Yummy Grilled Chicken!

Sheesh Tawooq? Grilled Chicken? Name it whatsoever, it's just tasty and quick! AND PRO-DIET!

Ingredients:

*Boneless Chicken.
*Yogurt.
*Carry.
* Turmeric.
*Garlic Salt (Instead: you can use minced garlic or garlic powder and regular salt)
*Ground Black Pepper.
*Oregano and Thyme.
*Olive Oil.
*Chili. (optional, you can add paprika instead)
*Onions
*Bell Peppers.
*Tbsp. of tomato paste (optional)

How is it done?
1-Clean your chicken and cut it into big cubes.
2- Get a big bowl and put into it the following: Yogurt, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic salt, thyme, oregano, chili, carry and turmeric, with the tomato paste, and mix quite well.
3-Marinate the chicken over night or for couple of hours in this bowl.
4-Cut you onions into big rings, as well as your bell peppers julienne. Mix them with a tbsp. of olive oil and a small pinch of salt.
5-Get the tray you'll pop into the oven, cover it with your cut onions and bell peppers.
6-Now put your marinated chicken, get it out of the yogurt sauce.
7-Cover your tray with aluminum foil, and let it cook for a while.
8-When the chicken seems to be cooked, remove the foil cover, and turn your oven into broil to give the chicken a nice colour now.
9-Serve it with sour cream and tortilla.

et Bon Appetit.

Side notes:
*You can just not cut it into cubes if you wish too. And do the same steps.

*You can put it onto the grille.

*Instead of the oven and grille, get a pan with a small piece of butter, and grill the chicken in it. Heat it really up first, add your chicken a min. for each side so as to get a goldish colour, then lower the heat temperature, and let it cook for a while.

*You can add the cubes onto skewers, et Voila it's Sheesh Tawooq!

*Instead of sour cream and tortilla, have it with pasta, rice or even bread!

*Garlic Salt? It's different than garlic powder (you can add that too) but it's just like salt with garlic flavour. As said above, if it's not available use garlic, or garlic powder and regular salt. But if you find garlic salt, it's so yummy in the food.!

*Trick: After cooking, try getting a piece of charcoal, heat it up, get a piece of foil, and add a bit of oil in there and put it in the middle of your chicken tray, set the heated charcoal in the foil wrap, and cover the whole tray. The charcoal fumes will give a nice grilled taste to your chicken.

Saving Time and Stacking Your Freezer!

When I was staying alone, and had a very busy day that I hardly had any time to cook each and everyday, and just needed something already prepared to just heat it up or take few minutes (15 min max.) to have a proper lunch, I learnt the following tricks. (Thanks are due to my mother who taught me some of her own as well!)

*Things You can prepare and stock in your deep-freezer (or Freezer) to help you save time:

1- Broth: When you boil chicken or meat, and having plenty of broth that you won't use, stock the broth in fridge containers or even zip bags to use it in the future in whatever you're cooking; they remain fresh!

2-Chopped Onions: stack them in zip bags and you can directly use them in making vegetables or so.

3-Minced Garlic: Buy a quantity and mince them for once and for all, and start dividing them into zip bags and leave them in the freezer and use them instantly whenever cooking!

4-Tomato Juice: Fresh tomatoes into the blender, and you have your fresh tomato juice for direct use in making pasta sauce, vegetables, and so on. It's always better than canned tomato paste after all.

5- Chicken Panee: Season your fillet chicken as you always do, coat them with eggs and breadcrumbs and divide them into foam plates and leave them in your freezer ready to be fried instantly. They'll be fresh and crisp.

6- The previous step applies to Chicken and meat kofta with breadcrumbs' coat ready for frying!

7-Samsbosa: Stuff them, stack them in foam plates and cover them in a plastic bag or so, and they're ready do be fried or popped into the oven.

8- The same applies on Egg rolls, Spring rolls and رقاق الملفوف. Just do the stuffing you wish for, and stack them in your freezer in proper wrapping or container to be ready for frying or into the oven.

9-Pizza: Purchase the pan-like aluminium foil ones, make your different medium or small-sized pizza with all toppings and mozzarella, and cover them with plastic sheets, and they're ready to be cooked. Fresh, believe me.

10-Hawawshi: The Cairene hawashi (half-loaf of Baladi bread, stuffed with minced meat), wrap it in aluminium foil, and it is ready to go into your oven whenever hungry.

11-Vegetables: Always have ready to go: Black-eyed beans, sweet peas, green beans, already-boiled spinach, and okra, all cleaned up, cut and half-boiled (or fully depends) and in your freezer, ready to be dropped in your pot for a quick vegetable dish with tomato sauce.

12- Cooked Minced Meat: Yes, I used to cook a quantity that I may use in different dishes throughout the week (or 10 days). I fully cook it, and divide it into zip bags to be ready  to be dropped into my pasta, for stuffing, and for more than one instance. And that was one burden that was carried away while cooking.

If You were much more pressed in time, and cooking small quantities, and blessed with a microwave:

*Grilled Chicken: Boneless chicken , seasoned, grilled, or cooked in the oven, have them fully cooked, make them into portions, and in a zip bag, and ready for the microwave and in a minute or so you'll be having perfect lunch. 

*Same works with meat kofta, already cooked in the oven.

*Cook your vegetables in tomato sauce and all, and divide them in fridge containers to be ready for you the next couple of days to be heated.

*Go further and cook a bigger pan of your (Makrona bel Bashmel) and divide it, and have it ready to be microwaved for a later day in the week.

*Also no harm in stacking fully cooked sambosa and spring rolls that have been cooked in the oven, and having them ready to be heated up.

(Tried all of these, and were miraculous actually. A Time- saviour when I had no time but few minutes to eat something fresh and healthy!)

Side Notes:

*Why we use zip bags? Because they ensure no air is inside! Thus all is kept fresh and perfect. If not available, use regular nylon plastic bags, but make sure you make a good knot and get all the air out of the bag first.

*Divide things into portions, depending on just how much you wanna cook of the item.

*Make use of a day off, and cook or half-cook couple of things and prepare those items for a week or two to come, to help you save time and effort, rather than spending the whole afternoon in the kitchen.

*Make sure you stack couple of items to have them ready, just to cover up your busy week, and you'll just serve with pasta, rice, or simply bread..

..et Bon Appetit!

Butterfly Chocolate Cup cakes :)

To Epitaph,
Well, I baked those the same night we started this blog! I was so happy, and I as you know, I BAKE in good times and in bad.. in sickness and in health :)
Remember those bottles of colorful butterflies we happily got from Samir and Ali? They came in handy, here!
And finally, this post, those cup cakes and those colorful butterflies go for you, my Best and Unique Butterfly ♥
Now let's go for the details:
Remark: This recipe is the best I've tried for cup cakes. It's quite simple and light. The basic ingredients can be used to make whole-wheat, vanilla, orange-flavoured, lemon-flavoured or even oat cup cakes.

Ingredients:
- 1 & 1/4 cup flour
- 4 tbsp dark cocoa
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- a pinch of sal
- 1 cup warm water + 1 tps instant coffee
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 2 eggs (at room temperature)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Steps:
1- In the mixer, we add the eggs then the vinegar then the vanilla then the sugar then the oil then the warm coffee (with 1-2 minutes mixing after each ingredient)
2- In a bowl, we mix the flour & the cocoa and the baking powder and soda and the salt.
3- We move the liquid ingredients into a deep bowl, then add the dry ones slowly using a sift and we gently stir using a whisk till all is done.
4- We pour the batter into cup cake papers inserted in a cup cake tray, filling them only to the half or two thirds. This amount makes about 12-15 medium cup cakes.
5- We bake for 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180.

Some cake baking tips:
1- All ingredients should be at room temperature (so, you need to get the eggs out of the fridge earlier).
2- Turn on the oven when you start preparing the ingredients.
3- Make sure your baking powder and soda are not old and kept in a dry place.
4- Don't open the oven before 15 minutes of baking.
5- Mix the eggs and other additions really well until you feel they get a bit thick and whitish.
6- A whisk makes really a big difference in stirring cake batter. That is a whisk .
7- In pouring the batter into cup cake paper, I recently discovered that a funnel is amazingly useful and much less messy than using a spoon.
8- In order to check if cakes are fully baked, insert a tooth pick in the middle, if it comes out clean and dry, it's done!

Tuna Pasta

Note: This recipe is pro-diet (ay walahy :D)

Story behind it: Kalimat told me about it like 5 years ago, and I have been doing it since then. I modified a bit along the way, and here you go.

Ingredients:

*Pasta (Penne I prefer, or spaghetti)
*a can and a half of Light Tuna (soaked in water)
*Tbsp. of olive oil (or vegetable oil if you'd like)
*Diced Tomatoes.
*2 Bell Peppers.
*Mushrooms.
*1 Carrot.
*2 Onions.
*Salt and Pepper
*Oregano and Thyme
*Dried Basil
*Dried Mint.
*Soy Sauce.
*Paprika.
*Chili. (optional)
*Lime juice or half of a small fresh lemon.

-Serves 4-5 people (and there will be plenty of it)

How is it done?

1- Boil some water, and add the pasta to it, with a pinch of salt, cook for almost 7 min.
2-While you're waiting for the pasta to cook, start cutting the onions julienne or in thin rings.
3-Then cut the Bell peppers julienne as well (You can throw coloured peppers in here to).
4-Dice the tomatoes and then make a pile of carrot thin peels.
5-Check the pasta, you'll find it almost done now.:)

Making the Sauce:

1- Heat the tbsp. of oil in your pot.
2-Add the cut onions to it..and stir till it starts to get yellowish a bit and change colour (do not fry the onions!)
3-Add few drops of soy sauce to the onions; and add the mushrooms, then stir.
4-Directly add to them the cut bell peppers and the carrot peels.
5-Add extra few drops of Soy sauce to the whole pot of vegetable.
6-Cover the pot till the vegetables are half-way cooked.
7-Once you find the peppers are getting softer, add to the pot the tomatoes.
8-Directly after that, add the spices: a reasonable pinch of salt, a small pinch of ground black pepper, the oregano and thyme, a good pinch of dried mint, paprika and chili, and the basil.
9-Let the tomatoes cook till it gets juicy a bit (The below pic. shows how the vegetables will look like now!)

10-Now drain the tuna from its water, don't leave it in chunks, use a fork to make it smooth in small pieces.
11- Add the tuna to your pot of deliciously smelling vegetables, and stir.
12-Add the tbsp. of lime juice, or squeeze half a lemon to the mix. and stir.
13-Let it set for a minute.
14- Now mix with the pasta, or serve it on top of it, et Bon Appetit.

Side Notes:

*If you want your sauce to be more juicy: After almost cooking the tomatoes  add a tbsp. of tomato paste to it with half a cup of water, and let the sauce cook through a bit.

*You can cut the carrots julienne, instead of peeling it off.

*If you are a fan of olives, add some when adding the bell peppers and carrots.

*You can make the same dish, but instead of adding tuna, you can add sausages, chicken, or minced meat. However in this case, do not add the lime juice at the end.

P.S. I cooked it today. This has always been my favourite dish since forever, and my saviour when I was staying alone.

Brownies' Trifle!

So, I am not so good at baking, but I love desserts, and quite have a sweet tooth, and love quick inventions.

Here you go this miraculous dessert:

Ingredients:

*Brownies
*Whipped cream (as much as you want!!)
*Strawberries (cut into thin slices)
*Oreos.

How is it done? 
*LAYERS

1-Start with cutting thin layers of your brownies and put this layer into a small bowl.
2- Add whipped cream, some medium-to-thick layer.
3-Crush half a pack of oreos (or MORE if you love them)
4-Pour the crushed oreos as a second layer.
4-Add the cut strawberries on top of the oreos.
5-Add now the next layer of whipped cream.
4- Now make another thin layer of brownies.
7-Finish the top of the bowl with whipped cream, again.
8- Garnish the top of the bowl with crushed oreos (You can add brownies' crumbs instead).
9- Put them in the fridge for a short while (10-15 min at least) before you devour it.
10-Grab a spoon and enjoy, and don't forget to lick the leftover whipped cream. It's always joyous to do so.

Side notes:

*If you use powder whipped cream, I recommend you purchase it from (Darb El-Barabra). It tastes better than the other ready-made packs of "Dream" and things of the sort. This powder whipped cream you add one cup of powder with a one cup of milk and whisk it to death for couple of minutes.

*If you don't have brownies, you can use chocolate cake.

*Since this is designed to be a quick, yet fancy, dessert, you just use the leftovers of cake you had previously, or simply purchase already-made cake or brownies (also available at Darb El-Barabra and  supermarkets).

*You can totally add more layers if you want to. Be creative! ;)

Our Kitchenette..

By dictionary definition, a "Kitchenette" is "a small kitchen or an alcove containing cooking facilities" (Merriam Webster). And this is our small space where we will try to document our small kitchen adventures. We may not be chefs, we may not be great in the kitchen (though Kalimat is :) ) but we manage. However, for sure, We Do Love Food!

So, we'll come here from time to time to write few recipes we tried, few dishes we invented, things we learnt from our mothers and grandmothers and loved, and some kitchen tips that we found successful. We could help some people who could be dieting, who have lost faith in the miracle of cooking, who needed to know that they too can do it, or others who live on their own or newly weds who need some of the things that helped us at times; we could have tips for working women who do not have much time, and certainly for all of you who just love to savour delicious food...And most of all, we're helping ourselves finding the magic in the cooking. الطبخ ح يفضل فعل حب رغم كل شئ :)

At least, this will work as a reminder for our selves that we survived till now :)

Why we qualify to do this?
Well, we both love experimenting, we love to cook, we love to try, we both had to be independent and cook and manage our own kitchen-zone..and it kinda worked after all, after much fiasco, failures, and much luck, but we did it. So here we go. :)


P.S. You can start with us by watching "Julie and Julia" for evoking the spirit of the kitchen.


Therefore,...Bon Appetit.

:)