grilled three-cheese sandwich

Disney has been posting a bunch of recipes from the Disney Parks which we’ve really enjoyed as we’re big Disney fans!  A while ago we made a couple of our Disneyland faves – their churros and dole whip with the kids which was a total hit.  So I decided to try their grilled three-cheese sandwich from Woody’s Lunch Box in Disney’s Hollywood Studios which we haven’t actually had there but it was, no surprise, amazing!  I tweaked the recipe a bit and Rock baked a fresh loaf of sourdough and we were on our way.

This does make 4 LARGE sandwiches.  If you were to use say sandwich bread, you could easily cut all the ingredients (minus the number of bread slices) in half.  Or just have it be super cheesy, which wouldn’t be bad either!

Makes 4 sandwiches.

cream cheese spread: 1/2 cup spreadable cream cheese (the kind in a tub, not a brick) / 1/2 cup finely shredded sharp cheddar or double Gloucester / 1/4 tsp sea salt

garlic spread: 1/2 cup mayonnaise / 1/ and 1/2 tsp minced garlic / 1/2 tsp sea salt

8 slices of artisan bread (we used homemade sourdough) / 8 slices of cheddar / 8 slices of provolone

First make the two spreads.  For the cream cheese spread, simply mix all the ingredients for it together in a small bowl.  And for the garlic spread, you guessed it, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

On 4 slices of bread, place 2 slices of cheddar on each and then place 2 slices of provolone on each of the remaining 4 slices of bread.  Spread a quarter of the cream cheese spread on each of the slices with provolone.

Sandwich the cheddar and provolone sides together and then spread the garlic spread on  the top side of the sandwiches.

Heat up a large frying pan over medium heat and then place the sandwiches, garlic spread side down and grill for about 2 minutes or until the cheese is starting to melt and the bread is golden brown.  Spread the garlic spread on the now top side of the sandwich and flip the sandwich over to cook for another 2 minutes or so on the other side.

Once all the cheese is melted and gooey and the bread is all nicely golden browned all over, they’re done! Slice in half and eat!

no-bake dark chocolate tart

I have spent many an evening this week thinking about this tart.  This is my adaptation of a recipe from our friend who has made her tart a couple of times for us and it is just so delicious.  It is also very easy to make as it is a no-bake recipe.

Her original recipe calls for double cream or whipping cream but I have swapped it out in favour of coconut cream.  I always have coconut milk in my pantry and if you don’t have coconut cream on hand, just leave a can of coconut milk to sit overnight and do not shake it before opening.  The coconut cream will rise to the top of the can and you can just use that.

crust: 180 grams digestive biscuits or graham crackers / 110 grams unsalted butter / 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

chocolate filling: 210 grams dark chocolate / 100 ml coconut cream / 40 grams unsalted butter / 1/2 tsp vanilla extract / 25 grams shelled pistachios

In a blender or food processor, blitz the digestive biscuits into crumbs.  Melt the butter for the crust in the microwave and add that along with the cinnamon to the blender.  Just pulse to combine everything together

Using the back of a spoon, press the crumb mixture onto the base and slightly up the sides of a tart pan or an 8″ springform cake pan.  You could also use pie plate if you don’t have either of those.  Pop into the fridge for about 30 minutes to chill and set.

In the meantime, you can lightly chop up the pistachios and set aside.  Bring a small saucepan of water to a simmer and set a heatproof bowl over top, making sure the bottom doesn’t touch the water.  Add the chocolate, coconut cream and butter to the bowl.

Keep stirring until everything has melted together.

Pour the chocolate filling into the crust and then sprinkle the chopped pistachios over top.

Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for about 3 hours to fully set the chocolate filling.  And voila!  Keep any leftovers (if you have any) chilled in the fridge.

German candied almonds

We first had this cinnamon-y candied almonds at the Christmas markets in Vienna and damn are they delicious and addictive! They just require a handful of ingredients, some arm power (I like to consider this actual exercise) and a bit of patience.  Totally worth it plus there’s the added bonus of your kitchen smelling like a festive Christmas market.

I adapted this from a recipe that I found for Gebrannte Madeln (German roasted almonds) on a website called German Girl In America.  The first time I made this I followed their recipe exactly but now I’ve bumped up the cinnamon and cut down the sugar.  Note – once you start cooking the almonds, there’s no stopping until you’re done!

4 cups of raw almonds / 1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar, plus a separate 3/4 cup granulated sugar / 1 cup water / 3 tsp ground cinnamon / 2 tsp vanilla extract

Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a large heavy pot (not non-stick!), bring the water, 1 and 1/2 cups sugar and cinnamon to a boil while stirring over high heat.  Add the almonds and the stirring commences.  Cook the almonds while stirring continuously with a wooden spoon.

Keep stirring on high heat until the liquid has completely boiled off and the almonds look dry and like they’re covered with sugary powder.  You can break up any almonds that are clumping together with the spoon.

Lower the heat to medium and keep stirring!  Keep cooking and stirring the almonds until the sugar melts and the almonds take on a glossy sheen.  It does take some time so don’t give up!

Once the almonds are glossy, add in the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar and the vanilla.

You guessed it – keep cooking and stirring until again, the almonds take on that powdery look.

And then you’re in the home stretch.  Keep stirring until the almonds go glossy again.  They should look shiny with crunchy bits of sugar on them.

Quickly spread the almonds out on the parchment-lined baking sheets to cool.  The almonds will stick together but you can just break them up with a spoon.  You can eat them while they’re still a bit warm or let them cool completely.  Store any you have leftover in an airtight container.

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blueberry, almond and lemon cake

I don’t even remember how I came upon this cake (probably Instagram) but I’m glad I did! This recipe is from the cookbook Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi and it is SO good!  I don’t think I’ve ever baked with almond flour before but the result is so lovely – the cake is fragrant and super moist.  Plus anything with blueberries or lemons is a winner for me.

150 grams unsalted butter, room temperature / 190 grams granulated sugar / 2 tsp fresh lemon zest / 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice / 1 tsp vanilla / 3 large eggs / 90 grams self-raising flour / 1/8 tsp sea salt / 110 grams almond flour (ground almonds) / 200 grams fresh blueberries / 70 grams icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 356 F and line a loaf tin (11 x 21 cm or 8 to 9 inches) with parchment paper, leaving some overhang so you can easily take out the cake later.  Using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer beat together the butter, granulated sugar, lemon zest, 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice, and vanilla.  Beat on high speed for 3 to 4 minutes – the mixture will be nice and light.

Next, add the eggs in one at a time, mixing on medium speed to incorporate between each addition.  Now add in the salt and mix until incorporated.  Then add in the almond flour and mix until incorporated and then finally the flour, mixing again just until incorporated.

Add in 150 grams of the blueberries and gently fold into the cake batter.  Spread evenly into the loaf pan and bake for 15 minutes.

Take the cake out and sprinkle the remaining 50 grams of blueberries over the top of the cake.

Put back into the oven and bake for another 15 minutes.  Take the cake out and loosely cover with aluminum foil before baking for a further 25 to 30 minutes.  The cake is ready when a toothpick or dry spaghetti noodle comes out of the centre clean.

Let the cake cool in the loaf tin placed on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes.  Then using the edges of the parchment paper, simply lift the cake out and let it continue cooling.  After the cake has completely cooled (or at least almost completely! I’m so impatient), simply mix together the remaining 1 tbsp of lemon juice with the icing sugar to make a simple glaze.  Spoon the glaze over top of the cake and you are done.

blueberry basil pancakes

It’s not that often that there’s fresh basil in the shop here so I had to snatch some up when they had it in stock.  This morning I decided to try and replicate these delicious blueberry basil pancakes we had at Slappy Cakes in Portland.  They turned out really great and are just a fun (and easy!) switch up on regular ol’ pancakes.

2 cups all-purpose flour / 2 tsp baking powder / 1/4 tsp sea salt / 2 tsp granulated sugar / 2 large eggs / 1 and 1/2 cups milk (whatever kind: plant-based, buttermilk, etc.) / 150 grams fresh blueberries / 10 grams fresh basil leaves / unsalted butter for cooking

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  Next, using a blender or a hand blender, blitz the milk, blueberries and basil leaves together.  There should still be some speckles of blueberry and basil visible.

Add the milk mixture and the eggs to the dry ingredients.  Whisk together just until everything is combined – do not over-mix.  The batter should still be lumpy.  If you find the batter too thick, you can thin it down with a bit more milk.

Heat up a large frying pan over medium heat. Melt some butter in the pan and swirl it around to coat.  Using a 1/4 cup, measure out the batter for your pancakes.  Of course you can also make larger pancakes if you want.  (And for our kids, we put the batter into a squeeze bottle and make dinosaur shapes and turtle shapes!)  Pour the batter onto the pan and let it cook until there are bubbles forming on the top and a few of the bubbles have popped.

Using a spatula, flip the pancakes over.  Let them cook on the other side for another 1 to 2 minutes or until golden brown and then they are done.  Plate up and serve with whatever toppings you’d like.  Of course as Canadians, we always have our pancakes with some real maple syrup.

chicken sausage rolls

Back when I was in Darwin, Australia, I briefly worked at the best little pie shop ever and ate their sausage rolls probably everyday.  I have LOVED sausage rolls ever since! But in Saudi of course we can’t get any pork sausage.  Then awhile back, a friend dropped off some chicken sausage rolls that she made and I realized, I should’ve been making chicken sausage rolls this whole time!

I wasn’t that happy with my first attempt but I’ve been working on a recipe for awhile and THIS I am very happy with.  The chicken sausage is very flavourful and not dry at all.  I minced up chicken thighs with our Kitchenaid meat grinder but of course you can just use store-bought ground chicken.

Makes 15 sausage rolls or 45 bite-sized sausage rolls.

Sausage filling:  450 grams ground chicken (mince) / 1/4 cup bread crumbs / 1 tsp dried rosemary / 1 tsp dried basil / 1 tsp dried oregano / 1 and 1/2 tsp sweet paprika / 1 tsp onion powder / 1 and 1/2 tsp garlic powder / 1 tsp sea salt / 1/4 tsp ground black pepper / 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce / 1 and 1/2 tbsp cold water /

15 squares of frozen puff pastry, defrosted but still cold / 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  And then easy enough, combine all the ingredients for the sausage filling in a large bowl.  You can stir together or just mix with your hands until everything is mixed well together.

Now start assembling the sausage rolls.  Place about 2 tablespoons of sausage filling just off-centre along each square of puff pastry.  Make sure to spread the sausage evenly from top of the square to the bottom.  In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg to make an egg wash.

Tightly roll the pasty over starting with the side that’s closer to the filling.  Just before sealing, brush the bottom side of the pastry with the egg wash.  Keep rolling and then with the seam-side down, gently push down to seal the pastry.

If you want you can leave the sausage rolls whole but my kids prefer them when they’re more bite-sized.  So if you’d like to make bite-sized rolls, use a sharp knife and cut each roll into thirds.  Then, brush the top of each roll with egg wash.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until your pastry is nicely golden brown.

And enjoy!  Eat on their own or as we like to do, dip into some ketchup.

pakistani beef curry

Our friend dropped off some delicious beef and okra curry a little while ago and I just had to get the recipe off her.  I can’t get my hands on any okra so I decided to just skip it and no surprise, it’s still a delicious and very flavourful curry!

500 grams stewing beef (ideally chuck roast) cut into bite-sized cubes / 2 large yellow onions / 1 tin of whole tomatoes / 5 tbsp canola oil / 4 cloves of garlic / about a thumb-size knob of ginger / 2 cinnamon sticks / 2 tsp cumin seeds / 6 cardamom pods / 1 tsp ground turmeric / 1/4 to 1/2 tsp chili powder (adjust to how much heat you want) / 1 heaped tsp sea salt / 1 and 1/2 tbsp garam masala

First for a bit of prep by thinly slicing the onions and finely mince the garlic and the ginger. Heat up the oil in a large pot or over medium-high heat and then add in the onions, the cinnamon sticks, and cumin seeds.  Pop open the cardamom pods and toss those in too.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions have gone a bit brown and caramelized.

Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes.  Then add in the tin of tomatoes, the salt, turmeric, chili and garam masala.  Let it simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Turn the heat up to high and add the beef.  Stir to coat all the beef cubes and let it cook for about one minute.

Add 2 cups of water and once it has come to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer.

Put the lid on and let the curry slowly simmer for 2 hours, giving it stir occasionally.

Turned out really yummy and we just served this with some basmati rice.

 

cheese popcorn

The movie theatres here in Riyadh serve the yummiest cheese popcorn ever.  It’s been months now since movie theatres have been closed due to the pandemic and the craving is real so I decided to try and make my own cheese popcorn. And it turned out SO GOOD.  The *secret* ingredient is the cheese powder mix from boxed macaroni and cheese, like Kraft dinner or whatever other brand.  I mean the stuff is basically engineered to be extra salty and cheesy tasting.

Anyway, I like to pop my popcorn in coconut oil but if you want you can use canola oil.  Ever since I had popcorn that was cooked in coconut oil at a movie theatre in Rwanda, that’s all I’ll use.  I just love how it turns out so I highly recommend you try using coconut oil!

1/2 cup popcorn kernels / 2 tbsp coconut oil / 1/4 cup salted butter / 1 packet of cheese powder mix from a box of macaroni and cheese

We always make our popcorn in a wok that has a lid but you can use a large lidded pot or saucepan instead.  Just make sure it is quite big ‘cus the popcorn will obviously be expanding quite a lot! Set the wok or pot over medium heat and add the coconut oil and popcorn kernels.  Just give the kernels a bit of a stir to get them all coated with the coconut oil and then pop the lid on.

As the oil heats up the popcorn will start popping and just let it do its thing until.  When the popping has really slowed down take the wok or pot off the heat.  A few more kernels might still pop so leave the lid on for like 30 seconds.

Melt the butter in the microwave and then pour that over the popcorn and also dump in the entire packet of cheese powder mix.  Put the lid back on, slip on some oven mitts and shake shake shake the whole wok or pot to get the popcorn all coated with the butter and cheese.  I tried at first to just stir it in but that was just making a mess and not very effective. Shaking is more fun anyway.  So that’s it!  Movie theatre-style cheese popcorn.  My kids just polished off the batch and are asking for more already!

 

white chocolate frozen bananas

I couldn’t fall asleep last night and I don’t know why but then I kept thinking about making chocolate covered frozen bananas for the kids.  And then I thought of these pink and blue dipped bananas on skewers that I saw during my first trip to Japan way back in the day.  Maybe quarantine life is making me a bit nuts but first thing this morning when I woke up, I went through my old Facebook photos to find a photo I had taken of those bananas.  This is that photo:

Anyway, I knew I had to try and make a frozen version of these so here we are.

6 bananas (I know there’s only 4 in the photo but I ended up needing 6!) / 12 oz white chocolate / 2 tbsp coconut oil / 12 bamboo skewers or popsicle sticks

Optional: food colouring / sprinkles / shredded coconut / chopped pistachios

Peel the bananas and slice in half.  Insert a popsicle stick or skewer into each banana halve (I cut the skewers to make them a bit shorter) and space them out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Place into the freezer for a minimum of two hours as you want them completely frozen through.

When you’re ready to coat the bananas, set a saucepan over high heat to bring a bit of water to a boil and then lower to a simmer.  You don’t need much water – just enough to create a makeshift double boiler.  Break up the white chocolate and add the chocolate and the coconut oil into a heatproof bowl that you can set on top of the saucepan of simmering water. You don’t want the water to touch the bottom of the bowl.

Let the chocolate and coconut oil melt together, giving it a stir every now and then.

You don’t have to colour the chocolate but I think it definitely makes it more fun for kids!  So I put half of the melted white chocolate into one bowl and coloured it with sky blue food colouring and I put the other half of the chocolate into another bowl and coloured it with pink food colouring.  I also set out my toppings – sprinkles, chopped pistachios and shredded coconut.  When it’s time to coat the bananas – the chocolate hardens very quickly so you’ll want everything out and ready.

Take the bananas out of the freezer and one at a time, spoon the white chocolate over the banana and then quickly sprinkle on whatever toppings you want.  Place the coated bananas back on the baking sheet and pop back into the freezer for about 20 minutes or so.  And then they’re ready to eat!

homemade paneer

There’s a recipe for the Indian fresh cheese paneer in the cookbook Made In India by Meera Sodha that I’ve always eyed over the years but never tried making.  Nowadays though I can’t find any store-bought paneer so I decided to give homemade paneer a shot.  Turns out it’s actually really easy! Plus there’s only 2 ingredients.  The recipe from my book doesn’t give very detailed instructions and my first attempt wasn’t perfect (my milk boiled over everywhere and didn’t properly curdle) but after watching some Youtube videos, I’ve got it down now.

Makes about 200 grams of paneer.

8 cups whole milk / 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

In a large saucepan or pot, heat the milk over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  On my first go at the recipe I had the heat set on high which was a big mistake so keep it on medium.  Stir frequently to keep the milk from burning on the bottom – this will take some time so try and be patient.  I didn’t set a timer but I think it took about 20 minutes at least for fridge-cold milk to boil.  As soon as it’s come to a boil, turn the heat down to low.

Add the lemon juice and stir.  It should start curdling pretty much right away – which is the curds separating from the whey and forming lumps.  I kept it on low and kept stirring for a few minutes just to really get the curds forming.

Line either a large colander or a strainer set over a large bowl with a few layers of cheesecloth and ladle the curds in.  The whey will drain through and you’ll be left with just the curds.

Rinse the curds under some cold water (I just ran it under the tap) to wash off the lemon juice.

Using the corners of the cheesecloth, twist together until it’s tight and squeeze the liquid out of the curds.

Meera says to leave the paneer in the colander with a weight on top but I found that whatever I put on it kept falling over.  So I ended up putting the paneer – still tightly twisted up in the cheesecloth – on a plate, then putting a frying pan on top of the paneer, and then a bag of rice in the pan and that did the trick.  You just want to weigh the paneer down and press it into a solid cheese.  Leave for 2 to 3 hours or until it feels firm.

Then put it in the fridge either wrapped in plastic wrap or in a container until you use it. You can keep it in the fridge for about 3 days.  The paneer turned out great and it really is unbelievably easy to make!  Plus it doesn’t have all the extra ingredients and additives that are in store-bought paneer.  Definitely worth giving a shot – if you need inspiration, we made palak paneer with this today!