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!

Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking will be at the Wilsonville Festival of the Arts Sunday, June 2 in the Literary Plaza

Linda Dalal Sawaya will be sampling fig-filled cookies at the Wilsonville Festival of the Arts on Sunday, June 2 in the Literary Plaza as she signs and sells copies of Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking! I will also have a few copies of The Sweets of Araby, a dessert book that I illustrated with stories from the 1001 Arabian Nights, published by Countryman Press!

Be sure to mention you saw my blog post for a special discount on cookbooks! And be sure to taste a fabulous lebanese fig cookie and say hi!

It looks like a great arts festival and the weather will be perfect!

blessings and happy cooking!

rare spiral-bound, lay flat Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking available!

i just found a box of spiral-bound, lay flat copies of my 2005 edition of Alice's Kitchen printed to fill orders while waiting for my big printing of the newest edition. if you would like a chance to win a free copy and are on FACEBOOK, please LIKE my cookbook page!

the 100th person to LIKE my page will receive a signed copy of the book with free shipping in the U.S.!

if you're not on FB, or would just like to buy one of these rare copies, send me an email, and i will tell you how to order one. the price is $30 including priority mail shipping in the U.S.

i use my lay flat copy all the time in the kitchen, since it is so much easier to use. the perfect bound books are what bookstores and libraries prefer, which is why the majority of the books were printed with a spine.

Lenten blessings and happy cooking! be sure to enjoy the many Lenten (vegan) recipes in Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking by Linda Dalal Sawaya.

Festive Lebanese baba ghannouj for the holidays from alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking

Beautiful, ruby-red in-season pomegranates bejewel baba ghannouj for your festive holiday table! recipe in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking! their sweet tartness are a perfect complement to our smokey baba ghannouj. 

see the book for the recipe and my blog post for great photos of the process. remember, our holiday sale on alice's kitchen: 5 books for $75 including free shipping via media mail. order before december 15! email me for details.

enjoy, many blessings, and happy holidays and happy cooking!

labne—creamy, healthy lebanese yogurt cheese...in one step!

labne (labneh, labni) is a simple yogurt cheese easily made from homemade or store-bought yogurt. it is a staple of Lebanese cuisine that i grew up with in Alice's Kitchen. the Arabic word for yogurt, laban, from the same root as name of the country Lebanon (lubnan), meaning White One, referring to the Lebanese mountains, especially the typically snow-covered Mt. Lebanon.

sitto (my grandmother) would make the laban (yogurt) as a first step, making the sign of the cross over the milk and starter to bless it. the next day when the yogurt was ready, some was kept for eating, while a quart was saved to make labne.

three items: a teaspoon of sea salt, a quart of full-fat yogurt, and a cloth bag, which mama made from white cotton sheets is all that is needed. the reusable bag is a 8 x 9 inch rectangle with a drawstring at the top. a large coffee filter could be used instead. i learned by reading packaged yogurt labels that reduced or non-fat yogurt has lots more carbs.

to one quart of yogurt, mix in one teaspoon of sea salt until thoroughly combined. turning the bag inside out so the seams are on the outside makes it easier to remove the labne from the bag at finish. wet the cloth bag with cold water and wring out. pour the salted yogurt into the damp bag, tie the top so a corner of the bag is at the bottom, and hang over the sink to drain overnight.

salt draws the water (whey) from the yogurt, making labne, a creamy tart cheese that is a superb substitute for cream cheese or sour cream and has more protein and less sugar and carbohydrates than unstrained yogurt.

 above: full bag of laban draining overnight to make labne. below: labne ready to serve!

once reduced of whey, the quart of yogurt makes a pint of yogurt cheese, labne!

drizzle with olive oil and refrigerate!

traditionally labne is served with bread and olives for breakfast, or a light supper. it's an ingredient in the filling of Lebanese meat pies (sfeeha), and is eaten with stuffed grape leaves, kibbe bil sineyeh, and is a staple of a typical Lebanese mezza. white and creamy, nutritious and tart, it is great on crackers or as a base for a dip.

i haven't tried making it with now readily available goat milk yogurt, which was likely done in the old country, so will add this to my next experiment list! check back for results!

enjoy!

holiday greetings! celebrate the season with alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking gift book offer!

my new december art news went out yesterday with a holiday greeting which i'd like to share here, that includes a holiday offer of 5 copies of alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking for gifts, as everyone loves alice's kitchen!!! 5 copies including free shipping for $75 if you order by december 18th. 

email me right away to get these books for your loved ones! or if you just need one copy, use the "buy now" on  my website to purchase via paypal. or you can also buy through amazon, if you prefer!

let me know if you'd like your books signed and personalized!

remember to find the great recipes for holiday pastries in alice's kitchen! the baklawe (baklava) posting and other Christmas cookies in this blog provide inspiration as well as direction.

please email me if you'd like to be on my emailing list!

sending love, blessings, abundance, joy, great health, and peace in the new year!

and most of all, happy cooking!

Refreshing, light Lebanese yogurt and cucumber salad

just-picked Middle Eastern cucumbers—small, crisp, and not seedy give the best crunch to this Lebanese summer salad. when a cup of yogurt might be refreshing, adding thinly sliced cucumbers, garlic mashed to a paste with salt, crushed dried spearmint, and a little lemon juice makes a superb complement to barbeques, spicy entrees, or simply makes a perfect light meal all on it's own.

this chilled summer salad, the Lebanese cousin of Greek tsatziki, or Indian raita, or Turkish cacik, or Persian mast o khair which is very similar to the Arabic and Lebanese name, laban ou khyar, which is what mama called it so that's it's name in Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking on page 66.

this cucumber variety is called "muncher", an American version of Persian cucumbers or the Mid-East Prolific variety which i usually grow. it's the first time i've grown munchers, and am quite pleased. the blossoms on the plant are huge—almost 3 inches wide! and the cucumbers shown here are only about 4 inches long, picked when they're small and crisp.

my dear friend josephine gave me some Lebanese cucumber seeds a year or two ago, and i managed to have one plant that survived the slugs that feasted on lots of the garden this damp and cold june. pictured here is a mix of Lebanese and "muncher" cucumbers.

i forgot to mention the laban ou khyar salata was on the menu last week with the shish kebabs, along with the green fresh garbanzo beans (hommus or homsi) served as an appetizer...part of the Lebanese or Middle Eastern mezza (hors d'oeuvres). these were a special treat that simply required putting them in a bowl! look how cute they are...sometimes with "two chick peas in a pod".

if you don't grown your own (and i didn't grow these, although many years back i tried...and the graceful leaves of the garbanzo bean plant are lovely), you might be lucky to find these at a farmer's market, or as i did in a local employee-owned grocery store with an international clientele. add them to the mezza or appetizers you're serving along with an empty bowl for the husks, olive seeds, and pistachio nut shells which are essential components of a mezza.

laham mishwi! shish kebab! skewered grilled lamb lebanese alice's kitchen style! authentic lebanese mountain cuisine!

growing up in los angeles' climate provided many opportunities for summer barbeques. our all-time favorite was laham mishwi, which literally means grilled meat. in alice's kitchen that meant lamb, following her douma mountain village tradition. 

mama would buy a big leg of lamb, since los angeles supermarket butchers in those days didn't sell cuts of lamb as did the old country village butchers. she and sitto, my grandmother, spent tedious hours in the kitchen cutting the leg of lamb into various cuts for specific dishes: some for kibbee, some for mishwi, little pieces for stuffed meat pies, slightly larger pieces for stews. it was an art form she perfected as well as a labor of love. 

mama made the process of cutting a leg of lamb an anatomy lesson and it is illustrated in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking with black and white photos of mama cutting the lamb. the recipe for laham mishwi is on page 79 in the cookbook.

i was fortunate to find excellent fresh halal lamb at a new local Palestinian grocery store aptly named JERUSALEM. my only task was to cut it off the bone and remove the "bad" fat, which mama described as the dry, chalky fat, which gives lamb an unpleasant flavor. my little doggie, baba, loved the bones!

mama's recipe is simple enough: chopped onions, salt, black pepper, and cinnamon tossed together and chilled to marinate a couple of hours before skewering.

ready for the grill! since the cuts of meat are fairly small, the cooking time is brief—about 4 minutes on each side.

mama's tradition to use a piece of arabic bread and hold the skewer to slide the grilled meat and onions onto a platter made us all fight for that bread that had the lamb juices embedded in it. i forgot to photograph this—we were all drooling and ready for the main course even though we had mezza (appetizers) galore!

the occasion for this long time vegetarian to make this lebanese specialty? my dear friends rima, bashar, and haitham were returning to lebanon. so we had a feast for their going away dinner party. 

the rest of the menu included fresh garden salata, green beans (loubiyeh) grilled with garlic and olive oil, hommus, baba ghannouj, mhammara, lebne, and of course a platter of figs for dessert. all of these can be found on this blog with recipes in the cookbook! one surprise was a bowl of fresh garbanzo beans in the shell purchased at a local grocery with a great international clientele that is worker owned, called Winco. these are not readily found in the U.S. and my guests were delighted. i will pick up some more and photograph them soon.

you can see the fig tree laden with figs behind bashar, who devoured the baba ghannouj while waiting for his parents to arrive and the kebabs to grill! bashar came to my kids' art class when he was around 6 years old; now he's 14 and over 6' tall with an appetite to match! Smallah!

bon voyage to them and bon appetite to all on this labor day weekend!

salatat baqle—lebanese purslane salad—with finally garden ripened tomatoes!

finally, it's been warm enough in portland for the tomatoes to ripen. and i found enough purslane (baqle) to make another salatat baqle with fresh garden ripe tomatoes instead of canned. check out the photos from my earlier post before the tomatoes were ready!

and yet today started out cold and rainy. i'm tempted to get a sweater and make some hot soup! the sun's trying to come out. and i'm grateful for the beautiful figs that have finally started ripening a month late, and grateful we're not having heat waves, floods, or droughts. grateful for the summer just as it is.

kale and amaranth: sauteéd summer greens—not typically lebanese—done lebanese with garlic, lemon, and olive oil—YUM!

this latest lebanese food art photography reminds me of a 1960s tie dye! and although red russian kale and amaranth (native american) are not typically lebanese vegetables, when sauteéd and dressed with our classic garlic, lemon, and olive oil dressing, these vegetables that are abundant now in my portland garden that is a month behind because of record cool temperatures and july rain, made a fabulous accompaniment to leftover mjaddrah.

red russian kale is a beautiful plant. the leaves have a reddish purple stem with frilly edges.

red amaranth, a native american grain, has been growing in my garden since i first planted it from seed about ten summers ago! the flowers are stunning, produce thousands of tiny seeds, which the birds adore and continue to volunteer every year as i allow a few plants to flower and go to seed. here's my darling puppy, baba ghannouj, at three months old in october, 2008, pictured in the garden with the totally extraordinary red amaranth in the background that grew to about 6 feet tall. 

here's another view of amaranth in the garden

here's how the young red amaranth plants look in the garden before picking to accompany red russian kale and red onions for the sauteéd summer greens with lebanese garlic lemon olive oil dressing.

lots of young amaranth showed up in my salad greens bed and i have been using them raw in salads also, adding lots of nutrition.

since i shredded the kale and the amaranth, it cooks quickly. so be careful to sauté it briefly to maintain the health benefits and to preserve the bright green color of these vegetables; add them to the red onions after a few minutes of sautéing. i used a mixture of olive oil and coconut oil (which both have great health benefits and great flavor) for the sauté. remove the greens quickly and drizzle the dressing over the top. serve in a beautiful plate...

...for the finished dish—the most yummy and nutritious summer greens using the recipe in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking on page 169. here's a link for the extraordinary health benefits of eating kale. this website states that kale is by far the richest "in numerous health benefiting polyphenolic flavonoid compounds such as lutein, zeaxanthin and beta carotene, and vitamins than found in any other green leafy vegetables".

this link for the health benefits of amaranth mentions amaranth being recommended for cancer patients.

sahtein! in Arabic means "double health to you!" this is my wish for you!

KAFTA— a fourth of july lebanese barbeque idea...plus cookbook clubs on the rise

the san francisco chronicle had an article recently about the rising popularity of cookbook clubs. to read the article, click here!

in the past few years,  i've been invited several times to teach lebanese cooking classes by friends who have book clubs featuring cookbooks. totally enjoyable—everyone participates in prepping, following the recipe in alice's kitchen, and my demonstration. then we all sit down together to enjoy a great lebanese feast, which sometimes includes a barbeque.

this fourth of july, give this lebanese lamb specialty a try on your grill or under a broiler, as these photos demonstrate. it's called kafta and can be done on skewers or just hand rolled into this shape and broiled or barbequed. i've made these in little balls for appetizers and they disappear quickly!

the recipe from alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking is easy to make, using ground lamb specially ground at my local organic grocery store with very lean lamb. finely chopped onions, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and allspice provide flavors that bring out the very best in lamb. minced parsley adds a touch that my mother, alice, included when she made hamburgers for us growing up, that we vociferously complained of. now, adding parsley to hamburgers is de rigueur of course!

drizzling garlic and lemon sauce over the kafta just after cooking completes this fantastic dish that is complemented by any of the lebanese salads featured in alice's kitchen, including tabbouli, fattoush, or simple salata.

here's the lamb kafta before it's broiled; you can see that it shrinks in size. it's really important not to overcook it so it doesn't dry out. about 4 minutes on each side is perfect!

speaking of tabbouli, my first efforts at sprouting quinoa to use in gluten-free tabbouli were unsuccessful. i was led astray by the wikipedia entry on quinoa saying they sprout in a couple of hours. so instead of soaking overnight, as is my practice for sprouting any seeds, beans, or legumes, i just soaked them a couple of hours. and instead of sprouting, they fermented and kind of smelled like beer. so i composted them!

will let you know how the next effort goes. in the meantime, have a fabulous fourth of july weekend. and let me know if you try the kafta recipe and how you like it! bon appetite!

lebanese tabbouli goes gluten free!

it is spring time, and i begin to crave tabbouli...the infamous lebanese salad traditionally made with a small amount of bulgar wheat (burghul in arabic), finely minced parsley, mint, green onions, and tomatoes. this is how my mother, grandmother and beyond made this classic lebanese salad. and this is how the recipe in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking is written.

this is great and delicious, except that starting this past march, it was recommended by my naturopathic doctor that i be GLUTEN FREE or "GF" as many packages are now marked for this rising international trend (my lebanese friend samar saw GF pastries at the paris airport!).

so if you know arabic food, lebanese food, and alice's kitchen, you know that bread and wheat are big parts of the cuisine. so what is a lebanese cookbook author to do, who loves to cook our food TRADITIONALLY? especially right now, when i'm craving tabbouli with the mint and parsley in my garden just in their prime. 

QUINOA (pronounced keen-wa) is the answer! i steamed up some quinoa, a non-gluten "grain", and let it cool. following the recipe in alice's kitchen on page 58, i merely used the cooked quinoa instead of bulgar. no need to soak it, just place a small amount (1/3 cup) in the bowl, season with salt and cayenne pepper. add fresh squeezed lemon juice, olive oil, and set aside to marinate while chopping tomatoes, onions, parsley, and spearmint.

at this time of year in portland since the tomato plants in my garden have barely been planted in the ground, i'm using organic canned chopped tomatoes (without the juice, which i sip and savor) instead of fresh tomatoes that are not yet in season locally. my foodie friend samar tells me that cooked tomatoes have more lycopene, so all the better! plus they've been picked and canned at the peak of the season, so they're sweet!

here's the lovely and fantastic result—lebanese tabbouli with quinoa—served in romaine lettuce "boats" that are picked up and eaten like a taco, and i'm ecstatic about it, since i LOVE tabbouli, and couldn't imagine it without bulgar.

just now in researching quinoa online, i learned on wikipedia that it is over 4000 years old. and that it can be sprouted within a few hours! so my next experiment with the next batch of tabbouli will be with sprouted quinoa instead of cooked! and i may find some red quinoa to try as well. stay tuned for the results. in the meantime, make a bowl of lebanese tabbouli with quinoa and delight in the flavor and healthful results. be sure to let your "gluten free" friends in on the secret.

i'm off to sprout some quinoa right now! this spring i've been sprouting lentils, sunflower and alfalfa seeds, and mung beans to add to my salads, adding protein and a real feeling of eating LIVE foods...and can't wait to try the quinoa! let me know how your results turn out! and happy cooking and sprouting! 

tulips for alice!

i cannot let this day go by without acknowledging mama's birthday here. if she were alive, it would be her 101st!

so i dedicate this day and these tulips in my garden to mama. as i gardened today and planted seeds, i remembered that she loved gardening and shared this passion with me as a child. it is one of my joys, and she often said it was her "therapy", as was her art.

mama indulged me as a child by taking me to the local nursery, which is still in business on sunset boulevard in los angeles and i visited recently, aptly named sunset nursery, and allowing me to choose whatever flowers i wanted for transplanting into our garden. i still remember choosing celosia...a vibrant magenta and cockscomb, a variation of the flame-like plant that is crested like a rooster's, of course! my propensity for bold color emerging early on!

so blessed to have had such inspiring parents and grandparents, with their roots in the mountains of lebanon, their fingers familiar with its soil, and their spirits guiding me through my journey.

the photo of mama and sitto on the cover of alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking was taken when they first arrived to this country in 1926 and mama was a sweet and lovely 16!

here's an "arty" photo of steamed brussels sprouts fogging up my camera lens. and because it is spring in oregon and this is a food blog, and i've had these photos to share for awhile, this seems like a good time to show you—brussels sprouts with garlic, lemon, and olive oil.

it is the same basic-essential-all-time-and-all-vegetable dressing of garlic mashed into a paste with salt, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and olive oil.

here's the tangy vegetables in a less arty photo. the dressing is fantastic on steamed asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, chard, beets, as a dip for artichokes, and on and on! the recipe is on page 43 of alice's kitchen!

it is so easy to make a big batch to keep on hand in the fridge for last minute salads, steamed veggies, and it's heavenly on sliced avocados.

garlic-lemon dressing is also an essential complement to kafta, drizzled on just after grilling or broiling. here's a sneak preview of my next blog post featuring this lebanese grilled lamb dish—something i hadn't made or tasted for many years as a vegetarian, that has become a renewed favorite.

sahtein and happy cooking!