Category: Hopitality

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ARAB STYLE BURGERS

Burgers, now who doesn’t love burgers?! I’ve been craving them for weeks, especially the ones my parents made for me as kids. So I caved and went for it. Now burgers the way I had them growing up, were very different than the American ones.

Ingredients:

  • 4 lbs burgers
  • 1 bunch of parsley, finely chopped
  • 1 onion, puréed
  • 1 cup of carrots, puréed
  • Salt and Pepper, to taste
  • Baharat, to taste (I think I used about 1/4c)

Now, let me explain “Baharat,” because it’s gibberish to most of you. It literally translates to “spices,” in Arabic. In the Middle East, we are very proud of our spices. You’ll see shops everywhere you go, dedicated to them, usually easily identified by scent, blocks away. We have a few spice blends and this is probably the most common in use. It’s made up of black peppercorns, coriander, cumin, allspice, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, paprika, and nutmeg, but everyone has their own small variation and their own ratio of each. I’d recommend just going to your nearest Arab store and just buying the blend. I used some I had brought back from Israel.

I also made fries out of small red potatoes, which I quartered, boiled for 13 minutes, and then tossed in Johnny’s seasoning. I popped them into some hot oil until they were crispy and then tossed them in a bit more seasoning and some fresh parsley.

I made patties and cooked them on my George Foreman grill for a few minutes, but you can do them in a cast iron pan if you’d prefer. Or grill them outside. I wrap them individually and then freeze them to have whenever I want a burger! Enjoy!

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CINNAMON SWIRLED BANANA BREAD

Quarantine means more time to make yummy food, so I cranked some tunes and got baking last night! I also realistically can’t just make one loaf because let’s be real, I love sweet bread, so I doubled this recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup of butter, melted
  • 1 cup of granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3-4 bananas, mashed

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a bread pan and set aside. Mix together the wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients.
In a small bowl, mix together the following to create the swirl:

  • 2 tablespoons butter, melt
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of cinnamon

I altered this mixture, because I really didn’t need to double this part of the recipe because I had too much left over, so this should be a better adjustment for one loaf.

Once everything is ready, start by layering, banana mixture, and cinnamon sugar. Try and swirl it into the bread mixture before adding another layer.

Bake for 65-70 minutes and test to see if toothpick or knife comes clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 20-30 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

The whole house smelled like banana bread all night and this is absolutely my new go-to banana recipe!

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CRUSTLESS QUICHE

One of my go to breakfast recipes is a quiche because you can do SO many things to change them up and they taste like heaven! To cut down on time, I make mine crustless. It takes literally minutes to throw together.

Ingredients:

  • 8 eggs
  • A splash or two of heavy whipping cream (you can use milk, half + half, or a non-diary product instead if you prefer)
  • 2 cups of cheese
  • Salt + pepper to taste

Those are the basic ingredients just for a simple quiche. Here’s where it gets fun! I love making different variations and trying new combinations. The one pictured above has a dill havarti cheese, mushrooms that I had sautéed in garlic, rosemary, and thyme, and small strips of coppa, an Italian salami.

If that’s too fancy of a combination, you can stick to cheddar and ham, or spinach, mushroom, and feta. The great thing is that you can do what you want with it!

Grease a pie, pour it in and bake for 40 minutes at 375° or until the center doesn’t jiggle. The knife cleanest test is a good tool in this case! Store in the fridge for up to a week.

To properly reheat – which I’ve learned through much trial and error – is the following. Microwave for a minute and then finish it off in the oven. If you have a toaster oven, that’s perfect. Pop it in there at 400° for a minute or two and it’s as if you had just freshly baked it! The two step process is worth it because if you do one or the other, it’s either too soggy or too dry and cold on the inside.

Let me know in the comments below how yours turned out and what combination you did to step it up!

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Biscotti

Around Christmas, mia Zia Cindy baked up a batch of biscotti and I was in heaven. She shared this recipe with me and for Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be lovely to make a batch to share. It was quite a fun process!

First of all, make the dough ahead of time because it takes at least 2 1/2 hours in the fridge before baking. I made the dough the night before and baked them in the morning!

Ingredients:

  • 6 eggs
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 2 1/2 tsp of anise extract (can substitute almond, orange, or lemon extract)
  • 1/2 cup of butter or margarine, softened

Mix these wet ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

  • 5 cups of flour
  • 4 tsp of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1 cup of almonds, chopped

In a larger bowl, sift all the dry ingredients through a mesh strainer, minus the almonds. Slow mix in the wet ingredients using your hands to form a ball of dough. Once incorporated, mix in the almonds. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic and stick in the fridge up to 5 days.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Once ready to bake, cup the dough in half and form into 2 loafs approximately 2″x 12″. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until they are done on a greased cookie sheet on the middle rack. Pull out and carefully slice diagonally about 1″ and rotate on their sides while they are still hot.

Bake for 10 minutes on bottom rack. Flip over and bake 5 minutes on a high rack to toast slightly. Set out to cool for 5 minutes before eating.

I drizzled chocolate along the sides but you can dip one end if you’d prefer that or simply leave them plain. Drink with your beverage of choice!

Please let me know if you end up making them and how they turned out for you! Saluti!