Pumpkin Soup - Autumn Treat

Pumpkin- Carrot soup

Pumpkin is a extremly healthy vegetable. It contains a lot of vitamins and tastes so yummy!
Its the perfect food to start into the autumn season.


Serves 2 people

You need:

600gr Pumpkin ( only the flesh)

2 carrots

1 onion

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Teaspoon oil

Salt/pepper

1 Teaspoon ginger

1 cube vegetable broth

1 teaspoon coriander powder

½ cup Milk or cream


1. Peel the Carrots and Onion. Chop them.

Cut the pumpkin into big pieces ( Tablespoon size)


2. Melt the butter in a big bowl on medium heat.

Add the pumpkin, onion and carrot´s.

Leave for a few minutes and stirr a few times during this.

3. Add 2 cups of water and the broth cube.

Add the spices and mix well.

Cover and let it simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes.

4. Add the Milk/Cream.

Put it in a Mixer and blend for about 1 min.

 

Best way to serve it is hot with some bread.

This soup is perfect to prepare ahead and freeze. Like this you can prepare a huge amount of it and than freeze in small portions so you can enjoy this soup anytime you feel like it :)

Belila - Wheat in Milk

Belila - Wheat in Milk

　
You need:

1 cup  Wheat

2 cups Milk

Sugar

How to do it:

1.Wash the wheat and leave it in water over night

2. Drain the wheat and bring about 2 cups of water to boil in a medium sized bowl.
Add the wheat, cover and let it simmer for 30 min. If the wheat isnt soft, let it simmer until the wheat becomes soft.

3. Remover the water and than add the Milk. You can take more or less that depends on your taste. You can also keep the water and just add milk.
Let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

4. Add sugar and serve.

Egyptians eat Belila mostly for breakfast and with a lot of sugar.

How to make baked Sweet Potato without an Oven!

Baked sweet potato in the microwave

I love baked sweet potatoes and its great that they are not only tasty but also very healthy.

My problem is that I hate to make them in the oven. It simply takes too long to pre heat the oven and than bake them.

So I found a way that is faster and easier than this.

I simply use the microwave to bake my potatoes. Alright you cant call it baked anymore I guess but the taste is the same.

This is how you do it:

1. Wash the sweet potato and then dry it with a kitchen towel.

2. Pick the potato with a fork many times. You don’t need to push the fork too deep into it but just make sure there are some little wholes.

3. Put the potato on a plate and place it in the microwave.

Turn the microwave on full heat ( if you use medium or low heat it will take a long time)

Set the timer for 5 min.

After this time use a knife to check if the potato is ready.

If you can push the knife through the potato ( middle) than its soft and ready to eat.

If its still hard than put it in the microwave for another 5 min and check again.

I eat the potato without adding anything but I know most people love to add some butter on top or to add some salt. Choose your favorite variation and enjoy a sweet potato snack J

German Cheesecake -creamy, rich and incredible tasty!

Cheesecake with Sour cream

Crust:

1 package of biscuits ( 200gr, any kind you like will do)

1 stick of butter

2 tablespoon sugar ( put more if you want it more sweet)

¼ teaspoon cinnamon ( optional)

Filling:

500 grams cream cheese ( in Egypt I use Kiri cheese or Ishta/cream cheese, use a cheese with no added salt if possible)

300 grams sour cream

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

Vanilla

Lemon zest

1. Turn on the oven to 180 degree Celsius.

2. Ground the biscuits until there are no more big pieces.

Add the sugar and cinnamon to the grounded biscuits

Melt the butter and mix it with the biscuits.

Put in the fridge for 5 min.

3. Meanwhile put the cream cheese in a bowl and beat until it becomes soft.

Add the sour cream, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest.

Now add the eggs one by one.

Mix well.

4. Pour the filling onto the refrigerated crust.

Put it in the oven.

5. Let the cheesecake bake for 55 min.

After this time check the cheesecake with a knife.

Nothing should stick to knife ( check the centre of the cheesecake)

If cake sticks to the knife than leave the cheese cake in the oven for some more and check it every 5-10 min.

If you recognize that the cheesecake is thoroughly baked than turn of the oven and open it a little bit. Leave the cheesecake to cool for 1 hour.

After that refrigerate the cake for minimum 4 hours.

It tastes much better after it been in the cooled in the fridge.

You can serve the cheesecake with any topping you like but its also tasty enough without any topping at all. We love to eat this cake without anything for breakfast on special occasions J

If you want to make a different kind of cheesecake you can add chocolate.

Just melt 300 grams of chocolate and add it to the filling mix.

I love to add some coffee to the filling. For that I use ¼ cup of strong coffee or espresso.

 

This version isn’t suitable for children of course.

The picture you see above is how i prefer to serve cheesecake. cut into small circles so everyone can have their own little cheesecake :D

Spicy Vegetables with Lentils

 

 

This dish is a really great option for vegetarians or if you just don’t feel like eating meat/poultry.
Its not too complicated and satisfies even the ones who normally are not so found of vegetables.
It is inspired by the Indian cuisine while its not exactly an Indian dish.

The spices can be changed, you can leave out the ones you don’t like and add other spices if you want to, though this variation is perfected so if you add other spices it might taste odd!

What you need:

½ tablespoon black seen

½ tablespoon cumin seeds

½ tablespoon curry

½ tablespoon curcuma

¼ tablespoon paprika

¼ tablespoon ginger

¼ tablespoon pepper

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon hot spice/ chili powder

1 cube vegetable broth






2 tablespoon oil ( might be more- any oil will do, except olive oil as its not good for frying!)

3 carrots

2 zucchini

1 potato

1 onion


1 cup lentils

2.5 cups water

2 tablespoon tomato paste

How to prepare it:

1. Wash the lentils.

You can whether put them in a sieve and flush them or you can put them in a plastic bowl and add water, than stir them and remove the water ( you will have to do this a few times till the water comes out clean).

Now put the lentils with 2.5 cups of water and 2 tablespoon of tomato paste in a bowl and bring to boil.

2. While the lentils simmer on the fire you can peel and clean the vegetables.
Peel the potato and the carrots. Clean the zucchini.
Cut all vegetables into small cubes.
Peel the onion and chop it.

3. Use a big frying pan or a bowl. Insert the oil and heat.
Add the spices and leave for ½ minute. Take care that it doesn’t burn!
Keep on low heat/fire.
Now add the vegetables and stir well so that the vegetables are all covered in the spices.
Leave for 2-3 minutes and stir several times during this period.

4. Now add the lentils (including the water) to the vegetables.
Add some water if its too dry.
It shouldn’t swim in water but you should be able to stir the mix easily without anything sticking to the ground!.

5. Let the mix simmer on low fire until the carrots are tender.
The time varies but it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes! Most probably less than 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the vegetables and turn of the heat when the carrots are tender.


This dish fits well to basmati rice, spice rice or simple Indian/ Arabic bread.
Another nice addition to this dish is yogurt.
It contains a lot of vitamins ( vegetables ) and iron ( from the lentils) therefore its healthy and definitely fitting into a diet regime.

Karkady - Hibiscus Drink

 

 

 

 

Karkady is a typical egyptian drink but it can be found in other countrys too under the name hibiscus tea. You can drink it hot as a tea in winter or you can drink it cold in summer.

Of course you can drink it without sugar but it tastes way better if you add sugar..a lot that is ;)

 

What you need:

handfull of dry hibiscus ( see aboveto know how it looks like )

Water

sugar

 

1. Put 1/2 litre of water in a bowl and bring it to boil.

 

2. Now put the hibiscus inside and let it simmer for up to 10 min ( minumum should be 5 min).

 

3. Add sugar.

 

4. Drink it hot as tea, or cool down and add ice and drink it as ice tea.

 

hibiscus tea lowers the blood pressure, so if you already have low blood pressure dont drink too much of it. If you have high blood pressure however you can drink it every day and it will help to lower your blood pressure.

 

If you happent o visit egypt just order Karkadee in any cafee and enjoy :)

 

 

 

Egyptian rice with vermicelli- Ruz bil shareya

To make rice the Egyptian way is an art and its hard to find out how to create it perfectly.
Egyptians take their rice pretty serious and every young woman will have to learn how to make Egyptian rice before she get married. It took me quite a while to figure out how to do it.
I took some advices from my sister in law and mother in law in order to perfection it.

What you need:

1,5 cups Egyptian rice

¼ cup shareya / vermicelli

3 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon Butter

½ Teaspoon salt

1 cube vegetable broth ( that’s optional, some Egyptians use it and some don’t, traditionally its not used)

How to make Egyptian Rice:

1. Heat the oil in a medium sized bowl.
Insert the Shareya/vermicelli and let it fry for 1 minute. It should get a bit brown but not too dark!.

 

2. Now add the rice and mix it well with the shareya/vermicelli.
Leave it on the fire for 3-5 minutes. The fire should be medium heat.

3. Meanwhile boil 3 cups of water. You can use a water boiler or do it on the stove if you don’t have a water boiler. Important is that the water is boiling hot when adding it to the rice!

4. Add the salt to the rice.
Now add the 3 cups of water andthe butter to the rice. Be careful as the water might splash up a little.
Stir a few time ( add the broth now, if desired).

5. Cover the bowl and turn the stove on to low fire.
Leave it for about 20 - 25 minutes. Don’t uncover it or remove the cover.
After 20 - 25 minutes turn off the heat and leave the cover on the bowl.
Leave the rice covered for another 10 -20 minutes than its ready to serve.

The secret is to add boiling water to the rice, if you use cold water the rice will get sticky. Same will happen if you stir the rice while cooking. Its important to only stir the rice a few time after adding the water and after that to leave it to itself!

Of course you can make the rice without shareya too. You wont have to change anything to make it without the shareya.

It might be a little difficult to get Egyptian Rice if you don’t live in Egypt , but you might find it online.

If there’s no way to find it than you can use round grain rice from your local store, but it wont taste exactly the same like the Egyptian one.