Remember when we made pumpkin ravioli and saved the ones with the store-bought wonton wrappers in the freezer for future use? Well, this time, instead of a classic brown butter and sage sauce, I decided to cook them up finger-food style as toasted pumpkin ravioli, not too unlike the toasted ravioli Rachael Ray inspired us to make a while back.
This simple dish is a healthier version of mac and cheese. I adapted it from Giada’s version, but she uses way more cheese and adds sauce. I decided to omit the sauce and make it more like mac and cheese, less like baked ziti. Her recipe also calls for 4 mushrooms, which is nothing. I left them out, though they probably would have been a great addition to the meal. Next time I’ll definitely use them.
While looking through a Syrian cookbook, I came across a dutch oven recipe for hameen, a dish that required a whole chicken, 5 hours, and long-grain white rice. It sounded delicious, but I definitely had to switch it up a little bit. This recipe is pretty simple and the ingredients are all really basic, and you should have most, if not all of them in your house already. Continue reading
My favorite thing to do with the leftover vegetables and herbs in the fridge is make a frittata. It’s pretty easy to do, and works for any meal of the day. It’s also very easy to make it to feed a crowd, or for just one. And you can put virtually anything in it! This morning, I had about 1/3 of a box of frozen peas sitting in the freezer, some leftover red bell pepper, and a carrot. Then I found some thyme that was just begging to be used (my fresh herbs often end up in the garbage, it’s rather sad).
You can’t go wrong with caramelized onions and roasted butternut squash. Here’s a pretty easy (once you get the pie crust out of the way) special dinner recipe. Sure, it’s a bit fattening, but hey, once in a while you just have to splurge. If you’re having some company over and making dairy, this is definitely a great recipe to impress guests with. The list of ingredients looks rather long, but I found that I had a lot of the ingredients.
This recipe is from The Art and Soul of Baking, a book that I haven’t used in a while. I’m happy to have it opened up again, and keep finding more and more recipes to try… Continue reading
We taught you how to roll and freeze the yebra, and I’m sure you were eager to know how to actually cook at eat it…well here’s one way to do it!
Yebra is definitely a Syrian favorite. We eat it with sweet sauce, sour sauce, meat filled, and with rice and chick peas inside (a pareve version). Different families prefer it different ways. This is not how our mom makes it, but it’s a really yummy version with apricots, one of my favorites.
These take a long time to cook, so if you’re making it for Friday night dinner, make it on Thursday night and reheat it before dinner Friday.
Please give a warm welcome to our very first guest blogger, our lovely sister-in-law Adele!
I LOVE CHICKPEAS. There. I said it.
I’m a sucker for anything with chickpeas in them – salads, hummus, curry – whatever it is, I’ll eat it. Chickpeas, or Garbanzo Beans, are super delicious, super filling, super healthy, and super cute! (Seriously – have you ever looked at one? It looks like a baby butt!) If you ever need a protein in your meal – a handful of chickpeas is generally the way I go. They are versatile like you wouldn’t believe and couldn’t be easier to store. (In the past, I’ve bought dried chickpeas, soaked them overnight, boiled them, yadda yadda yadda. The canned is way easier. Just make sure to rinse them off thoroughly first. Here’s what Mark Bittman has to say on the subject.)
Update: after you read this post and roll your yebra, go ahead and cook it!
Yebra, or stuffed grape leaves, is a traditional Syrian food that can be prepared in a few different ways. But before you can eat it, you have to actually stuff and roll the grape leaves with hashu (there’s a pareve version, too). To make a whole 16-oz. jar of grape leaves, you need to double the hashu recipe.
I actually used a slightly different recipe for hashu. This one is from a cookbook called Deal Delights, a pretty old book with traditional Syrian recipes.
The cold weather means it’s winter squash season, as you know. And everyone knows those are the best types of squash. I recently got my hands on an acorn and a butternut variety and didn’t know what to do with them. Soup? Roasted? Boring!
After a long brainstorm, I thought to make macaroni and cheese:
Originally, I wanted to make risotto, but then I realized that I’d have to go shopping, and I really didn’t want to go to the supermarket, so I had to pick something that I could make with whatever I already had in the kitchen. Then pizza came to mind (I always have mini pizza doughs in the fridge), but I wasn’t feeling it. That’s when I thought of mac & cheese; I’ve read about camouflaging cauliflower in it to trick kids into eating more healthily, so why not put squash in it? I wasn’t trying to make it healthier, just different, but I went with it, and my little experiment was a big success!
This is probably more appropriate as a breakfast/brunch food, but I decided to serve it for dinner. Everyone likes to eat breakfast for dinner!
This is where I would usually put a photo of the completed product if I hadn’t either forgotten to take one or virtually misplaced it. Please use your imagination.
It’s kind of an omelet, but made in the oven instead of over the stove. And the ingredients are mixed in, as opposed to folded in.
