Nutella Cookies

We just had our annual holiday party at work and I decided to make cookies.
Found the recipe here.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsps. vanilla
• 1/3 cup Nutella
• 1/3 cup milk

Directions:

1. Mix flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. Beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Add in extracts, then Nutella.
3. Add flour mixture in parts.
4. Add milk.
5. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes (or overnight).
6. Pre-heat oven to 325F.
7. Take out the dough and roll into balls.
8. Lightly press down the dough balls on a greased pan.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are starting to set.

Enjoy.

Pumpkin Cake

Had enough of pumpkin? Haha

Ingredients:

• 3/4 stick butter (3/8 cup)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Optional: walnuts with cinnamon and brown sugar. Like the mixture here.

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F
2. Mix butter and sugar.
3. Blend in everything else including nut mixture.
4. Sprinkle some of the nut mixture on top if you want.
5. Pour into small pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

It is the season of pumpkins.
So here you go. I got this from the food network, but 2/3rd the recipe. I also put in whipping cream as opposed to sour cream. Also, as I was mixing I added differing amounts of the items to get a nice consistency.

Ingredients

• 2 graham cracker crusts
• 2-8oz cream cheese
• 1 1/3 cup pumpkin filling
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. flour
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 300F 
2. Beat cream cheese and sugar.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients.
4. Pour mixture into crust.
5. Bake for 2 hours.
6. Turn off oven and open door. Leave cheesecake in for 30 minutes.
7. Then leave outside of oven until completely cooled.
8. Place in fridge.

I also added some toffee to one of the cheesecakes. You can also add walnuts or pecans. Basically anything you want.

Enjoy. :-)

Pumpkin-Layered Toffee Cheesecake

I like pumpkin pie. I like cheesecake. Here you go:

I found the recipe here, but halved it and changed some stuff. 

Ingredients

• Gharam-Cracker crust
• 1-8 oz Cream Cheese
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup toffee
• 7/8 cup pumpkin filling (12.5 oz)
• 3/8 cup of whipping cream (1/3 cup butter + 3/4 cup milk --> 1 cup whipping cream)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ginger
• 2 eggs
• Dash of salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 300F.
2. Blend cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar. Mix in 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 1 egg, and 1/2 cup toffee. Pour into crust.
3. Mix remaining ingredients. Pour gently on top of cream cheese.
4. Bake for 2 hours and or until mostly set.
5. Turn off oven and open door. Leave pie in for 30 minutes.
6. Take out and leave outside for 1 hour.
7. Put in fridge for a few hours and serve!

Look at how beautiful those layers are! 

A little look into my kitchen..

So I had this idea of posting about the different items that I use in my kitchen. 

There are some that are pretty cool to have, and then there are some I couldn't do without! 

Cookie cutters are the most amazing little things. Especially with children. They go crazy over the different little shapes. They also have fun cooking with you. I tend to buy the random cookie cutters I find on sale. Hence the "holiday shapes." You can also use the cookie cutters to cut sandwiches into fun shapes.

Cookies cut into shapes are fun to ice and design in awesome ways. You can also sprinkle some colored sugar. Just make sure you sprinkle them as soon as they come out of the oven.

Hey! So what is exactly are these?! They are brownie/cake cutters.  The squiggly one helps you cut the brownies into awesome shapes. Where as the rod one helps you cut in a neat manner.

And now to the baking pans. 

My many baking pans.

Hey! Each one serves a very specific purpose.

Pan number 1:

Why worry about cutting your pie or cake into perfect little pieces when the pan can do it for you? 

Then serve your pie without having to worry about popping it out of the pan.

I like this type of pan because you can also use it to serve the pie or cake.

Ok, are these not the cutest little things you have ever seen?!

I have not attempted to bake with them, but they are perfect for Jello! 

So I have plenty more things to show you, but I will save that for later! 

Now tell me what are your favorite kitchen utensils?

S'mores Cheesecake

My co-worker came up to me one day and told me I should make a s'mores cheesecake. So I did.

:-)

Oh! And it is egg-less.

Ingredients

• 2 graham cracker crust
• 3 8-oz cream cheese packages
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch 
• 1tbsp + 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 pt. sour cream
• Chocolate Bar
• Marshmallow Fluff (opt out if you don't want eggs)
• Chocolate Syrup

Directions:

1. Mix cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, sour cream, vanilla.
2. I also broke up a chocolate bar and added it to the batter.
3. Pour into graham cracker crust.
4. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes or until is not so fluid.
5. Turn off heat and leave cheesecake in oven. Don't open the door.
6. Once the sides start to brown, take cheesecake out of the oven. Let it cool completely to room temperature. (this will reduce cracking)
7. I coated the cheesecake with a thin layer of chocolate. (To help the chocolate stick).
8. Break up two chocolate bars and sprinkled the top of the cheesecake. 
9. I then attempted to pipette the fluff but that didn't work out. So I just tried to add it in bits.
10. Cool cheesecake in fridge.

Enjoy!

Baklwa (Baklava) Recipe

A week or so was Eid, which is a Muslim holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is a month in which Muslims fast from sunrise until sunset.
So for Eid I decided to make baklava for my family.
This was the first time I made this recipe and was kind of scared, but it turned out to pretty good!

Ingredients:

• 1 package phyllo dough
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 lb. ground walnuts
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, melt as needed
• syrup

So I used a 9X13 glass pan. The width of the phyllo dough fit into the length of the pan. So what happened was you had to fold over some of the dough into the pan. This makes it a bit thicker. If you don't want it puffy like mine, use a bigger pan.

Directions

1. Thaw phyllo dough. It takes a couple of hours to really thaw.
2. Mix ground walnuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
3. Melt 1/4 cup butter.
4. Butter the pan before you start using it. Add a layer of dough. See how it hangs over the side? And add butter. I used this brush I have.

5. Fold over the other side of the dough.

6. Keep brushing with butter. Add 6 or so layers. Also, you will want to alternate which side you put the dough on. You want to put it all the way to the left onetime, then all the way to the right onetime. This way you cover all of the nut mixture. You also want to alternate between which side has the double of the dough. If you see above how I flipped over the extra piece onto the pan. You want to do it such that the extra piece is not always hanging off the same side (like in the above picture).

7. Next, add the nut mixture. You want about a 1/2 cm layer of the recipe. You will have some mixture leftover. 

8. Add rest of phyllo dough, as described above. Try to push it down as you keep adding layers. This helps it puff out a bit. 

9. Cut in whatever you would like (squares, diamonds).

10. Bake at 350F for 50 minutes or until golden. Pour desired amount of syrup on top of it.

Yummm

Black Bean Soup

One of the best things to break your fast on is soup!

I adapted this recipes from here.

Ingredients:

• 1 T olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3/4 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 29 oz. can of black beans
• 2 cups of water with 2 tbsp. soy sauce (a substitution for the beef broth)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/2 tsp. dry oregano leaves
• 1 bay leaf.

So my soup turned out a bit salt (I like salty, so it worked out). In order to avoid saltiness you can rinse the beans very well and just overall cut down on the salt. 

Also, this is more of a thick soup. :-)

Directions:

1. Warm up a pot on the stove. Once warm add the olive oil. Then add the carrots, onions, and garlic. Saute for 4-5 minutes.
2. Throw in the black beans and beef broth. (I also added a bit of this chili pepper/tomato mix my mom made).
3. Stir and add all the spices.
4. Leave uncovered and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Add water if the mixture becomes thick.  It is finished when carrots are tender.
5. Let cool. Remove bay leaf and puree in blender. 

Top the soup with cilantro, basil, cheese, sour cream and so on..

Enjoy :-)

Anyone have any other soup recipes I should try out?

Pesto-Yogurt Chicken

I found this in a random magazine. As I was making it, I was kind of skeptical, but it turned pretty good!

Ingredients-Pesto (makes a little more than you need, but pesto never goes to waste!)

• 2 cups basil-packed
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix ingredients in food processor or blender until well blended.

For the rest of the recipe you are only going to need 3/4 a cup of pesto.

Pesto-Yogurt Ingredients (makes 2.25 cups):

• 3/4 cup pesto
• 1.5 cups Greek yogurt (I used the Arab Labne)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Just mix the ingredients!

You only need 2 cups for the recipe. So I would suggest making a small amount less. I also didn't add salt and pepper, but I do suggest you add some flavoring. I cooked the chicken according to the recipe and then tried it. It tasted a bit bland so I had to improvise by adding spices and cheese later. It might help to add the spices from the get go.

Finally, the rest of the ingredients:

• 2.5-3 lbs. chicken
• salt and pepper
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cups pesto-yogurt sauce
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Clean up chicken and cut up into slices like picture above.
2. Sprinkle salt on a cutting board and cut up the cloves of garlic. This is supposed to make a paste. It didn't work for me. 
3. Mix oil, pesto-yogurt sauce, salt, and pepper. 
4. Marinate chicken overnight.
5. Pre-heat oven to 425F.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.
7. Take out, sprinkle with salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese. Bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese browns.  

Safiha (Meat Pie)

So by far is this is my favorite Arab food. It is sooo good! Me and my mom worked together to make this. Of course the recipe is all hers :-)

This is not an easy food to make. It takes a lot of time and energy, but it is really good.

First, you need to get the dough ready.

Ingredients:

• 1 packed highly active yeast (20.8g), 6.5 tsps.
• 3/4 tsp. sugar
• Warm water
• 4 cups flour
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 1 egg
• 1/2 vegetable oil
• 1 cup warm milk

Ready to learn how to make dough?

1. Pre-heat oven, just so it warms up a bit. 
2. In an average sized cup, mix yeast and sugar. Add warm water almost to the top.
3. Leave in warm oven for 10 minutes.
4. During this time, mix flour, salt, and honey in a big round pan.
5. In a blender mix egg and oil. Once mixed, add milk (can warm milk, by putting it in microwave for a little bit).
6. Once the yeast is ready you can start. Take pan that has flour in it,k make a hole in the middle of the flour, and pour yeast. 
7. Start kneading and mixing mixture.
8. Start adding egg/milk mixture slowly.
9. Keep kneading and kneading. Your hands will get sticky, but if the dough is good your hands will get clean of dough as you go.
• If your hands are still sticking and all the ingredients are mixed, add a small amount of water.
• If the dough seems to be hard and dry, add water.
10. Take a big pot, and add some oil to it. Take dough and round into a ball and place in pot. Take a small cloth or towel and water. Squeeze any access water out and place over pot to cover.  Put pot in pre-warmed oven. Make sure to put something under the pot so the oven doesn't cook the dough from the bottom.
11. Leave in warm oven for an hour to let it rise! 
12. It should double in size. The dough looked like this after an hour:

While you wait for the dough you can make the meat mixture.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. ground beef
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium tomato, finely chopped (I mean really fine)
• 2 tbs. pomegranate molasses
• 2 tsps. salt
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 cardamon
• Any other spices you would like! Just keep in mind the other spices have a slightly sour taste, so you might not want to put too much spices. Keep it simple!

You can also prep your pans. Just put a little bit of oil and spread it all over the pan, to make sure it is evenly covered.  

Now comes the fun part! :-)

Clean off a flat surface that you can work on.

1. Break off a piece of the dough. DO NOT KNEAD IT.  Just grab a small softball sized piece of the dough.

2. Sprinkle some flour on the surface. Put dough on surface and use your hands to make it flat. Don't stretch the dough. The purpose of this is just so it is easier to roll.

3.Then use a rolling pin to roll the dough until it is very thin. Start in the middle and roll out.  Keep doing this until the dough is even. You don't want it so thin such that you can see through it. I am not sure if you can see the thickness, but it is probably half a centimeter.

4.  Then use a round cup with even edges to cut the dough into small circles.  Make sure you cut down really deep so it is completely cut off from the rest of the dough. 

5.  Take each circle. Either with your hand or the rolling pin and make it thin if it isn't already. Then add some of the meat mixture in the middle and thin it out. Like this:

So you want to make a triangle. So take one side and do this:

Then the other:

Then the other:

Make to press down, so it won't open up in the oven. You also want to make a sure a decent amount of the meat is showing so it cooks. 

Put it in a pan and make sure it is covered like this:

This way the dough doesn't dry out.

When you finish about a tray, you can pre-heat the oven to 500F. As for the placement of the racks. One should be at the very bottom, and one two stubs down from the top.

6.  Place the tray on the bottom rack and bake for around 7 minutes or until the bottom of the pie is browned.

7. Switch the tray to the top rack and bake for about 3 or 4 minutes. Or until the top is browned.

8. Take out of the oven, eat, and enjoy!

It goes really well with the Middle-Eastern salad Tabloeh.

Twitter!!

Hello!
I decided to make a twitter for this blog:

http://twitter.com/#!/SavoryEdibles


So if you have Twitter please follow! Retweet recipes to your followers and so on.

I will also use it to post updates when I making something, or to ask people what I should make with random ingredients I have.


Oh! If you are not following this blog, please do! You can do so, by pressing the "Join this Site" button on the right hand side, under the followers module.

I am also about to update with a very tasty recipe, so look out for it!

Chocolate Sheet Cake

I was fasting and felt like baking so of course I would bake a chocolate cake. I found the recipe here.

Cake Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks butter
• 4 tablespoons cocoa (don't be stingy, heaping spoonfuls!)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (I didn't have any so I made a cup by putting 1 tablespoon lemon juice and added 1 cup of milk, cake turned out well!)
• 2 whole beaten eggs
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F.
2. Put some on water on the stove to boil.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt.
4. In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa and stir. So at this point I accidentally added the baking soda. the cake seemed okay, but you probably shouldn't add it here.
5. Add boiling water. Allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds. Then turn off heat.
6. Add to flour mixture and stir. Keep saucepan to use later for the frosting!
7. In a small bowl, add eggs and beat. Add buttermilk, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir.
8. Add buttermilk mixture into chocolate mixture.
9. Pour into cake into a 18X13 sheet cake pan.
10. Bake for 20 minutes!

Now on to the frosting! It takes just about 20 minutes, so you can pour it right on the cake as it comes out.

Frosting Ingredients

• I used 1/4 cup ground pecans.
• I really didn't feel like chopping pecans so I put it in the coffee grinder and ground them up. There were some big pieces.
• 10.5 tbsps. butter
• 3 tablespoons cocoa (don't be stingy!)
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Grind pecans.
2. melt butter in sauce pan, add cocoa and stir. Turn off heat.
3. In bowl mix milk, vanilla, powdered sugar, and cocoa mixture. Stir.
4. Pour over warm cake.

Enjoy :-)

Pesto

So lately I have been growing basil, cilantro, and parsley. And the basil grows like crazy!

This is what my garden looked like starting out:

Then a couple weeks later:

So I was thinking to myself I have all this basil what can I possibly make?

PESTO PASTA.

I always thought it was very hard to make. Turns out it is mad easy! You just need to have the right ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups basil (loosely packed if you want a creamy pesto, or tightly packed if you want something not as creamy)
• 3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese (fresh or the kind in the container)
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 pine nuts
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp parsley

Directions:

If you have a food processor you can just throw everything in there until it becomes creamy. If you don't, you can a blender. That is what I did. You just have to make sure you occasionally move things around to make sure everything gets hit by the blade.

So now you can use the pesto sauce for anything.

I put it on pasta:

If you have leftover chicken you can always shred it and add it too.

You can also use it as a drip for sandwiches.

Also! You can save it for later use. Just put in a container and add some olive oil on top and put in the freezer.

Enjoy!!