MDD - Papaya Salad

Time on my mind

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days...time … suddenly I feel I have a lot of it more then I need. It lingers in my room like a helpless child who wants to run outside. I read a book, I drew a picture, I fixed the room, and nothing seems to fill it, it stretches and asks, begs and demands “ MORE”.

Clocks get louder and annoyingly intrusive. You need: a loud song, a concert or a chatty friend someone or a thing that has the power to silence them ... whatever soothe you, what’s your remedy?

Sometimes it works but when it doesn’t … I cook or bake … and for some reason time gets devoured.

Bread, salad and cookies.

Here’s some nice time filling recipes for you to try and enjoy.

They call them jumbles. Those cookies are so easy to make plus you can pick and mix the flavoring you like.

I used some fresh berries that I had bought earlier.

The result looked great and tasted so good.

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

50g light muscovado sugar

1 medium free-range egg

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

175g plain flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

For the flavorings: whatever you like I used 100g berries and 100g of chopped chocolate.

But you can also use nuts., dried fruits, etc

2 baking trays, well greased with butter

Preheat the oven 190C/375F/gas 5.

Melt the butter in a big pan.

Take the pan off the heat, add both sugars.

Beat the egg with the vanilla until combined, add to the mix.

Sift the flour and the baking powder together into the mix and stir.

When it is very well combined, add your flavorings.

With a tablespoon scoop the mix on the prepared trays making sure to keep enough space to allow spreading.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until a light golden color shows and the biscuits just firmed.

Leave to cool for 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

Job Hunting-Garlic Chili Oil

Job hunting is a lot like dating, filled with awkward encounters with various individuals, like the guy you like but he thinks he’s too good for you, the very sweet but boring man with whom you can’t help but reach for your bag and leave after 5 minutes, or the guy that whenever you’re with something urgent happens that you need to attend to.

It is interesting sometimes but weird, tragic and comic most of the times. Still filled with great expectations you go on to the next meeting hoping to find the one for you.

Interviews are mostly first impressions and I can’t say I excel at those; I’ve always considered myself an acquired taste. Give me time and I’ll show you miracles. Except time is a luxury I can’t afford in a fast pace work environment. So here I am learning to impress and charm at the first Hello.

Meanwhile cooking is still a very rewarding skill I’m enjoying.

Garlic Chili Oil in 5 easy steps

Ingredients

Oil (I used olive oil)

3 Gloves of garlic

Dried chilly

Heat the oil to a high temperature.

Fry the garlic until brown and remove them.

Add the chili and fry them for 10 minutes.

Remove the pan off the heat Allow the oil to cool, then pour into a jar with a lid.

You can keep it in the fridge for 2 weeks.

Use it over your pasta, pizza or labneh …. It goes so well with so many things …. Enjoy!

Try this at home-chocolate banana cake

A wind of change is spreading across the Middle East. Regimes changing, presidents falling and new blood rising, empowering those who brought those revolutions.

I’m having my own small revolution at home…

My little world has been shaken by a sweet breeze that’s moving me to a new house. A lovely villa with a small garden where I’ll be planting a rainbow of flowers.

Change the house, throw this couch, buy this carpet, hang those curtains, paint this wall, plant the garden, clean, nail, furnish, move, drill, place, move, place, open, close, sit …

Feel at home.

Bake a cake, Meet the neighbors, and make a good impression. My chocolate banana cake, An easy recipe that guaranties success. Great for kids

Use really ripe bananas and good dark chocolate, u cam eat it plain or spread chocolate spread or cream cheese over it.

Ingredients

250 self raising flour

a pinch of salt

150g caste sugar

100 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 medium free-range beaten eggs

250g peeled bananas, about 3 bananas

75g dark chocolate, chopped

100g walnut pieces

Grease a 900g loaf tin, line the base with greaseproof paper.

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C/350F/gaz 4.

Mix sugar, salt, and flour together. Add the melted butter, the beaten eggs. Mash the bananas leaving some lumpy bits and add them to the mix. Next the chopped chocolate and walnuts. Mix all the ingredient together with a wooden spoon.

Poor your mix evenly to the prepared tin, bake the cake for 55 minutes until it is golden brown and a cocktail stick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Leave it to cool fro 5 minutes, then turn it out on to a wire rack and leave to cool before slicing. Store in an airtight container.

Sale on

“30%”,“50%”, “80%, 90%, OFF

You spend what feels like an eternity resisting a sexy pair of shoes, a lonely black dress dying to take you out for dinner. You spend months trying to be faithful to your pocket. Then you let it all go during the sale season. Buying at half price four times what you have events to possibly wear for.

This is the UAE. Paris, London, Milan and New York wrapped into one big gift shop. You can imagine how hard it is not to be tempted in the ultimate shopping sin city where many times I have fallen victim.

My ultimate sin though is food. Of all the consumer goods out there, it is the only good that can actually be consumed.

… I heard once that the more things are ephemeral the more they are spiritual. And what is more ephemeral than food? A labor of love, so good you can eat it. And how satisfying is that to actually make it part of you…

That’s how I feel about everything in life. Sometimes I wish I can eat a nicely designed vase or a flower or a jacket… how would a sunset taste like …

Prepare yourself an ephemeral dish and consume a moment of spirituality.

My roasted chicken was so sexy I had it for diner.

It was so moist; so good you have to try it.

Ingredients

1 fresh Chicken

2 oranges

1 garlic head

1 small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage,

or whatever mixture you like

1 tbsp of softened butter.

For the marinade:

1 tbsp of mustard a l’ancienne,

1 tsp of brown sugar, 1 tbsp of honey,

1 tbsp of Worchester sauce,

1 tbsp of olive oil.

For basting:

Tequila

The juice of an orange

Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F/gas 9, Get a very fresh chicken. Wash it with water and cider vinegar.

Using a knife remove any excess fat. Oranges are my secret ingredient. Get the zest of one orange and rub the chicken with it. Repeat the same thing with half of that orange. Insert 3 slices of orange and 2 slices of lemon inside the chicken’s cavity. Crush 2 cloves of garlic; slide them under the skin with the fresh herbs (small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or whatever mixture you like) with 1 tbsp of softened butter.

Mix together:

1 tbsp of mustard a l’ancienne, 1 tsp of brown sugar, 1 tbsp of honey, 1 tbsp of Worchester sauce, 1 tbsp of olive oil. Using your hands rub the chicken with the mix making sure to cover all it’s parts properly.

Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place your chicken in a roasting tray over your vegetable (2 quartered potatoes, 2 onions, and 1 garlic head cut in half, drizzled with olive oil. Season to taste) put it into the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Halfway through cooking baste your chicken with a splash of tequila and the juice of an orange. Take the tray out of the oven cover it with tinfoil and a tea towel, let it rest for 15 minutes before you serve.

Serve it with your roasted vegetables and enjoy. Sahtenn!

Moments - Daube de Boeuf

I'm someone who likes to title events in life to find special meanings in occasions, identify hidden signs, and meet weird people. Cause some coincidence in life are so beautiful they deserve collecting.

Collectors, I never understood. Why would u need to collect all those postcards, dolls, gravel ... But I guess things don't have to have an ultimate goal, or make sense to a crowd for them to exist.

They just have to mean to you. They’ll make your persona. After all that's what's the world is feeding on lately your personal " likes, posts, pictures..." the more you're different the more you fit in, the more you're liked, loved, appreciated, envied, hated, despised, admired ... Generating reactions.

Nothing feels like home more then home food and what’s more homey than slow cooked stews.They warm your house and welcome you with their comforting aroma and satisfying taste.

I've wrote my post but I'll post it later I'll keep it for a while for the flavors to mix and generate more ideas just like my prepared stew, they just get better with time...

Daube de Boeuf

Serves 5 people

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of flour

1 kg lean stewing beef, cut in 1-inch cubes

4 tablespoons of olive oil

100g of smoked bacon

1 big minced onion

4 cloves of garlic

Zest of 1 orange

200g carrots (I used frozen ones)

Teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crushed

300 ml of red wine

300 ml of beef broth

100g of pitted black olives

4 tablespoons of tomato paste

Salt and pepper

Directions

Mix the flour with salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil. Add beef; brown well on all sides. Set aside

Add the bacon and the onion fry them for 5 minutes.

Return the beef back to the pot

Add the garlic, carrots, thyme, wine and the beef broth.

Bring to boil cover and bake them in a an oven for 1h 15 at 160degrees

mix in a blender the olives with tomato puree, add the mix to your pot and baked for 15 minutes more. Serve it with mashed potatoes and enjoy.