New blog location on my website! Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking has a new website and blog page!

Please visit my newly redesigned cookbook website and blog page…click here for the link! First post is making Lebanese pickled turnips! 

lebanese nachos a la linda dalal sawaya: colorful, festive, nutritious, and tasty! gluten free and vegan!

new creation a la linda sawaya: lebanese nachos! this is a gluten free, vegan recipe for my lebanese take on nachos. the inspiration for this came for a local (portland, oregon) soon-to-be-published cookbook.

garbanzo beans sautéed with garlic and salt along with sprouted french lentils and tahini sauce provide the protein. additional toppings of shredded red cabbage, green onions, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and avocado make this a totally festive presentation.

the entire assemblage is sprinkled with sumac and has citrus overtones. it tastes fabulous! 

the chips are made of a yeasted dough that is a combination of garbanzo bean and oat flour, with ground sesame and golden flax seeds, rolled thin and baked until crisp.

as a creative artist, i took great delight in creating a new recipe adapting a mexican favorite to lebanese traditions and making it gluten free and vegan as well. it was an exciting process bringing my culinary skills to complement my traditional lebanese culinary roots. and the result was totally yummy!

more precise recipe to come soon. stay tuned!

happy new year! new, faster way to make holiday baklawa (baklava)!

 

this holiday season i made baklawa for taste samplings at Camamu Soap's Holiday Bazaar—small pieces would be just right. i decided to make a tray of rolls cut into bite sized pieces, faster (for me) than making a big tray of baklawa and cutting it into typical diamond shapes knowing it would be easier to lift each one out of the tray to serve.

i started out putting parchment on my baking sheet and then placed three sheets of filo dough that i generously brushed with butter on the top sheet. next i spooned a long row of the walnut/sugar/orange flower water mixture about 1/2" from the edge and began to carefully roll up the nuts like an oriental carpet, brushing butter every couple of rolls and at the end, to be sure the filo was well covered.

with a sharp knife i cut the rolls into one inch pieces, and then continued the process until i filled the tray, using up all  the filo and the nut mixture.

occasionally, i used two sheets of filo instead of three, to be sure the filo and nuts would end up with no leftovers. and it did!

immediately after baking the cold simple syrup with orange flower water and lemon juice is drizzled over the hot pastry and left to cool. it came out fabulously...fully detailed recipe of course is in alice's kitchen!

wishing you all the best and many blessings this New Year!