Log in to view your messages, post comments, update your blog or tracker.
Blog Owner
Archives
calling it quits
28 Apr 2015, 12:09
last week of DODO
26 Apr 2015, 21:51
too complicated
25 Apr 2015, 12:51
Apples
17 Apr 2015, 00:15
tomatoes on toast
15 Apr 2015, 00:03
DODO fast 2 and 3
12 Apr 2015, 13:50
New regime: Fast #1 of the DODO challenge
09 Apr 2015, 06:14
2nd Fastiversary
06 Apr 2015, 23:59
Cooking Middle Eastern food.
by Sallyo on 26 Jul 2014, 11:01
I have a new recipe book. It was one of those book club books you get in the staff room at work. I nearly didn't get it, but luckily my friend, Julie, did and she told me how good it was and I happened to walk into the office about a half an hour before the woman came to collect the orders and the books and I had the $12 in my purse. It all conspired. It is a huge hard back, Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook.
It starts with a chapter on Greece. This week we are eating Greek. Last night we had mussel pilaff. Tonight it was spanokopita. I have a lot of trouble using filo pastry. I swore I would stop trying to use it. We can't get it fresh so I have to get it frozen. But on the strength of this new book, I have decided to give it another go. This book says you have to leave it out of the freezer for at least 2 hours. So tonight, I get home at 5.15pm. I take the filo out of the freezer and I have to wait until 7.15 before I can begin to unwrap it and assemble the pie. I pick the silver beet from the garden. Now we have eaten the spanokopita and it was delicious, Now I have lots of filo pastry unfrozen and I have to use it up. Baklava? That gorgeous Greek custard pie?
It's great to have a new cook book. I am going to do a different country each week. Tomorrow it's a slow cooked beef stew. I have taken some shin out of the freezer. I think shin is like osso bucco. but I'm going to slow cook it in wine and tomato passata, cinnamon and currants, Yum. Then the following week we go to Cyprus. Then Turkey and then all the way as far as Afganistan.
There are chapters on Syria and my heart breaks for the people of Syria, Iraq and Gaza. It's so upsetting and there is that awful powerless feeling that goes with knowing about the awful things that are happening in those countries. Today I read that there is a huge gas field under Gaza and that Gaza could be as rich as Kuwait. Israel has an energy crisis. Can this be what it's all about? I simply can't believe that the Hamas rockets most of which Israel can destroy before they hit, can justify bombing UN schools, hospitals, tiny babies and children playing soccer on the beach. It's all too awful. And what can anyone in Tasmania do?