On to another vacay.....oops, I mean ADVENTURE!
Guatemala
Will be doing so many things, I probably won't have time to sit! Sleeping is for home as I always say. ☺ Even with this cold that I've just caught, I can't let it keep me from climbing the volcanoes and playing in the jungle!
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
My new years resolution(s): Run more races, bike more races, and try to stop using so many exclamation points!
❤
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Egypt
Egypt. The country that won me over. I headed to Egypt with the excitement of seeing the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Nile, the bazaar, the history, the desert, Cairo, the amazing city of Alexandria, Mediterranean Sea, the crazy drivers, street food, food, the people, night life activities to stay away from the heat, and not being able to speak the whole time there!
I loved Egypt. So lively and always full of energy. Once you get past all the security measures you have to go through to get anywhere in Egypt, the vibe is just different than most countries. Places to go. People to see. Food to eat. Everyone is pretty much out at night and not much action during the day to avoid the heat when possible. In the city of Alexandria, you're right on the Mediterranean so the temperature wasn't too bad. I think it was hotter here in California at the time than it was there. Cairo, a whole different story. Hot hot hot! High humidity. Amazon status minus not messing up my hair as much!
I am so glad I made it there over the summer. I highly recommend it. I know it may not be so 'American friendly' now, but if you can go with someone who speaks Arabic ~me, not so well, if that, that would be the best or you're kind of stuck doing more tourist-directed activities, which still isn't even bad in Egypt because it is just plain worth it. It's a bonus to know someone because you can really get a feel of the culture and step into their norm.
Egypt really surprised me and completely changed my outlook on it through my previous unsure thoughts. It's just like going anywhere else in this world. Same old cat calls if you're light-haired, color-eyed like myself. Bargaining for everything. Friendly and hardworking everyday people. Expert drivers. People who love to go out at night and have a good time. Despite everything going on now, they really are happy people just trying to live a wonderful life like everyone else.
For now, I'm going to get into the Egyptian food I ate there. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I would think of the food. More curious about the spices they use there and how strong they are but I'm always openminded. I try almost everything at least once. My thoughts on the food... Way better than I had originally thought. I was happy with everything. I wanted to try it all. My eyes, my heart, and my stomach were eating everything in site! I really wasn't there long enough. I have to go back.
Homestyle Meals
LOOK at that shrimp!
Got to try a Saudi Arabian dish too. Pretty tasty!
Fruits and Veggies
Street CORN! Love love love.
Prickly pear/Cactus fruit - So sweet and so needed on the hot days in Egypt. I peel them now just like the guys over there!
Watermelon everywhere
I did not partake in this, mainly because I didn't know what it was but they are all over the place. Drinks in different colors.
Street food and Munchies
Nuts and beans
You will find these color coordinated boxes filled with chips all over the place
Street meat and sides
Must have condiments
Foul mudammas
Falafel! Really fluffy and made to perfection.
Corn dogs
KFC delivers. Yup, in Egypt. They also have delivery McD's bikers all over the place.
Desserts
Zalabiah with a white chocolate sauce. LOVE Zalabiah. And I'll definitely take it with white chocolate over the usual simple syrup or honey that's normally served.
Baklava and other delights
Not pictured..
• Zalabiah food carts all over the place being served with honey and/or simple syrup
• Baklava food carts around, as well
Restaurants and Drinks
Shwarma - Time for a refill!
Beef and Lamb Shwarma
Falafel, Hummus, Tabbouleh, Cucumbers, Condiment, and Pita Bread. Last meal. I preferred the previous falafel sandwich over this one.
Soda! Only when I travel I crave soda. I would love to be without this craving!
Mint tea. A must when you are in Egypt.
Okay, now I'm really hungry!
I loved Egypt. So lively and always full of energy. Once you get past all the security measures you have to go through to get anywhere in Egypt, the vibe is just different than most countries. Places to go. People to see. Food to eat. Everyone is pretty much out at night and not much action during the day to avoid the heat when possible. In the city of Alexandria, you're right on the Mediterranean so the temperature wasn't too bad. I think it was hotter here in California at the time than it was there. Cairo, a whole different story. Hot hot hot! High humidity. Amazon status minus not messing up my hair as much!
I am so glad I made it there over the summer. I highly recommend it. I know it may not be so 'American friendly' now, but if you can go with someone who speaks Arabic ~me, not so well, if that, that would be the best or you're kind of stuck doing more tourist-directed activities, which still isn't even bad in Egypt because it is just plain worth it. It's a bonus to know someone because you can really get a feel of the culture and step into their norm.
Egypt really surprised me and completely changed my outlook on it through my previous unsure thoughts. It's just like going anywhere else in this world. Same old cat calls if you're light-haired, color-eyed like myself. Bargaining for everything. Friendly and hardworking everyday people. Expert drivers. People who love to go out at night and have a good time. Despite everything going on now, they really are happy people just trying to live a wonderful life like everyone else.
For now, I'm going to get into the Egyptian food I ate there. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I would think of the food. More curious about the spices they use there and how strong they are but I'm always openminded. I try almost everything at least once. My thoughts on the food... Way better than I had originally thought. I was happy with everything. I wanted to try it all. My eyes, my heart, and my stomach were eating everything in site! I really wasn't there long enough. I have to go back.
• Zalabiah food carts all over the place being served with honey and/or simple syrup
• Baklava food carts around, as well
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Sweet Treat
One of my Instagram friends emailed me the recipe to one of my favorites, Atayef, after I posted that I was craving it so so bad! I've seen recipes online but I prefer to use a recipe within a family/using a family recipe. The feel is just better receiving it that way than looking online. I've never had to make this because my aunt always does and makes TONS of it so I can take some for the road but now I find that I can't wait that long till the next time she makes it so I'm just going to have to make it today or tomorrow!
Atayef is somewhat similar to my other favorite, Knafeh, if you've tried that before. Just Knafeh uses shredded filo dough and the usage of sweet cheese combined with cream. I. love. them. both.
This is the recipe I'm using:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of warm water
Big spoon of instant yeast
Small spoon of Sugar
Half of a small spoon of salt
Put a big spoon of flour, small spoon of sugar, and the yeast into a 1/2 cup of water, stir, and leave to ferment. I love the non-exact measurements!
Put the rest of the flour in a bowl, add warm water, and stir them together until you get a liquid dough. Then add the cup from the previous step and the milk; combine to remove any lumps.
Rub a hot pan with oil and pour the batter in small increments; batter will spread and get bigger, like a pancake. Don't flip it! It only gets cooked on one side.
Picture taken and sent to me from my Instagram friend.
Allow them to fully cool down before pinching half the 'pancake' together and *stuffing them with cream and pistachios or whatever you'd like to stuff them with.
*I saw different versions online like using a ricotta filling, chopped walnut-sugar blend, and the usual cream-pistachio blend. I prefer the cream-pistachio blend, I've tried the walnut-sugar blend and like it, and I'm interested in the ricotta filling as well. This just can't go wrong.
**Make a simple rose water/orange blossom syrup and pour over the Atayef when ready to eat.
**I prefer these without syrup. Normally my aunt doesn't sweeten the cream when she stuffs them and I'm fine with them that way but I will probably slightly sweeten the cream when I make these to make them more dessert-like.
***You can eat it like this or you can fry it after stuffing and closing them completely.
***I've never tried them fried! Maybe one day...
Take the time to make these today and you will love them too. A real treat.
Atayef is somewhat similar to my other favorite, Knafeh, if you've tried that before. Just Knafeh uses shredded filo dough and the usage of sweet cheese combined with cream. I. love. them. both.
This is the recipe I'm using:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of warm water
Big spoon of instant yeast
Small spoon of Sugar
Half of a small spoon of salt
Put a big spoon of flour, small spoon of sugar, and the yeast into a 1/2 cup of water, stir, and leave to ferment. I love the non-exact measurements!
Put the rest of the flour in a bowl, add warm water, and stir them together until you get a liquid dough. Then add the cup from the previous step and the milk; combine to remove any lumps.
Rub a hot pan with oil and pour the batter in small increments; batter will spread and get bigger, like a pancake. Don't flip it! It only gets cooked on one side.
Allow them to fully cool down before pinching half the 'pancake' together and *stuffing them with cream and pistachios or whatever you'd like to stuff them with.
*I saw different versions online like using a ricotta filling, chopped walnut-sugar blend, and the usual cream-pistachio blend. I prefer the cream-pistachio blend, I've tried the walnut-sugar blend and like it, and I'm interested in the ricotta filling as well. This just can't go wrong.
**Make a simple rose water/orange blossom syrup and pour over the Atayef when ready to eat.
**I prefer these without syrup. Normally my aunt doesn't sweeten the cream when she stuffs them and I'm fine with them that way but I will probably slightly sweeten the cream when I make these to make them more dessert-like.
***You can eat it like this or you can fry it after stuffing and closing them completely.
***I've never tried them fried! Maybe one day...
Take the time to make these today and you will love them too. A real treat.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Persimmon Banana Nut Muffins
So I woke up in the mood to bake today -specifically muffins- and when I get like that, I have to get in the kitchen STAT! What's sleeping in on a weekend? I don't know. I try. I even got in the mood to do the dishes too...my least favorite part of being in the kitchen!
I have my own tried and true recipes but I felt like finding another recipe and tweaking it because that's just what I like to do. I love kitchen science. That and everyone has to have a few good muffin recipes lying around somewhere! So after searching and searching, I found a recipe with positive feedback that somehow made me want to experiment with.
It's Giada De Laurentiis' recipe for Banana Muffins. Also comes with a frosting recipe but I like to leave frosting for cupcakes. Copy and Paste the links/Recipe Below:
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2008/01/09/banana-muffins-2/ or http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/banana-muffins-with-mascarpone-cream-frosting-recipe2/index.html
Banana Muffins
(Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, peeled and coarsely mashed
Directions:
Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the banana. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.
Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Bake the muffins on the middle rack until the tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out with no crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a rack and cool slightly. The muffins may be eaten warm or cooled completely and frosted.
My thoughts
Only three things here in the recipe made me want to change it: (1) The oil content, (2)the sugar, and (3) the flavor. I felt the oil is too much for a muffin --no matter how big the batter ends up being and the sugar was also just too high for me. Why not let the fruit add to the sweetness of the muffin? And I love utilizing spices in my baking. I'm no plain Jane. :)
This is what I did
♥ 2 cups sugar = 1 1/2 cups = 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar
I love the different flavor brown sugar gives on top of its sweetness. I prefer to add more brown sugar than white in most of my baking recipes. The muffins were just fine the way they were. Not too sweet but not under sweet. The recipe, although it says it makes 18 muffins, I got 24 out of it so I didn't want to chance taking out too much sugar.
♥ 1 cup vegetable oil = 1/2 vegetable oil and 1/2 cup milk
Perfect lowering of oil and love the addition of milk. Could have eliminated the oil and used applesauce but I'm not completely a fan of that. That and I would have had to wait awhile to bake if I ended up making the applesauce! I processed two soft persimmons just to add to the moistness of the muffin (mentioned below).
♥ 1 tsp salt = 1 tsp sea salt
Just for the heck of it. I only use sea salt now. Salt is not really good for you but sea salt is better than that iodized salt if you're going to use it.
♥ 4 ripe bananas = 2 bananas mashed and 2 bananas, chunky
Because I like muffins with chunky fruit.
Now you can leave the recipe as is and go ahead and bake for yummy and moist banana muffins or you can continue on and do more.
My add-ins to the recipe
♥ 4 persimmons = 2 firm persimmons peeled and diced. 2 soft persimmons, peeled and processed in the food processor
I like persimmon and banana together. There are other good combinations of course, but today I used persimmon. I processed the two persimmons because I lowered the amount of oil and sugar so I wanted to make sure I made up for that.
♥ Chopped walnuts. Yes please!
♥ And I added: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, and Ginger. Got the hint of them but not overpowering at all.
The result?
Perfectly flavored and moist muffins. Fruity. Spiced up. Can't get better than that. Giada had a good recipe but I just made it a tad bit healthier and got a little creative.
Now to go outside and enjoy this beautiful rain...
I have my own tried and true recipes but I felt like finding another recipe and tweaking it because that's just what I like to do. I love kitchen science. That and everyone has to have a few good muffin recipes lying around somewhere! So after searching and searching, I found a recipe with positive feedback that somehow made me want to experiment with.
It's Giada De Laurentiis' recipe for Banana Muffins. Also comes with a frosting recipe but I like to leave frosting for cupcakes. Copy and Paste the links/Recipe Below:
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2008/01/09/banana-muffins-2/ or http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/banana-muffins-with-mascarpone-cream-frosting-recipe2/index.html
Banana Muffins
(Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, peeled and coarsely mashed
Directions:
Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the banana. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.
Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Bake the muffins on the middle rack until the tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out with no crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a rack and cool slightly. The muffins may be eaten warm or cooled completely and frosted.
Only three things here in the recipe made me want to change it: (1) The oil content, (2)the sugar, and (3) the flavor. I felt the oil is too much for a muffin --no matter how big the batter ends up being and the sugar was also just too high for me. Why not let the fruit add to the sweetness of the muffin? And I love utilizing spices in my baking. I'm no plain Jane. :)
♥ 2 cups sugar = 1 1/2 cups = 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar
I love the different flavor brown sugar gives on top of its sweetness. I prefer to add more brown sugar than white in most of my baking recipes. The muffins were just fine the way they were. Not too sweet but not under sweet. The recipe, although it says it makes 18 muffins, I got 24 out of it so I didn't want to chance taking out too much sugar.
♥ 1 cup vegetable oil = 1/2 vegetable oil and 1/2 cup milk
Perfect lowering of oil and love the addition of milk. Could have eliminated the oil and used applesauce but I'm not completely a fan of that. That and I would have had to wait awhile to bake if I ended up making the applesauce! I processed two soft persimmons just to add to the moistness of the muffin (mentioned below).
♥ 1 tsp salt = 1 tsp sea salt
Just for the heck of it. I only use sea salt now. Salt is not really good for you but sea salt is better than that iodized salt if you're going to use it.
♥ 4 ripe bananas = 2 bananas mashed and 2 bananas, chunky
Because I like muffins with chunky fruit.
Now you can leave the recipe as is and go ahead and bake for yummy and moist banana muffins or you can continue on and do more.
♥ 4 persimmons = 2 firm persimmons peeled and diced. 2 soft persimmons, peeled and processed in the food processor
I like persimmon and banana together. There are other good combinations of course, but today I used persimmon. I processed the two persimmons because I lowered the amount of oil and sugar so I wanted to make sure I made up for that.
♥ Chopped walnuts. Yes please!
♥ And I added: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, and Ginger. Got the hint of them but not overpowering at all.
Perfectly flavored and moist muffins. Fruity. Spiced up. Can't get better than that. Giada had a good recipe but I just made it a tad bit healthier and got a little creative.
Now to go outside and enjoy this beautiful rain...
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