Tag: recipes

Last, But Certainly Not Least

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Our international culinary tour wouldn’t be complete without a dessert. And Miss A wouldn’t have eaten that fish without the promise of a sweet treat! So we wrapped up our Libyan meal with a Libyan recipe for Baked Apples and Honey. The recipe is simple and doesn’t need a lot of ingredients or work. We started by dissolving some sugar in water and then dropped in some red food coloring. Mr. N then poured the syrup over a couple of peeled and cored apples in a baking dish.

Next we baked the apples at 350F for 40 minutes. Once they were soft (not squishy), we removed them from the oven and let them cool. Continue reading →

Passin’ on the Love and Libyan Side Dishes

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Last night, after the kids were washed and bathed from creating a water slide on their new swing set that ultimately shot them out into a puddle of mud, we completed our cooking adventure in Libya. We made a fish dinner with a few Libyan side dishes. Tonight we want to share our sides as well as pass on the love for some awards we have received in recent weeks.

We are always humbled by and grateful for awards we receive from fellow bloggers, and Mr. N is always quite excited. We were recently honored with The Versatile Blogger Award from both Mandy at The Complete Cook Book and Mary at Inside a British Mum’s Kitchen. Both are wonderful food blogs with amazing recipes. Mandy is currently on a bread baking mission, which as a non-bread baker myself, I’m absolutely enjoying. One of these days I’ll make that my mission as well. I mean who doesn’t love a fresh loaf of bread?! (Well, except for Kay over at Pure Complex, but we’ll forgive her that since she was the first to pass along this award to us a while back. LOL! Love ya Kay!)

And Mary cooks for a busy family with teenage girls. She gives me hope that our kids will still want to hang around in the kitchen with us when they’re teenagers. She’s also the creator of our Libyan couscous dish from last night. It’s a wonderful couscous salad that’s full of fresh flavor and veggies. (Incidentally it got 4 spoons from me, 3 spoons from dad, and while Mr. N and Miss A weren’t fans of the couscous they did eat all the chickpeas they could find!) Continue reading →

Libyan Night Done Right

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After a wonderful weekend spent with the kids in the backyard, we made our last foray into the culinary delights of Libya. Mr. N was excited about our next meal since he’s a big fan of fish, and Miss A was mostly concerned about dessert. Our dinner menu featured a white fish, veggie side dish, couscous and of course a sweet treat.

These recipes again incorporated olive oil, garlic, cilantro and other fresh herbs and spices. Tonight we’ll share with you the recipe for Haraimi, or spicy fish. We started by marinating the white fish, we used orange roughy, in a variety of spices including cumin, garlic, chili pepper, mint, salt, olive oil and lemon juice.

Continue reading →

Warning: May be Habit Forming

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I’m not kidding. This dessert is seriously addictive in both its original form and my adapted version. Either way, I don’t know if I can ever get enough. It all started when Greg over at Rufus’ Food and Spirit Guide linked to this recipe. I had never been a big fan of lemon bars, but I needed a dessert that was easy to serve at a potluck and as we learned from our Minnesota cooking adventure, bars were the way to go. So since it was my first time making these and I was about to feed them to other people, I had to sample them. Then I had to eat the ones that didn’t cut out of the pan quite right. Then at the dinner, I got in the dessert line as fast as I could hoping anxiously that there would be a few left by the time it was my turn. Then I filled my plate with my own homemade dessert – nothing else. I think I have a problem, and all it took was one bite.

I was still thinking about those lemon bars last week when I came across this recipe for Strawberry Lemonade Tarts. I had a brainstorm – what if I added strawberries to my new favorite dessert. So I did. I used the original recipe for the crust.

It’s a short bread crust that on its own is delicious. You mix all the ingredients together in the bowl and then press it down into a greased baking dish. Continue reading →

Libya Offers Double the Pleasure

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Mr. N is at the helm again and for the next couple weeks he’s taking us to Libya. He wanted to pick somewhere in Africa, and after looking at the globe he settled on Libya because he’s heard it on the news. Apparently he listens to the news more than we thought. (I wonder if that means he listens more than we think too!)

When we began our search for recipes we found quite a few that were appealing at Celtnet Recipes. Some of the most common ingredients we found in Libyan recipes were olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs including cilantro. Tonight’s recipe uses these ingredients and provided us with a great option for a healthy weeknight meal. It’s called Dolma Mshakla, or stuffed vegetables. And as an added bonus, we get two meals in one as this recipe made enough for another new meal tomorrow night!

For our stuffing vegetables we chose potatoes for Miss A and Mr. N, and green peppers for me and dad. If you select potatoes you’ll need to bake them first – or if you’re running short on time like we were – use the baked potato setting on your microwave. Next stand the potatoes on end and cut the tops off. Scoop about half of the inside out of the potato. Continue reading →

Musgo, Musgo, M-U-S-G-O

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Sorry flashing back to high school cheerleading there (Let’s Go, Let’s Go, L-E-T-S-G-O). Tonight we’re eating what my mom calls musgo. In other words, everything Must Go! We’re still pretty full-up from the weekend and we have a fridge full of leftovers. So while we were going to begin our new country tonight, selected by Mr. N, we’ve decided to hold-off until we finish up the musgo.

In the meantime, we’ll share one of the recipes from our “barn raising” that was a favorite for Mr. N and Miss A. Our original plan was to use a bunch of little smokies in an Amish breakfast casserole, but since we didn’t have much success with Amish recipes this weekend, we decided to look for other options. We found an interesting recipe on Hot Dog City that put an Asian twist on an American favorite. These Pigs in a Blanket Asian Style were definitely the biggest hit with the kids yesterday. We started with these ingredients: Continue reading →