How to Make Baklava

"Baklava is a dessert of Turkish origin, dating from the fifteenth century, today popular also in Greece and throughout the Middle East.  Layered with nuts and drenched in sugar syrup or honey, it is the best known of all the phyllo pastries.
In Greece it was originally an Easter specialty, made with 40 layers of pastry representing the 40 days of Lent."              from The Joy of Cooking, pg. 918

Good enough reason for us to make it; that and it's supremely nummiful.  It's also a bit fiddly, as you will see.

Before beginning any recipe, it is important to assemble all your ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Butter the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 - inch baking pan.  (Oooops - forgot to butter the pans.  Oh well.  We don't have a 13 x 9 pan, so we used two 8 x 8 pans, unbuttered...)


Finely chop or coarsely grind:
3 cups coarsly chopped nuts (walnuts, pistachios, almonds, and/or pecans), toasted.

We used red millet, canary seed, white proso millet, oat greats, safflower seeds, nyjer seed, buckwheat, 1/2 cup sesame seeds, 1 1/4 cup walnuts, 1 1/4 cup pistachios.


Stir together in a small bowl:
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (ooops - no lemon.  Skip that ingredient)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Melt:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter (it wasn't enough)


Stack flat on a work surface:
1 pound phyllo dough


(Or you may choose to make your own.  If you choose this arduous route, please give yourself an extra 4 hours and a glass of wine.)

Trim the phyllo into 13 x 9 - inch sheets (8x8, roughly) saving the scraps for another use (trash).  Cover the stack with plastic wrap and a damp towel.

Place 2 phyllo sheets in the baking pan and brush the top sheet evenly with the melted butter (or with nasal mucous, whatever you like).

Add 2 more sheets and brush with the butter, then repeat once more for a total of 6 sheets.  Sprinkle with half of the birdseed nuts and then half of the sugar mixture (since we were making two pans, we had to quarter these measurements as best we could).

Cover the filling with 2 phyllo sheets, butter the top sheet, and repeat until there are 6 sheets on top of the filling.  Cover with the remaining nuts and sugar mixture.
Grate:

1/3 cup gruyere cheese


(This step is optional and may help to relieve the anxiety and/or frustration you will experience in handling the phyllo dough.)




Cover with all of the remaining phyllo sheets, adding them 2 at a time and buttering only the second sheet each time.  Brush the top with the remaining butter (there was none).

Using a sharp serrated knife so that the patry will not be crushed, cut through all of the layers  to make 2-inch diamonds or squares.

This is important because you will not be able to cut the baklava once it is baked without crushing the pastry; it also allows the syrup to soak in and around each piece (thereby ensuring maximum cavity production).  Bake for 30 minutes.  Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees.  Continue to bake until the baklava is golden brown, 46 to 60 minutes.  During the last 30 minutes of baking, combine in a saucepan:
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup honey
Zest of 1 orange, removed in large strips (a potato peeler did the trick.)

Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.  Strain the hot syrup (let the fear of God enter you at this moment) and pour evenly over the baked baklava.  Let cool completely, at least 4 hours (HAH! Very funny!  Good luck on that one) at room temperature before serving.




Happy Easter and enjoy the Baklava with your favorite feathered friends.  You may now eat the gruyere.

Apples!

Last weekend, we went with some friends of ours from Singapore, the Bridgemans, to go apple picking. This was an outing I looked forward to every fall when I still lived in California, and missed terribly while I lived in Singapore. And, being the kinda tech-saavy girl that I am, I brought my camera with no batteries. So, I don't have pictures of the tiny little orchard we went to, or of how beautiful the blue, cloudless sky was, or of how wonderful the weather was. I can't take pictures of the temperature, anyway. But it was a lovely day and I was so happy.

We were warned that the orchard had suffered a hail storm (on May 15th!) so the apples were pocked, but still tasted good. We found that to be very true.

So with a huge quantity of apples (and a gigantic pumpkin, to boot), I started hunting for recipes. Apple butter is a bit too complicated, I think. So my first apple endeavor was applesauce.



I pulled all the winesap apples from the basket for this recipe; they are tart and perfect for cooking.

The flesh is almost hard, and very white. And the peels can be so dark, I almost thought they were plums when I went to pick them.


The recipe called for 3 or 4 pounds, and by hitting a conversion site online, I found that that was about 2 quarts, peeled and cored and quartered.




Here they are with the rest of the ingredients: a 3" piece of cinnamon stick, 4 peels of lemon rind, the juice of a lemon, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, and a cup of water. The recipe allowed that not all of the white sugar need be added, but I had tasted these apples and knew they were tart and so I added the full amount. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, and voila!


Apple mush! Now remove the cinnamon stick and the lemon peels which are hard to find but also hard where everything else is mushy.
Last year, when I went to clean out my mother's house, I inherited a food mill. I use it to make mashed potatoes now and then, and it is great! Now I used it to make applesauce, and it worked like a charm.




Have you ever had hot applesauce? I never had, but I have found a new love.


Home made applesauce is very similar to store bought, except perhaps it's a bit denser. I think Motts says they use gravenstein apples, but the winesaps make such a great flavor contrast: tart/sweet.
This was such an easy recipe, I hope you will try to make your own applesauce. I have so much, I may try to make an applesauce spice cake with some of it. We'll see. It was delicious with cottage cheese and walnuts for breakfast this morning, too.

The Chattanooga Farmer's Market

On Sundays after church, we have been going to the Farmer's Market downtown. Even though it has been very rainy, many people still make it there because it is so fun, and also, there is a roof on the pavilion where it is held.


It is not only a farmer's market, but also a craft show, and there's food and usually live music, too.




The last time we went, I had a delicious steak taco.




Then I went and got one of these potato chip things. Very decadent, also very delicious.



The veggies are always beautiful and tempting.






But maybe it's weird to have a bell pepper match one's dress.



More temptation.

On this day, we only bought some apples and tomatoes. The tomatoes will be made into a delicious fresh soup, and the apples?



They were used appropriately.

No Camera!

And so no posts!

But I did want to share a recipe I invented/stole/adapted that was so yummy, you will want to try it out immediately. Like now.

Hot Craisin Chicken Salad

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, shredded

2 celery stalks, bias cut into slices

1/2 cup craisins

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1 teaspoon dill weed

1 half-pint lite whipping cream

1 dollop fat free cream cheese

8 oz. bow tie pasta

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

salt, pepper, and olive oil

Saute celery slices in a little olive oil until hot and softened. Add whipping cream, craisins, chicken, poppy seeds, dill, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to slow boil, add cream cheese, simmer.

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to common sense.

Toss cooked pasta with chicken mixture and sprinkle with sunflower seeds, if desired. Or, place sunflower seeds on table and allow everyone to make up their own minds about them. I liked them.

My sister and I have definite plans to see each other "soon" so I will have my camera again. Until then, I will try to think of posts that require no camera.

And the unpacking continues....

Labor Day Weekend

Sunday, after church, we ate at an organic pizza restaurant called Lupi's Pizzeria in downtown Chattanooga. It's a funky restaurant with art for sale on the walls and eclectic music playing on the speakers. The pizza was delicious - the crust was perfect and the sauce was fantastic. We only had a cheese pizza, but next time I may add some veggies. There WILL be a next time. Finally good pizza.

Then we made our way over to the farmer's market. I've been to this particular market twice on visits with my sister and couldn't wait to bring my husband there, too. They have veggies for sale, but it's also a craft fair, and they sell cooked food, and there's a variety of live bands playing, too. I always come away from this event feeling inspired - either to cook, or to make something, or to perform. I'm so glad that we're living so close to it, I'm sure we'll go for the rest of the year every Sunday after church.

Well, of course I couldn't resist buying some veggies.



Baby yellow crook-necked squash, bell peppers in burgundy, orange and red, and a gorgeous eggplant.

On Monday, I packed all these veggies up, plus a lot of other little things, and carted them all up to my sister's place. We had a Labor Day Picnic. I think this is the first time our two families enjoyed a holiday together - even one so innocuous as Labor Day (innocuous for me and my husband, since we're unemployed). The crook-necks got cut in half, seasoned with olive oil and lemon pepper and grilled to perfection. The peppers were roasted. The eggplant was admired and almost became part of one of my sister's paintings. She made hamburgers from meat she ground herself, sesame marinated chicken, corn with basil butter (OMG) and we had a food orgy. I brought some mole verde I had also bought at the farmer's market, and it was scarfed up on chips. Some of it made it onto my sister's hamburger. I had a bacon cheeseburger with basil butter.
Are you drooling yet?

Then I got a call this morning saying I had left my camera at her house. Oh boy. 57 miles away. Not that it would have helped this post: I only took one picture. But subsequent posts are going to be a bit boring until I can figure this out.

All in all, despite the camera left behind, we had a great time. Thanks, Melody!

Falafel

Do you know this food? I can't remember when I tried it for the first time, but it has been a staple in my family ever since. I have made it from mixes and from scratch, and have had pretty good luck both ways.

Anyway, I was talking to my sister on the phone last night while I was preparing this dinner, and she didn't remember what it was (having had it served to her by me a million years ago). So she requested I take pictures, which is why I have falafel to blog about.


For the uninitiated, falafel is ground chick peas (garbanzos) with cumin and parsley and salt and garlic, which is then formed into balls and deep fried. Really, what doesn't taste good deep fried?




The box that I used last night had two separate envelopes of mix in it, each envelope making approximately 12 one-inch balls. I used my small melon baller to measure it out and only got 10 balls, but that was plenty. Usually I use my 2 tablespoon measurer and make the balls larger.





I had called Melody to remind her that her new electric skillet is also good for deep frying, as it keeps the oil at a uniform temperature. I was anticipating having an ordeal with the deep frying as my new place has an electric stove, which was not a selling point for me, but it really went better than expected. In the past, I've had to struggle to keep the oil at the right temp, and the falafel mix has often just crumbled when I tried to fry it - not wet enough, I suspect. Or maybe it was that I was buying the mixes in Singapore, where they had probably sat on the shelf for years waiting for me to come along. Sucker that I am.



So they came out beautifully, and even tho there were only 10, I made some couscous to go with and we were fully satisfied.




Here's how I served them: I put them into a smallish flour tortilla - these reminded me of the wonderful pita breads I could buy in Singapore - nice and soft and not too chewy. Then I put cucumbers, tomatoes, ranch dressing, and for a bit of unconventionality, I added some rocket leaves. Yum!

But for the whole day previously, I was doing laundry, washing dishes, and working on this:




Since my husband and I are both unemployed for the time being, we thought it would be wise to only rent a 2 bedroom apartment. Which left us wondering what we were going to do with all my studio stuff, some of which had been in storage in Arizona for 4 years and only added to the bulk. Well, selling point number two for this apartment: a huge walk-in closet! That looked like the perfect solution, until we started piling our clothes, linens, tools, and other storage into it. However, I have reserved the last 1/3 of the closet for my sewing table. And I actually did some sewing in there yesterday. It's not too bad, but I need better lighting. Anyway, it's only temporary. Lord willing, we will find jobs, we will save some money, and we will be able to afford a new home sometime in the near future.
That's the plan, anyway.

In the meantime, I'll be in my little sanctuary.

Mother's Day and Birthday Pictures

For Mother's Day this year, I requested a set of lino cutters. I became interested in the idea after watching this video on Geninne's Art Blog.

I mean, how could I not become interested? If you watched the video, I bet you are interested, too! Anyway, so my family got me a set of lino cutters, and I spent the morning (after eating these wonderful pancakes - recipe here)

playing around and making a stamp. Actually, I made 2: the stamp is double sided.


This is carved from a white plastic eraser. Very easy to cut. I made both a positive and a negative stamp: one side I carved away from the drawn lines and one side I carved into the drawn lines.


And here are the results. I'm pretty happy, altho I can tell this is a skill that needs lots of practice before my stamps will be as fine as Geninne's. And then maybe I can stamp my quilts!

The day before, as in the year of her birth, we celebrated my daughter's birthday. (In 1995, her actual birthday was the day before Mother's Day. It doesn't always happen that way every year.)

She went with two of her friends to a theme park here in Singapore and spent the day getting dizzy and wet.


Here they are, on the train going to the park, all wearing glowing earrings.

My camera seems to have some kind of short in the wiring because if I leave the batteries in it for any length of time, they run empty. And that is what happened on this day, so I didn't get many pictures. But I did post them to my Flickr account, if you are interested.


This is like the linkiest post I've ever made!

Also new and interesting: last week the AWA Choir gave its first two performances, one at a school for special needs kids and one in the lobby of a hospital. We had so much fun. We've had two of our performances cancelled due to the Swine Flu scare, but we picked up an extra one which will be this Thursday. And our final performance is on Sunday. I will miss going to practice twice a week. I've had so much fun and it has been just the best thing to distract me from the move and all the attending intricacies of that. But I guess it's time to focus on moving, anyway. Wahoo.
The choir is hoping to get someone to video tape our final performance, which we will then upload to YouTube. If it happens, I will post the link here.

Sanity Check

In the midst of all the chaos of my current life, I have relied on creativity to keep me sane.  

Or to allow me to express my insanity.  Something like that.

I found this recipe that seemed interesting, and I sent a link to my daughter to see if she wanted to make it for her upcoming birthday.  She was very enthusiastic, so we decided to do a trial run.

It's called a rainbow cake, and it uses no fat in the recipe. But it was so sweet that all three of us found it difficult to finish even one slice! So, we decided to make the recipe but bake up cupcakes instead.

I also decided to finally make a project I've been thinking about for some months now. A case for my crochet hooks.





I've seen many different types of things like this, used for crochet hooks, colored pencils, and other similar items. I was inspired, but sometimes it takes being under stress to make something like this happen. All in all, I'm happy with it. Now all my hooks are in one place and I will know right away if one is missing.

After these creative bursts, I felt that I wanted to draw with pen and ink. I'm also itching to use my colored pencils, but I haven't gotten to that yet.
To mix things up a bit, I decided on white ink on black paper. And I just sat and drew without any plan or idea of where I was going.




After I got to a certain point on this one, I decided to try and add some color with the colored pencils, but I wasn't pleased with the result. So I went back later and drew this one.



These are highly reflective of the craziness and indefiniteness of life right now, but drawing them was keenly satisfying. They are sort of sprawling doodles which I drew as fast as I could and let my instincts guide me. The first one seems sort of like underwater life to me, while the second one looks like plant life. The state of mind the work put me into in process was one I really yearn to enter again, soon. It was restful and challenging at the same time. Especially when my family wasn't interrupting me....




And lastly, for today's post: the Leetle Birdies have been spotting in cyberspace! Cuteable has included them in her latest post. Let's hope that generates some sales!

Girl's Day Out

Yesterday, I took my daughter to a newly-opened mall. There isn't much to do in Singapore if you want to stay out of the weather but go to the malls, and they are always opening new ones.
Well, this mall had a little kiosk called The Frosting Room. They sell cakes and cookies and pastries, all beautifully frosted. And they also sell cakes that you can frost yourself. They set you up with a little lazy susan to work on, and give you several colors and dried frosting flowers and let you go.
I suggested to my daughter that she might want to spend part of her birthday doing this with her friends, and idea she readily cottoned onto, but there was no special occasion for today's cake, so she just played around.




The frosting is a whipped cream frosting, and the brown is chocolate. The cake is vanilla, three layers, with fruit in one layer - red dyed pineapple and mandarin oranges. It was really very delicious and not gooey at all. Unfortunately, the cake is frozen when they give it to you, so you can't eat it right away.



We sat in Starbucks and snuck a couple of pieces - they really don't like you bringing outside food into the restaurants here, but we had to have a taste. It was a fun thing to do!

Frittata Whatta?

Frittata with Arugula, Lemon, Dill and Feta

I had the week of potlucks this past week, and for the last one I played around and invented a frittata. This was always going to be iffy as I had a recipe for a frittata with different ingredients, and because I was going to serve it to Chinese Singaporeans, and who knows what they'll think of something like this?

So I started with chopped onion, which I sauteed slowly in some olive oil in a non-stick pan. I cooked them until they were browning nicely, about 10 minutes, because I thought I might need a little sweetness in this dish.

Then I put in the arugula, which was a little scary as I've eaten it raw, but have never cooked it. And it smelled a little funny while it was cooking - not good. But I guess I used around 2 cups. Then I had about a tablespoon of fresh dill, chopped, and about half a lemon zest, grated. I put these ingredients in after the arugula wilted nicely. The smell began to improve at this point.

Next I added 5 eggs and I tilted the pan to make sure they were evenly distributed. I had sliced some red peppers - not bell peppers, but another kind that has a little heat. I made a decorative arrangement with these. Then I crumbled some feta all over the top. As I was cleaning up my materials while the frittata was setting up, I noticed I had a tomato in the refrigerator, so I sliced some of that and made more decorative arrangements with them.

After about 10 minutes, I needed to transfer the whole shebang to the oven to get the top to brown and set up. But the non-stick pan I was using has a plastic handle. So I fiddled around under the frittata with a spatula until it was mobile enough, and then I slid it into the pyrex pie dish. Phew! That could have been a disaster, but it wasn't.

Well, it all went well and I brought it the meeting and waited. We ate buffet style, and I was one of the first one through. So, I took a wedge and moved on. Later I went back and the frittata was almost gone! I was so surprised! But it was really delicious. You taste the lemon first, then the dill and the arugula, and then the heat of the peppers, followed up by the creaminess of the feta. Are you drooling yet? I was quite pleased. I hope you try to make this recipe. Let me know what you think. No one at our meeting said a peep to me, so I need some feedback. Thanks!

Our Christmas Dinner

The computer has been difficult to commandeer lately - either we're watching a movie, or someone else is using it.  Truth be told, I haven't tried too hard to post to my blog.  But with nothing particular going on right this moment, I thought I'd post the pix of our Christmas dinner, which was so satisfying for me.

I bought this meat at my butcher shop. It's called a rosemary lamb loin. Rosemary because they tied a sprig of rosemary to the meat. I removed that rosemary, but included a large measure of dried rosemary in the bread crumbs, along with garlic powder and salt and pepper. The breadcrumbs were adhered with grey poupon mustard. Then I slathered the roast with olive oil, placed it on a rack and roasted it at 425 degrees F for about 25 minutes.

I let it rest for probably 20 minutes, under foil, before I cut it.


And then most of the bread crumb crust fell off! But it didn't matter - it did its job: keep the meat moist and flavor it. And it was so moist and flavorful - I was pleasantly surprised. This meat didn't have much fat on it, so I was worried that I might have horse flesh when I was done. And I was warned not to overcook it, as it tends to become an unpleasant gray color when it is well-done. But you can see it was plenty pink and I can vouch for its tenderness.


Then we had brussels sprouts with peppered bacon. I could never stand brussels sprouts as a kid - now I'm eating them like candy! But who could resist anything with bacon? This is my new favorite recipe and I can't wait to make it again.  (I tried to find this recipe online again for this post, but couldn't locate it.  Email me if you want the recipe.)


Our last dish was a particularly fussy one to make, and this picture doesn't do it justice. It's called Tagliatelle with Oranges and Almonds, and I got the recipe off the Splendid Table website (I also heard it on their podcast and had to try it out). It is one weird recipe, all right, but really wonderful with these other dishes.



Here's another look at that pasta with the other dishes. Everything turned out really yummy and I didn't stress at all.

And because we didn't have it at Thanksgiving,

I made pumpkin pie. Lumpy crust, huh? It tasted just fine.



And while I'm at it, let me show you the German apple pancake I made for breakfast, before it deflates.

My daughter ate all the apples off her slice and then didn't want anymore. Weird. So I decorated her slice with

you guessed it, BACON! and it was really delish this way, too.