YES! Martha Stewart is coming to Dubai for the launch of her new magazine at Tavola MOE. Visit Tavola facebook page here for more details.
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my little soccer player
one of V’s favorite park activity
Emirati Recipe: Lamb Makhtoum
Ginger over at gingerAndscotch started a cooking local project you can read more about it here. A fabulous idea right! What better way to appreciate the culture where we live if we don’t at least try their dish. If I can’t speak Arabic might as well learn to cook local dish.
Even before being part of FIA I have been reading Emiratican Kitchen and have bookmarked her recipe for Chicken Makhtoum. She noted on her post that lamb would be a delicious substitute to chicken.
When I told C that we’re having a local dish for dinner he immediately inquired if I prepared an emergency backup meal in case they won’t like it. Nope I don’t have any backup and they can order take out. I already know that Little V liked the lamb dish because he was beside me all the time tasting and checking if it’s yummy or not. He liked it so much that asked for rice and sauce for snack.
Recipe Source:
Emirati Recipe: Lamb Makhtoum
1 kilo Lamb
2 Tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp Canola Oil
1 medium size Onion
1 cup Yogurt
1 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Tomato Paste
1 tbsp Arabic Spice mix
1 cup frozen Garden Peas
In your blender mix tomatoes, onion, yogurt, tomato paste, salt, Arabic spice mix and blend
till you get a smooth texture. Meanwhile heat oil in a large pan and saute lamb meat till brown. Add yogurt mix over medium heat for 10 minutes. Mix frozen peas and cook for an hour over low heat till meat is soft.
We enjoyed Lamb Makhtoum with Vegetable Rice Pilaf and Pappadam
Palitaw: Ube Coconut Rice Balls
I’ve been reading friends status on how delicious mochi balls are. Which started my craving for some but couldn’t find any here. Take a look how Food Librarian made some mochi balls here. Yumyum!
I think mochi balls are quite similar to a favorite Kakanin called Palitaw only shaped like a ball with some filling. I had some glutinous rice flour and ube haleya and decided to make some for our merienda (snack). WhenAdoboMetFeijoada made some using Sweet Purple Potato here.
Palitaw: Ube Coconut Rice Balls
2 cups glutinous rice flour
1 cup lukewarm water
1 cup coconut flakes
ube haleya
Before preparing rice balls, boil some water on a medium saucepan.
Stir half cup of water on your glutinous rice flour adding a little bit more of water from the remaining half cup till dough comes together. Firm but pliable.
Flatten a tablespoon of dough into a circle then fill with ube haleya. Gather sides and pinch to seal. Slowly roll between your palms to make a ball.
Drop a few ball in our boiling water. After a minute or two rice balls will float ladle out and roll on coconut flakes and sugar. Top with sesame seeds.
Ube Haleya
1 kilo Ube -steam and mashed (purple yam/garadu/sweet purple potato)
1/2 cup condense milk
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 can coconut milk
1 stick butter
Melt butter and add the rest of the ingredients and mix till you get the right jam consistency. It took me about an hour over medium heat.
Our Little Garden
We are a family of farmer’s.
That is a reply I would always get whenever I ask my Lola about our family. One of the gifts that she treasured the most is plants. Lola would show off each tree we planted to guests along with some stories about us her apo’s (grandchildren). Oh how I miss her so much.
My mama also has a green thumb, she would change plants in our little garden almost every 3 months and neighbors would admire how she managed to grow beautiful flowers. Some friends would give her a sad orchid (no flowers) and somehow after a few months she would manage to make them grow happy blooming with colorful flowers.
And so secretly I’m hoping to have a farmer’s heart from my Papa’s side and a green thumb from my Mama. I started with a bunch of bamboo house plant which sadly only stayed with us for a year. My husband encouraged me to grow some herbs and bought me a pack of basil and chili seeds that also died; I blame Dubai summer heat and insects who ate all its leaves. Now don’t judge me just yet I am happy to say that my Sampaguita (Jasmin sambac) and Gardenia are happily growing in our little veranda.
This morning while watering my love’s, new babies greeted me.
baby chili’s
and we have a new plant too a give-away from TDM.
basil
here are my surviving plants
no name plant. gardenia. sampaguita
During summer I water my plants twice (6am and 7pm) and both basil and chili stay inside after 10am.
a short trip to outerspace
Went to MICC this afternoon to watch a sneak preview of Barney’s OuterSpace adventure show to be held this weekend here in Dubai. I’ve been joining competition to hopefully win us tickets and surprise little V.
We arrived around 5 in the afternoon and the floor was packed with moms and kids waiting for every little one’s purple friend. Luckily V and I found a good spot and took our place (sitting on the floor) singing along to familiar Barney songs. After 10 minutes V started asking where Barney is now and how long does he need to wait. 20 minutes…30 minutes…still no purple dinosaur in sight.
Some parents have been finding ways to squeeze their little one in the crowd, giving instructions (well more of shouting) to go walk till they reach the front. Which I think is just st***d! The little girl politely saying “excuse me” and looking back to her mom asking “it’s ok here?”, mom replies “Go to the front” (another mom beside me translated for us). Why would you ask your child to do that?!
Few kids won complimentary tickets to see the show. V got disappointed cause only kids seated in the front were chosen to participate. One boy cried when he lost good thing his mom won the game.
A big thank you to MICC for the Barney show!
FIA Recipes: Mango Japanese Cheesecake
FIA (famished in Arabia) is a group of food bloggers, you can find links to their blogs by clicking on FIA tab. Visiting each site has become a morning ritual and it’s kinda good and bad for me – I end up hungry after each visit and my list of recipes to try has piled up.
With a whole lot of recipes to try it’ll be a waste if they only end up printed and not created at all. That’s why I decided to try at least 1 recipe a month from FIA.
With a whole lot of recipes to try it’ll be a waste if they only end up printed and not created at all. That’s why I decided to try at least 1 recipe a month from FIA.
Summer = Mangoes! We went to Sharjah Market last weekend and bought a kilo of Mangoes from India and the guy insisted that “mangoes from India are the best madam” (I beg to disagree our Philippine Mango is the best!) I didn’t argue with the guy since I don’t have any Pinoy Mango with me for us to compare.
I love mangoes be it green or yellow. It does not matter where it came from I just love them! I eat them as nature presented them. Wash. Slice. Eat. Then I saw MyCustardPie’s post and taught I should try eating my loves differently. Blog hopping from one FIA to another suddenly made me crave for cheesecake and viola I remember reading a cheesecakeism recipe of Japanese Cheesecake.
after an overnight stay inside the fridge
The recipe calls for cream of tartar but I didn’t have any, searching the internet for substitute suggested to use baking powder or just completely omit it and beat the eggs to medium peaks. Next I googled Mango Japanese Cheesecake hoping to find one that does not use cream of tartar at all. I didn’t find any 😦 but found another recipe from The Dainty Baker and decided to adapt both recipes.
(a)cake in the oven (b) 2nd pan in waiting (c) baked! (d) what’s left of the first cake 😦
This is my 2nd attempt in making my own cheesecake the first one was a disaster that only the trash enjoyed what I made.
Will I ever make this again? The answer is YES!
Will I ever make this again? The answer is YES!
fluffy and yummy
Things to take note:
1) Use boiling water for bain-marie.
2) Try using a different pan. See I use a spring form pan and it seems that some of the water from the bain-marie got inside cause when I was removing the cake from the pan water was dripping out which also made the bottom of the cake “watery”. Half of the cake fell on the sink.
3) Line pans with baking paper. I only sprayed them with Carlex.
4) Buy cream of tartar. The top part of my cheesecake shrink as it got to room temperature which I think has something to do with not using the cream.
5) Don’t let your son pour the mango glaze.
We ate the cheesecake cold and it was YUMMY! My neighbor and V’s friends liked it as well.
Recipe Source:
Cheesecakeism
The Dainty Baker
My first #BakeFestDXB
Friday 11am with cupcake caddies on hand we headed to Wild Peeta at World Trade Center for #BakeFestDXB organized by @theregos.
Our kitchen was able to produce three kinds of cup cake: Lemon Meringue, Ube Haleya (Purple Yam), and Coconut Pandan.
I was calm two weeks before the event after a few sleep it was the #BakeFestDXB week! Sleep was not my friend, I was overly excited and scared. It’s my first time to bake something to be displayed.
Half of Wild Peeta was filled with sweet goodies from a community of bakers who blogs and tweets as well.
Our day was filled with sweet goodness from talented bakers – cakes, cookies, truffles, cup cakes, and pies. It was not only us adults who enjoyed the day the kids too.
Little V found a new friend in Wee Scotch (Ginger’s little one). He was so proud of himself telling his dad and I that he took good care of the baby and that wee scotch was his new friend.
I think selling our sweets was secondary, we truly had fun chatting till it was time to pack our things. Looking forward for #BakeFestDXB round 3!
Once again a big THANK YOU to Wild Peeta for hosting the event and @theregos our dahlink organizer.
how did my cupcakes sell? (my Uncle asked)
I sold handful with sad face. The flavors of the cupcakes I presented were new to the buyers, I think. Most passing by my stand asked if I had any with chocolates in them. Was partly my fault I think: I should have put samples for customers to taste. Oh well on the next bakefest. Like what I said above the experience was worth my sleepless nights. I met really wonderful people.
***
They blogged about #BakeFestDXB too.
Cuddles and Crumbs 