Petit Beurre, Cocoa and Coconut Chocolate Balls

In between the primarily Indian cooking household, curry aromas, caramelizing onions on the stove and plain basmati rice to go with the multitude of curries and bhadgis, my childhood memories are laced with prominent memories of shakshuka my dad always made, decadent crust pizza my sister Ilana, a fourth out of six kids, always made, Israeli salads and petit beurre cocoa and coconut chocolate balls we all chipped in to form. Unlike this recipe we broke the petit beurre by hand not pulsed in a food processor.  It gave us more control over the size of the chipped biscuits and therefore the final product appearance. I do not think using a food processor detracts from the final result but you have to be careful not to pulse the biscuit to dust. Half the batch will be finer and half will be more of a rough chop.

Figs, Goat Cheese and Sesame with Honey, Balsamic and Red Currants

I am obsessed with all things figs. I will roam the earth, well metro DC area, even consider for a second there driving three and half hours to the Eastern Shore to pick some ripe figs right off someone's tree. I still find it a tad obscure that figs in the DC area will ripen end of August/Beginning of September where on the Eastern shore they are ripe as we speak. It must be the proximity to the water, the breeze, maybe the salty air, or is the soil any different?! Biblical images come to mind when I think of figs right there with ancient olive trees, but funny how I never thought of the figs and ocean blue salt water.

Butterflies and Flowers - Summer in our Garden

Mango Sorbet

This recipe is very similar to the previous pineapple sorbet post. The directions below are for the mango sorbet all by itself. I happened to make both pineapple and mango consecutively the same day, so I had a tinge of pineapple flavor in my mango sorbet from the blender which I didn't bother to wash in between batches. Not only I saved myself time and the hustle but it enhanced ever so slightly the mango flavor. If making two different fruit batches the same day, my advice to you is skip washing the blender and proceed to make a second batch! If you are not making two different batches same day and still wish to achieve same flavor, I suggest instead of peeling a fresh pineapple, use couple of rings out of a canned pineapple and a touch of pineapple juice.

Pineapple Sorbet

Couple of weeks ago I got my impulse buy at Costco. Well I don't know how much of an impulse it is when you desire something for years and even have it, still, on your blog wish list.  Normally the kitchen appliance box will get into the kitchen, sit there for awhile and then be transferred to the basement, unopened, for a year! This time around it got as far as the top of the basement step and sure enough two weeks later, this week I made my first two batches of sorbet.

Exotic fruit and my first giveaway

I have seen chatter on twitter in favor and against giveaways. I haven't really thought about it much but on impulse decided on a giveaway. Might I add it's a non foodie giveaway on a food blog. The one year anniversary for my blog is in November, and if you do the math it's already past my six month anniversary, but it's my 23rd year wedding anniversary to a great guy this Monday, July 12. My husband and my son are the biggest and best things that happened to me, but I do take immense pleasure in the little things in life as well.

Eight Ball and Corn Fritters

I have these images of 'Indianized' zucchini and corn fritters for awhile now. I have experimented with them for Passover, back in March, with Matza (unleavened bread) which proved to be a disaster. The nagging of the images and the fantasy of the flavor kept me unsettled so I went to Whole Foods to pick up some fresh corn and zucchini where I bumped into Eight Ball and Baby Boo (see recipe for Baby Boo from previous post here).

Stuffed Baby Boo!!

Please see a story to this Baby Boo in the next post (coming soon)  but for now I would like to introduce to you to the white baby squash named Baby Boo.  It does not have much flesh which makes it perfect for roasting and stuffing without much wasting. It's edible and if you want to impress your guests and family when you have them over or just make your everyday meal at home more festive it makes for a beautiful and elegant presentation. 

Curried Wheat Berry Salad

This salad seems sort of like a wheat berry twist to Indian (rice) Biryani. It's easier to prepare and keeps for a few days for a healthy snack or lunch on the run.  I also like to make a large batch so when a friend drops by I give them a tasting as we chat. At this moment the wheat berry is my favorite of all the grains who made a comeback. This particular recipe reminds me of Indian fare but also North African wheat berry Hamin and Eastern European Cholent dishes, cooked on low heat oven, overnight, with chuck meat, beans or chickpeas and eggs in their shells. 

Quinoa - An Ancient Grain from the Andeans to the Mediterranean

From what started as a Mediterranean BBQ somehow I ended up with Quinoa.  Something about the ancient grain like felt right to fit right in with the Mediterranean fare. With added halved grapes, after all, the grapevine was domesticated in Turkey and is one of the seven fruits and grains of the Holy Land. It gave the salad a Mediterranean twist. To accentuate its Andean mountains, South American origin I used Agave instead of Maple syrup or honey for the vinaigrette and lime. Although I had both Agave and Quinoa while dining out, both were firsts in my kitchen this past weekend.  For a natural sweetener Agave is just different from Maple syrup or honey, probably a matter of a habit and an acquired taste.

In Season: Airy Apricot Cake and GO-GO-EEM

Jacks, remember that game?! Well in Israel we have, not quite the same, but similar game, with five small metal cubes called five stones HA-MESH-AVANIM חמש אבנים.  When we didn't have the five metal cubes or lost one, we would use the pits of the apricot for the game.  We called the pits and the game GO-GO-EEM גוגואים.  I was very good at it, but my aunt who was only a couple of years older than I was the best at it.  When we visited my grandmother, after few miles of walking in the heat, in a neighborhood known to house the town's cemetery, we would go downstairs, to the yard outside, for a tourney and championship rounds.  When I say yard, these were tiny government apartments, the yard is not your private landscaped yard just a piece of barren dirt outside the building with maybe some surviving grass patches, but mostly sand. Nurit my aunt always outlasted us all. She was the undeclared champion. Just imagine an immigrant neighborhood of three story buildings mostly comprised of Moroccans and Indian Jews and sporadic Romanian Jew here and there. I remember because one of the Romanian Jewish boys had a crush on another aunt of mine and was chased quickly and swiftly away with a broom by my grandmother.