Snowball Cookies
10 Jun 2011 6 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I’ve been thinking to make these cookies for ages subhanaAllah! I’ve been searching on line for days before finding (finally! Allahu Akbar!) the recipe!. I’ve tasted them a couple of times, from a plate of Moroccan Cakes… dry style cakes, with nuts, dates and some dried fruit too… how much I like them!!! I’ve always thought ‘if they are so nice mashaAllah, they must be very difficult to make’… well, no, I was wrong! Alhamdulillah! The easiest cookies ever, ready in half an hour and, as the recipe says ‘they taste better the next day”.. could you resist? I didn’t! And I think I’ll never do! LOL!
The recipe is from Cooking with Alia: Snowball Cookies
My attempt in pic (btw, I’ve joined together 4 or 5 cookies only)
Chocolate Cake with Coffee Cream
27 Nov 2010 9 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I know, you might think that this blog is starting to look like a ‘food’ blog… well, I’m just ‘inspired’ so here is my first attempt to bake a cake adding some cream (or sort of) to it 
The result? I was shocked! 
Did I make that?
Anyway, this recipe is for the chocolate & coffee lovers out there, those who appreciate the chocolate taste with an almost absence of sugar…. and enjoy the melting taste in their mouth of a 81% dark chocolate bar…. YUMMI! I love it! And do you LOVE coffee too? Well, try it then, insha’Allah 
Ingredients for a cake of about 20 cm
- 2 eggs
- 100gr of sugar (or even less)
- half cup of sunflower oil
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 1 & 1/2 cup of plain flour
- 1 sachet of baking powder
- 65gr melted dark chocolate bar
For the Coffee Cream
- 1 egg
- 2 & 1/2 tbsp of sugar
- 1 & 1/2 tbsp plain flour
- 200 ml of milk
- 1 tbsp instant coffee
Say Bismillah and then…
Mix well the eggs with the sugar. Add the oil, mix, then the milk, mix. Add slowly the flour and then the baking powder. Once it looks shiny and well mixed, add the melted chocolate (add some milk when melting it as dark chocolate gets solid faster). Place in a greased baking tin and then in the pre-heated oven at 180 C degrees for about 30/40 minutes. Check with a toothpick
Meantime, in a pot, on a medium-low fire, add the flour, sugar and the egg, and stir using a wooden spoon. Slowly add the cold milk and when it starts to harden, stir faster to avoid any lumps of flour. Boil for 2/3 minutes, add the coffee. Leave it to cool a bit before using it.
Once the cake is ready and cooled, cut it and spread the coffee cream in it. Sprinkle the top with icing sugar. The cake can be covered and kept in the fridge for about 2/3 days.
You can also make the Coffee Cream as an individual dessert. Just pour it into glasses and leave it in the fridge for few hours before serving.
Jamaican Chicken Curry, finally!
31 Jul 2010 4 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I’ve started to love Jamaican food since I’ve been meeting some sisters with that background masha’Allah! I’ve tasted that lovely chicken curry at the bazaars and subhanaAllah, I loved it! But I could never remember (as usual! 
) to ask for the recipe. So I’ve searched on line and found out different kinds of Jamaican chicken curry but with the difference of 1 or 2 spices, with or without coconut milk. So here is my “version”, hope you’ll like it insha’Allah! Also, keep in mind that making it, takes less than an hour
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 big onion (chopped)
- 2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- a full tbsp of freshly grated ginger
- 1 tbsp of all purpose spices
- 1 tbsp of curry powder
- 2 large potatoes
- 4 tbsp of vegetable oil
- 1 can of coconut milk
- salt to taste
- half tsp of thyme
Fry (until golden brown) the onions, garlic, thyme, all purpose spices & curry powder in the oil. Add the chicken cut in chunks and the ginger, cook for about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes (cut in big chunks), coconut milk and salt. Leave to cook on a low fire for about 30 minutes. Serve with rice.
Algerian Bread
15 Nov 2009 2 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
I’m posting the recipe of the bread I showed you HERE
I’m having problems to log in the forum where I took this recipe from, so I’ll give you a slightly modified one … basically, the way I make it
- 300 gr strong white flour
- 200gr fine semolina
- 300/350 ml warm water
- 7 gr instant yeast
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- some extra semolina (if coarse it’s better)
Place the flour, semolina, salt and olive oil in a large mixing bowl, set aside. Add the yeast to the warm water and mix well to activate it. Then add slowly the water to the dry ingredients, mixing with the other hand. Start to knead the dough… it should be done for at least 15 minutes. Add flour if it’s too wet or water if too dry but always add in small quantities. You can also add some nigella or fennel seeds to it. Once you get a nice and shiny dough, make it as a ball, cover it with a wet kitchen towel and place it in a warm place (under some covers it would be better ) for at least 1 hr.
Once the time has passed, take the dough, punch it to let the air go away and knead again separating it in 2 parts. Take a big oven pan or two individual once and sprinkle with semolina. Set aside. Push gently each dough until about 5 cm thick and pass them in some coarse semolina before placing them in the pan. Cover them again and let them have a rest for about half an hour. Then, add some olive oil on the top and place them in the pre-heated oven at 230°C for about 30/40 minutes, until golden brown.
Let me know sisters
From my new oven…
08 Nov 2009 9 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
I’m very happy to show you the first pieces of bread that I baked in my new oven (in my new flat), alhamdulillah!
That’s the recipe of Algerian Bread, all this is thanks to Henia! JazakiAllahu khayran! Nearly 1 year ago I took a recipe that she posted and I finally tried to make some bread! The first attempt was miserable… but alhamdulillah, with time I’ve improved, I guess 
….wishing to give you a piece! Ma’assalama!
Winter time and smell of dough
20 Oct 2009 9 Comments
in Family, Food, In my mind...
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
While trying to get back my life style, since we have been back from Algeria last Wednesday, I enjoy the winter time! Yes, winter is nearly on us insha’Allah!
It might sound strange for some of you but I love winter! I have some sweet memories related to this lovely period of the year, mostly family related. I remember when my sister and I used to spend whole cold afternoons playing together, we couldn’t go out, so we were having fun just the two of us masha’Allah! It wasn’t “always” fun, sometimes we were fighting too and I mean “real” fighting!! LOL! I still laugh when I remember that I was always (or mostly) the first one to “leave” the fight when we were both catching each other’s hair saying “Leave it!”…. “No, you leave it first!”… “No you!!!” and I was the one…. sab’r since I was little
Then those late afternoons when my grandma and mum used to make the dough for the evening pizza, I used to stay always at the side of the table watching… and trying to learn. And when it was ready to raise… straight to the bedroom, under the winter covers, with the light off and “Be careful! Don’t touch it!”. And after hours… it was ready to play with it 
Our kitchen table was full of dough, some was going to be an oven pizza and some fried pizza or pizza fritta (tipical from my city: Napoli)… I used to take some dough trying to make my pizza and help out, sometimes I was also playing just like the pizzaiolo (pizza chef) does in the pizzeria: throwing the dough in the air (and not always I was able to catch it ).
Here I am now, making dough for my family, sometimes for pizza and daily for our bread and alhamdulillah for having those memories! They are often passing in my mind during this days… I’ve been adviced more than once to leave the dough raise in the oven…. but no, I can’t, I’ve been growing with it and my dough will always raise under the covers, those are memories that will always be part of my daily life insha’Allah!!
Harira with Olives
06 Sep 2009 5 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
Harira, shurba, shurba frik, soup… I think I’ll never understand the difference among them, they call them in all the possible and different ways…
I’ve tried for the first time a soup that I love! An harira with olives, a couple of years ago, while I was passing the Ramadhaan in Algeria masha’Allah. They told me it was a soup they make in the city of Setif… wa Allahu a’lam, I like it anyway!
Here the ingredients (remember you can make it with any kind of meat, I just prefer it without, so it’s lighter):
- 1 potato
- 1 carrot
- 1 courgette
- 1 large onion
- half cup of passata (sieved tomatoes) or a tin of plum tomatoes
- 1 and 1/2 tsp of paprika
- 1 and 1/2 tsp of cumin
- 1 tsp of chilli powder (I use chilli flakes)
- 1 cup of pitted and cut green olives
- 1 veg stock cube
- 1 espresso cup of frik
- coriander
- salt & pepper
- olive oil
- lemon (to serve)
Add the olive oil in a large pan (I don’t know the quantity, about 4 tbsp I guess) and then the onion cut in big chuncks, leave it to cook on a medium heat for about 5 mins. In the meantime cut the veggies in big pieces (as you’ll have to blend them, so no need to waste time in cutting them in small pieces ). Add them to the onion, stir, add cumin, paprika, chilli, stock cube and some coriander, stir and leave them for few minutes, then add the tomatoes. After 5 minutes, add some hot water, enough to cover all the ingredients. Take the frik and leave it to soak in the espresso cup with some water (it will double in volume). When the veggies are soft and ready, blend them, then add the frik and the olives. Finish the soup adding some salt and pepper to taste and some fresh coriander. Leave to stand for about 15 minutes. Serve with some lemon. ((I hope I haven’t forgotten anything))
I personally like this soup ’cause it’s very refreshing (in my opinion) and then I love chilli
So far… a broken pot
01 Sep 2009 4 Comments
in Family, Food, In my mind..., Ramadhan
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
how is your Ramadhaan going? Khayr insha’Allah for everything!
Here in south London I’m having a kind of different Ramadhaan this year, under every point of view alhamdulillah! I feel always busy, always have something to do or to make (even if in my home, for iftar, we eat a little alhamdulillah).
I’m feeling every single minute of it masha’Allah! Then the athmosphere with my sisters in Islam at ICT… masha’Allah! The time spent while fasting trying to memorize … and then, when you are tested… you forgot everything!!!!!!
Well, the title of this post is not about this but what happened to me yesterday. I show you the picture of my lovely ex pot, the one I was always using to make shorba, harira and any kind of soup. The following is an Olives’ harira
I was so proud of that pot 
….yesterday, at around 6:30 pm, while I was ready to blend the soup, the pot broke down!!!!!!!!!!! And iftar here is at about 7:50pm… so no time to make another one! The whole base felt down and the soup with it! I had some harira all around the cooker and IN the cooker! You should have seen my face when it happened and to be honest, I wasn’t worried about the soup but about the fact that I had to clean afterwards!! In all this, we had some guests!! Alhamdulillah I had some shorba that my neighbour gave me the day before, so I had to sacrifice it for my guests, insha’Allah she’ll get more rewards
I leave you now, I need to get things ready and taraweeh is about to start in Mekka insha’Allah…. saha ‘ftorekhum!
Date and Walnut Loaf
16 Jul 2009 6 Comments
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
Some of you know that I love baking, especially cakes! I would like to start to make those creamy cakes to eat by spoon, rather than my usual spongy cakes but alhamdulillah I’m trying to find some new recipes, with different ingredients and for Ramadhaan, maybe, some new Algerian sweets insha’Allah
Here is the one I made yesterday, thinking it wasn’t going to be that nice instead… I loved it masha’Allah! Very easy to make too!
- 300 ml boiling water
- 225 g dates, stoned (pitted) and chopped
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 75 g butter or margarine, softened
- 1 cup of sugar (I used just half as the dates are already sweets)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 1/2 cups plain flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
Put the water, dates and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Cream together the butter or margarine and sugar until soft, then stir in the egg with the water and dates. Mix together the flour and baking powder, then fold into the mixture with the walnuts. Turn into a greased loaf pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 40 minutes.
YUMMI
A bag full of…
14 Jul 2009 3 Comments
in al-mujahid, Family, Food
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
few days ago I had some free samples of baby food, a bag full of stuff! The first thing I thought was “great” but then I opened it and I ended up keeping just 2/3 items subhanaAllah
Yes, it was baby food but LOTS of those ready meals (do they call them like this for babies as well???)
… they also gave some fruit, well it said 100% pure fruit but… I couldn’t do it, I felt guilty I mean, I have time to cook for my son or to make some nice fruit pureè or something like that so why? To be honest with you, for a second I thought about keeping the fruity thing but then… I put it away, alhamdulillah!
Sometimes I think I’m too strict, specially when I see other babies around me masha’Allah… do u think I am? :/
Ah, I would also like to link a post I read some time ago, written by Fatima in her blog masha’Allah: Amazing Motherhood
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