A Fun Day Spent Shopping

Greetings everyone.  I hope your week is off to a great start wherever you may be.  I had a lovely day today. I accomplished my housework early this morning since I knew I would be out and about.

My daughter met me for some shopping and a quick lunch afterwards.  We had a fun time together finding those bargains we can't do without :)  I just had to buy some fresh flowers for the home before they raise the prices for Valentine's Day.

After lunch, I took myself over to Home Goods which is just down the road from where I live.  Look what I found!  I've read about these for years and have never tried them.  You might think it's funny, but I don't eat chocolate...long story about allergies.  I think dark chocolate may be OK - I'll soon find out.  The rose flavor was interesting in these as compared to the rose flavor I find in Middle Eastern food.  I'm going to serve them to my guests at the dinner party I'm having on Sunday.  While at Home Goods I perused the linen department looking for Italian linens.  I found a set of Italian made 100% linen sheets but I didn't buy them.  I'm sure they would be wonderful but I hesitated.  I did find a new bedspread that should work great.  (I know they're not called that anymore but I forgot the new name...)

Speaking of flowers, I planted some bulbs in pots this past winter and they are beginning to come up.  My favorite is the hyacinth.  And, my hellebore, lenten rose, has many buds.  I'm so happy that it survived the poor soil it lives in.  As a coincidence, the new Sock Society pattern I just received is called Winter Rose.

And, look at my geraniums blooming.  I love the white one.  In the middle is an Arabian Jasmine that has the most fragrant flowers.  It reminds me of Egypt when my husband took me there on my very first trip.  We were at Casino El Nil in Cairo (not a gambling casino), on the Nile River.  Flower sellers were selling necklaces of jasmine and they were heavenly.  It was my first time to eat ice cream with mastic (an aromatic resin from the mastic tree).  The addition of mastic changes the texture of the ice cream.  It is very popular in Turkish ice creams, too.  Sadly, I don't eat ice cream anymore due to allergies :(

For those of you who don't knit or crochet, I won't bore you with any patterns, etc.  But, please wish me luck as I'm baffled with my new sock pattern. . .

Lilly sends her greetings to each of you.  She had a restful afternoon sitting in my chair and taking her afternoon nap.  Until next time. . .

My best wishes,

Pat

Egyptian Christmas Cookies Along With Danish!

Are you getting ready for my favorite time of Year?  I've had a great couple of days spending time in my kitchen and baking my favorite Christmas cookies.

First on the list were my Egyptian petit fours.  I tweeked the recipe a bit and made them in single cookies without any filling.  And, I just had to add some green Christmas trees.  Every year my Danish grandma would make "spritz" cookies in the shape of green Christmas trees.  I have kept the same tradition for my family. If you want the recipe, you can find it here on my blog from a few years ago.  Remember, the key to this recipe is using clarified butter and powdered sugar which gives this cookie it's unique texture :)

Another popular Egyptian holiday cookie is Uraybee* or Ghorayebah* or as it's known in turkey, Kurabiyesi.  I bought this mix in Turkey and brought it home with me.  Luckily, it had only two ingredients I had to "translate" and again I used clarified butter and oil. (My oil looks green because it's grapeseed oil!)  The cookies came out perfect!  I'm sold on this cookie mix and plan to buy it again.  Kurabiyesi is a rich, buttery, shortbread type cookie with a very fine texture.  My favorite - yum!

Now, we're going to head back to Denmark and here's my pebernodder (peppernuts) that I made this year.  Again, this is one of my Grandma's recipes and I just had to make them since my brother will be joining us for the holidays and he loves these as much as I do!  You can find the recipe here from a previous blog post.  Remember, you need to prepare the dough the night before so that it can ripen  the wonderful, spicy flavor. I love to pop them in my mouth, savor the flavor a minute or two before I bite into this delicious crunchiness.

 

Today I made my Danish Kleiner.  It seems that every culture has their own favorite fried cookie and this is our family's tradition from Denmark.  Again, it's my Grandma's recipe that I treasure.  Hopefully, I can pass this onto my little granddaughter so that she can make them one day.  They will be put away in an air tight tin and wait the arrival of my son since this is his favorite cookie.

Four down and one more cookie to make.  Tomorrow I hope to make some plain, old, much loved, chocolate chip cookies but with a twist using Nestle's Holiday Baking Chips.  Don't you just love how colorful these are?  I'm using my dear friend Elizabeth's recipe which you can find here.

What are you baking?  If you would like to share, please feel free in the comments below.  That's  about all that is happening here at Lilly My Cat.  I hope to share another post soon.

Blessings to everyone,

Pat 

PS *the Arabic language can be hard sometimes to translate into the Latin alphabet since there is no standardized translation.  But, you can google this cookie and see what you come up with since it's a popular cookie for all the countries in the Middle East. 

Egyptian Foul Medammas & Boca Burgers en Croute on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Hello my dear friends. It's a quiet, cloudy, wonderful Sunday afternoon here in Southern California.  I love the cool weather!

Yesterday was a glorious day to sit outside under the gazebo and drink a cup of tea and enjoy nature.  Of course, I couldn't sit without my latest project.  It's a large needlepoint scene that I purchased with 96 skeins of yarn.  I soon found out that 96 skeins of tapestry yarn is way too much but at least I'll have some leftover for another time. 

I wanted to fix something fast and easy for lunch so I made my husband a bowl of foul medammes or as you may know them as fava beans.  Foul (pronounced fool) is an iconic food of Egypt; probably Egypt's first fast food.  It can be eaten many ways; in a bowl with seasoned sauce, as a sandwich in pita bread with fresh chopped salad and tahini sauce, or ground and made into taamia as it's called in Egypt or more commonly known as falafel. 

In the old days, I would buy the fava beans in bulk and cook them in my slow cooker.  Of course times have changed and now you can find them already cooked in cans, ready to be heated and seasoned to your liking.  The dried beans shown above are the large fava beans.  The large beans can also be bought without the skins and these type of beans are used for taamia (falafel) or a wonderful dish called  bisara.  Bisara is a popular dish during the lenten fast as it consists of pureed fava beans mixed with molokhia and seasoned with garlic.  

Today I was trying out a new crochet pattern when it dawned on me that maybe I should fix my dear husband some lunch.  I had two frozen Boca burgers (vegan burgers) in the freezer which I browned in a skillet.  I took two frozen puff pastry squares from the freezer and let them thaw.  I them placed the puff pastry on a greased baking sheet, added a little mix of mayonaise and dijon mustand in the middle of each pastry, and then placed the Boca burger on top.  I turned up the ends and added some cheese to my husband's burger.  I baked them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or until nicely puffed and browned.  I added some sauted onions (with a little Worchestire sauce as flavor) to the top and served them.  Voila!  A easy lunch entree.

I have always wanted double ovens and now I have them in this home.  I love to use my oven and I use it a lot!  Unfortunately, here in SoCal, our electricity is so expensive and they monitor your use and tell you if you're using too much. So.....

I easily came up with a solution.  My friend has a countertop oven that works so well so I thought I'd give it a try.  This is a Hamilton Beach that can bake, broil, rotisserie and convention bake.  I purchased it earlier this year from Amazon for around $70.00.  It works great!  And, most of all, it bakes great!

I think today is the calm before the storm...I will be babysitting my dear little grandchildren, shown above, for four days starting tomorrow.  Their parents on going to NYC and of course Grandma and Grandpa are here to take over.  It will be fun to have them and make more memories with them.

I hope your are having a good day.  I want to say THANK YOU on this Veterans Day weekend to all our Veterans who have placed their lives in service to our country.  I appreciate and applaud your service.  I'd love to hear from you if you have the time.  Feel free to stop by for a chat!

With my best wishes,

Pat

 (PS - if you are interested in any of the recipes I wrote about above, please let me know)

Another Egyptian Christmas Cookie Recipe ~ Sablee ~

Imagine yourself being raised in a large village in upper Egypt. You and your family's life evolves very much around the Coptic Church calendar.  On November 25th of this year (old calendar), the Copts began their nativity fast which means that all animal products are avoided (fish and seafood are OK).  The fast will end with the glorious Feast of the Nativity on January 7th; the birth of our Lord.

Copts have a lot of traditional Christmas foods and today I will share with you another recipe that is popular for the holidays.  I love baking Christmas cookies and this particular recipe is so dear to my heart.  My dear, dear friend Vivian gave it to me during the first Christmas I was married.  She had gotten this recipe from her sister-in-law, Zaizaf, who was an excellent baker.  Both Vivian and Zaizaf were raised in upper Egypt as was my husband.  The ingredients are very simple.

Recipe for Egyptian Sablee:
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla powder (use extract if you wish)
1 1/2 cups Crisco (vegetable shortening)
Little water if needed
Apricot jam for filling

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and vanilla powder together.  Cut in the shortening until it resembles small pieces like the photo above.  At this point, you may add 1 tablespoon cold water and mix dough just until it comes together.  Please do not knead or overwork the dough :)

 

 Just mix the dough until it looks like above.  Now you are ready for the fun part of cutting out the dough.

Flour the board and take a small fist of dough and roll it out; not too thin and not too thick.  Cut into your desired shapes (round is the traditional shape).  Place cut out dough on an ungreased cookie sheet.

You will have some scraps left over so take those scraps of dough and add a small piece of fresh dough and roll out again and cut out the shapes.  Keep repeating this until all the dough is used up.  By using the scraps along with fresh dough each time, your cookies will not become tough.

Just remember to cut out the middle of half of the cookies you are making.  You will be sandwiching these two cookies together with the cut out on top.  My recipe makes approximately 40 cookies so that means 40 whole and 40 with cut out tops!  Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for approximately 8 to 9 minutes or until lightly golden brown.  Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on a rack.

I usually bake these ahead of time and store them in a tight container without the jam filling.  When I'm ready to serve them, I add a small spoonful of jam and sandwich them together and sprinkle a bit of powdered sugar over the top before serving.  As to the jam, I used some raspberry jam that my son brought me from Ukraine but the traditional jam to use is apricot.  I'll be filling the remainder with apricot as the apricot jam is dry versus the watery raspberry!

From you photo above, you can see the mix of traditions in my house as the little tablecloth with the nisseman is from Denmark and the cookies are Egyptian!  Fun time for the holidays . . .

I hope you will enjoy these if you make them.  And, as always, thank you for stopping by.  Until next time

My best wishes,

Pat

Egypt's Coptic Church via Five on Friday

Thank you dear friends who supported me in regard to my last  post. Life is good and I really shouldn't complain but sometimes it makes me feel better.  It's time to link up with Amy over at  Five on Friday.

Great Lent officially began on Monday, March 7th for those following the old calendar. Easter will be celebrated on May 1, 2016.  I thought you might enjoy a little insight into the Coptic Orthodox Church which is Egypt's largest Christian denomination and one of the oldest churches in the world.

What is the Coptic Church?
St. Mark the apostle and author of the New Testament Gospel of St. Mark,  brought the gospel to Egypt via Alexandria in approximately 42 AD.  Out of Egypt's current population of 90 million people, 10% to 15% are Christians.  The Coptic Church is headed by a Patriarch, the current one being Pope Tawardros.  It is a liturgical, apostolic church and core belief is centered in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.    Egypt has many non Coptic Christians but ultimately, they can trace their faith to a Coptic relative.  The Presbyterian Church was one of the first to have missionaries in Egypt in the late 1800's.  Since it was forbidden to convert those of the Moslem faith to Christianity, they converted Copts.  The western church was appealing to many in the study of the faith and the Sunday school, etc.  Since the early 1900's, the Copts have established many seminaries, a vast Sunday school program and excellent publishing houses with vast reading sources (both in Arabic and English). 

Handstitched art from Egypt

The Coptic Church in North America
The first church in North America was established in 1964 in Toronto, Canada, followed by St. Marks Coptic Orthodox Church in Jersey City, New Jersey and then the church in Los Angeles.  Today, there are many churches spread throughout Canada, United States, Mexico and many foreign countries.

The Copts are the fathers of monasticism started by St. Antony the Great in the late 3rd century. Back in the late 1970's St. Antony's Monastery was established in Newberry Springs, CA.  The choice of this area is pretty amazing in that it is located in the Mojave desert; a beautiful but barren landscape.  Much like the monastery settings in Egypt.  The monks there have worked very hard throughout all these years and a couple of years ago St. Moses the Black church was completed.  It's beautiful inside and features classic Coptic architecture.

Outside view of St. Moses the Black Church

Language in the Coptic Church

Originally, Coptic* was the language used in the church since the church's foundation was long before the 7th century introduction of Islam and the use of Arabic.  Today, the church liturgy is still a mixture of Coptic and Arabic.  And, in America, it is a mixture of Arabic, Coptic and English (if you attend an English service).  And, a few parishes are strictly English which are highly popular with the younger people and their children. *My father-in-law knew and spoke Coptic in addition to Arabic.  

Book of Divine Liturgy showing English, Coptic and Arabic

Coptic Theology
There are many things I could share about Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox (which the Coptic Church is considered) theology as there are so many facets to the faith.  The Coptic Church is an apostolic church and follows the teachings of the early church.   There are seven sacraments, the priests can be married and prayer and fasting are an important facet of the faith.  The Copts follow the old calendar (Julian) for feast days and also have their own calendar in conjunction to using the modern calendar (Gregorian) for business.  The Coptic calendar begins in 284AD and is known as the Year of the Martyrs.  In this year, Roman Emperor Diocletian killed over 1 million Christians for their faith.  Currently it is year 1732 (+284 = 2016) in the Coptic year.

Divine Liturgy book

Coptic Art

Coptic art can take many forms such as icons, textiles and manuscripts to name a few.  Below is an example of a modern piece of Coptic art; the Coptic cross which has been made with pieces of straw.  Coptic icons written in the Coptic style differ a bit from their Eastern Orthodox icons.  You can see the icons on the iconostasasis (altar) depicting the Lord's Supper, The Virgin Mary, Jesus's baptism and others.  

Depiction of Coptic cross made of straw on a black cloth background

Interior of St. Moses the Black church showing icons on iconostasis

I hope that you have enjoyed this little insight into Egypt's oldest faith.  And, I thank you again for your friendship and kindness in visiting Lilly My Cat.  I hope to share with you some crafty ideas next time.  

Wishing you all the best,

Pat

Linking with:

Friday's Favorites . . . 

Five on Friday - Christmas Cookies

The cookies are baked (almost), the house is decorated and the presents are wrapped. The birth of our Lord will soon arrive and for me the Christmas season is a time for reflection and blessings.   I grew up in an area where we often had a white Christmas.  I remember one year receiving a silver charm bracelet from my parents for Christmas.  I loved that bracelet but one day, not long after receiving it, I lost it.  When I set out to search for it, it was a cold, late afternoon and the beautiful white snow had covered the tree lined street.  I found my bracelet on the sidewalk in a snow bank.  I still have that bracelet today.   It's Friday so I'm linking up with Amy at Five on Friday.  Fast forward to this past week's happenings at Lilly My Cat...

We traveled down south to San Diego county for an overnight trip to the Barona Resort.  We arrived in the evening and the Christmas decorations were amazing. We awoke to glorious rain the next morning ..

Lots of Christmas parties this past week; we had a fun time at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club on Saturday.  I loved their display of this gingerbread village...

On Saturday night my local lodge* of  Daughters of Norway held their annual Christmas party.  We were at the Marbella Country Club and the setting was so beautiful ...

In the lobby there was a beautiful, tall Christmas tree which was flocked.  It was a perfect evening.  And, when we left, we were greeted by some much needed rain ...

For me, Christmas time means Christmas cookies and I have started my baking this week.  I'm not making so many as in years past but here's what I have on my list:

1.  Egyptian Petit Fours
2.  Green Christmas tree spritz (my dear Grandma always made these every year)
3.  Pebernodder (Danish peppernuts)
4.  Spiced Shortbread
5.  Chocolate Blossoms

I started off making the petit fours   Here they are before being put together with white chocolate.  I made one batch of dough and divided it into thirds; one plain, one chocolate and one colored green for my Christmas trees...

Next on my list was the Danish pebernodder (peppernuts).  MyDanish Grandma used to make these for us each and every Christmas; it wouldn't be Christmas without them.  Since my brother is coming to celebrate with us this year, I had to add them to the list ...

Here is my shortbread. I thought I would change the recipe a bit this year so I added some vanilla and some cardamon along with rose water.  I think I added too much cardamom ...

Last on my list is the Hershey kisses cookies.  The recipe calls for dark chocolate but since I make these for my dear son-in-law, I use milk chocolate kisses.  I plan on making them Friday when my little grandson will be here.  He loves to help in the kitchen and he can easily unwrap (and eat a few, too)  these candies ...

I want to formally thank my dear daughter for the beautiful header photo she added to my blog.  She's an excellent photographer; she snapped this photo of the Eiffel Tower when we were there two years ago.  *Also, in regard to the Daughters of Norway, if you may be interested in attending a lodge near you, please check out their website.  They will take members of all Scandinavian descent; remember I'm Danish and I love my local lodge.

The countdown to the holidays is on.  I wish everyone a wonderful, festive filled weekend.  It's always a joy hearing from each and every one of you if you have the time to comment.  My best holiday wishes to you!

Hugs,

Pat

Zaizaf's Almond Cake via Five on Friday

Yesterday evening my husband and I were invited to dinner at our friends home.  It was a pleasant evening sitting outside and the food was great.  I wanted to take something for the "party" and I came up with the idea of making an almond cake using marzipan which was sitting in my frig from Ikea (haha, the marzipan is from Ikea, not the frig)...

A couple of months ago, I made Nigella's almond cake. But, it take like six eggs and the flavor wasn't that great.  So, I remembered that I used to make a cake using Solo almond paste.  I shuffled through one of my recipe files and I found the recipe; I hadn't made it since the 1980's I'm sure!  On another hand written sheet was a almond cake recipe from my dear friend Zaizaf. ( I have written about my friendship with her before in this past blog post. )

I'm always keen to try new things and I had just the right amount of ingredients to make Zaizaf's cake. Following are five photos showing my accomplishment.....

Here's my original handwritten recipe from way back when.....

(that's my my new "vintage" sugar canister from Turkey in the background)

I used my kugelhopf pan and it was just the right size for the cake....

After sitting for about 5 minutes, it came out of the pan beautifully.....

You can glaze this cake if you wish but I opted for a little powdered sugar topping.....

You're probably wondering, where is the recipe!  Here it is along with my instructions on how I made it:

1/2 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening)

1/2 cup sugar

1 package almond paste or marzipan (7 ounces)  (room temperature)

2 eggs - separated

1 cup milk (I used almond milk)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

 Grease and flour the baking pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until they are stiff.  Put aside.  In a large mixing bowl combine crisco and sugar and mix until well blended.  Add in almond paste, in small pieces, until it is mixed together with the sugar mixture.  Add in two egg yolks, milk, vanilla and salt.  Gradually add in flour and baking powder until mixture is blended.  Fold in beaten egg whites by hand.

Pour cake mixture into prepared baking pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Let cool on a baking rack before unmolding cake.  Let cool before slicing.  Enjoy!

I said five photos and I just had to share this picture of Lilly with you.  I was going through some old photos and came across this one.  She was much younger then but isn't she the cutest sitting there like a little person?

I hope you have had a good week.  It's hot and a bit humid here in my part of the country.  We hope to get a few rain showers.  Enjoy your weekend!

my best to you,

Pat

I'm linking to the following parties:

Five on Friday .....
Bewitchin' Projects Block Party ......
Moms the Word...

Egyptian Hawowshi Recipe

It seems like it has been ages since I last wrote.  All is well here and I hope with you too.  On Sunday, I had guests over and I planned a simple dinner for them to eat by the pool.  I made Egyptian hawowshi.  It is a meat pie that is baked in the oven.  It a popular dish in Cairo.  So if you would like to make some, you are most welcome to follow along.

You will need (for four servings)

For filling:
1 pound of ground beef
1 medium onion, grated
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 T chopped parsley
Sliced onion (optional)
Red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tsp meat spices*
*I used some kibbe spices but you can use kabob spices

For dough:
2 cups flour
1/3 cup oil
1/2 tsp salt
Some black paper
Warm water

Blend the flour and salt in a bowl.  Pour the oil in a 1 cup measure and fill the cup to the brim with warm water.  Blend water/oil mixture into flour just until it holds together.  Add a little more water if needed.

The dough should resemble this.  Don't knead or overwork dough as it will become tough.

Divide dough into four balls.  (Picture above was from a double batch of dough).

Take one ball of dough and divide in half; one half will be the bottom crust and the other half will be the top crust.  Roll out each half on a floured surface until it's approximately 6"-7" in diameter.

Mix all ingredients for meat mixture and divide into four balls.

Place bottom half of dough on a nonstick lined baking sheet.  Press meat mixture onto bottom half leaving about 1" all around.  You can add a sliced onion to the top of the meat mixture and/or some red pepper flakes if you like a little heat.

Put the top half of the dough over the meat filled half and crimp the two halves together.  Make a design on the dough with a fork.

Bake in a preheated 365 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes or until browned.  You can brush the tops of the dough with butter half way through the baking time.

Remove from oven and serve.  The hawowshi shown above is served with tabboula salad and Egyptian koushari (a rice/lentil dish with garbanzo beans and macaroni).

The crust is nice and crispy and the filing is tasty.  I use lean ground beef as the extra lean makes it too dry.  The first time I ate hawowshi was years and years ago in Cairo.  It was at an outdoor cafe.  We just had finished eating at our table outside a large building when a lady on the balcony above decided to empty her wash bucket.  You can imagine the mess we barely missed....memories.  I can't recall what  part of the city this took place.

There's various ways to make this dish but this is my favorite.  Some people take store boughten  pita bread and open it and put the meat mixture in it and bake it.

For me the fun is making the homemade dough and eating it right away, hot from the oven.  I will share the recipe for koushari at another time.  Koushari is a popular fast food in Egypt.

I'm writing this up on a beautiful mountain and the air is so crisp and refreshing.  I'd love to hear from you if you have the time.  Until next time

My best wishes to everyone,

Pat