One really cool thing about writing for Honest Cooking is the new group of cyber-colleagues I’ve found over there. The team is made up of food writers from all over the world, and of the highest standard. It’s endlessly fascinating and inspiring discovering new dishes and seeing innovative takes on old ones.

One of those inspirational bloggers is Tamara Novakovic. Her column, Cooking Croatia, is full of Dalmatian delights as is her beautiful blog, Bite My Cake. Her photography is amazing, so elegant and full of light. I was therefore thrilled when she asked me to participate in her new guest blogger series, Eat Global.

Seeing as Pancake Day was just around the corner (tomorrow in fact), I flipped up a stack of English pancakes and then stacked them with a layer of lemon curd in between each one. You might call it taking Pancake Day to new heights. (Literally.) Please click over to Tamara’s blog and check it out!

PS: Just signed my blog up for Bloglovin, so please head over there too and check it out!

The light of a gas lamp flickers through the fog as you step out onto the pavement. Behind you, strains of stale jazz are muffled as the bar door closes. You shrug on the humid night air like a coat, and start to make your way home through increasingly silent streets. Voodoo ghosts seem to duck out of sight at your approach. Your pace quickens, as your footsteps echo hollow in the night. Arriving at a crumbling mansion façade, you let yourself in through the swirling iron gate and inhale the intoxicating perfume of night-blooming jasmine. It makes you swoon.  An overgrown jungle garden at first seems to block your way, but then changes its mind and ushers you in, deeper, deeper into its shadowy courtyard. You climb the spiral stairs to your quarters, fall onto the bed and are quickly lulled to sleep by the soft whirring of the ceiling fan. And even in your dreams, New Orleans haunts you still.

Image adapted from Google Earth

Anyone who’s ever lived there will tell you that there are two New Orleans. One that the tourists see, a Disneyland for drunks, filled with bright lights, plastic cups and cheap beads. An excuse to act like the person you never knew you were and never really wanted to be. That’s the cheap side of New Orleans. Then there’s the other one. The ‘native’ New Orleans. If you spend any serious time in the city you’ll uncover it – the incredible history and blending layers of cultures that have influenced its unique food, music, art and literature. That’s the New Orleans I was lucky enough to know. The one I miss more than any other place I’ve lived. Perhaps even more than Seattle, Paris and London combined.

Now that’s not to say that I didn’t dabble in the debauchery from time to time. I used to live in the French Quarter, right at the end of the infamous Bourbon Street, and was part of the Krewe du Vieux that parades on foot through the Vieux Carre, throwing beads to revelers (bare-breasted and otherwise). When I moved to the UK, I naturally wondered what mid-winter festivities England might offer up that could ever compare with the sheer madness of Mardi Gras. British friends told me, ‘We celebrate Mardi Gras here too – we call it Shrove Tuesday’.

Umm… sorry but no you don’t. I love Pancake Day, but flipping pancakes is just not in the same category as a week-long masquerade ball that only ends when, at the stroke of midnight on Mardi Gras night, the police ride their horses four-abreast down the streets of the Vieux Carre, literally forcing everyone to go home.

My brother and a friend visited me for Mardi Gras one year. I made them play dress-up. They were good sports:

Of course no one actually does go home – they just go indoors. One of the most popular shelters is Pat O’Brien’s, with its flaming fountain in the courtyard, end-to-end grand pianos in the piano bar and, of course, legendary Hurricane cocktail.

Indeed, for many, Mardi Gras would not be complete without a Hurricane (or three). There are many variations of the recipe – I’ve adapted the one from Pat O’Brien’s website. The amounts I’ve listed make one drink. You’ll obviously want to multiply them to suit your crowd. Whether to fill a pitcher or a bathtub – go wild! It’s Mardi Gras – no one’s going to judge you. At least not until tomorrow… (but that’s what the masks are for, right?)

Happy Mardi Gras y’all, and ‘Laissez les bons temps rouler’!

Have you ever stood up on a soapbox and announced something and then jumped down and done the exact opposite? My hand’s high in the air, as I’m guilty, guilty, guilty! I had the best of intentions with my healthy Valentine’s dessert, but I ended up making chocolate cake anyway.

I blame my friend Michelle. It was her birthday you see. Yes, her birthday is on Valentine’s Day. And I wanted to make her something special. So I pulled out my trusty ‘Crazy Negress’ chocolate cake recipe and put on my apron. It’s not as bad as it sounds – since Michelle is also trying to eat low-GI, I lessened the impact of the cake by changing out some of the ingredients. I used spelt and wholemeal flour, olive oil and dark chocolate. If anything it tasted better than the original. More complex, earthier and definitely more filling. I’m never going back!

Designated Bowl-Licker

The recipe makes a huge cake. I usually divide it up and make two 8-inch rounds and a dozen cupcakes with it. I could (and perhaps should) have halved the recipe, since the last thing we need is a tempting cake on the counter, but I wanted to update the photos. And I couldn’t very well cut Michelle’s cake, then deliver it to her, could I? So I decorated and delivered Michelle’s, then came home to photograph the other one. I decided, after covering it with the usual icing, to brighten it a bit. I had some blue candy melts left over from my cake pops, so I melted them down and poured them over the cake, first in a smooth layer, then in a crazy pattern.

The result was a duck-egg blue ‘crazy cake’ (as my son has named it) fully worthy of its name. The candy topping dried hard and was difficult to cut (use a warmed knife) but the kids loved it. And it’s a good thing, too, because they’re going to have to (mostly) eat it. Personally I like it better without the hard candy coating, and it’s certainly healthier that way. I broke mine off and gave it to my kids, who never seem to tire of it!

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, it seems everyone is scrambling to find the perfect sweet for their sweetie. I did the same, briefly considering breaking my diet to make a rich, chocolately dessert that would be well worth the guilt that would inevitably ensue. But I’m happy to say that another voice won out. The angel on my shoulder. It was saying that if I really love my hubby, I’ll make sure he sticks to his diet too. Because then he’ll be around for longer. And I do love him.

My Forever Valentine

So I was good. And I have to tell you that I don’t feel deprived at all. Because this dessert well and truly lives up to its name: parfait, meaning ‘perfect’ in French. Amazingly sweet and flavourful, despite having no added sugar at all, with a tantalizing mix of textures and an after-effect that’s the complete opposite of chocolate guilt. This will leave you feeling fresh and energized and ready to enjoy the rest of your lives together. What better way to say ‘I love you’ than that?

Chunks of mango and whole pistachios are layered with an orange blossom water-scented Greek-style yogurt (or a soft lebneh) and topped with fresh pomegranate. You can, of course, mix it up and throw in whatever you have on hand. If you need it sweeter, mix a little honey in with the yogurt, or just drizzle a bit on top. And don’t think this is just for dessert – it makes a gorgeous breakfast too!

This post is atonement for my last recipe. In fact, looking back on most of my recent posts, I realized they were not the healthiest. Perhaps unsurprising, given that it was the holidays, but still. Time to join the throngs who are fulfilling New Year’s resolutions and dieting!

I’ve been on the lookout for some time for a diet that is not a diet. Haven’t we all? What I mean, though, is a diet that is actually a lifestyle, not a fad. Something I could stick to and that wouldn’t deprive me of my favourite foods forever. Because forever is a long time and I do love my food.

The most important factor in any diet is that it suits you and your lifestyle. Otherwise, despite your best intentions, it just won’t stick. I knew that I had to take control of my carb intake and stabilize my blood sugars, because my early-afternoon slump had become a serious handicap. I’ve tried Atkins in the past and didn’t like it because it denied me a lot of the fruit and veg I think is good for me and said ‘ok’ to fat in all its forms, which just didn’t seem right.

So when I found the South Beach diet I was intrigued. After the initial two-week ‘boot camp’ called Phase One, you can eat fruit, veg and even limited starches, so long as they’re ‘good’ carbs. Whole-grain, unrefined, low GI. That’s reasonable. And it says ‘no’ to ‘bad’ fats, which just seems a lot healthier to me. Olive or rapeseed/canola oil instead of butter? I’m OK with that (most of the time anyway). If you’re interested, be sure to check out Kalyn’s Kitchen, a site full of fantastic South Beach recipes (and more)!

Phase One was a bit of a bear, I won’t lie. I have one day left and I admit I’m looking forward to having a Ryvita! Never thought I’d say that. But it did what it ‘says on the box’. It reduced my cravings for carbs and sugar and almost completely eliminated the desire to snack. I feel fuller more of the time. And I’ve lost all the weight I put on over the holidays. Brilliant.

But the other thing this diet has done is prove to me that we don’t need anywhere near the amount of carbs we used to consume with each meal. Rice was probably the biggest culprit, given that much of our home cooking is Middle Eastern. The following recipe was a way to demonstrate to myself, and Hubby, that I could take one of our favourite Arab dishes and remove the carbs without ruining it. Chicken M’Sakhan (chicken with sumac and grilled onions) is normally served on a bed of flat bread. Hubby likes it on rice, so that’s how I usually do it. But not anymore…

One way to successfully lower carbs is to boost flavour. That’s true of any diet. You’ll be happier eating less if each bite is packed with taste sensations. The lemony sumac on the chicken, and fresh mint in the salad, just lift this grilled chicken salad to a new level. There’s also a nice combination of textures, from tender chicken to soft chickpeas to crunchy cucumber and peppers. And it looks pretty too with all those colours, doesn’t it? I especially love the way the chicken breast is roughly heart-shaped. So appropriate for a heart-healthy meal!

OK, so now am I forgiven for the Dulce de Leche?  ;-)

I did a bad, bad thing.

At a time when everyone, myself included, is trying to detox and eat healthy, I made one of the most ridiculously indulgent, unhealthy treats known to man.

Of course, it wasn’t my fault. I blame the milkman. You see, every year at Xmas he asks for our ‘holiday’ order and I oblige, writing in the number of bottles we need on each delivery day. This year we have a new milkman who apparently can’t read my handwriting. Or is dyslexic. Either way, he got the order completely messed up and we ended up with 10 pint bottles of milk at once.

Our fridge is of European proportions, meanging TINY. 10 bottles won’t fit. I tried leaving some outside but they went ‘off’, so I realized I had to do something with all this milk. I made yogurt, of course, but still had plenty leftover. That’s when my mind turned to evil thoughts.

Dulce de leche – pronounced doolsay day laychay and meaning ‘milk candy’ in Spanish – is something I’ve enjoyed before but never made. I knew the easy way of making it, the cheat’s method, was to boil a tin of condensed milk for a few hours. But that wouldn’t help use up my stockpile of milk, which was the original goal here, right? So I started recipe hunting.

The immediate problem I ran into is that, although you can of course make dulce de leche from milk, all of the recipes I found use whole milk. This is because lowfat (2% or less) milk has too few milk solids in it and would boil away to nothing. And 2% milk is what I had. It wasn’t looking good. But then I remembered, with a crook of my eyebrow, that I had some double cream (also called heavy or whipping cream) left over from Christmas. Surely that would fill in the missing blanks, as it were? Mwuaaaahahahaha…

Before my conscience had a chance to stop me, I jumped right in. And it wasn’t pretty, at least not in the cooking stages.

After one hour (left) and after four hours (right)

And it took a very long time. Probably because of the relatively low fat content. I stopped after four hours and let it be a little thinner than dulce de leche normally is, but I wanted it to be pourable. I reasoned that I could always boil it again if I wanted to thicken it, but you can’t un-boil it if it becomes too thick.

Some of you may be wondering what I was planning to do with all of this liquid toffee sin? Well I didn’t really have a clue. Vague visions of pouring it over vanilla ice cream, apple cake, bread pudding and banana trifle were all ushered out the window when I remembered I was due to be starting a low-carb diet this month. I also didn’t really want to be feeding all of those sweets to my kids. But a glance at the fruit bowl gave me the answer. I poured a cup of dulce de leche, surrounded it with sliced green and red apples, pears and bananas and hey presto – made my daughter’s day!

My kids have now had this treat a few times, I’ve given some away and I still have half a jarful in the fridge. I’m going to make ice cream with it, just because at least then it’ll be a bit further out of sight. Having it be the first thing I see when I open the fridge door is making January dieting a total nightmare!

Happy 2012!!!

Congratulations – you survived Christmas and can now relax. Well, almost. Before you get too excited, remember that New Year is a time for visiting and, perhaps more frighteningly, being visited. I always prefer to do the visiting, so I don’t have to keep the house too tidy, but it’s nice to have something besides broken leftover candy canes to offer guests if they do come knocking.

The beauty of biscotti is that it keeps quite well in an airtight container through the festive season. Once it’s made, you can spend your time tidying your house if you really want to, although I’m sure you can think of much better things to be doing, can’t you?

The other wonder of biscotti is that it’s easy, and yet people are unfailingly impressed that you made your own. You’ll go down in holiday lore as ‘the one who gave us homemade cranberry biscotti instead of store-bought mince pies.’

Just please don’t come to my house, as the biscotti have all been eaten and I’ve just opened my emergency box of mince pies. The broken leftover candy canes have all gone into a batch of ice cream. And as for the tidying up…

Two recipes today, both from Thanksgiving dinner but posting in time for Christmas since I had recipe requests from our guests, who want to include them in their Christmas dinners. I know many of you like to have turkey for Christmas anyway, and these recipes will go equally well with any fowl, for example goose or duck, as well as pork.

My theme this year was pomegranate. It happened organically – I had one in the fruit bowl and it caught my eye as I was making the cranberry sauce. I had a bottle of Pom in the fridge and a bottle of pomegranate syrup in the cupboard. Now that I look back, it was all predestined, don’t you think?

Pomegranate in the cranberry sauce was an easy fit, but I decided to also include it in my dressing. That may not sound right to you, but I was making my dad’s legendary stuffing recipe, which is heavily Mediterranean in flavour. Pomegranate was my Cinderella – the uninvited beauty crashing the ball and stealing everyone’s hearts.

Now, I’m a fan of odd numbers, so I was subconsciously looking for the third place to insert some pomegranate fabulousness. At the last minute I found it: my ‘welcome’ margaritas. I just mixed in some Pom, which turned the ‘ritas a gorgeous ruby colour (très apropos), and answered the door.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Dad’s Legendary Stuffing/Dressing, with pomegranate:

For the stuffing/dressing recipe, I’m going to refer you to an old email of my dad’s. This is his ‘recipe’ (all quantities approximate, depending on the size of your crowd), with my addition of a couple of generous handfuls of pomegranate seeds at the last stage (just prior to baking). My notes added in bold:

 I could not find the e-mail which I sent to you last year. Please keep this for next year. DO NOT compare the ingredients of this year to last year’s. This is part of my secret to eternal success (hush). Here we go:

The Stuffing :

Toasted bread; – cubed at 3/4 inch (about half a loaf)
Yellow onion; – diced at 1/2 inch 
Celery diced at 3/4 inch 
Mushroom, fresh or canned – halves 
Olives, green or black – whole or halves 
Raisins, white are better (he means golden)
Walnut pieces (I use chopped almonds)
Salt and pepper
Garlic powder and hot pepper – optional 
Chicken broth – one to two can 

Saute the onion, celery and mushroom in butter till yellow. Add olives, raisins and walnuts. Saute a little longer. Add salt and pepper (garlic and hot pepper) if desired. Add bread. Mix while on the stove. Add the chicken broth and leave on low heat for 10 – 15 min.  (If you’re stuffing a bird, that’s what you do now. If you’re making this as dressing, like I do, then press it gently into a lightly-greased baking dish and bake it at medium heat for about 20 minutes. You just want it to dry out a bit and for the top to get crusty.)

(Thanks Dad.) ]]> http://www.tomaytotomaaahto.com/2011/12/pomegranate-cranberry-sauce-and-dressing.html/feed 3 http://www.tomaytotomaaahto.com/2011/11/fig-truffles.html http://www.tomaytotomaaahto.com/2011/11/fig-truffles.html#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:01:12 +0000 Ruby http://www.tomaytotomaaahto.com/?p=562

First, an apology for posting a healthy recipe in December. Healthy is not a word people like to hear around the holidays. Holidays are for treating each other and ourselves. Indulgences. Healthy is for January, when the binging and splurging is over and we are faced with the results of our excesses, in the form of a belt that has become just a bit too tight or a bathroom scale telling us horrible truths we’d rather not know.

But what would you say if I told you that I found a treat, a sweet, an indulgence that tastes rich, naughty and sinful but is actually quite healthy? Something you can have throughout the holidays, safe in the knowledge that it will not lead to tears in the new year?

And the bonus? They’re incredibly easy to make. So easy, in fact, that you’ll be tempted to make them for everyone you know and give them away as Xmas gifts. And hey, why not?

Fig truffles. Now, you may have noticed that date balls/truffles have made a clean sweep of the food blogosphere, so this is definitely not an original idea. In fact, I specifically saw something similar on a fellow blogger’s site but have shamefully forgotten whose blog it was! (If it was yours, please leave me a note so I can credit you and include a link to your version.) But I did, of course, put my own twist on the idea by using dried figs instead of dates, and injecting them with distinctly Mediterranean flavours.

Instead of adding sugar, syrup or chocolate, as most similar recipes do, I pumped them up with orange blossom water, orange zest and cinnamon. The taste will remind you of a cross between fig newtons and baklava, only less sweet and with the added bonus of being guilt-free.

Truffles may be rather a decadent name for something that’s healthy but, when I called them Fig Balls, Hubby snorted and told me to think of a better name. And honestly, which would you rather get for Christmas? Balls or truffles?

The last Thursday in November is the most important holiday in the American calendar: Thanksgiving. On the busiest travel weekend of the year in the US, everyone rushes home to sit down with family and enjoy a huge, gut-busting meal, usually followed by sprawling on the sofa in a tryptophan-trance watching a football game.

Not huge football fans, my brother and I used to play chess on Thanksgiving with our Uncle Clifford. Thanksgiving was always at Uncle Cliff and Aunt Karen’s place – she had a double kitchen (the result of knocking two apartments together) that was seemingly custom-made for the task. The feast was obligingly epic in proportions and included the traditional turkey with all the trimmings, followed by pumpkin pie. I think I am the only one of us who never took a liking to pumpkin pie.

After I grew up and moved away from home, I often hosted what I called my ‘Thanksgiving for Orphans’, meaning a dinner for people whose families, like mine, were too far away for them to join. If anyone wanted pumpkin pie at these dinners, they were told to bring it themselves, because I’ve never made one and have no intention of doing so. However, I may have mellowed with age, and I now feel somewhat obligated to offer up something that at least resembles pumpkin pie. So I came up my own version: no-bake pumpkin cheesecake.

I make it with fresh pumpkin, delicately-spiced and not overly-sweetened, and a sharp and citrusy ginger biscuit crust. And it’s no-bake, so it’s dead easy to put together. Which is great, because it leaves me more time to brush up on my chess. Now that my son is a fanatic, I once again have serious competition on my hands!

Chess players may note that he set up the board the wrong way round but hey, he's only 5.