Om Ali

I recently had a lunch event to attend and was asked to bring a dessert. I had inquired of the host, if there was anything special that she would like and her response was to make one of my favorites. Well, I sat down with my trusty Nigella How to be a Domestic Goddess cook book and leafed through the pages and pages of heavenly desserts. As I was drinking in each lovely picture I happened upon Om Ali. Now I have had this cookbook for about 5 years and have many favorites from it, but I also have many things that I have yet to try! Om Ali is one of those recipes. I have stared at the picture and read through Nigella's description of this dessert countless times often at night curled up in bed dreaming of the day where I would finally attempt this dessert! That day finally arrived! A lunch was the perfect event especially since it was forecast to be a cold rainy blustery day! And oh my it was it! Sunshineville may have mostly sunny pleasant weather but even here we can get storms that dump us with rain and shake the trees until branches litter the streets and side walks.

Well the dessert lived up to my every expectation and was loved by the women at the lunch. I am definitely keeping this recipe in my to repeat list. It takes a while to make and requires a lot of patience, but it is worth it. Just make sure that you pick a time when you are not under a time crunch. I will also mention, that it is really best eaten the first day straight out of the oven. It does reheat but is just not as delicious the second or third day.

Here is you need:

7 oz Filo Dough (thawed)

2/3 Melted Butter

3 cups Whole Milk (please don't use anything less than whole milk it won't turn out right!)

2 cups half and half

1/3 cup Sugar

Desired spices: ground Cardamon, Cinnamon, Nutmeg

3 oz Slivered Almonds 

1/4 cup Golden Raisins

3 oz Dried Apricots (diced - also the Blenheim dried variety are worth the price for the superior flavor)

2 1/2 oz Pistachios, chopped

2 1/2 oz pine nuts (I didn't add these here but mostly because I didn't have them)

Here is what I did:

Pre-heat oven to 300 F.

Some of the Required Ingredients and my trusty guide!

Melt the 2/3 c butter - I usually do this in the microwave. Carefully unroll the filo dough and cut the dough into smaller pieces. Then with a pastry brush, paint each side of the sheets of filo dough with butter and drop on to a cookie sheet like wet rags. I was generous with the butter and don't be afraid to melt more if you need it. If the filo sheets aren't covered with butter they will just crumble and they won't brown. 

Place cookie sheets in the oven and bake until the pastry turns a nice golden brown. This will take 20-30 minutes.

buttered filo sheets baking

Next, measure out the raisins, pine nuts, and slivered almonds and combine in a bowl. Measure out the apricots and chop them finely. Add to the bowl. Measure out pistachios and chop. Take the time with this step and breath in the heavenly aroma that comes when you chop these beautiful green little nuts. If you are anything like me you will need to measure out a few more so that you can snack on a few. Now add these to the bowl and mix the ingredients. 

Chopped Pistachios

Bowl of dried fruit and nuts.

Meanwhile in a large pot combine the milk, cream or half and half, the sugar and desired spices (not more than a 1/2 tsp each - except maybe the cardamom) in a large pot. Heat the milk stirring occasionally until it comes to a boil. Make sure the heat isn't too high or you'll scorch the bottom of the milk. Stirring frequently will also help to reduce the scorching.

While the milk is heating, crumble some of the baked filo sheets into the bottom of a buttered pie plate. Once the bottom is covered with the filo dough, layer with the fruit and nuts. Repeat this until all of the ingredients are done finishing with filo dough on top.

Assembled Om Ali

Once the milk mixture has come to a boil, pour over the layered ingredients. I put the pie plate on a cookie sheet so that it is easier to put in and out of the oven also if the milk cooks over the edge you will only have a cookie sheet to clean instead of an entire oven!

Sprinkle the top with nutmeg, if you have fresh that you can grate it over the top.

Place the Om Ali in a fully pre-heated 500 F oven. 

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the top turns a deep golden brown. Make sure it doesn't burn!

Finish Om Ali!

This dish is best savored fresh out of the oven. Take the time to savor and breath in the aroma especially since all the effort that is required to assemble this beautiful dish. But you should probably let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes after you pull it out of the oven so it has time to set up. The recipe says it serves 6 to 8 servings but I got a whole lot more out of it. 

I hope you enjoy it!

AleSmith Brewery!

I unashamedly like beer, but I have high standards for what I will drink. When I drink a beer, I would rather have one really good one over drinking a large quantity of sub par beer (I am not naming names). My first beer was acquired about a decade ago when I spent a summer in England. I found myself quiet taken with Guinness. How could I not like something that was dark, strong and tasted like COFFEE! Since those early days, my taste in beer has expanded and that was helped by my move from Anteaterville to Sunshineville. Sunshinville has quiet a reputation for craft breweries all of which make excellent small batch beer. While I do enjoy a good range of the local beers I will warn if you aren't a fan of overly hoppy beers then you'll need to be careful. Sunshineville seems to be the aggressive hop beer capital. I am not a fan of hops, but it is starting to grow on me. I don't think I will ever completely love hoppy beers but I have come to enjoy ones that start hoppy and front loads the bitterness and finishes smooth.

AleSmith Storefront 

Alesmith is one of the many Sunshineville breweries. ESFSW was the one who actually introduced me to this brewery. And he did it with their Speedway Stout. This stout is actually made with coffee! We then went to an Alesmith Tasting dinner that one of his co-workers told him about, which introduced us to most of their year round brews. It was a pretty cool event considering the chef specially pair AleSmith's beers with the food. It is amazing how cold grapefruit soup can tame the bitterness of the IPA. After the tasting dinner we decided since I hadn't been to their tasting room that an outing was needed.

There have been a few hiccups before we finally got to their tasting room. Our first attempt landed us at their store front before their posted closing time with the doors locked, lights off and no one in sight. As we were leaving we ran into another guy who was there to re-fill a growler who was also confused why they weren't open. We then were planning on going before Christmas but they were closed for renovations (luckily I called before we drove over there). Then about mid -February we were finally successful! And it was a good time to go since they had several seasonal brews on tap. We just tasted beers in 2 oz servings including a sour ale which was one of their Decadence vintages. After inquiring if we could buy a bottle because it was so delicious, we were informed that it was a mistake and only available as a taster until they ran out.I told the guy behind the counter it was a mistake they should make again! This past weekend we went back to get a few tasters (total $5!), but unfortunately they didn't have anymore of the sour ale Decadence. We still had a good time! I would also like to give props to the staff at AleSmith. After we finished we went out to the car and it wouldn't start (second time in a week )! ESFSW went inside to see if someone could give us a jump instead of calling a service and Nick Betteker gave us a jump from his car! Thanks so much!

If you happen to find yourself in Sunshineville you should go check them out (click the picture below to get a map). Their beers are also sold in stores around town and come in cool 750 ml bottles (just like wine!). They have a nice range from Pale to Dark and a good mix of hoppy (bitter) to malty. Definitely a great place to spend a little time for a very small monetary output! 

Directions!

Amazing Banana Bread

Have you been searching for that perfect banana bread recipe? Well that search has come to an end! This recipe comes from a neighbor when I was growing up. It consistently a turns out great banana bread and it is pretty simple. So with out much further description I will just dive into it.

What I used to make 1 loaf:

1/3 c vegetable shortening
1/3 c sugar (for sweeter bread use 1/2 cup)
2 eggs
1 3/4 c flour (use a mix of whole wheat flour if you want)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c mashed banana (about two)
optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

What I did:

Pre-heat oven to 350. And grease a bread pan (I use a little shortening).

Mash the bananas and set aside. Using old bananas is best because they are sweeter and have more liquid to them which helps keep the bread from being dry. I have found you can mash a banana pretty well in its skin and then just turn it out into a bowl. I then follow up with a fork making sure any remaining large chunks are broken apart. I like banana bread but I don't like big chunks of banana in the finished product.

In a mixer bowl add 1/3 c shortening, I only ever use Crisco. I prefer the sticks because it is easier to measure and makes less of a mess, but unfortunately I couldn't find the sticks at my local store and there wasn't time to make another stop. Me and ESFSW had a lot of cooking and baking to do that night!

Add 1/3 cup sugar cream together with the shortening. Add two eggs...

...and beat well. As a note I was making a double recipe as you can see there are more than two eggs in the picture above!

Beat well to cream!

Sift together the dry ingredients into a small bowl. Make sure that they are all mixed together. Now, depending on you skill and comfort level you can do this step with the mixer on low. Add the banana and dry ingredients alternating with small amounts of each. I try to end with the banana.

Alternate adding dry ingredients and mashed banana , for the pros you can do this while the mixer is on low.

Stop mixing once the ingredients are incorporated. Do not over mix or the bread will be tough.

Mix on low, too high of a speed for too long will yield over worked and tough bread.

Pour batter into greased bread pans. Again, I had doubled the recipe when ESFSW was photo documenting the recipe. If you do a single recipe it will make one loaf.

Can you see their excitement! About to be popped in the oven!

Put pan into the oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. To check if the bread is done poke with a tooth pick or knife and comes out cleanly. I have noticed the bake time can be variable so set a timer for the lower time and add more as needed. The worst thing is to have over baked and dry banana bread!

Finished Product!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I have and all the people I have shared it with over the years. A loaf will keep for a week if you keep store it in a gallon size zip-lock bag. The bread also freezes and thaws pretty well, but just like most things should not be frozen for more than 90 days.

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I had more bananas that were about ready to be turned into bread yesterday! So I had an idea and instead of making two loaves again I thought I would try making muffins. A single recipe will make 12 muffins and take about 25 minutes to bake.

They are just calling to be eaten with coffee or tea!

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

Tomato soup is one of those foods that I think is stamped in the American food vernacular. Often served with grilled cheese sandwiches as the meal to comfort and warm. I personally have not made a whole lot of strictly tomato soup. Tomato tends to be the base of a lot of my soups but never the main ingredient. I poked around online a bit looking at recipes and didn't really settle on any particular one, but took parts that I like from several and combined them with my own personal flourish!

Before you embark on this cooking journey, I will warn you that this soup will take a while to make. It is not a throw together, heat to a boil, and serve immediately soup. There are two long steps in this process, which can luckily be divided over the course of a day or two days. The soup will be best the longer it simmers. This allows the flavors of the ingredients to meld and intensify! It will be worth the wait I promise you!

Most of the needed ingredients

Here is what I used:

1 lb fresh grape tomatoes (if you have older ones that are getting wrinkly here's how to use them!)

garlic (at least 6 cloves)

olive oil 

dried basil (1 - 2 Tbs) - yes I mean the dried variety - fresh dried basil will provide the best flavor

30 oz canned diced tomatoes

1 to 2 yams or sweet potatoes depending on size (already cooked and soft)

1 tbs red pepper flakes

salt to taste

2 cups chicken stock - if you are vegetarian or vegan you can substitute with vegetable stock or water

1/2 & 1/2 - if you are dairy intolerant or vegan you can skip this ingredient.

This is what I did:

Pre-heat your oven to 425 F. 

While the oven is heating, cut grape tomatoes in half and place in large baking dish (for easier clean up, line with foil). Crush several cloves of garlic and toss in with the tomatoes (I used 10 to 12 but some of them were rather small). Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and douse with dried basil.

Place pan in oven and roast tomatoes for 30 to 40 minutes.

Tomatoes and garlic entering the oven

Toss occasionally while roasting and remove from oven once some of them are starting to char. Let pan cool. If you are doing this step ahead of time (up to 5 days ahead would probably be fine, longer if you plan on freezing them, although things do tend to lose their flavor in the freezer over time). If these are roasted ahead of time, store in a air tight container in the refrigerator. Make sure you save as much of the liquid and scrapings as possible for this is where a lot of the flavor is be found.

Roasted Tomatoes just out of the oven...mmmm they smell good!

Next in a large pot heat some olive oil. Once warm add diced onion and saute until translucent and soft. The longer you saute the onions the better. If you want even more garlic flavor you could add some minced fresh garlic at this point.

Onions starting to cook

Once the onions have started to soften, add cooked yams. I had two small yams in the freezer left over from Thanksgiving! I had been wondering what to do with them and figured this would be a good use for them since they wouldn't be that good re-heated and eaten on their own.

Add the yams

Smash the yam up with a spoon. Add more olive oil if the mixture is getting dry or sticking to the bottom of the pan. Make sure the stove is on high, but not too high that it starts to burn. Add some dried basil and the 1 tsp red pepper flakes. Let the onions and yam combine and start to meld with the basil and pepper. For anyone who might be shy of spicy foods let me put your mind at rest. The red pepper flake will not add that much heat, but will give the tiniest hint of spice and bring out some of the other flavors.

Smash up the yam

Next add the canned diced tomatoes. I used half regular and half fire roasted. Stir to combine all the ingredients.

Pour in the chicken stock. Add the roasted tomatoes and garlic and the remainder of the dried basil.

Turn down the heat to low/ medium low at this point to let the entire thing simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. This allows the flavors to mix and intensify as some of the liquid cooks off. Give the soup a taste and add more basil or salt to taste. Be careful with the salt because as you let the soup cook it will get saltier.

Once the soup has simmered for a while pull out the immersion blender and blend. If you don't have an immersion blender (in picture) then you can use a regular blender and blend batches of the soup. Make sure if you use a regular blender to be careful. Blending hot liquids can lead to explosions so let steam escape as you blend!

Blending the soup - keep the end fully immersed or else soup will splatter up towards you!

Depending on your time constraints let the soup simmer for another 20 to 30 minutes. Now comes and optional part! If you want your soup extra creamy you can had half and half or heavy cream (using anything else will make the soup too watery, if you want to avoid the fat just skip this step). I was planning on freezing half the soup so I removed the portion I wanted to freeze before adding the dairy product. I have never found dairy based soups freeze and thaw very well. 

Half and Half

Stir in Half and Half

 Serve with toast or cheese and sprinkle basil on top!

 I thought the soup was excellent! I may in the future tweak the recipe a little, but nothing major. If you don't have yams you could also use carrots - about 4. You would cook these with the onions. Here you would not  add the diced tomatoes until the carrots are soft. Or you could roast the carrots ahead of time (or at the same time as the tomatoes, but in a separate pan). I hope you enjoy!

Omelette Night Try 1!

 

There are nights when the only thing that sounds appetizing is breakfast foods! I am not snobby I have no problem eating breakfast any time of day. I do however do have issues eating non-breakfasty foods in the morning. Luckily ESFSW also enjoys breakfast for dinner and omelettes. He actually makes them quite frequently for himself. I haven't tasted any of his yet but he promises to make one for me soon! 

Omelettes are not tricky to make, although it did take me a while to find the patience to let the egg cook before I accidentally just turned my omelette into a scramble! I also learned that it is best to use slightly cooked vegetables and always use cooked tomatoes or else the whole thing gets watery! Ewwww!

The omelette I made this night was asparagus, blushing tomato and goat cheese! I also made hash browns, but I haven't been too successful in that endeavor so I didn't take a picture of those.

And here is what I did:

Ingredients:

2 eggs (per omelette)

1/8 onion - diced and saute in butter

3-4 asparagus stocks (cut into thirds and lightly steamed)

blushing tomatoes

herb goat cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

butter

Beat two eggs in a bowl. Heat frying pan and melt butter. Heat on medium high heat (adjust as needed). Once butter has fully melted, tilt pan to make sure it coats the entire surface. Pour egg into the pan. Add onions on top the egg. Let the eggs cook undisturbed when you start to see the edges firm up add other ingredients to one side of the pan. Let eggs continue to cook. Gently with a spatula fold the egg only side over the other ingredients. Let it cook til the egg sets. You can actually turn off the heat at this point. 

Now the tricky part! Take a plate and with a sure and quick movement turn the frying pan over flipping the omelette onto the plate. Now I usually would eat mine with some mixed salad greens, but hash browns also are tasty!

My Omelette!

I think I am in LOVE!

My new love!

I think I need to inform ESFSW that I have fallen in love with a range and oven by La Cornue. I already showed him an example of this beautiful piece of eye candy at the Williams Sonoma in Sunshineville. He knew the minute I said I wanted to show him something super pretty, that it was probably something for the kitchen. This particular model has double dome ovens and a customizable cook top which can have gas, electric, gas lava rock grill (induction is on its way!). This one is probably more than I would actually ever need, there are some pretty cool smaller models. ESFSW agreed it was a pretty cool kitchen super tool. Did I mention you can chose your color enamel and metal trim?!? And you can have a whole kitchen that coordinates. I will have to wait quiet a while until this dream could become a reality, but for now I can dream and take donations! 

And examples of other things I love: 

 

 

 

Blushing tomatoes!

I am not a vegetarian, I like a variety of meats entirely too much to give it up. I do however have a pretty high need for fresh vegetables. Spring, Summer and the warmer parts of Fall I eat salads for lunch and dinner. These are not wimpy salads mind you, and occasionally can be adorn with shrimp, tuna, chicken, ham or steak (only if there was left overs!). I actually find if I am not getting enough vegetables I start to get cranky towards the end of the week. Mostly I think because on the inside I am not feeling the greatest. Now combine a need for vegetables with a very frugal grocery shopper and mix in a little I never make shopping lists and there can be some times when I over buy vegetables and they don't get eaten before they start losing the appeal. I really hate wasting food in this way so I try to find ways to salvage what  I can. If vegetables are too far gone they definitely can still be added to soups (please don't add moldy or fully rotten vegetables to food those do need to be thrown away). If they are getting a bit more scary they can be trimmed and thrown in a pot and turned into vegetable stock. There are some vegetables though that don't work in making stock. Tomatoes are one of these items. Now larger tomatoes I flash cook in boiling water and freeze. Then when making pasta sauce or something else I can toss them in. This however is not the best way of salvaging grape or cherry tomatoes! Stumbling through one of my Nigella cookbooks I happened upon a wonderful recipe called Moonblush Tomatoes. They are softer than sun dried tomatoes and in my opinion much tastier!

fresh grape tomatoes

 

Wrinkly tomatoes that need salvaging!

Nigella's Moon Blushed Tomatoes

I tried the recipe for the first time at least 5  years ago and fell in love. And since I view having tomatoes a staple in my kitchen (at least while I am in Sunshine Ville!). I, of course being the recipe tweak-er, owning primarily from being too impatient to follow directions exactly and often being too lazy to go get the appropriate ingredients (although for these all ingredients should already be in your kitchen!), have never made these the same way twice, but have loved them each iteration. owning primarily from being too impatient to follow directions exactly and often being too lazy to go get the appropriate ingredients (although for these all ingredients should already be in your kitchen!).

Here's what you do:

Preheat oven to 450 F (make sure the oven gets fully to 450 F!)

Cut tomatoes in half and set them cut side up in a oven proof dish (I to reduce clean up will line the dish with foil)

Drizzle olive oil (2 Tbs), Kosher salt (2 tsp), dried thyme (1 tsp) and sugar (1/4 tsp) on the tomatoes.

Put tomatoes in the oven and turn it off. Leave tomatoes in the oven overnight without opening it (if you need to peak please do it through the little window!)

And here are some of my tweaks!

Oven temp: If I want them more dehydrated I actually heat the oven to 500 F (instead of 450 F).

Cutting the Tomatoes: I have cut them both the short and long way, cutting them the long way makes it easier for them to stand up in the baking dish. However it also means that some of the seed gloop may not dry out as much in the oven

Leave out the sugar - I haven't tried them with the sugar and so maybe I am missing something, but I am not sure what the purpose of the sugar is and I don't like things sweet.

Additions: sprinkling garlic salt on them or fresh ground pepper adds some additional flavor. Add what ever herbs and spices you tastes desire. My next tweak will be drizzling them with Balsamic Vinegar!

Larger tomatoes - so I have tried tweaking the entire recipe for larger variety tomatoes but with limited success. The problem lies in trying to dry the tomatoes out in the oven (not about to go buy a dehydrator which would do the trick I know!). If I do happen upon a solution I will be sure to let you all know.

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Use these blushing tomatoes on pizza, in salads, on top of tomato soup, in other soups, in quiches, in omelettes, in lasagna, with pasta, with cheese and crackers or basil or just eat them plain. They are amazing and a great way to avoid throwing away food!