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.

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!

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.

Going Off The Grid

It's been a while since my last post, and this week being Spring Break, I suggested to my daughter that we should go off the grid, i.e. stay off the computer.  But since I've already neglected my blog audience for so long, I felt I should make a post.  

Even tho my mental state is somewhat wonky these past weeks, I am still making things.  I have found crochet to be a very relaxing medium, and since we have no winter clothes to speak of (and will undoubtedly need them in our new habitat), I have been making warm fuzzy cuddly things.

I finally finished this scarf. I showed the start of it a while ago. I thought it would be longer, but one of the skeins ran out so I just ended it there. I'm happy enough with the length: it keeps my neck covered. And it's so soft. No more wool scarves for this girl!



This is a little hard to reconcile with the climate here in Singapore. Consequently, it looks totally dopey to me. But it is so soft and warm that I know I will overcome feeling silly and will wear it.



Or maybe I'll just enjoy feeling silly.

Actually, this hood looked so great on my daughter that I decided to make one for her, using white fuzzy yarn where I used blue for mine. I got started, but then I had to stop for a while because I was having a sore arm. That's the first time that's ever happened to me. Crocheting too much, I guess.

So, this is Spring Break Week, as I mentioned, and my daughter and I have planned the week out. I don't think I'll find any time to sneak into my studio, but who knows? She is planning on a sleepover tomorrow, so that might be my day. I'm thinking that the current quilt is going to be filed away for a time. I have all these great ideas of things I want to sew, and the UFO is just making me feel guilty. Maybe I'll finish that one, maybe not. But for now, I gotta follow my creative impulses. Soon enough the whole studio will need to get packed...yipes!

Crochet Shenanigans

For Christmas, I crocheted my husband a brain.



Not because he doesn't already have one, but because his interests have turned toward the study of the brain and its functions. It's all pretty egg-heady to me.




Obviously, it's not anatomically correct. Nor is it the right color. But since it's a work of art, none of that matters.
Badge by Nut and Bee.com

And then suddenly, I was taken by the crochet fairies and had to make something else.


Crochet belt, from Lion Brand Yarn's free crochet catalog.


And here it is, modeled on some lovely young lady I know.

Family Craft Time - Part Deux

For Christmas this year, my family bought me the materials to make this candle set.

It was a tube of lilac scented gel wax with wicks and the three jars and stand. And they also included a bag of small river rocks.

We each took a jar and put whatever we wanted in it. I contributed beads, sequins, glitter, and paint pens.


I chose a very simple, uncomplicated design. Just some square purple beads, some glass beads, some few sequins and some glitter sprinkled on top.
My husband decided to use the river rocks, some of which he painted with a silver paint pen, some sequins and some glitter on top.


Can you see the smiley face?

Here's his from the top.


Of course, my daughter really outdid us all. She added so much stuff that I was worried it was going to be, well - really busy.

 You see, I suggested before we started that we might be able to layer the "ingredients" within the gel, and so we put some gel in, added some bling, added more gel, and so on. But the gel wasn't thick enough to support the beads and sequins, so they all just piled up on the bottom.

Here's the top of her candle. As you can tell, she was having a glitter overdose.

And being the mother that I am, I figured that hers was always going to be more flashy than mine or my husband's.


But she proved that her way of doing things was really the right way! Having all that stuff in there to catch the light when the candles are lit makes her candle the most interesting, the prettiest one of the bunch.

I think it was such a nice idea for my family to get me a present for Christmas that would allow me to express my creativity - and them to express theirs right along with me. I hope they think to do this for me another time. We had fun.

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.

Christmas on Orchard Road

We didn't actually go down and look at the lights on Christmas day, or even Christmas eve, but on the 23rd. We did this last year, too, and it was pretty nice, if you like crowds.


We started out near the Forum. Actually, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe and then headed out to Orchard.



All the different malls have their own theme.


But the overall theme seemed to be sweets or candy this year.




We walked down the road for an hour or two, and then we had enough of fighting the crowds and stuff, so we went home.

I guess this is as close as I can get to driving around, looking at how people have decorated their houses for Christmas, which is one of my favorite things to do during the holiday. Of course, it wasn't near cold enough, and all the decorations were more commercially motivated rather than just for being pretty. No wonder we were disenchanted. I don't guess I need to do this next year, but it was nice to get out with the family.

Craft Therapy

This afternoon, we had family craft time. My husband had been saving empty toilet paper rolls for weeks, insisting that he was going to make something out of them. The original plan was an angel choir, but I didn't really think I would want to live with something like that in my house. Never mind the fact that we have very little horizontal surface that isn't decorated already.

So, I got out the paint and glitter and covered the table. I summoned both husband and daughter, and we started painting



We painted both the inside and the outside.



After the paint was dry, the cuts were made. First, I followed the line of one of the seams.



Then, I cut again every half inch or so.




The cuts were made to about 1/4" from the top.



After cutting, I made a slight crease at the top of each spiral, parallel to the top of the tube, to make them curl back in towards the center.



It was at this point that the glitter and sequins were added to most of the ornaments - this one was glittered before cutting. Two holes were pushed through the top of the tubes, a thread was drawn through, and they were ready to hang.



Well, at least it kept us off the street for a couple of hours.