The Time We Spend for a Craving- Sesame Crackers

So this evening, I really wanted some crackers to eat with some cheese that I had in the fridge. Unfortunately, these things don't exist except in big cities. "What?!?" you say. Crackers? No crackers? None. They prefer sweets here in Morocco so the only salty snacks available in my town are popcorn and chips. Neither one really works as a good crackers and cheese snack. I thought about buying some bread, but I eat bread everyday and even toasted, it's still not a cracker. Bread and cheese is good, but I didn't want very many carbs... just a thin cracker was all I wanted.

Hmmm... What to do? I looked through our Peace Corps cookbook. I thought perhaps a very thin bread you could do on the stove would work. I looked through. I didn't want anything that needed time to rise. That eliminated many recipes. Finally I saw one for Sesame Crackers, discovered I had all the ingredients and set off to make them.

The dough was easy, though I did mess it up a bit. I added too much water and it was a sticky mess by the end. I had to add significantly more flour to balance it out. It worked.

Here it is:

Sesame Crackers- copyright the PC Morocco cookbook

2 cups flour
2 T sesame seeds toasted
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 T butter melted
2/3 C ice water
1/4 C Yogurt (I used the plain kind though it doesn't specify)

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together 2 times. Cut in the yogurt. Add the sesame seeds and melted butter. Mix it all up with the water until it forms a dough. Roll it out to 1/8th of an inch. Lightly greese cookie sheet and then bake it in a preheated oven- medium heat- until brown and crispy.

I found there was a lot of dough for one cookie sheet, so I slightly greesed aluminum foil and pulled it off the top of the cookie sheet for each one. This worked especially well as even the non-greesed parts didn't really stick.

These are really good. I recommend them to everyone who has a craving for sesame crackers. I will say though to all of you at home... if I were home, I would just go buy some sesame crackers.

Goat Cheese Bites! I cook again...

So, I decided that this entry needed 2 parts to the title...

I cook again...

Yes, I'm back. I didn't really cook during the summer because it got up over 110 degrees in my concrete oven of an apartment. Then my friend Diana moved here and she's a much more experienced cook than I. I learned a few tricks from her, but stopped being my usual experimental self. So, now that it's me here almost by my self (the new guy is in home-stay with a Moroccan family), I am cooking again! Tonight I made... Goat Cheese Bites. :-)

So this was a total experiment on my part. I had some idea that you could make a batter out of an egg white and some flour. Here's what I did:

• Took a round of goat cheese and cut it into 18 little wedges- not too thick, not too thin.
• Separated the egg white from the yolk.
• Beat the egg white until nice and frothy all the way through.
• Add a tablespoon of flour and a pinch of salt and pepper and beat them all together. It looks nice and thick when it's done.
• Use a spoon to carefully dip the delicate piece of cheese in the batter.
• Heat up some vegetable oil for frying (so get it pretty hot first).
• Drop it in the oil. When you see the bottom get a nice golden brown, flip it over.
• When the other side gets brown, it's done... stick it on a paper towel to absorb the excess grease.
  

Then I proceeded to experiment. I tried different kinds. Here are my favorites:

1. Goat Cheese and Herb bites- I whisked basil, oregano and thyme in the batter. Enough so that you could really see it in there but it was all mixed in well. Really good, but it gets better...
2. Add heated up confiture (jam) to the top of the Herb bites. I used apricot and it added a yummy dose of sweetness to balance out the sour goat cheese.
3. Mix a little bit (maybe a half spoonful) of honey into the batter for Honey Goat Cheese Bites. This is good too with the sweetness inside.

Here's an idea that my friend Jeremy had... I unfortunately cannot try this as we don't have raspberries here in my town. These would make a tasty and attractive appetizer if you put a little raspberry sauce on top with 1 or 2 fresh raspberries. Or maybe strawberry slices, or perhaps other fruit... You'd have to experiment to see what's your favorite.

Yum!

Peanut Sauce in the Land of Little Peanut Butter

So, I had nothing in the house to eat... or so I thought. I went scrounging around and found an old bag of peanuts... hmmm, I thought. Maybe I should make a peanut sauce. But peanut sauce often calls for peanut butter, not just peanuts. Well, I guess I should just make it my own way then. And I did.

The sauce turned out great, but I ate it with pasta. The pasta was just too bland to go with it. I should have used chicken or something- like chicken satay. That would have been amazing... but I was going with what I had. I should have eaten the sauce all on it's own. That would have been just fine.

The recipe I started with was on cooks.com and here is the link:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1715,129179-245193,00.html

I can't get the page to come up, so I hope I can remember what I did... of course, it's never going to be exactly the same.

Here we go:

5 tsp oil (to make up for the missing oil in the peanut butter along with the 4 it called for)
1/2 cup chopped red onion
2 T chopped garlic
1 cup water
1 tsp hot red pepper
3 T sugar
3 T vinegar
1/2 C peanuts- shelled (with the papery part off too)
(if there is anything I'm missing in the cooks.com recipe except for the peanut butter, I probably did use it... I just can't look it up right now- my internet is screwy.)

Anyhow, so I put the oil, red onion, and garlic in the blender. I also added just a hint of water (turn the fawcet on and off really quickly) because it wouldn't blend well without it. Once it was done blending, I put it in a sauce pan on the stove on low heat just like the recipe calls for. I then took the 1/2 cup peanuts and the red pepper (I just had a whole dried one... I estimated what 1 tsp would be) and put it into the grinder. I ground it till it was very fine, almost peanut butter consistency (it did start to come together, but I did not form a full peanut butter). When the pan started smelling like garlic and onion, I added the peanut and pepper mixture. I then added the cup water, stirred everything together with a whisk and let it thicken for about 10 minutes on low heat... When it came together I whisked in the sugar and vinegar. I started with 2 T like the recipe calls for, but thought 3 tasted better. Once it was all blended properly, it's done... taste to be sure it's to your liking, but mine was wonderful at this point.

Then, I added a bunch of pasta... Maybe if I only added a little pasta it would have worked, but I really think this is a better sauce for some chicken or something. It just added this starchy-flavorless substance that didn't really add anything and toned down the flavor. Is it okay? Yeah, but disappointing after the sauce worked out so well!

Verdict? The sauce is really good! But don't use pasta (or maybe try rice noodles). Chicken would be better.

Cheers!

Pepper on the Face- remedy for the pain.

Hi! So before I write about this Peanut Sauce I made, I thought I should say something about getting hot pepper on your skin, face, hands, etc.

Actually, It's quite dumb of me, but I have an awful habit of using just regular black pepper (taking a pinch with my fingers) and then forgetting and rubbing my eyes. I got it really bad the other day and it took at least 20 minutes of squirting my water bottle in my face in front of a fan and crying before it was bearable again.

So yesterday, I made that peanut sauce. It calls for hot pepper and I have some dried up red peppers. I took the red pepper and crushed it a bit and then ground it up with the peanuts into everything was very small. Of course I used my hands to split up parts of the pepper, put seeds in the grinder, etc. I even used my (scrubbed clean always) fingers to get some of the peanut/pepper mixture out of the grinder. Somehow, I don't know how, the pepper ended up making it way to the backs of my hands. They started itching a bit, but I didn't think much of it- it wasn't severe. I had an itchy nose... I scratched it. I washed my hands both before and after I scratched it.

I didn't realize how potent the stuff in peppers can be. Despite washing my hands, about 30 minutes later, my face around my nose- top, sides, just around the edges... BURNING. I'm so thankful that my eyes didn't itch!!! They were okay, but still watering because of the pain that was my entire nose area. It was bad. I couldn't see that well, but I found my water bottle and started spraying and standing in front of the fan. Didn't really work... I crashed around till I got to my computer and I sprayed as I one-hand googled hot pepper remedies. I got some suggestions that were just insane- especially on my face (like bleach!!!). I saw milk, so I poured some on a napkin and it worked a bit, but only while it was touching the area... as soon as it dried, burn was back.

What worked finally? (Hamdullah!!!)

Vodka... I had a little in my fridge. It said to try alcohol so I soaked a napkin in it and rubbed my face like I was using rubbing alcohol as a cleaner. It took a minute, but it worked.

Lesson learned?

When you handle peppers with your bare hands, DO NOT RUB YOUR FACE even after you wash your hands... The stuff takes quite a while to come off. My hands just itched, but on sensitive skin, like your face, it hurts much worse. Next time I'll use the alcohol on my hands. I read that the heat in peppers is caused by an oil substance that won't necessarily be cut by regular soap, but alcohol should be effective... It is. Yayyy!

Easy Peace Corps Cream of Mushroom Soup

Are there cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup available here? Maybe in the cities... I don't know.

So, I royally screwed this one up, and it still turned out really good. That's a good sign.

I got the idea for this recipe from this crockpot blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/search/label/soup

However, my recipe isn't even close. It just inspired me to try making my own. Unfortunately I have never seen fresh mushrooms here in the desert. I used a can. Here's my version...

2 c water
2 boulion cubes (I used chicken, but vegi or beef would probably be good too)
A big pinch of salt, pepper, oregano, and basil
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 can mushrooms (smaller can, drained)
1/2 liter milk

Put the water, boulion cubes, spices and mushrooms in a pressure cooker. Heat on high and stir until boulion cubes start to dissolve. Close the lid tightly and when it starts making noise, lower the temperature to low. Pressure cook for about 20 minutes. When 20 minutes is up, open the pressure cooker and put the soup in the blender. Slowly add the milk and blend together. Yum!


If you're paranoid about spoiled food like I am, you can boil the milk ahead of time to make sure it's good. Not really necessary for taste, but who wants to ruin a soup with spoiled milk?

Okay, so what was my big mistake? I left the pressure cooker going for about 40 minutes. It started smelling a little different, so I took it off right away and opened it up... it wasn't burned, but there was no liquid left and the mushrooms were stuck in this brown stuff on the bottom. I panicked a bit because this was all the food in my house for lunch and I quickly added some water and stirred. I scraped all the stuff off the bottom and stirred it into the water which started to look more broth-like. Then I put it in the blender (it started smelling more broth-like too which was good) and followed the steps with the milk. It's still good!!! Yayyy. Very good actually! I'll DEFINITELY make this again... especially since it's easy to find canned mushrooms in my town. I love mushrooms, but not the rubbery, canned kind. Making a soup like this takes away that aspect and you still get the lovely flavor. :-)


In addition:
I added this later on because there are 2 things I would do slightly differently.

1. 1 more can of mushrooms... and perhaps less milk... I want it to be more mushroomy
2. Add a hint of butter for a creamier flavor... right now it's just milky

IMPORTANT- Pay Attention Morocco People! EGGS!

Hey! So I bought 6 eggs today and they were ALL bad. Don't forget to use that float trick... fill a glass of water and gently drop the egg in. If it floats, it's bad.

All 6! I was kind of annoyed but glad I didn't eat them. Watch out, PC Morocco!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I haven't been doing much baking lately, but I haven't seen my host family in 2 weeks. Whenever it's been awhile and I'm feeling guilty about it, I make them treats. I had all the stuff for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, but I'm only so so about the recipe in the Peace Corps Morocco cookbook. I think that's because I have in the past used baking powder instead of baking soda, but still I wanted to try another.

So I googled for recipes... some called for shortening which I don't have, some called for other things... they all looked about the same. Then about 6 down the list, I saw:

http://www.ghirardelli.com/bake/recipe.aspx?id=1028

I am a big ghirardelli chocolate fan and I thought any recipe that comes off a site for expensive chocolate must be decent. It is a good recipe and it's simple. Hope my host fam likes them. :-) (I'm sure they will! They like all kinds of sweets!)

Pretty darn good Mac 'N Cheese

Hey guys... so tonight I decided just to throw together some mac and cheese. I figured I was ready to move to non-recipe for something simple. Yesterday I tried, but apparently my milk was bad. It curdled as it heated. I had to scrap that batch. Here's my recipe... I hope I get the amounts right because I was just guestimating stuff in the kitchen.

1 cup dry macaroni
3 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp butter
2 triangles Laughing cow Red (or you can use velvita in the US... maybe 2 large Tbsp)
2-3 Tbsp Fromage Rouge/Red Ball (Edam in the states- something a little harder that melts well... maybe cheddar would work?)
1/8 C milk (hope that's right... I didn't use much)
1/4 tsp + 1 tsp Salt
Cheyenne Pepper or Pepper

Start up the macaroni- macaroni, the tsp of salt, and water on the stove, bring to a boil at higher temperature and then lower the temperature. Boil until macaroni is perfectly soft. If it's finished before the sauce, strain it and put it aside.

While the pasta is going, either dice up or press the garlic, and put it in a sauce pan with the butter. Turn the heat on low. When the butter melts and the garlic starts to brown slightly, add the milk. Then start adding the cheese continuously stirring. Add the Laughing Cow triangles, and slowly add the Fromage Rouge. You may want to shred the Fromage Rouge- I just cut it into pieces. Stir in the salt (optional- it was probably fine without it... the cheese makes it salty enough) and some pepper to taste. When the cheese is completely melted and the consistency looks good, pour it over the pasta in a bowl. Mix it up until every piece is coated.


I know it's simple, but I know some of you guys don't really cook either, so simple is not a bad thing. :-)

Cheers!

No way! Popcorn Continued!!!

So unbelievably, because nothing like this ever usually works out, my first try with soaking the popcorn in water worked (for those of you not up to speed, I was having a stale popcorn issue). I soaked it for about an hour and then let it dry completely. I now have popcorn with significantly less kernels.

So if you're craving popcorn and your town only has stale old stuff, buy some, soak it for an hour, let it dry and you're good to go.

Amazing!

Stale Popcorn- boo!!!

So I haven't written anything in a little while because I'm having difficulty being in my kitchen. It's always around 100 degrees in my house. I did make a salad the other day that I loved, but I didn't really modify it so much. Most of the ingredients are here in Morocco, so no need. It's fabulous! Here's the link:

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/005223napa_cabbage_picnic_salad.php

I didn't use everything in the salad... just cabbage and carrots but the dressing is delicious.

Popcorn is one of my favorite snacks both here and in America. There is a popcorn guy that usually has it but lately he's been dry. To get my fix, I bought some at the large hanut (country store) in hopes that maybe it isn't stale despite the warnings of one Rachel Beach, my predecessor. Well, of course, it is. This means that when you pop it on the stove, the kernels don't open up very much... they blacken and just barely crack. As much as I love burnt kernels (and I actually really do), who wants an entire bowl full of them?

There must be a way to get the moisture back in the popcorn. I'm going to try 2 things and I'll let you know how it goes. I'm first going to try soaking them and letting them dry completely. I'm also going to try putting some of them in an open container in my fridge. I read the second one on the internet. I'll let you know if one of these methods works.

Cheers!

It's cheddar, baby!

Wow, so I cut open the cheddar round today. It definitely tastes like cheddar. It is really good actually. I think because of the climate it may have dried too much (by the time it formed a rind like the recipe suggested part of the center dried out too) but it tastes like cheddar. It does need a few more months to develop flavor I think, but it's there and so exciting! It ages from 4 weeks to 6 months and I broke it open in 5 weeks.

Can you tell I'm excited? It's cheddar. Woo!!!

www.cheesemaking.com

This is the site where I bought my cheese kits. There is a Mozzarella and Ricotta kit that makes Fresh Mozz and a hard cheese kit that you use for cheeses like Feta, Jack, and Cheddar. They DO ship to Morocco and it's not outrageous.

Cheers!
Kate

Back from America

Hello! I'm back from America. I hope you all haven't given up on me with my long absence. I promise I'll have some fabulous new recipes too and It's time for me to try my cheddar cheese. Yayyy... I'll let you know how that goes.

Kate

To America, the Land of NY Pizza- lime/cilantro chicken soup recipe

I know, I know... New York is the land of NY pizza. But I liked the sound of this title better than New York is the land of NY Pizza. Duh!

So I am going to America where I plan to eat in lots of restaurants. I want pizza, a ham, egg and cheese bagel sandwich, a nice Italian dinner (though there is a pretty good, decently priced place in Kech), my favorite sandwich (fresh mozz, turkey and lettuce on a roll with balsamic vinaigrette), Chinese takeout, and a Greek diner for a Greek salad and/or a big, greasy American breakfast. Fun stuff.

I won't be posting for about 2 weeks, so I thought I would leave you with a much requested recipe for a lime/cilantro chicken soup. I wrote it up in a letter to my family, so I'm pretty much just going to copy and paste.

The first part is a copy of the recipe on the internet. The second is my modifications and how I did it in Morocco.

Oh and for citations sake, I did mention Epicurious.com, but I did not mention that the chicken broth I made was a modification from the recipe in the PC Morocco Cookbook.


Hello fam! As you know, I've been cooking vast amounts of food, and the other day I made a soup that everyone(at least the Americans) loved. I know you all cook so I thought I'd share. It's called lime/cilantro soup. I found the recipe on Epicurious.com and made some necessary adjustments for Morocco. I'll give you the recipe and then tell you what I did differently just in case you want to make the Moroccan version. :-)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped (I used a red onion)
2 garlic cloves minced
1 tablespoon chili powder (this gives it a kick which I love though Jenn, you may want to do less- I used Cheyenne Pepper instead)
2 skinless boneless chicken breast halves cut into 3/4 inch pieces
5 cups canned low-salt chicken broth
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup chopped seeded tomatoes
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro sprigs, tied together with kitchen string

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
Sour cream (opt)

The Recipe:
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, saute until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add chili powder, stir 1 minute. Add chicken, stir 2 minutes. Add broth, corn, tomatoes and 1/2 bunch cilantro sprigs to saucepan; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Discard cilantro sprigs.

Add chopped cilantro and lime juice to soup. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with sour cream.

What I did:
I have to make my own chicken broth/stock so I took a kilo of chicken (about 2 pounds?) with the bones and everything and roasted it with salt until it was cooked. I then picked all the meat off the bones, put it aside and put the bones, skin and fat (whatever was left over) into the pressure cooker (you can use a pot but this takes several hours then). I added 16 cups of water and started the stove. Heat until it boils and if there is any foam on the top (the dark fat stuff) then skim it off. Add 2 heaping teaspoons salt, 2 large chopped carrots, 1 chopped onion, a small bunch of fresh cilantro, 3 garlic cloves, 1 tsp pepper (fairly heaping) and some rosemary (my recipe says 1 teaspoon, but I probably put 3 in). Close the pressure cooker lid and wait until the pressure raises and then turn down the heat. Leave it going for about 30-40 minutes or so. W/out a pressure cooker, just keep it lightly boiling covered for about 3 hours... taste to see if it's like chicken broth. When it's done, strain it and throw out all the solid stuff. I used about half of it for this soup and froze the other half for another soup sometime.

I started the recipe just like it says, but I used carrots instead of tomatoes and corn (the carrots soak up the lime nicely). I used Cheyenne pepper instead of chili powder and a little less than it says (though not much). I didn't add the 1/2 bunch cilantro because the chicken stock was made with it. I used about 6 1/2 cups chicken stock. I didn't cook it for 10 minutes because the chicken was already cooked well- maybe 5 to make sure the flavors came together and added the cilantro and lime juice towards the end stirred in for about a minute. It was very flavorful and yummy! I didn't use sour cream (we use natural yogurt as a substitute and I didn't know how that would taste) but I'll bet it would be good. :-)

Just wanted to share! I'll definitely make this one again.

The Best Potatoes Even Better- Day 2!

So today I heated up the potatoes. I think they were even better than yesterday. Even if you're back home and have a microwave, try this...

Put the potatoes in a baking pan and flatten them out. Shred cheese on the top and put them in the oven (lower temperature so they heat throughout) until the cheese melts.

Yummm...

Best Freaken Mashed Potatoes EVER!!!

Okay, so at least I think they're the best mashed potatoes ever. It took me a few tries to get them exactly the way I like. Here's the recipe (I'm just giving you the amounts I used this time in recipe format, but it makes a lot... you can cut it down pretty easily).

6 large potatoes
4 large garlic cloves
1/3 C + 3 Tbls butter
1 C Redball cheese aka Fromage Rouge aka Edam
2 containers yogurt without sugar (danon bla skkar)
(2 containers is about a cup... a bit less. I measured out each container once and found it to be a little under half a cup.)
1 1/2 tsp + 2 tsp salt
1 heaping tsp pepper

Wash and cut the potatoes into medium sized squares. I try and leave on as much skin as possible, but it's your call. Cut out all the eyes. Use the 2 tsps of salt in a pot filled with water. Add the potatoes and boil them until they fall apart pretty easily under a fork (but don't fall apart by themselves in the boiling water). This takes a bit of time... be patient. If they're underdone, they will be difficult to mash.

While the potatoes are cooking, dice up the garlic. Saute it in the 3 Tablespoons butter till it just barely gets brown.

When the potatoes are done, drain the water. In a separate bowl, add the potatoes, the buttery garlic, the butter (1/3 C), the salt and pepper, and the redball cheese. Start mashing together with a fork or whisk (and if you have easier tools, lucky you). It's quite a job so I use both and go crazy.

After everything is pretty smooshed, I add the yogurt. Mix and mash it in well until everything looks blended.

These are so yum... I'm eating them now. :-) Seriously, try these! Oh and the amounts aren't exact... I just threw stuff in there and then estimated about how much it was, so feel free to play around.

I dedicate this recipe to my buddy and regionally departed friend, Aaron Grant, and my friend/sitemate/housemate Mona. Cheers, guys!

Argan Oil- my new love...

I had never heard of this stuff in the US. Then I came to Morocco and only knew that it was expensive, Europeans buy it for anti-aging properties, and that it's made from goat poop. (please keep reading- this is a RUMOR!)

I work in the Small Business Development sector here in Peace Corps Morocco. I love this sector because I'm fascinated by new and interesting products... especially artisan stuff. How it works(in my sector)... we all get assigned to towns where our job is to get to know the people, integrate into our communities and work with local artisans. I have weavers in my town. Another girl just happens to work with an Argan Oil co-op.

So we had a training in Agadir not long ago and she brought many of her fantastic and wonderful products with her. I took some time to learn about the process. I was also looking for some interesting gifts for family and friends when I travel back to America in a few weeks.

Here's what I learned:
1. Argan oil (atleast at her co-op- I can't speak for others) is NOT processed from goat poop. Here's the rumor... Argan nuts come in an extremely hard shell that cannot be broken up without first being processed through the digestive track of a goat. Then the women go through the fecal matter sorting the seeds and processing them into oil. Actually, the nuts are NOT impossible to crack open as they do in this co-op. They are NOT collected out of goat poop.
2. The difference between facial and edible Argan oil is whether or not they roast the nuts. The facial oil will have more of a yellowish tint which comes from fresh nuts. The edible oil is made from roasted nuts.
3. This stuff is really expensive because it's a time-consuming and difficult process. You need a lot of nuts for just a little oil.

So, when I got back from my training, I decided to taste it. I mean, I couldn't really justify giving it out as gifts if I thought it tasted awful. Well, I loved it. It's so nutty and would be great in something. Definitely on salads, and maybe cooked into something(though I don't think you can heat it up really hot- mostly it's just a flavoring oil).

I am interested in finding some good recipes so I went looking online... I found 5. Is that really all? A chicken salad, some couscous and a few Moroccan tajines... I guess I have to learn to make good tajine anyway before I go home. Maybe I'll get to be a really good cook after awhile and invent something fabulous. Stay tuned...

American Diner Hash Browns in Southern Morocco

Diner Hash Browns... Oh so bad for your health(potatoes shredded and fried in butter)... but they taste so good!!! I had a craving for some good hash browns the other day. I've made these twice already and it took me some time to get them right... that middle ground between mushiness and crispiness, just the right saltiness and flavor...

All you need: a potato (for one), butter, salt and pepper. Now I actually add some Cheyenne pepper to mine too for a little heat and I like to eat my hash browns with ketchup and some hot sauce.

1. Wash, peel and shred the potato.
2. Squeeze out the water and let it sit to dry for a few... you don't want watery hash browns! You want these to crisp up. I actually add a touch of salt at this time and mix it in with my hands as I squeeze out the water.
3. Use a few tablespoons of butter... be generous (if not health conscious) because you want that nice brown crispiness. Melt on low heat. Since my low heat is a gas burner, you may want to go up a bit on an electric stove... your call. You want to melt the butter without burning a lot of it off.
4. Put the potatoes in and flatten them with a spatchula (I know this is spelled wrong, but my spellchecker cannot identify the correct spelling... sorry). Let them fry slowly.
5. Salt, pepper and spice the top. Divide the mass into spatchula-sized pieces and flip them over after you see that it's holding together more on the bottom... if you can see a bit of brown on the bottom, that's a good time.
6. When the other side is done, you have some yummy hash browns.

Notes-
1. As with most breakfast potatoes, slower cooking will make sure the insides get cooked along with the outsides. Otherwise you might have a nice brown outside and still uncooked potato inside. It's less likely to happen with hash browns (than say with homefries), but I've managed it before. Hey, I'm learning!
2. Hash browns take more salt than you'd think. Be careful not to over salt as usual, but I think this tastes better with salt really mixed in and dissolved (rather than when it's added after the fact). I think I added like a half tsp. when I was drying out the potato a bit and then almost (not quite) a tsp later sprinkled on top... It was not too salty and that's just for 1 large potato. Taste, taste, taste...
3. The potato doesn't have to be THAT dry... you don't need to leave it for like an hour or anything, but try to squeeze out the excess water.

Enjoy the hash browns! :-)

The Country with Little Takeout- Chicken Fried Rice!!!

Morocco is the country of little takeout. I'm quite certain it exists in the cities... I had Pizza Hut to-go when I was in Agadir last week, and I've seen it in Marrakesh too. The food is definitely good here, but I really do love my Chinese takeout. That is one thing I have to get when I go home along with NY Pizza, Italian food, and a bagel for breakfast.

...but for now, I do what anyone who has a dire craving for something completely inaccessible does... I make it myself! So I decided tonight was a good night for Chicken Fried Rice.

Now, this is not a terribly difficult dish, so don't get too excited when I say I made it from scratch. It contains pretty basic ingredients. To flavor the ingredients, I used soy sauce and sesame oil. Here's how I did it...

First thing, I made the rice. I used ruz glasse (pretty normal rice for you Americans, but we have 2 kinds here... the kind that gets soggy, and the kind that doesn't get as soggy. No sticky rice unfortunately). I put it in my pressure cooker 2-1 water-rice. I let it boil, covered the pressure cooker and then estimated about 6 minutes. When it finished, the water wasn't all completely absorbed, but I wanted slightly undercooked rice anyway. I did leave it on to boil for another minute. The water wasn't completely gone, but like I said, no overcooking of the rice... It should be just about done, but firm still.

Next, I drained the rice and put it in a flat-ish bowl. I wanted it to dry out a bit. The air is pretty dry here, so that doesn't take long... I just left it out a bit and mixed it around so the bottom would dry.

Here in small-town Morocco, we get our chicken from the chicken guy who either already has a stock of freshly killed chicken or he kills a chicken as you wait... What a service! :-P Eewww. I'm carnivore to the bone and I even think it's kinda gross to watch. Anyway, cut the meat off the bones and slice it into fairly small pieces. I put some vegi oil in a pan and started to fry the little bits of chicken. As it cooked, I added a splash of soy sauce and sesame oil.

After the chicken cooked (slightly brown on the edges), I sent it aside in a bowl. I then took my chopped vegis (I used onion, green pepper and carrots but it's your call) and threw them into the oil and fried them for a minute. After they started looking done I threw in more sesame oil, and soy sauce and then the rice went in. I poured a bunch of soy sauce on top of the rice and kept mixing it around until it browned from soy sauce and cooking. Make sure to keep it from burning on the bottom of the pan. (though I love it when the rice gets kinda crispy brown... that's more than okay!)

I love a bit of egg in my fried rice! So I scooted as much rice out of the center as I could, added a tad more vegi oil and cracked 2 eggs in there (I made a ton- usually 1 suffices). Once they started to cook on the bottom, I mixed them in with some of the rice and kept stirring everything around.

Finally when it was all hot and browned and yummy smelling, I added back in the chicken.

Result? Really tasty... I did have to add a tad bit more soy sauce later, but not much. Next time I would do it the same way, but maybe add more vegis and not so much rice. Also, I heard there is a trick using chicken broth for added flavor. I like the way this tastes though. Check out the photo below. Looks good, doesn't it?

Sesame Salad Dressing

Hello! I'm back from my lovely training/vacation. It was so fabulous. My host sister made me this fish Tajine that was to die for! I'll learn how to make it the next time I'm there.

For now, here is something I found online... I went looking for a good salad dressing recipe using the ingredients I have (all available here in Morocco for all the PCV's on here).

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/japanesesaladdressing/r/sesamedressing.htm

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsps rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp ground white sesame seeds

Preparation:

Mix all the ingredients other than oil in a bowl. Add oil gradually into a bowl and mix well. Makes 2 servings


It's pretty easy. I just used the vinegar that is available at every hanut (the clearish bottle with the yellowish stuff in it) and toasted sesame seeds rather than ground white ones. The result is pretty good, and tangy. I used 2 different types of lettuce that I found at the market... which is amazing because we rarely have 1 type of lettuce. In any case, it tasted better after it sat in the fridge for a few minutes.

I bought a vinaigrette at the super marche (supermarket) and this stuff is way better. Anyone want a bottle of mediocre vinaigrette? I'd hate to waste it.

Sometime this week: BBQ ribs!!!

Goat Cheese Pizza Pockets

Since I won't be writing anything for about a week, I thought I'd give you one of the favorite things I made so far... Goat Cheese Pizza Pockets. I have to make them again and I will, but it's always quite the process... especially if I make fresh Mozzarella to go inside.

You can make this with meat or not. I used a meat sauce since I already had one frozen. I love them with a good meat sauce. I tried them later with just red sauce which is also good.

Start by making the dough which needs to rise. I used the pita bread recipe from the Peace Corps Morocco cookbook. There are no names used to credit an individual person for this recipe, so I'll just credit it to the cookbook (which is fantastic).

1 1/2 t dry yeast
1 t plus 2 t honey
1 c warm water
1 1/2 t salt
3 c flour
oil

Dissolve yeast in water with 1 t honey. Let stand for 5 minutes. Add remaining honey, flour and salt, mixing until well combined. Turn out and knead for 10 min. Add more flour if the dough is sticky. Oil a mixing bowl, place dough in it and lightly oil dough surface. Let rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours covered.

After that, you're supposed to divide it and roll them up a half inch thick. Instead, I divided them by however many "pockets" I wanted... I'll get back to this part later.

While the dough is rising, make the sauce. For a meat sauce, I cook the meat in a little bit of oil and add it to the sauce after it cooks together for a bit.

For a good sauce, I saute garlic and onions in olive oil until the onions are slightly softer and the garlic is just starting to get brown (if you let it get too brown it will start having kind of a burnt taste after it cooks awhile... some people like this- like the brown onions on bagels, but I don't prefer it for a sauce). Then I add tomato paste and let it break down for a minute. After that, I add tomatoes (peeled if you don't like the peels), and let them break down for a few. I generally use just a little tomato paste and lots of tomatoes. Add oregano, basil, salt and pepper as you go. I like a touch of heat so I'll add some hot red pepper or dried crushed red pepper. I let everything meld together for quite a while. If it gets too thick add a little water. You don't want it too thin for these pizza pockets though.

When the dough is ready, split it into however many portions you want to make (though you don't want to make them too big. Maybe make 6 or more with this amount of dough). Roll them to about a quarter of an inch, or maybe slightly thinner. I put red ball cheese(Edam or whatever else you might want... this is what we have in Morocco), then the meat sauce, then a few chunks of goat cheese in the center. I wrapped the right and the left side over the top overlapping, and then folded up the ends pinching them (so they look like a pizza pocket).

I lightly greased a cookie sheet with olive oil and placed all the pockets on it. I preheated the oven to about 200 degrees C... not very hot because you want the insides to get hot as the dough bakes. When they are browned on the top, flip them over for a few minutes. When the other side is slightly browned, they should be finished... careful, they will be hot on the inside... but SO GOOD!!!

Notes From my "Book"

Before I decided to have this little blogging adventure, I started keeping a food journal. There are some worthwhile entries in here that I thought I should share. I made quite a number of things before deciding to take it public. I had varying degrees of success.

1. Fresh Salsa
2. Ranch Dip (not the powdered stuff)
3. Pita Bread
4. Pizza Pockets
5. Pizza
6. Lasagna
   
7. Red Sauce
8. Pita Chips (a good use for the failed Pita Bread experiment)
9. My mom's chocolate no-bakes (my fave... finally got it down here in Morocco)
10. Hash browns
    
11. Mashed Potatoes
    
12. Breakfast Burritos
13. Flour Tortillas (to go with the burritos)
14. Pretzels
15. Matar Paneer (Indian pees and cheese- yes I made the cheese too)
    

I'm sure there were probably others, but these were some of the more noteworthy items in my book. I won't tell you what I did to make all of them... This would be a ridiculously long blog entry. I will tell you that the Ranch Dip wasn't exactly Ranchy enough... too much garlic. I didn't have powder so I had to use fresh. The pita bread didn't turn out like pitas (there wasn't really a pocket) though they made yummy chips. Pizza pockets were a real favorite of mine as well as the others who were there to eat some. I did it once with goat cheese and Edam, and once with Mozz and Edam. I think the goat cheese was my fave. So good! The no-bakes are an absolute must... I will post that recipe! I love them and they're so great for a chocolate fix. You can get all the ingredients here in Morocco. The mashed potatoes- I've made them so many times that I think I've perfected the amounts to my liking (and others too... they didn't last long at all). Breakfast burritos rock and I can do pretty good flour tortillas at this point. The Pretzels were great with garlic, Parmesan cheese, and sesame seed toppings. Finally, the Matar Paneer wasn't exactly Matar Paneer as I didn't have the right spices but it was pretty good never the less. The Paneer (the solid cottage cheese) turned out well and fried nicely, but next time I'd leave it on a little less... it was a bit too brown and didn't absorb the other flavors at all. I used curry powder and the flavors worked... it just wasn't like restaurant Matar Paneer.

So anyway, some of these recipes are definitely worth their own blog entry and I'll get there shwea b shwea (little by little). I'd hate to divulge all my new tricks so early. Plus, I'll be training all of next week in a town called Agadir and won't be cooking a thing.

Cheers!

Say Cheeeessssse

Though I didn't cook anything of note tonight, I thought I should update you all on my cheese-making. Making cheese is quite a process, and I'm not sure it would be worth it (besides just being able to say that you know how to make cheese) in the US. It would cost just as much money if not more to make your own cheddar as to buy it. I make an exception to that with Fresh Mozzarella which is relatively simple, fun, and so freaken good.

Alas, here I have no cheddar... and I love it. It's one of my favorite cheeses. So I made cheddar the other day.

Now I made Mozzarella twice before trying the process for cheddar. Fresh Mozz might be one of my favorite things in all the world. Nothing is ever simple here in Morocco, but it only takes about 45 minutes to make and it's WORTH IT!!! The first time was a real challenge. Our milk here comes in little baggies, so after I figured out how many little baggies are in a gallon, I started the process. To make it you use this stuff called rennet, milk, citric acid and salt. You dissolve the rennet tablets in water (a quarter of a tab in this case), mix the milk and citric acid together, heat the milk to a certain specific temperature (88 degrees) and then mix in the rennet. You let it sit until it curdles (it doesn't take long at all), and then start the process of making it into stretchy Mozzarella.

This is a process that is really easy if you have a microwave to reheat the cheese and not so easy if you don't- like me in morocco. It's messy and hot (since I also have no thick rubber gloves) so I just use a spoon to kneed the cheese like dough until it cools off enough for me to touch. Then I continue dipping the cheese curd in the super hot whey until it melds together and I'm able to stretch it. I then stretch it a few times and mix in the salt (as this process is going on)... And you have fresh Mozz... It's so yummy for pizza and ziti and all the other things that need some good Mozz. My problem is that I just can't stop eating it... I can't save it for pizza because it's so good warm just to eat. :-)

Back to cheddar... that was quite a process. It took several days to finish it. You make it like the Mozz but with cultures, draining the curd and then putting weights on top of it for 24 hours. 12 hours, flip it in the mold, and then 12 more hours. Unwrap it, let it dry until there is a rind on the outside and it isn't moist anymore and then wax it. But now I have a red cake-looking round of cheese in my fridge. It needs to age at least 4 weeks before I can eat it. I'll let you know how it goes.


Here is my lopsided round of cheddar. Hope it tastes good! :-)

Memorial Day Potato Salad

It's Memorial Day in America... not here. But there is something I love more than anything else in the summer, and that's BBQ!!! Cookouts are the greatest things ever. Hanging out in the sun, eating ribs, hot dogs, burgers, wings, potato and macaroni salads... Yum! So for Memorial Day at our little house in Morocco, my site-mate (the other volunteer in my site), a friend, and I thought we'd have fried chicken and potato salad. My site-mate is trying to perfect her fried chicken, so I made the potato salad.

Now I can't remember where I got the original recipe... Nevermind, it's right here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pats-Potato-Salad/Detail.aspx

But of course like anything else, we can't do everything exact here in Morocco. Here is how I did mine:

5 med-large potatoes cooked, peeled, and cubed
1 small red onion chopped
3 containers "natural" yogurt (without sugar or sweetener)
1/4 C chopped parsley
1/8 C vinegar
1/8 C sugar
2 t Dijon Mustard
1/2 t salt

Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt and yogurt in one bowl. Mix in the parsley. Mix the potatoes and onions together in another bowl and then pour in the mix combining until everything is coated. Refrigerate. It stays yummy for quite a few days in the fridge. The recipe online says it even gets better with time. I don't know about that, but it's definitely just as good days later.

Anyhow, good Peace Corps recipe. One of my favorites, and probably good for home too.

Cheers! Happy Memorial Day.

Orange and Cheese

So I picked orange for my blog color because isn't that supposed to make you hungry? There is this rumor that McDonalds uses it for this very reason. Who knows if it's really true. Blue is soothing, red is exciting, and orange makes you hungry... hmmmm.

Something that I've also been interested outside of the realm of basic cooking is cheese. There is one common type of cheese here that we refer to as Redball cheese. I believe this is Edam. It's really quite good, but I miss some of the variety we have at home. Cheddar is my favorite. Sometimes I can find a French cheese in Ouarzazate that resembles a VERY mild swiss. They do have Camembert available from time to time. I have also seen Parmesan, and Mozzarella. Goat Cheese is pretty common.

These are all pretty hit or miss depending on what the Supermarche (French supermarket) has. The Mozzarella doesn't quite have the same consistency or melt-ability that I'm used to. One of my favorite things in the world is fresh Mozzarella. I love the salad with Mozz balls in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) with pepper flakes and parsley. I know it's not difficult to make. We used to go to a restaurant called "English is Italian" in NYC that made Fresh Mozz at the table right in front of you. So, I did a little google research...

www.cheesemaking.com

They sell cheese-making kits. There is a beginner kit for Fresh Mozz and Ricotta that includes a thermometer, cheese cloth, rennet tablets, citric acid and non-iodized salt. Perfect! I bought that and a kit for making hard cheeses. They even shipped directly to Morocco. Shipping was quite expensive... 36 dollars, but to me, learning to make cheese and having some of my favorite kinds would be worth it. I want to make (and have made, but that's for another blog):

Fresh Mozz
Ricotta
Feta
Cheddar
Monterey Jack
and maybe... Parmesan

I probably won't do Parmesan because it requires a lower fat milk (which we don't really have- just extra-pasteurized which you can't use), and 9 months to age, which I don't really have. I have about a year and six months left which is just not enough time.

Anyway, I've already given it a start, so I'll let you know more as my blogs go on. Cheers!

Why?

So... blog blog blog. I wasn't going to do this because I thought I couldn't keep up with it. That is, when it comes to writing about my adventures in Morocco. One thing I have written about regularly in a journal is cooking, so I thought maybe it would interest more than just me.

Learning to cook is really something I never considered. I'm a food lover, but a take-out queen. I love food. I'm dating a boy now who loves to tease me about one of the first things I said to him which was "food makes me so happy". He likes good food too.

Good food to me doesn't have to be from the most expensive restaurant. The local bbq joint can have some of the best kinds of feel-good food. The greek diner down the street can throw together a salad that just amazes me. It also never hurts to check out the pricier options every once in a while... see what top chefs have to offer. I'd love to be a food critic except that I have trouble keeping my portions to just a little bit. I would be huge!

In any case, I mention my love of food so I can tell you why I've decided to dedicate a good portion of time to learning how to make it. I never would have done it in the states. I have no patience and restaurants can often do it better anyway. Now is the perfect time for me to learn. I'm spending 2 years in a country with few restaurants and very little concept (in my small town at least) of take-out. The fresh food is cheap here while the packaged food is expensive- completely opposite of the US. While the fresh produce is of amazing quality, there is a limit to availability of products (for example, there is no all-purpose flour). It is very difficult if not impossible to get certain ingredients. So, I need to learn to be creative, and innovative in my quest to be an amazing chef.

Wish me luck! I'm so excited to have this opportunity to learn. I'll try and keep you all up on recipes, projects, and fun stuff.