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I am trying to get better on making desserts, I gave this recipe a try and it turned out well :) It is super easy too.

Serves 4-6 (depending on the size of the mold or pan)
Ingredients:
1 block of dark chocolate (250gr)
1/3 cup powder sugar
2 full eggs
2 egg yolks
4 tablespoons of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of butter
Vanilla ice cream to serve it with (I chose vanilla-mango)

In a bowl, add the 4 eggs and beat well until fluffy. Sift and add the sugar, and then do the same for the flour and add it to the mix. Break the chocolate and place it in another bowl with the butter, put this bowl on top of a pot half full with water and bring the water to a boil then reduce the heat, in order for the chocolate to melt along with the butter but not to cook. After the chocolate-butter mix is ready, add it to the mixture of eggs, sugar and flour while stirring. If you have the mold for the fondant that's great, but if you don't (like me :)) use the muffin tin :) yeah why not? Grease the pan and pour the mixture, and transfer into a 400F oven for 10-12 minutes. Serve with ice cream and drizzle some of the melted chocolate or some chocolate syrup. Don't let it cool off, serve immediately.
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I love salads :) Therefore I always experiment and mix and match whatever we have in the fridge. I personally love this one! I am trying to post other stuff besides Lebanese food thinking I could to show how cosmopolitan my country is and how much we love International cuisine :)

Ingredients:
2 heads of red and green frizzy lettuce
1 can of corn
2 cucumbers
2 green onion chopped
1 cup of fresh sliced mushrooms
Some smoked salmon to top the salad (I chose herb marinated ones)
1 tomato sliced and each slice cut in half

For the dressing:
1 tbspn of Herbes de Provence
1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup of olive oil

Chop the lettuce and add to the serving plate then add the corn, cucumbers, onions, mushrooms. Top the salad with the smoked salmon, and distribute the tomatoes around the plate. You can mix the dressing and add it or serve it on the side in a small bowl. You can also adjust the vinegar and olive oil upon taste.
Sahtein!!! (= bon appetit in Arabic :))
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This is a very simple appetizer to have on your buffet in any occasion. Just pick any caviar kind you like, some toast, butter and cut some thin lemon slices. Spread the butter on the toast, then spread the caviar and top it with a lemon slice. Et Voila! Bon Appetit and Cheers!
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I would like to thank Turkish Food Passion for this wonderful and cute award. I am flattered. Thank you very much. And I would like to send Christmas and New Year's greetings to all the fellow bloggers and readers. Sorry it's been a while since I posted new recipes, but I am in lebanon right now, Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lately I had multiple things going on all at the same time: New house, my husband switched jobs and he's overseas again now, me traveling to Lebanon for the holiday season and much, so it's been hectic!!!!!!!!!! But I promise that I will post new recipes very very soon!
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Yields about a dozen or more depending on the size.

Ingredients:
For the dough:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
3/4 of a teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons of olive oil

for the filling:
About 2 cups of crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
1 small chopped onion (or half a big one)

- Mix the filling ingredients and set aside.
Mix all the dough ingredients together, cover and let the dough rest for about an hour in a warm place. Knead once. When it rises, roll the dough and flatten until it's medium thin. with a rounded cookie cutter (or a small drinking glass)cut the dough. Place about a small teaspoon inside each circle then bend the 4 sides and press on each corner to hold together. (Like the photo shows). Bake in a 350F oven for about 25 minutes or until golden on top.
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This is a very simple recipe, serves as a quick meal and very good along with pita bread.

For the Eggs & Potato: (serves 1-2)
1 egg hard boiled
1 potato, boiled
Salt & pepper to taste
Seven spices (to sprinkle on top)
Olive oil (about a tablespoon)
- Mash the egg and the potato together and mix well, add salt & pepper. Sprinkle allspice or (7 spices) on top, and drizzle olive oil on the top too and serve hot or cold with pita bread and the salad.

For the Salad:
Few lettuce leaves (any kind you want or mixed greens)
4-5 marinated sundried tomatoes
About a handful of green olives sliced
1 fresh french endive chopped
about a handful of fresh flat parsley
2 green onions chopped
1 fresh tomato (optional)
- Mix them all together and add the dressing: 1 teaspoon of Dijon Mustard or any mustard you like, juice of one fresh lemon, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste, a bit of Herbes De Provence or Italian herbs, mix all together and add to the salad.
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Freekeh is grilled or roasted wheat, harvested at early stages, dried and grilled and it has a green color. It is very healthy and it is used and cooked like rice and pasta. It is very famous all over the arab world and nowadays considered one of the healthiest cereals. Freekeh can be cooked in so many ways, and used in soups too. I decided to make it with chicken,. It can be prepared with both chicken and beef at the same time (or lamb), some people like to add bulgur to it too. But this is a simple and tasty recipe that I decided to make.

Serves 4-5
2 cups of Freekeh (found in middle eastern stores or online)
3 cups of chicken stock
1 medium onion chopped
1 whole chicken or any part of the chicken you like
2 cups of mixed raw nuts (pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, almonds, pecans)
2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of allspice (or 7 spices)

For cooking the chicken:
1 carrot, 1 small onion, 1 cinnamon stick, some herbs ( I chose fresh thyme), 1/2 tsp of salt, 2 bay leaves, water to cover it.

Very important: Freekeh needs to be well cleaned by spreading it on a flat surface (like a tray and going through the grains with your fingers, in case there are any little stones, then soak it warm water for 15 to 30 mnts and wash several times using a strainer then let it drain)

In a pot, add the chicken and the herbs and vegetables and water and let it cook until done, removing the white foam whenever it comes up.
- In another pot, add 1 tbsp of butter, chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste, cook for a minute then add the freekeh and the allspice, mix all until the freekeh absorbs the butter, then add the 3 cups of chicken stock of your choice ( I like to remove the cooked chicken and use the water or stock that I prepared), once it comes to a boil, let it simmer until it absorbs the water and cook (just like rice).
- In a pan, add 1 tbsp of butter and the raw nuts and roast until brown.
Serve the freekeh with nuts and chicken on top. It's good with any salad.

Ok, I'm back to say that Summer posted freekeh few days ago and I just noticed it, so hers is really good too for those who didn't check it before (haha like me few minutes ago!).
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I would like to thank dear blogger Kitchen Flavours/Yummy Food Blog, for passing this award to me and to 9 nine other fellow bloggers.
I myself would like to pass to 10 other blogs and they are:
- Culinary Couture
- Passionate about Baking
- Canary Girl
- Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook
- Hooked On Heat
- Fig & Cherry
- Mimi Cooks
- Ya Salam Cooking
- The Left Over Queen
- Food Stories
And now the awarded bloggers can kindly pass it to 10 other blogs :)

PS; For some reason blogger.com is not showing the links that I've added to the winning blogs. I guess it's a small problem that it might get fixed soon, however all these blogs and their links are on my list of favorites (right bottom of my blog) so the links are working from there. Sorry about that, hope it'll be fixed soon!
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This is a very easy and healthy spinach recipe.

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:
1 big bunch of fresh Spinach, chopped (or frozen, canned etc..)
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/3 cup of olive oil
1 tsp allspice
Juice of a lemon
1 tsp tomato sauce
1 cup of lean minced meat
1 1/2 cups of water
Salt & pepper to taste

- In the cooking pot, add onions, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and cook for about a minute, then add the minced meat, salt, pepper & allspice. When the meat is cooked, add the spinach. Turn the heat to low and let the spinach cook for few minutes then add the water, tomato sauce and let it all slow cook for another 12 minutes. Add the lemon juice in the last 5 minutes. Serve with rice cooked with vermicelli (the rice recipe is already posted with the red beans/chilli recipe).
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Stuffed Zucchini are usually accompanied by stuffed grape leaves, but since I already posted the stuffed grape leaves in tomato sauce, I've decided to give credit to the bellpepper this time ;)
Serves 4-5
1 pound of small zucchini
3 green bellpepper
1 can of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon of butter
A couple of bay leaves and a couple of cinnamon sticks
About 4 cups of water

Filling:
1 cup of white long or short grain rice
1/2 pound of minced meat
1 small tomato
1 onion
1 tablespoon allspice
1 teaspoon of salt

- Wash the rice and drain then put in a bowl. Dice the tomato and onion and add to the bowl, then add the minced meat and the spices as well as salt and mix the ingredients together.
- Cut the heads of the zucchini and empty them (there is a special tool that empties zucchini, usually dounf in middle eastern stores). Wash hem and turn them upside down to drain. Now, cut the in a way to make it look like having a lid (as it shows in the photo, don't completely detach the lid. Empty the inside, then wash them and let them drain too, then start stuffing the bellpepper and zucchini. Allow room for the rice to expand, so stuff them for about halfway each. Transfer the stuffed vegetables to the cooking pot adding the water, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Cook on medium-high for about 15 minutes, remove the white foam that comes out of them. When the water is half way evaporated, add the tomato sauce and the spoon of butter and reduce the heat and cook for about another 15 minutes. If you feel that the sauce needs to be more thickened, then stir 1 teaspoon of flour in a 1/3 of a cup of water and add while stirring the sauce. Serve with any king of salad or with plain yogurt. (Don't forget to remove the bay leaves and the cinnamon sticks before serving).
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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.
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Being in Lebanon for the last few weeks has been keeping me from posting recipes. Time just flies here and I am not cooking during my vacation, but I will cook and post some recipes very soon and while I'm still here. Meanwhile, here's a photo of a kind of Lebanese sweet that we were having the other night after dinner with some friends. It's called "KARABEEJ", these are pistachios stuffed cookies like "Maamoul" and you dip them with a specially prepared cream called "NATEF". This kind of dipping cream is not easy to make at home, I would say very difficult to get the main ingredient to prepare it called "soapwart", so everybody here buys this kind of dessert or sweet, or if the cookies are prepared at home, the cream can be bought seperately from the sweet shops or Patisseries. I found a recipe on the net they call it "Karabeej Aleppo" so maybe the origin of this dessert came from Syria. Here's the recipe link just in case anybody would like to give it a try, the site is Discover Lebanon
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I want to thank "Ya Salam Cooking" blogger Noor for passing this award to me, and now I would like to pass it to seven other fantastic blogs and sites:
- Leftover Queen
- Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook
- Canary Girl
- Culinary Couture
- Fig and Cherry
- Mediterranen Cooking in Alaska
Fellow awarded bloggers please pass it to 7 or more blogs or sites.
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The recipe of preparing hommus is already listed among my previous recipe. Now for the meat and pine nuts topping you'll need:
- Lean minced meat (1 cup)
- Pine nuts (about 1/3 cup)
- Olive oil (or vegetabl oil, which ever you like, about 2 tablespoons
- Finely chopped onions, about 2 tablespoons
- Salt & pepper to taste, and a pinch of allspice (optional)
In a skillet on medium-high, add oil and pine nuts. when the pine nuts start to brown, add the onions, mix and cook for about a minute then add the minced meat and mix them all together and keep cooking until the meat is fully cooked. Serve over the hommus along with pita bread.
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Meghli is a kind of Lebanese rice pudding prepared in special occasions especially when a baby is born. It is a tradition to serve it to guests and friends when they come to offer their congratulations. It is also served on Christmas Eve's dinner along with the Yule Log. Most people nowadays prepare it all the time not only on occasions.

Serves 7-8 (of the same size of the serving bowl shown in the photo)

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice flour
1 cup of sugar
8 cups of water
1 tbsp of ground caraway seeds
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground anis seeds

For the topping:
Raw almonds, pistachios, walnuts and coconut flakes.

In the cooking pot, add the cups of water, rice flour, whisk or stirr until desolved, then add the sugar until it desolves too. Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium heat. Add the spices: caraway, cinnamon, anis seeds. The pudding can easily stick so you can't leave it. Stirr until it thickens then transfer into the serving bowls and let it cool. Meanwhile, add water to the alomds and pistachios and let them sit until they soften (about half to an hour or so). Before serving the pudding, top it with coconut flakes, then almonds and pistachios then serve. Or you can decorate the bowls and leave them in the refrigerator.
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This is my easy version of Siyyadiyeh. The traditional version is a little bit more complicated and requires using whole fish, where you bake it and then remove the head and bones and boil them with water and spices to obtain fish broth. In this version, I make it with fish fillets and use ready fish broth. Therefore, I don't deal with bones nor a longer cooking time.

Serves 4-5
Ingredients:
1 pound of Whiting fish fillets (or Tilapia)
2 cups of white long rice
2 cups of fish broth (or any other broth you like)
2 onions, cut in half and sliced
1/2 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of allspice
1/2 cup of Olive oil
1/2 cup of vegetable oil (I prefer canola)
Salt & pepper to taste

For the sauce:
1 teaspoon of butter
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of flour
1 cup of fish broth
Juice of half a lemon
Salt & pepper to taste

Take the fish fillets and coat them with a mixture of flour, cumin and salt & pepper, set them aside. In a pan, add the vegetable oil and cook the fish on both sides and let drain the oil on a paper towel.
In another pan, add olive oil and the onions. Cook the onions until they are brown. remove from the oil and add the pine nuts to the oil until golden then also remove and transfer on a paper towel to drain the oil.
- In a pot, add the 2 cups of fish broth bring to a boil and then add the browned onions, cook on medium for a couple of minutes and then add the rice with 2 cups of water. Then add the cumin, allspice, salt & pepper, and let it simmer and cook.
Meanwhile prepare the sauce, in a sauce pan, add the butter, then the flour, mix until the flour obtain the roue, then add the broth, cumin, lemon juice, salt, pepper, stir and bring to a boil until it thickens.
Serve the cooked rice with pine nuts on top as well as the fish fillets and top them with the sauce. Any salad is good with it too.

PS: You also have the option to bake or broil the fish fillets but then you skip the flour and cumin coating and you spice them and drizzle some olive oil.
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This is the Lebanese style of making Chili served over rice with vermicelli.

Serves 4-5
Ingredients:
1 onion chopped
Half a pound of lean stew meat
4 sliced cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of butter
2 cups of tomato sauce
Juice of 1 small lemon
1 cup of fresh cilantro
1 cup of red beans soaked overnight and cooked
1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes
Salt & pepper to taste

For the rice:
2 cups of white long grain rice
1/2 cup of vermicelli
1 teaspoon of butter
1 cup of meat stock or chicken bouillon (optional)

In a pan, add the chopped onions, butter, stew meat, salt and pepper. After the meat had browned and the onions cooked, add the garlic then cook for another few minutes then add 1 cup of water and the tomato sauce and slow cook the stew for 15 minutes. Add the beans and then the cilantro in addition to the lemon juice and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the stew is cooking you can prepare the rice:
In another pan, add butter then the vermicelli until they turn brown, then add the rice and 3 cups of water and 1 cup of stock, bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the rice is cooked and the water is absorbed. (Do not stir the rice more then twice so it doesn't get lumpy).

Serve the Chili with the rice.
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I love dandelions! They are very healthy so when I see them at the store I can't help myself. The ones I found this time were very soft and not bitter at all so I decided to make a small fresh salad. This canm be served with pretty much any meal.

Ingredients (very simple):
Washed, drained and chopped dandelions, some chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil, half a teaspoon of sumac spice, salt & pepper to taste.

Place the chopped dandelions in a bowl, then add the tomatoes. I add the sumac spice along with the salt to the onion and mix them all together then add them to the salad. Drizzle the mixed olive oil and lemon juice, then finally add the black pepper.
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There's nothing better than a simple smoothie after a long hot day!

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:
1 cup of ice
1 cup of frozen watermelon
1 cup of frozen papaya
1 cup of fresh strawberries
1 6oz fat free vanilla yogurt

Put all the ingredients in a smoothie maker or a mixer, once everything is pureed together, pour into glasses and voila!
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authorHello, my name is MAG. I've been running this blog since 2007. Follow me on Social Media!!!
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