Baklava

Baklava, a Mediterranean sweet, has become a favourite in my family after my Grandmother introduced it to our family just a few years ago.

Chicken Mandi

An authentic Chicken Mandi recipe from Saudi Arabia

Sahlab

A delicious hot milk drink or dessert, perfect for cold and chilly days.

Shakshouka (شكشوكة)

Saudi-style scrambled eggs, a popular breakfast dish introduced to me by a friend.

Ful Mudammas (فول مدمّس)

A very popular dish throughout the Middle East, that can be made in a variety of different ways depending on which region you are in.

Arabic/Sugar Wax

Quite a few friends have been asking how I make this, so I figured a a blog post would suffice.

Sugar wax has been used by Arab women for centuries if I remember right. I can across a recipe for it while looking for a cheaper alternative to store bought stuff. And what could be cheaper than using just three things that a probably already in your kitchen?

Another great thing about this wax it that it is completely natural with no weird added chemicals and can be used on sensitive skin. It's safe enough to be used on any area of the body including sensitive areas such as  the face*, underarms and bikini area.

I'm going to state this now and very clearly: Waxing WILL hurt. You can't get around it. Many people claim sugar waxing does not hurt at all. They lie. Though the pain will be somewhat less than store bought wax. The reason for that is store wax stick to both your hair and your skin. So when you pull it off, you are pulling those hairs, but you are also pulling of the top few layers of dead skin. Which can be a good thing if you don't exfoliate much. But in short: ripping out hairs and the top layers of skin will hurt!

With sugar wax, you only pull out the hairs as it barely sticks to your skin, therefore less pain, but still expect pain!
And the more you wax, the more you get used to the pain and the less it bothers you :) Another benefit of waxing is that your hair stays away longer, grows back slower, lighter and thinner in comparison to shaving.

*Men, please do not wax your facial hair. I don't just say this because I am biased, and prefer men with some facial hair and brothers to uphold the sunnah of keeping a beard. But biologically the hair on a man face was designed to stay where it is! If you must remove the hair on your face then shave it instead of waxing.

WARNING: Hot sugar is extremely, well.. hot. Do not touch the mixture at all with bare skin until it has cooled unless you want a real nasty burn!

Ingredients
2 cups of white sugar
Quarter cup of lemon juice
Quarter cup of hot water.


Add your 2 cups of sugar to a medium sized cooking pan

Add you lemon juice and hot water

Bring to a steady boil at medium-high heat

Keep boiling, you'll notice the colour soon change
Once you have a rich golden brown colour you are done.
Pour into a heat resistant container (I use glass jar) and leave to cool down before using.
If it cools to the point of being hard, just pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften :)

And I have no final picture for you because I got distracted by a phone call and ended up letting it cook to long. I did manage to salvage it, but it was not pretty!

Happy and safe waxing! 


Spinach Smoothie

I've fallen in love with this recently. Though admittedly, I was quite disgusted when I first heard about it, spinach smoothie? Who would want to drink that?!

But after having read about how great it is for the body, and not to mention how packed spinach is with vitamins and minerals (Pop-eye was certainly on to something, guys!) I decided trying it can't hurt.


So I did, and I've been hooked ever since! Here's the recipe I use for my spinach smoothie, though sometimes I mix it up a bit (today I added pomegranate afterwards, just because I have half a pomegranate to use :p). Feel free to adapt this to suit you own taste.

Oh and for those wondering, this tastes completely of banana, yum yum!


Ingredients

2 cups of baby spinach leaves
1 cup of milk (any type you prefer, soya, almond, coconut, cows etc)
1 banana*
*it's optional to freeze your banana before making this if you want it all nice and icy cold. If you are going to do this, PEEL IT BEFORE YOU FREEZE IT. You have be warned :p

Throw all ingredients into you blender/smoothie maker.
I'm just using one of those hand blenders that come with a beaker thing.


Whizz whizz whizz until smooth. And serve. Enjoy :)

Heart-centred Cupcakes.


I bought a cupcake from a store a few weeks ago. On biting into it I had the great surprise of finding a pink heart inside it! This is just my attempt the replicate it. Next time I think I need to either use a small heart cookie-cutter or more cake batter as I had difficulty covering the hearts. Nothing a heck load of piped icing couldn't solve, but I am kind of a perfectionist when it comes to food. :)

Ingredients.

3/4 cup of butter
1.5 cup of sugar
3 eggs
2.5 cups of self rising flour
1 and a third cup of milk
Red food colouring.


Mix butter and sugar together until combined
Add your eggs one at a time, whisking well between each addition
Once all three eggs are added you should be left with something like this

Add the milk and flour a little at a time, whisking between each addition until you have add them both.
Put about one third of the mixture into a smaller bowel. Cover the remaining mixture and put aside.
Add some red food colouring until you get your desired colour, I went for a bright pinkish shade,
Cook in the oven at 180C for about 20min until I starts to go brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely
Once cooled cup out some heart shapes with a heart shaped cookie cutter
This is the best way to get the most hearts out of you sponge!
Add a spoonful of white cake batter into you cake cases.
Ad a heart, point down, and cover with some more white batter.
NOTE: Make sure you hearts all face the same way, if the batter covers them completely you'll need to figure out what way the heart shape sits in order to see it when you cut or bit into them!!
Cook at 180C for about 20min until the are golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely
(As I mentioned before, I didn't have enough cake batter to cover them completely so I am still able to see which way the heart shape sits. However I am now going to need to ice them to hide that mess on top :p)


Serve or cover with icing which I will be doing later. Enjoy!



Garlic Oil

Just a quick and simple garlic oil recipe. This oil can be used to give a great flavour to anything really. My favourite is of course for making home made garlic bread (recipe coming soon inshaAllah)!

Ingeditnets

Half a cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
6-8 Garlic Cloves
Hand full of flat-leaf parsley

1. Peel garlic cloves, add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
If you think you oil is a little too thick add some extra oil until you get the a smooth but purée like consistency
And that's all folk! Enjoy :)