For the Love of Food

In the spirit of trying new foods for my Iraqi dinner party that I held last weekend, I made shorbat rumman (pomegranate soup).

This was the only course that left people saving the word “interesting” too many times to have it seem enjoyable. To be honest, I was quite disappointed by this soup. It ended up being over spiced, but not flavorful enough. I would definitely make some changes to this soup to have it fit my flavor palate.

Now, I’m not a big fan of cilantro (coriander), but I wanted to try the recipe in it’s entirety…although I had to leave the mint out because mint will dry up your milk if you are breast feeding. So, I left it as it was – the recipe called for 2 cups of chopped cilantro. It just sends chills down my spine to think of eating so much cilantro in one dish. Next time, I will just leave it out completely. If you are a cilantro-lover – like my mom – just leave it in and you will be happy. Also, in the second round of adding liquid – at the very end when the pomegranate juice comes into play, the original recipe calls for adding another 8 cups of water. I think this really ruined my soup’s flavor and made it taste so watery that I couldn’t save it by adding my of anything else. I would also add more salt to the meatballs.

Here is the original recipe. Has anyone ever made this or had it somewhere? What is it supposed to taste like? Continue Reading »

While visiting my mom in the US, I had the opportunity to make some meals that I just hadn’t gotten around to making at home. One of the meals that has been on my list for a few months now has been a beef and Guinness pot pie – my husband’s request.

After some searching, I cam across a recipe that appealed to me from Closet Cooking. And, I combined it with my favorite pie dough recipe from Joy of Baking (minus the sugar).

This was actually a joint venture recipe: I made the pie dough, my mom made the beef stew, and my husband put it all together and baked it.

Now, I have never had a beef pot pie before, so I can’t compare with other recipes, but this with absolutely delicious, mouth-watering, plate-licking good. And, everyone who had some agreed – even my brother who is a very very very picky eater!

The recipe can be found here.

Well, I am quite pleased to say that our potluck was a huge success.  Not only did we had over 30 people show up for dinner, but we had many people show-up in the morning to help with our garden Spring Cleaning event.  And, after many hours of hard work in the garden and in front of the grill, we were all ready to sit down and share a nice large meal together.

The buffet was full and everything was picked away to the last piece!  The chocolate-coated fruit was a huge hit with the children and it was gone within minutes!

The whole event was such a great success and made all our gardeners so happy that they asked what we had to do to have another event like this.  I got so many compliments on organizing the event and thanks to our “sponsor” – Foodbuzz – for making this possible.  So…we are thinking and hopefully next month we will come-up with something new and exciting for Foodbuzz 24,24,24 again.

See recipes bellow: Continue Reading »

Well, I have some really exciting news to share with you all today. I am now 15 weeks pregnant with my second child!

Most of you have noticed that I don’t post as frequently anymore and being pregnant is one of the reasons why. When I’m not doing my household chores or playing with my son, I am napping from utter exhaustion!

About a week ago I started to become less tired and have taken up more cooking myself. Up to now my husband has been doing most of the cooking.

One major downside I found to being pregnant this time around is my inability to cook or look at food on websites like Tastespotting. Some dishes look tasty and then others just make me want to puke…and dishes I would normally like otherwise. Luckily, that part is over and we are on to happier more food-filled days…along with warmer and sunnier days I hope! This winter is driving me crazy! Every time I saw snow start to fall I felt like puking…I need Spring!

Ok, so the recipe I am sharing with you today is for a Colombian soup that my mom would make for me on my birthdays because it is a bit time consuming. The last time I took the time to make it myself I was pregnant with my first son…that was over 2 years ago!

The great thing about making such a big pot of soup is that we were able to eat it for a whole week. Otherwise, you can freeze potions in freezer bags and just warm-up to eat at a later time.

I hope you all enjoy this soup recipe as much as I do! Continue Reading »

I know I rarely post twice in a day, but I am so excited about this find that I had to share it with you!

So, one this I never mentioned is that for my birthday my mom gave me this awesome book: Food Styling For Photographers (if you buy it through my amazon store, a small percentage is donated to my blog!). I had been wishing for this book for quite some time now, and I ready through it quickly once I got my hands on it. It’s like a great novel for foodies…without being a novel at all. It is not just a book on food styling, but rather a book written for photographers who are not food stylists but need to food style for some reason or another.  There are lots of pictures, step by step explanations, and great lighting and camera tips.

That being said, there are exact instructions on how to style just about anything. However, while I learned a lot from this book, I don’t think I will be making margaritas out of Soil Moist granules anytime soon – even if they look fantastic. I like to stick to the edible type of styling, and there are plenty of ways to achieve that.

One food styling technique that caught my eye was how to style bacon (page 210-211 in book). It never dawned on me that most bacon is curly when styled and it always comes out flat when I cook it.

I am going to share with you just how easy it is to make this, and then share with you my recipe for baked potato chowder bellow! Continue Reading »

I just can’t tell you how elated I was to find Iron Stef’s recipe for homemade corned beef. Since I don’t live in the US, it’s impossible to find corned beef, and when I visit the US all pre-marinated corned beef has sugar in it – so I can’t eat it. A while back I did a search for recipes and came across nothing. But, recently, I came across this great looking recipe and decided to give it a try.

Patience-wise this was one of the most difficult recipes I’ve ever made…I had to marinate the meat for 5 days….and every day I had to remind myself that it was just a little longer until I could eat such yummy food…it’d been so many years (possibly 10??) since I’d had corned beef.

To make a long story short – it was DELICIOUS! After so much waiting we at it all in 1 day (lunch and then dinner). I made a smaller 4-person version. My recipe after the “more”. Continue Reading »

The other day my son turned one. And, I learned a few weeks ago that lamb with roasted vegetables is his favorite (see picture of him smeared in tomato), so I tried to make a quicker less expensive version with ground beef. It was excellent. Unfortunately the little guy was sick for his birthday and didn’t eat any…maybe next time.

If you have access to ground lamb meat, I highly recommend using it since it has such a deliciously aromatic flavor. But if not, or if it’s just insanely expensive where you live, ground beef works really well.

So, just follow this recipe for Güvec but substitute ground beef and add 500 grams (dry) of cooked macaroni noodles.

This is the second meal that I have prepared at home from what I learned in my Turkish cooking class. It is really really good and the Güvec is my son’s favorite!

Somehow my Güvec didn’t come out as dark as the one we made in class, maybe because I used less meat (she used 1 lb more than her recipe calls for) and my soup was a bit thicker, but really yummy. Continue Reading »

I know this doesn’t look amazingly appetizing, but you can only make this stuff look so good. Well, Better Homes & Gardens managed to make it look excellent…

Anyways, I have been trying out some of the recipes that I have been meaning to cook for ages from Better Homes & Gardens. And, I have not come across a bad one yet – they are all excellent. This stew is so heart warming and filling, even though it makes 10 servings, and there are only 2 of us (eating solid foods), I made it all and froze the rest in single serving portions for those days when I just don’t want to cook – gasp! Yes, it happens to the best of us. Some days it’s just nicer when someone else could do the cooking – even if it was me in the past – oh, I can’t wait to bring that microwave back home with me in May (I’ll tell you more about it once I’ve got it)! Continue Reading »

Ahh, nothing says “comfort” like a nice hot cheesy bowl of mom’s homemade chili – especially when you don’t even have to make it yourself! To be honest, it’s more of a beans soup with chili-esq qualities. But, it’s my favorite and I love it. Continue Reading »