because of me. He had first heard of Mensaf Lebeneh when I had read him excerpts from Diana Abu-Jaber's The Language of Baklava. The violent story of the botched-up killing of the lamb, followed by the recipe for a Peaceful Vegetarian Lentil Soup got him hooked. He read the book from cover to cover. He even approached my Bosnian neighbor who, from time to time, has goat carcasses hanging in his garage. According to Medha, the dead goats keep looking at them while they play.

Bedouin Mensaf Lebeneh is best when made with goat meat or mutton, as it is called in India. I made it with lamb, the more readily available meat in these parts of Colorado.

Bedouin Mensaf Lebeneh

From Diana Abu-Jaber's The Language of Baklava

• 2 lbs boneless lamb
• 1 egg, lightly whisked (I used just the egg-white. You'll realize why as you read through the rest of the ingredients!)
• 1 quart buttermilk
• Salt to taste
• Freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup rice
• 1 large onion, chopped (I forgot and sliced mine!)
• 1/4 to 1/2 pound butter (!)
• 3 pitas, torn into pieces
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or slivered almonds (I had neither so I used walnuts)

1. In a large pot, place the lamb and add water until the lamb is covered. Bring to a boil.
2. Turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or so.
3. Skim off any fat that drifts to the surface, leaving behind a lamb broth.
4. In another large pot, stir the egg into the buttermilk and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir constantly or else the buttermilk will curdle.
5. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue stirring, for about 20 minutes.
6. Add just the lamb pieces to the buttermilk mixture. Do not discard the broth.
7. Add 1 cup of the lamb broth to the buttermilk mixture and stir thoroughly.
8. Simmer this lamb mixture for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
9. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
10. In the meantime, cook the rice in 2 cups of the lamb broth, adding salt to taste.
    
    
    
    
11. In a saucepan, sauté the onions in 1 tbsp of butter until they are lightly browned.
12. Add these onions to the buttermilk mixture toward the end of the cooking.
    
    
    
13. Layer the pieces of pita on the bottom of each plate and pour enough of the buttermilk mixture to soak the bread.
14. Spread the rice over the bread in a low dome.
15. Place the lamb pieces over the rice and pour more buttermilk over the meat. Don't let it become soupy or runny.
16. Keep the extra buttermilk sauce to serve on the side for those - like me - who would like more.
17. In another (yes, 4th!) small pan, sauté the pine nuts or almonds in 2 tbsp butter until the nuts are lightly browned and sprinkle them over the meat.
18. Dot the whole dish with slices of the remaining butter before serving.

Some notes:

• Needless to say this is a very rich dish! I used as little butter as possible and also eliminated the egg yolk in an attempt to make this more appropriate for non-Bedouins like us, whose sedentary lives could do without so much fat and cholesterol!
• This dish has a very gamey flavor. The next time I make this, I will cook the rice in water or vegetable stock instead of lamb broth.
• Medha did not like this dish. She complained that it had no flavor. What she meant was that she could not taste any of the spices that she is used to in my cooking. No ginger or garlic either. How true! So the next day, I added some powdered cinnamon to the buttermilk sauce and she ate it with less reluctance.
• My husband was surprised by the gaminess or heavy meaty flavor. But he enjoyed every bite of it!

To go with this one-dish Jordanian meal, I made some delectable melt-in-your-mouth cookies. Forget-me-not Sambusik Cookies are what Diana Abu-Jaber calls these Jordanian delights in an ode to her childhood friend Hisham, who she met during the short period that her family returned to live in Jordan.

I, too, have a forget-me-not experience associated with these cookies. Several, actually. It started with the preparation of these cookies. The ingredients call for 1 and half cups of ground walnuts. No brainer, right? Wrong. Think hours of grinding walnuts in the food processor. Walnuts release their oils when ground and so it had to be done in small batches and simply took forever! But I was so committed to these cookies that I didn't give up. Such is the power of The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber!

The camping trip I took them on was also another unforgettable and cold experience. Maybe it's got something to do with the cookies? Try it out, take them somewhere and let me know if you, too, had a forget-me-not experience!

Sambusik Cookies

From Diana Abu-Jaber's The Language of Baklava

• For the covering:
• 1 cup clarified butter or ghee
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup milk, at room temperature
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• For the filling:
• 1 and 1/2 cups ground walnuts
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon rosewater

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Stir the sugar into the clarified butter.
3. Stir in the milk.
4. Add the flour in small batches and knead
   by hand until smooth. 4 cups of flour is a lot of flour! I had to enlist larger hands to assist with the kneading.
5. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch and cut with a 2inch round cookie cutter.
6. Combine all the filling ingredients and place a good mounded teaspoon of the filling on each cut-out cookie, fold it over, and pinch the edges closed.
7. Traditional sambusik cookies are then curved into a half-moon shape.
8. Bake at 350F for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned.
   
   
   
   
9. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool.
10. Sprinkle liberally with confectioner's sugar.
11. Dig your teeth into these and enjoy these walnut filled cookies with a hint of rose flavor!

Some tips:

• Look at the ingredient list carefully. It is 1 and 1/2 cups of ground walnuts, not 1 and 1/2 cups walnuts, ground. It took about 4 cups of walnuts, possibly more, to yield 1 and 1/2 cups of ground walnuts. This was the part that took the longest. So if you decide to make these and you have a Middle-Eastern or Arab store nearby and they stock ground walnuts, jump at that chance. It will save you a lot of time!
• It might be a good idea to halve this recipe. That way one is dealing with only 3/4 cup ground walnuts and only 2 cups of flour. You won't go nuts grinding the walnuts like I did! And 2 cups flour is manageable for medium to small size adult hands!
I wasn't really sure what Diana Abu-Jaber meant by curved into a half moon shape. To me, half a moon is a semi-circle. I thought perhaps she meant a crescent and so that is what I did. If you have had the real thing when it comes to Sambusik Cookies, do drop me a note to tell me where I could have done better. Ahem! Note the positive tone!

This makes about 35-36 cookies. It was just the right number for our neighborhood potluck when we camped at Moraine Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. They were a huge hit. We didn't stay the second night but the cookies did!

I found Diana Abu-Jaber's Language of Baklava when Barbara mentioned that it was a memoir of an Arab-American girl who straddles two very different cultures while growing up, Jordanian on her father's side and American on her mother's. Diana Abu-Jaber relates her story with a lot of humor and punctuates them with well-written easy-to-follow recipes. I was hoping to learn something new from this book about raising an immigrant child in America, where values at home are sometimes radically different from that of the world I send her out into. I think I set my expectations too high in that respect because I couldn't find anything that I would do differently after reading this book. But the book itself makes for a wonderful and easy read! The recipes are an added bonus.

I am sending these Jordanian delicacies to Meeta's Arabian Nights - Monthly Mingle.

Tags: Mensaf Lebeneh, Sambusik Cookies, Arabian Nights, Monthly Mingle, Diana Abu-Jaber, The Language of Baklava, Jordanian Cuisine, cookbook