Resolution this!

Never been much of a New Year's resolution person. But I did decide that I don't want to let this blog die. Its too much fun to go back and read about what we were doing and eating at different time points. When I started this I hoped it would exist as a recipe journal for my kids, something I think is more important with the passing of my dad since he was so secretive in the kitchen... Anyhoo...

We're back in the UAE and back on the healthy program after a Christmas of booze, cheese and a hideously unsuccessful turducken. Which maybe I'll recount for you, but I'm still feeling rather broken up about...

My DH has to fly today and since I was up at 4a, I made him this lovely breakfast frittata (really baked eggs...). You can fool around with ingredients as much as you want and based on what is available, but try to stick to a theme, today was Mediterranean/ Greek.

Breakfast frittata
Lightly grease a small-medium sized casserole pan (8"x6"x4"), with butter or olive oil (1/4 tsp is all you need). Fill it with:
1/4 cup chick peas
6 kalamata olives- chopped
1/2 cup asparagus- cut into 1/2" pieces
1/3 large red pepper- chopped
1/4 cup low-fat feta- crumbled
1/2 red onion- also chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
5 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
Bake at 350 or so for around 25 min or until set in center. Its actually better served at room temperature than hot out of the oven.

Banana date muffins

I've never been much of a date eater. Sometimes they make me think of big beetles with their glossy outer shell. And at this time of year, the smell of date palms can be sort of overwhelmingly sticky sweet.
Lately though, I'm kind of getting into them, especially for their versatility in baking. They add sweetness and fiber without losing softness in the crumb. Try these muffins, they are absolutely delicious and super-simple.

Click on the picture for a chart of all the different kinds. Still prefer the california medjool, but my palate is expanding.

Apologies to the Americans for the metric notations... back in the ME, you know...

300g strong whole wheat flour
a scant 50g caster sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
dash salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
100g dates pitted
1 banana
1 egg
1 1/4 cup soy milk (or milk)
1/4 cup canola oil (or melted butter)

Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease and flour a 12 muffin, medium size tin. In a large bowl, fork sift flour, sugar, baking powder, spices and salt.
In a blender, combine the dates, banana, soymilk, and oil. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and add the egg. Stir.
Scoop into muffin tins. Bake for about 15min, check them at 12.

Broken eggs...

So today was kind of a strange one. I went to the market after dropping them off at school and running the suburban mom gossip gauntlet. I managed to get everything I needed and get it all into the house before the trouble started.

One 1/2 gallon of milk was almost entirely lost because it was leaking out the bottom of the carton (Organic- $3.49 down the drain...), the peanut butter I bought was expired (I didnt know this was possible and I'm NOT throwing it out..), AND I broke an entire carton of eggs on the floor because I was trying to juggle too many things at once.
The big question was then what to do with all these broken eggs. Since its spring, sort of, I made a pie.

8 broken eggs (pick out most of the shells)
1/2 cup spinach
1/2 cup cooked sausage
1/4 cup cheese cubed or shredded (your choice)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp parmesan
salt & pepper to taste

Butter an 8" baking pan. Put the sausage, spinach and cheese in. Take the eggs and whirl them up in a blender with the mayo, pour over sausage. Top with pepper, salt and parmesan. Bake at 350 or so for 20-30 min or until just set (it will finish cooking in the pan).

More on Rice Pudding.

As many of you know, I'm a bit obsessive about rice pudding. . I just think its one of those foods with enormous potential that's kind of hard to get right. And by 'right' I only mean how I like it. My original attempt at rice pudding was tasty and good but really not creamy enough, a later attempt had good texture, but still something about the flavor was ever so slightly off.

Both had a problem with the rice being slightly bitter, something I've always just attributed to the fact that I've been using brown rice. I kind of assumed this was unavoidable. Today, I learned that I'm just an uneducated cook. Evidently, cooking the rice first in water eliminates this problem.

Cook 1 cup short grain brown rice in 2 cups of water with a dash of salt.
Let cool.
In a mixing bowl, combine 11/4 cup whole milk, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 3 eggs, a tsp. of cardamom, a tsp. of cinnamon and one of ginger. Vanilla is good here or you could substitute 1/4 cup of the milk for rum and add a 1/2 cup of raisins.
Bake in an 8" square glass pan set in a water bath at 350 for about 40 minutes. Start checking it after 30, you don't want to overcook it, it gets stiff.
Excellent for breakfast with berries.

Eggy Beany Cheesy

On arrival in America, my sister brought us home to the apartment she shares with her charming fiance in Brooklyn. Its kind of a classic NY 500 sq ft. deal complete with screaming upstairs neighbor, mice and tiny kitchen. My sister is whippin' up some grand food out of that tiny kitchen, though.

Afterwaking up at 3am and putting PeeWee's Playhouse on for the kids in a desperate gambit to get them to sleep, we eventually gave up around 5:30. Aunty and soon-to-be Uncle made us this most delicious skillet breakfast:

Saute some chunks of chicken sausage in a 10" cast-iron frying pan with onion and tomato until sausage is cooked through and vegetables are soft and carmelized.
Add one can of black beans, pinto beans would be nice here too... and some roasted green chili peppers, sprinkle with a bit of garlic powder.
Crack 4 or 5 eggs over the top, and cover them with about 1/2 cup of grated cheese - cheddar, pepperjack, etc. etc.
Cover and cook on med-low until egggs are done, but still runny.
Eat with tortillas.

Go back to bed...happy.

Buttermilk

Lately, I keep running into recipes that call for buttermilk. Breaded chicken, pancakes, a cake etc. etc. Buttermilk does not seem to be available here in Dubai, leaving me a bit perplexed about what to do.

I tried one buttermilk substitute that involved putting vinegar into whole milk and letting it sit, but the result smelled WAY inedible and I put it down the drain.

I found something though, there is a drinkable unsweetened yogurt here called Laban and it makes an excellent substitute for buttermilk as long as you use the full fat one, not skim.

Laban makes absolutely the most lucious pancakes I have ever ever tasted. Here's the recipe that's a culmination of everything I know about pancakes, but is probably impossible because of continental drift...

1 cup whole wheat King Arthur flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1 cup laban
1 very fresh egg
mix it all together.

Pour onto hot griddle, greased with butter.
Top with fresh blueberries.
Flip when bubbly.
Top with maple syrup or honey.
Yummy!

French Flat Toast

Got home recently after a doomed trip to Rome (spent the entire time in hotel with sick child...) and had nothing to feed them the morning after we arrived back in Dubai except some pretty stale flat bread and some eggs.

Flat French Toast was the natural answer. The only trick seemed to be cutting it into quarters and turning it inside out so it would soak up the egg. If you dont, the texture isnt very nice. But if you do, it gets a kind of yummy crepe-y texture and is lovely with maple syrup (yeah! Geant Hypermarket organic section...) or strawberry jam.

Here's a picture of the view from my hotel. All I saw of Italy this time around, at least it was green...

Tropical bread pudding.

I had some lovely brioche which managed to survive around here long enough to go stale. I wanted to make bread pudding out of it, but I wasnt that interested in a typical NE-style one with apples and raisins. I did have some very ripe mangos and decided to base the pudding on them.

Grease an 8in casserole with butter.

toss together

4 day-old brioche, cubed

two mangos, diced
and the juice of one lime

in a separate bowl, combine

three eggs

about 1/2 cup of light coconut milk

teaspoon of powdered ginger (fresh would be nice too)

2 tbsp granulated sugar

Pour egg mixture over bread

sprinkle with crystal sugar

Bake at 175c. for about 45 min or until set and lightly browned on top.

Serve chilled, garnished with fresh raspberries and mint.

Are we British yet?

Here in Dubai we are surrounded by British food. My children are obsessed with Digestive Biscuits and Burbon Creams. We have been buying pre-seasoned Chicken Spatchcock because my DH LOVES it and it makes very good soup, and the boys have, here and there, referred to dinner as 'tea'.
So since we are enjoying this English thing, and it actually RAINED on the Trucial coast today and was what passes for a fall day, I decided to make scones.
I've never made them before, so I used the Nigella Lawson recipe from How to Be a Domestic Godess but modified it a bit for stuff I didnt have on had and to give them a more specific taste.
Here goes.
Pre-heat oven to 220 celcius.
In a large bowl combine 250g flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Cut about 75 grams of cold butter into this until well integrated and crumbly.
toss 50 grams each chopped walnuts and chopped dried apricots with the butter and flour mixture
add 150ml of cold milk and combine GENTLY- the dough will be very sticky
Turn the dough onto a well floured surface and add flour by hand being careful not to overmix until the dough stays together, but is still soft.
Cut into 8 - 10 pieces and place on a baking sheet. Paint with eggwash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake for about 15 min until browned on the bottom. They are cooked when set firm, but not brown on top.
They would be delicious with any number of dried fruits; raisins, cherries, even papaya.

And while they aren't much to look at, they had a really light crumb and a satisfying mild sweetness from the apricots.

Breakfast of Champions or just me...

My new favorite breakfast is 'Energy Bread' toast spread with Labneh (Yogurt Cheese) with Zaatar. Zaatar is another one of these things that varies wildly depending on where you get it. In general, it seems to be sesame seeds, marjoram, thyme and oregano and then sumac and or hyssop in varying quantities. Its got a kind of light, lemony herbal taste. I top my toast with some tomato slices and sprinkle it with a little salt.

My friend Shellie gave me a pizza like thing at a picnic the other day that seemed to be a fried bread topped with Zaatar. It was tasty, but I have to say I like it better in the yogurt cheese.

Full Circle

This blog started with a recipe and thoughts about rice pudding and since my life has certainly come full circle- ok, several full circles, in the last year, I thought the blog should too.
Tonight I made some more rice pudding. I used brown basmati rice, which I like better than the short grained brown rices, although it still gets a slightly bitter taste which I'm attributing to the bran being cooked in milk. Possibly its unavoidable.
I cooked the rice with about 1 tablespoon of raw cane sugar and a tablespoon of indian powdered ginger. When it was cooked, I added one egg stirring it in very well to avoid the problem of sweet, rice-y, scrambled eggs (eww.)
I packed it into a tupperware and put it in the fridge. I'll finish this in the morning when I eat it for breakfast.

Sept 26- It was pretty good. A little dry. It would be excellent with a selection of fresh berries. Unfortunately, we are here to save money not spend it all on breakfast, so a selection of fresh berries is fairly out of the question.

Yogofabulous.

The absolutely best local food going here so far has got to be the yogurt. The hummus is tasty, the tabouleh authentic enough, the roasted chickens are tiny yet plump and juicy, but oh! the yogurt.

Its like the absolutely most perfect combination of your high ticket Whole foods supermarket organic-type yogurts combined with the desserty-delicousness of your less socially and nutritionally virtuous yogurts, with really fresh fruit and without the slightly sour aftertaste.

Even the least expensive varities are silky and unctious, yet never cloying. I cannot work in enough adjectives to describe my happiness with the yogurt. I'm absolutely certain there is no low fat yogurt here, so I suppose I should chill a little before I gain 70lbs of yogurt weight...

Boring ole oatmeal...

This morning, my husband has a big test so we are going with a nice fortifying breakfast of what Mr. Dumpling calls "boring ole oatmeal". Here in Dubai, due to the pleasant plethora (i enjoyed writing that more than you will enjoy reading it...) of dried fruit and nuts, we can enrich our oatmeal with cashews, almonds, walnuts, golden, brown or something called red, raisins (they look like brown raisins to me...), dates, prunes, papaya, mango, or banana chips. What fun!

The most exciting part of this for me- skinflint that I am- is how utterly inexpensive it all is. A Kilo of golden raisins from Iran is less than $3! This is a Kilo, 2.2 Pounds!!!

Mr. Dumpling is enriching his oatmeal with butter, and sugar and complaining that there is no maple syrup here. My poor fussy American child.

I know you know how to make pancakes.

Another plate that had to be pried from its owner to pose for a photo...

I know you know how to make pancakes, who doesnt? I have a very good trick my mother taught me for using whole wheat in baked goods. It works especially well with pancakes.

If your whole wheat pancakes are coming out, shall we say, less-than fluffy, the key is a few shakes of powdered ginger in the batter. I dont know why this works, but it does.

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder
dash salt

a few shakes of powdered ginger

1 cup milk (1%)

1 egg

Use real syrup, pointless to use the other stuff...

Here is a glamour shot of the beautiful crumb, courtesy of powdered ginger...

Childhood Obesity Cake

I've been thinking about the whole 'childhood obesity epidemic' thing a lot lately. And as a chubby kid- back then it was called 'chubby' and it wasnt that big a deal- I can say that being fat as a child does have its drawbacks.

So far, my babies fall solidly in the 'normal' range for childhood BMI (don't get overly concerned with this calculator- it puts too much emphasis on gross weight and not enough on things like waist and thigh measurements...) although Chuck is looking rather a little chunk in the photo. But dont worry, he can do a pull up. (no joke, I didnt believe it myself until he flabbergasted me, and quite a few other moms at the park...) I must say it is important to me that they stay healthy.

That and the price of food has me making my own sweets lately so I can control the sugar, fiber, fat etc. Plus its fun.

Childhood Obesity Cake (good for breakfast)

Oven to 350- grease and flour pan.

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup oat bran

1/4 cup whey protein

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

(FORK SIFT)

1 egg

1 can 'one pie' pumpkin puree

1 small cup applesauce (about 1/4 cup)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup agave nectar

(BLEND INTO DRY INGREDIENTS)

1/2 cup raw unsalted pepita

1/2 cup currants

(MIX IN)

Scoop mixture into a bundt pan- bake for about 50 min. Its delicious, so even the finicky will eat it and with a scrambled egg and some fruit, should keep them full until lunch.

Baking for the Lord

My neighbor has corralled me into baking each Sunday for the "Cafe After Mass". This is a kind of Catholic attempt to be like Episcopalians and have "fellowship" and "church community". I think its also a way to get those people who still dont eat before communion not to run racing out of the church and up the road for pancakes as soon as the Lord hits their bellies.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm making corn muffins with blackberry jam in the middle.

Nothin' to it...

1 cup white flour

1 cup yellow corn meal (fine)

scant 1 cup sugar (you could use less, but the old folks like their baked goods SWEET)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp each salt & baking powder

1 egg

1 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Mix together, fill muffin cups 1/2 full

place a generous dollop of blackberry jam in the middle of each

cover with remaining batter

top with a little bit more jam and some cane sugar for sparkliness

Bake at 350 for about 15 - 20 min.

Drop off in Church basement and RUN so you dont have to hang out with strange old folks who try to kiss your poor children.

School bake sale cake

Bought the house, moved, started school, commuting to work, life is zany.

Recently, school held a bake sale. I havent much time for fancy baking, But for Sunday Morning, I made this yummy coffee cake that seems fancy, but is super simple. They cut it into slices and I think it generated about $18- pretty cool.

Oven to 350 degrees.

Generously butter and flour a 9" round bundt pan

Fork sift

2 cups unbleached white flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Add

1 cup applesauce

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1/3 cup oil (Canola, Corn, or Vegetable)

Blend together

layer about 1/2 the batter into a bundt pan

cover layer with about 1/2 cup of the best blueberry jam you can find

Extra-delicious if you mix a 1/2 pint of fresh berries into the jam

Dont let berries touch pan

cover jam with 2nd 1/2 of the batter

Top with 1/2 cup butter cut into 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup flour (dash cinnamon- if you like)

Bake for 35 -40 min or until done.

Proceed to bake-sale with confidence.

Muffin Puff Cakes

I have rapidly aging bananas and those annoying little banana flies so I'm making muffins for breakfast. My middle one calls them muffin puff cakes, because he's just so monumentally cute its unreal...

In a large bowl fork sift together

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup oat bran

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Add

1/3 cup canola oil

2 very ripe bananas (or a can of pumpkin, or a cup of applesauce, or a cup of grated carrots)

1 egg

1/4 cup milk (I use 1%)

Mix it all together.

Put batter in either a 10" round bundt pan or about 18 muffin cups. Bake at 350 for 1 hour for the bundt (give or take- check it when it starts to smell good) or about 10 min for the muffins.

Mr. Muffin Puff Cake himself...

Rice Pudding

I have been craving rice pudding for breakfast for about a month now. The version I wanted required cardamom and for whatever reason, I cant find it anywhere. I finally decided to give up on the cardamom, temporarily, and make the rice pudding anyway. It was yummy, so here it is.

1 cup short grain brown sweet rice

2 cups of milk

1 tbsp sugar

shake of cinnamon

a slice off a fresh ginger bulb

1 tsp of vanilla

1 egg

Combine everything but the egg in a heavy saucepan. When the milk is beginning to foam, but BEFORE it boils, cover and turn the temperature very low.

Cook the rice until the milk is absorbed. Cool a bit,maybe 10 min, while still hot, whisk in the egg.

Be careful to keep stirring until the egg is fully incorporated or you'll have sweet scrambled eggs (ICK!!!)

Refridgerate overnight and serve cold in the morning with fruit.

This is not a very pudding-y rice pudding. I'm not a big fan of slimy pudding, its kind of chewy. The brown rice insures you wont be hungry by 9am.