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.

It has been awhile...

So I'm just now finding the time to update with a post. Just recently got back from my Ecuador and Chile adventure. What a great time I had! And again, I wish I was back but already planning for a huge South America 2011 adventure. Anyway, I'll update what I had been able to do and then recap my adventures on and below the Equator.

First, I baked and decorated a cake for my besty Lacey. A pretty pink butterfly decorated with red hots. My original plan was to get the colorful rainbow sugar sprinkles and make a rainbow affect but she is not a fan of sprinkles so had to tweek everything around. She also only prefers the confetti cake and confetti frosting so that is why the frosting on the cake looks bumpy.



All I did was bake the cake in two 9-in round pans, allowed them to cool completely, stuck the cakes in the freezer for a couple hours, frosted and layered them and cut the cake in half and made sure to cut out a diamond near one edge, split the cake in half, and flipped them to make the shape of the butterfly. Frosted the cake and decorated it with the red hots. She loved it!

I enjoyed sushi for the first time in a month! It was nice! Sorry, no pictures. I figured it was just the usual!

And my friend RaraRosa aka rufflesizzle came down from SF and made plans to hang with her and her friend. Bluebizzy and Rufflesizzle reunited! I missed her. Ended up going back to Carnival, the Middle Eastern restaurant I fell in love with awhile back and was craving!


Ordered Tabouli. Tasted almost exactly like homemade! Except I grew up with a secret ingredient that isn't usually added in Tabouli. It's cucumber. My mom always added the crunch to it and that's how I'll always make it and prefer it in my Tabouli. So it was fantastic at the restaurant and I made it even more amazing by finely chopping up cucumbers and added it to the salad when I got home!


Grape leaves aka Dolma. Tastes exactly like homemade. Usually put ground beef into it but it is fine either way.

I also got Kibbeh but for some random reason, I forgot to take a picture of it! Ridiculous. It was splendid of course, and just like the first time I came here, there were only a few pine nuts in each Kibbeh. Ridiculous again! I'd like them to add more but besides that, they are darn good here!

Rosa and Maryanne got the Chicken Shawarma and were completely satisfied with their sandwiches. They took my tahini sauce that was on the side of my Kibbeh and used it in their sandwiches. They loved it. I'm not a fan of tahini so I was happy to let them utilize the sauce in their Shawarma!




I love Kafta so got a small plate of Kafta Kabob with rice, tomato, and onions. Amazing! Perfectly cooked, seasoned, and moist. Superb.



Next up, dessert of course!

Rosa settled with Baklava. It is filo dough with a mixture of walnut and cinnamon/sugar, honey (or most of the time it is actually a simple syrup), and usually topped with finely chopped pistachios. I would have ordered one but they used honey and I'm not a fan of honey. My preference is first enjoying Baklava without the syrup and then Baklava with a simple syrup. She ate it up.



Maryanne tried my dessert, LOVED it, and ordered her own. And myself, I of course got Knafeh!! If I could, I would eat this everyday! So I bought two so that I can keep it in the fridge and drag it out until the next time I have some more! It's shredded filo dough (usually dyed a pink-to-orange color), sweet cheese, and topped with a simple rose or orange blossom syrup and finely chopped pistachios. My go-to dessert. Get it. Now.



'En'credible Ecuador and Chilly Chile next up....

Carnival Time!

Last weekend I checked out the Lebanese restaurant Carnival on Woodman in Sherman Oaks, right off the 101 fwy. Just AMAZING is all I have to say. You will be missing out if you drive passed this restaurant instead of stopping by. The decor just wonderful, the people so friendly, and the food so spectacular. I think I told Chef five times that I loved this place, even before we had got our food. Definitely gives you the feeling like you are at home. The restaurant was packed and I loved it. By no means did I ever feel like it was way too crowded. More like one big happy family.

First we were given olives, peppers, pickled turnips, and pita bread.




We then decided on our appetizer. I was between the hummus, falafel, and grape leaves (dawali). So I let Chef decide since I was happy with all three. He wanted to try something new so he picked the dawali.



Perfect. Tastes exactly like homemade to me. The lemon flavor with the tomato paired extremely well with just the right amount of each.

Entrees are now up. I went with the Kibbeh Rolls (4). Kibbeh is Bulgar (Cracked) Wheat stuffed with meat and pine nuts. I decided on this only because I haven't had it in a very long time and I was craving!



It was so good. Stuffed perfectly with the right amount of seasonings and meat. Only one complaint I have was that they were short on the pine nuts. I only got a couple in each roll. I would have loved to have more crunch in my kibbeh!

Chef got the Carnival combination of three perfectly seasoned skewers: Chicken, Lamb, and Kafta Kabob, chared to perfection. Served alongside rice and a Middle Eastern style salad.




He loved everything. Of course I made him let me try the Kafta Kabob, in which we both agreed that was our favorite kabob.

We took our dinner to-go since surprisingly we filled up fast, in which he took his food home and made quesadillas with his leftovers, and I just reheated my Kibbeh and ate them!

Lastly, I wasn't going to partake in dessert but when I looked at the dessert menu, I changed my mind. I know most people have tried Baklava and love it. Me, personally, it's pretty good, but I like something else just a whole lot more! It's called Knafeh. And wow it had been a long time since I had last had it. You REALLY need to try this dessert out.



I know I will probably hear this from someone in my family but seriously this was almost as good as it is homemade if not better! It's shredded filo dough with an oh so good sweet cheese in the middle topped with pistachios and a rosewater syrup. Normally, I'm fine eating this without the syrup but this time I didn't say anything and tried it as is with the syrup. Not too sweet at all, as how it usually is. I absolutely loved it! I could seriously go for some right now.

I give Carnival 5 hearts: ♥♥♥♥♥. I loved the ambiance of the restaurant, the feeling being inside this restaurant, the servers and everyone who worked there were just so laid back and overly friendly, the service was fast and dependable, the food so satisfying, prices were extremely reasonable, and they had Knafeh!!