Baba Ganoush With Sfeeha( Meat Pie)

Baba ganoush and Sfeeha are traditional Middle eastern recipes. I know you might wonder by looking at my bread why it looks like this. Actually sfeeha is a meat pie, made in bread dough stuffed with meat, it usually has folds in the side, since I didn't give a proper fold, when the bread raised, stuffed meat became like a topping. So yeah it became a cross between pizza and pie.
Baba Ganoush is also well known Middle eastern dip. You can serve this pitta bread, tortilla or even normal bread. Baba Ganoush is made with mashed eggplant and different seasonings.
Baba Ganoush

Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves:2
Ingredients:
Eggplant- 1
Yogurt- 3 tbsp
Tahini- 1 tbsp
Lemon juice- juice of 1 medium sized lemon
Garlic- 3 cloves grated
Olive oil- 2 tbsp
Parsley or coriander leaves- 1 tbsp chopped
Salt as required
Method:
Preheat the oven to 250 degree celsius. Slice the eggplant into half, drizzle with olive oil. Roast it in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the skin looks blackened. Take out the eggplant, scoop the middle out, put it in a blender along with the other ingredients except parsley and blend it to smooth. Serve it in a bowl by sprinkling some parsley and drizzled with olive oil.
You can store the baba ganoush in a clean box for up to 1 week in your refrigerator.

Sfeeha( Meat Pie)

Preparation Time: 45 minutes( for dough and the filling)
Cooking Time: 1 hour( For the bread and the filling)+ rising time for the dough
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
For the dough:
White Bread Flour- 300 g/ 12 oz
Dried yeast- 1 1/2 tsp
Warm water- 120 ml / 5 oz( adjust accordingly when making the dough)
Sugar- 1 tsp
Olive oil- 2 tsp
Salt- 1 tsp
For the filling:
Minced meat- 200 g/ 8 oz
Paprika powder- 1 tsp
Ginger garlic paste- 1 tsp
Green pepper- 1 chopped
Onion- 1 chopped
Tomato paste- 2 tbsp
Olive oil- 1/2 tbsp
Salt as required
Method:
For the dough:
Mix all the dough ingredients to make it into a smooth dough. Place the dough in a clean oiled bowl and cover with a cling film, leave it in a warm place to rise for about 1 to 2 hours. Meanwhile prepare the filling.
Prepare the filling or topping:
Heat the oil in a pan, add ginger garlic paste and onion. Fry it till the onion becomes transparent. Then add the meat, paprika powder and salt. Mix it well, cover the pan, keep the heat in medium and cook till the meat is completely cooked. Add the chopped green pepper, keep the pan opened and cook till all the water dries out. Allow the mixture to cool completely.
Prepare the bread:

Take the raised dough, punch the air back. Divide the dough into 7 to 8 balls. Grease a 23 cm loose bottomed round tin. Place the balls in the pan leaving some space, flatten each ball with your fingers. Mix the filling with the tomato paste and keep the filling in the middle of each round. Cover the pan loosely with cling film and allow it to rise for another 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius.
Bake the bread for about 30 minutes.
Serve the bread warm with salad, yogurt, babaganoush or hummus.
Sfeeha and Babaganoush goes to Taste Of  Lebanon- Monthly Mingle hosted by Dirty Kitchen Secrets started by Meeta.

Sfeeha goes to Yeast spotting, Babaganoush goes to my own event Any One Can Cook .

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Any One Can Cook : Series 4

Hi Dear readers and food bloggers,
I can't believe it's been four weeks since I started this event. This is another successful fourth series. Thank you all dear food bloggers who support this event every week by sending your lovely recipes. I hope I'll get the same support  from you all in the oncoming series too.
If you are new reader to this blog, to view the event details please click here.
To view the previous series of the event click here

Just remember a few rules before linking your recipe, your recipe should fall under any one of the following categories. When you are linking your recipe here, please give the short form as I have mentioned to make it easy for the readers.

For Beginners- FB

With Less Ingredients- WLI

With Minimum amount of time- WMT

The link will be opened from Monday- Friday, so common let's make cooking easy....

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Eat Well Live Well, New Monthly event with a giveaway offer from CSN

I'm very happy to announce my new monthly event Eat Well Live Well with a giveaway offer from CSN stores. Before going to in about the event details let me first start with a giveaway. CSN stores is a very popular online shopping site which has more than 200 online stores. You can find anything whatever you need like a royal looking dinner set, stylish handbags or a nice barstool, bakeware, cookware, home decor, lighting etc...
All in one place with different price ranges, CSN offers a very good quality of products.
Looking for some stylish looking barstool check these out

or a nice breakfast bar chair in your kitchen to chat with your family and do the cooking, check these out.

CSN stores also has some classic dinnerware collections

Some stunning  collection of chandeliers

You can find everything in one place from kitchen utensils, dinnerware, bags and suitcase, home decor, furniture's etc.... To see all the products from CSN click here.


To enter the giveaway:
1. You have to submit a recipe for the event, you can see the details of the event below. Along with the recipe post, check the CSN site and give a link of the product which you like the most.
2. The giveaway is open to visitors only from US, Canada, Germany and UK, the event is open to everyone around the world.
3.One lucky winner will be chosen to receive $ 50 gift certificate for US or Canada, £ 35 gift voucher for UK or 40 euros gift voucher for Germany.
4. The event starts from Oct 17th and ends by Nov 30th

Next coming to the event..
EAT WELL LIVE WELL: Heart Friendly Recipes

I'm happy to announce this new  Eat Well Live Well event. This is not going to be every month, it might be every two months or 45 days once, it just depends upon my time constraints. I know there are lots and lots of event going on, sometimes I miss a few events. What I think is more events, more fun, more good food. This event is particularly aimed at healthy eating. Almost all the events which we have are aimed at healthy life style of food, but for this one I have decided to take some health related theme for each series. As long as we have something we always take it from granted, and once the moments we start loosing them we deeply regret for not taking care. This happens with everything like in our relationship, any thing, job, food, house, health etc....
 Technology has improved so much and the disease are also keep increasing inspite of all healthy life style which we try to adapt.
When we lose our health we lose almost everything, there is nothing can be more stressful when we are unable to do our own basic needs. The key or main important thing to maintain a good health is food.... Not just food, what we eat, when we eat are the most important. If you have a very good, perfect and healthy lunch and skip your breakfast and dinner doesn't help you maintain a good health.
Along with good food you should also have proper eating habits without skipping any of your meals. No matter how busy you are, take time to sit, relax and enjoy your every meal. I know it may not be possible if you are overloaded with work, but still you can try. If you have to spend some extra money for your good food, if it's affordable for you, without having a second thought, spend the money and have good food.
Right now coming to our first series of  Eat Well Live Well, I have chosen Heart Friendly Recipes as the theme.To keep your heart healthy along with good eating habit, you should also have good exercise and stress free.
To have a good diet you should know about the food groups, some of the foods you need more and some very less.
Fruits and vegetables has to be your first third of your diet.
Starchy Food has to be next third like rice, bread, pasta etc... use wholemeal as much as possible.
Protein should be the final third like meat, eggs, fish and other dairy products
High fat and sugar should be in very less amount.


Eat atleast two portions of oily fish every week to maintain a healthy heart.
Cut down the saturated fats like butter, margarine, coconut oil etc and replace it with unsaturated fats like olive oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil or soya oil, doesn't mean that you can eat chicken deep fried in olive oil.
Try to grill instead of frying.
Salt is one of the major cause of heart disease, cut down your salt level as much as possible.


Prevention is always better than cure, make a few changes to your life style to maintain a health heart. So come join with me and cook heart friendly recipes to care for you and your family, and share it with this event to help others to maintain a healthy diet.


The above all information regarding heart healthy diet is from British Heart Foundation, read more from here.


A few rules for the event:
1. Prepare a heart friendly food from now till Nov 30th and post it in your blog. Avoid red meat, saturated fats completely. As always recipes using pork and alcohol are not allowed. 
2. To enter the giveaway give a link about the product from CSN in your post.
3. If you are not from US, Canada, UK or Germany you don't have to give a link.
4. You can also send some informative articles regarding heart disease or diet along with the source of the article.
5. Give a link about this event announcement along with the logo in your post. You can send as many recipes as you wish. Archived entries are also more than welcome.
6.Email me recipe at ayeesha.riaz@googlemail.com with the following details:
Name:
Recipe name and Url:
Picture of the dish:
Country:
7. Non bloggers mail me your full recipe along with the picture to the above mail id.


The deadline is December 15th, hurry and send me your recipes soon to win the giveaway.


Any suggestions, concerns or comments are more than welcome. So come let's cook some heart healthy food and share it with our friend's and family. I hope I get a good response from all dear bloggers as always..

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Hazelnut Bread For World Bread Day

As we all know about Bread Baking Day started by Zorra which is very popular among all bread lovers. Every month a specific theme is given to bake a bread which I enjoy a lot to take part and wait for all the fresh roundup. World Bread Day is like an annual event by Zorra in which you can bake any bread with or without yeast and submit your entry for the event here.
 Till last every year every time I just look at the roundup of this event with some amazing collection of bread from all over the world, first time I take part in this event and I really wanted to make something good, when I think like this it always get messed up. The Bread I made today was supposed to be Hazelnut Twist Bread, but twist disappeared after baking, the shape of the bread disappointed me but the flavours didn't, the filling and the soft textured bread was simply irresistible....

Recipe adapted from the book The Bread by Christine Ingram.


Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 35 minutes + rising time : 1 1/2 hrs
Serves 8 to 10


Ingredients:
White Bread Flour- 450 g
Butter- 75 g
Milk- 200 ml
Yeast- 7 g
Egg- 1
Sugar- 75 g
Salt- 1 tsp
Finely grated zest of orange- 1 tsp
For the filling:
Ground Hazelnut or almonds- 75 g
Egg white- 1
Brown Sugar- 50 g
Grated Nutmeg- 1 tsp
For the topping:
Egg yolk- 1
Milk- 1 tbsp
Mixed crushed nuts- 1 tbsp
Icing Sugar- 3 tbsp
Hot water- 1/2 tbsp

Method:
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl. Heat the butter and milk in a pan until the butter gets completely melted. Make a well in the center of flour mixture, add the orange zest, egg and little by little the milk mixture to make a smooth dough. Place the dough in a clean, oiled bowl and cover it with a cling film. Let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Take the dough and the knock down the air back and divide the dough into two equal halves. Roll out each dough into a rectangle. Mix all the filling ingredients together and spread it on top of two rectangles. Roll each dough like a swiss roll. Join the two rolls and twist it up. Join both the ends to form a loop.
Grease a 23 cm round baking tray, place the loop in the pan and place a bowl in the middle of the loop. Cover the pan loosely with a cling film and allow it to rise for another 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius. Take the raised dough and remove the bowl from the middle. Beat the egg yolk and milk lightly, brush it on top of the bread and sprinkle with nuts. Bake it in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown on top.
For the icing, sift the icing sugar in a bowl and mix it with hot water, drizzle over the warm bread.

This bread goes straight to World Bread Day 2010.

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Blackberry Pudding : Eggless

If  you are looking  for some  pudding, which is very easy to make and without egg then you definitely have to go for agar agar or china grass. Agar agar is derived from a red algae. Agar means jelly in Malay( Malaysian language). This is something which is very popularly used in Asian countries for desserts. There are so many flavours you can introduce to this agar agar like coconut milk, different fruity flavours, chocolate, almonds and other nuts. You can also just make with water and sugar, pour it in different jelly mould to attract your kids.
To buy agar agar click here.

Cooking Time: 20 minutes
To set: Takes about 1 to 2 hours

Serves 4
Ingredients:
Agar agar- 2 tbsp of strands
Milk- 1/2 litre
Sugar- 4 tbsp( adjust according to your taste)
Pureed Blueberries or blackberries- 3 tbsp
Vanilla extract- 1 tsp
For the sauce:
Fresh Blueberries or blackberries- 100 g
Maple syrup- 2 tbsp

Method:
To puree the blueberries, take some fresh blueberries or blackberries, wash well and  puree it in a blender by adding little water and set it aside.
Then mix the agar agar and milk in a pan, bring to boil in a medium heat. Keep stirring continously so that it doesn't burn at the bottom.
When the agar agar looks completely dissolved in the milk, add the sugar and stir well. When the sugar gets dissolved, add the extract and switch it off from flame. Let it cool down for a while about 10 minutes.
Then add the pureed blackberries and mix well. Pour the mixture in a individual serving dish and let it set down or pour it in a big square dish, let it set and cut it into squares.
To make the sauce:
Add the fresh blueberries and maple syrup in a pan, heat it in a medium to low heat. Stir every now and then, once the fruit looks softened and mashed take it off from heat.
Just before serving, pour the sauce on top of the pudding and serve.
This recipe goes to Healing Foods : Agar Agar hosted by Kitchen Samraj started by Siri's corner.To my own event Any One Can Cook , Only Festive event hosted by Khaugiri started by Pari, CFK : Festive Food hosted by Veggie Platter started by Sharmi.

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Cinnamon Fantans

These fantail rolls look stylish and are so versatile that they can be good as a simple snack, for a weekend breakfast or even for gourmet dinner party. With the addition of buttermilk this bread is soft , you'll never stop munching this....

As usual this bread is also a recipe adapted from my book, The Bread.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes+ rising time 1 hour + 30 minutes

Makes 9 rolls
Ingredients:
White Bread Flour- 375 g / 13 oz
Butter- 65 g / 2 1/2 oz / 5 tbsp
Buttermilk- 75 ml / 5 tbsp at room temperature
Milk- 75 ml / 5 tbsp
Caster Sugar- 2 tsp
Dried yeast- 3/ 4 tsp
Salt- 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
1 egg lightly beaten
Method:
Sift the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the yeast and sugar, mix it up. Heat the 3 tbsp of  butter and milk in a pan until the butter is completely melted. Allow it cool down lukewarm.
Make a well in the center of flour mixture, add the buttermilk, egg and melted butter and milk. Knead the dough using a dough tool or hand until you get a smooth and elastic dough.
Place the dough in a clean and oiled bowl, cover with a cling film. Allow it to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Turn the dough to a floured work surface , knock the air and knead it until smooth and elastic. Roll it out into a rectangle of 45* 30 cm and 1/4 inch thickness.

Melt the remaining butter and brush it on top of the dough, sprinkle with cinnamon powder.. Cut the dough into 5 equal strips lengthways. Stack the strips on top each other and cut it into 9 equal 5 cm strips.
Grease a muffin tray.
Pinch one side of the layered strip together and then place the pinched side down in the muffin tray. Repeat with the remaining strips. Cover the tray with a lightly oiled cling film and allow it to rise in a warm place for 30  minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius. bake it in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until golden.
Turn it out to a wire rack to cool, dust it with icing sugar.

This recipe goes to yeastspotting, Champa's Bake- Off and to Hearth and Soul. This recipe also goes to Dish Name Starts With C by Akila.

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Turkish Lentil Rice

My first impression for this recipe was during Iftar, I had this in the mosque for the very first time, it was packed with full of flavours, although it contains very simple and less ingredients. I immediately asked my friend about this recipe, she said it's just rice and pasta( risi). I seriously have know idea where does the flavour for this rice comes from, but I simply love it.
Serves 4
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
Turkish white rice or parboiled rice- 2 cups
Brown Lentils- 1/2 cup
Risi- 3 tbsp( a types of pasta, looks slightly bigger than rice)
Butter- 1 tbsp
Salt as required
Method:
Cook the lentils until they are just cooked, don't let them change their shape or get mashed. Heat the butter in a pan, add the risi and fry until are light brown in colour. Add the washed rice, lentils and the pasta in a rice cooker along with salt and water. Cook until the rice is done.
Serve the rice with green chicken curry or any curry of your choice along with salad.

This recipe goes to Kids Lunch Box Treat by Taste Buds, Just another meatless monday and Any One Can Cook.

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