For the LOVE of Oreo Truffles..

The worse thing about having access to the internet during work hours.. is that I find myself looking at food blogs most of the day.. don't get me wrong.. I do my work hehe but the distraction of food is always there.. I constantly have the internet open.. with NUMEROUS tabs with different foods.. and if it's not food then its something to do with weddings or invitations..

Last Friday I found an old blog I use to read "The girl who ate everything" - my Friday of work was over.. I spent most of my day looking at all the recipes.. drooling over all the foods..
And there it was... a recipe for Oreo Truffles!! my life almost felt complete at that moment...

I linked the post to my email on my phone.. with the intention to make it as soon as I got home..
That didn't happen.. a friend of mine was getting married the next day so I ended up going over to her place to help her set up everything.. and but the time everything was finished and I was home it was already midnight and i was ready to go to bed.. Saturday came.. it was a big and beautiful day!.. so which left me with Sunday!! I still couldn't stop thinking about it.. and so I made the hubby come with me to Coles so I could grab all the ingredients (which wasn't many)..

OH MY LIFE.. these were so worth the wait!!!.. and they're sooo easy to make too!!.. there's nothing more I can say!..

Here's the Recipe...

Oreo Truffles taken from The Girl Who Ate Everything

Ingredients
2 x 2 300g pack Oreo cookies , crushed into small pieces
1 250g. package cream cheese, softened
White or Chocolate melts for dipping

Mix crushed Oreos and cream cheese until well-combined. Either use a food processor or a ziplock and blend with your hands (a lot harder but all I had). Roll into 1-inch balls and place on baking sheet or tray. Refrigerate until firm, 3-4 hours (or stick in the freezer for about an hour). Using 2 forks (or a spoon, but forks always work better for me), dip Oreo balls into chocolate coating and place onto waxed paper to harden. Chill and serve cold or room temperature. Makes about 30 truffles

New cook book all tagged up :)

I've gone crazy.. Tagging all the pages of recipes I want to cook!! Wish me luck!! It's going to take me a while!!!
Sent from my BlackBerry® from Optus

Sambousik Pastry with Shankleesh Filling

OH.MY.GOSH.
If there is one thing my partner and I love it's Shankleesh!!..
Proudly introduced to me by my Lebanese workmate!!..
She made me breakfast one morning when I headed over to her place to do some "wedding" things and she had gotten out the sandwich press, Lebanese bread, and this what I thought at the time was some weird looking cheese.. she promised me that I would like it.. and she was right..!!! There's this little pizza shop/ bakery place in Bankstown and "the man" LOVES IT!! especially fresh!.. they make this doughy bread and it has shankleesh in it.. so I thought I might give it a try and see how it goes..

When making this .. I think I got everything right..except that I overcooked it..:s.. my bad.. and I didn't use enough pastry for each one.. so NOTE TO SELF... use more pastry..and do not over cook but I should ask my friend if I made the right pastry..
You can buy the shankleesh at any Lebanese, Arabic supermarket.. it's in the fridge section.. I got the one that is already in oil this time.. but you can get one that has been air tight sealed.. I prefer that one over the one in oil.. but I wanted to try out the difference for future reference....
I remember when I first bought shankleesh the guy in the store was like put a little bit of olive oil, some onions, and tomato and its ready to go.. IT IS SOO GOOD.. I prefer Spanish onion rather then the normal brown onion.. it just makes that little bit of a difference!!..
Its a must try!!!

Here's the Recipe for the Sambousik Pastry:

Ingredients
1 Cup (150g) self raising flour
1 Cup (150g) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
2/3 (160ml) water

Method

• Preheat oven 180degrees
• Sift the flours into a bowl and add the salt, sugar and oil.
• Gradually mix in the water (you may not need it all) until the mixture comes together to form a rough dough.
• Knead for a few minutes until smooth and elastic, the return to the bowl.
• Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave the dough to rest for 15-30 minutes.
• Dive the dough in half and roll out one piece at a time on a lightly floured surface until about 3mm thick cut out 35-40 rounds using a 6-7 cm cutter
• Place a teaspoon of the filling in the centre of each dough and seal the sides together.
• Place on baking tray and put in the over for about 15 minutes or until it looks ready.. (sorry I'm not to sure on the time since I over cooked mine) but it shouldn't be too hard.. and still a bit doughy..

GOOD LUCK!

Stuffed Marrows- "Ma'hshi Koussa"

Okay.. so I really didn't want to post this.. cause my photos are SO CRAP!.. it was just too much trouble.. but stuffed marrows or stuffed zucchini was such a big thing for me that I HAD to post it!!..

Let me tell you why I wanted to make these so bad...

You see .. I work with a Lebanese girl.. now this works out good for me.. especially when she brings left overs for our lunch.. haha.. but she had told me that they had "stuffed Zucchini" for dinner the night before.. and it was such a hit which meant no left overs... and that was it... I just started to crave it.. I couldn't get it out of my head..I spent most of my day at work wasting my "working" time on trying to find the best recipe for the stuffed marrows... constantly asking her EVERY 5 minutes a question relating to how to make it...

"So whats in it? how do u take the inside out with out breaking the zucchini? do you use normal zucchini or is it a special one? how do you cook it? what pot do you use? do you use a pot or something else? what kind of rice is it? Jasmin or what?" hahaha... the questions went ONNNN.. I really shouldn't of added the questions I asked her.. Sorry.. but by the end of the day .. she was GLAD !!.. no more questions.. but I told her before she left that I will be attempting this dish and she replied with the "OMG Good hopefully you'll stop talking about it"

I still at that stage didn't find a recipe that seemed right and I remembered my Lebanese cook book I had purchased a couple of weeks before that.. but I had thought that the recipe wasn't in there.. BUT IT WAS!!! :)

I was planning to make it that night being a Friday and all.. I could stay up late knowing there is no work in the morning... but I was so tired i decided that it was best left for Saturday.. I had the house to myself.. I can go shopping for the ingredients and get thing started..!!

So that Saturday morning I headed to my Local Arabic Supermarket.. (I don't really know what to call it) and picked up the bits and pieces.. I was going to use normal zucchini but at the store they had the Lebanese zucchini.. which is apparently different...and I managed to pick up a "manakra" which is that awesome utensil to take the inside part out of the zucchini..

I felt quite proud of going in there..I knew what I wanted.. and what everything looked like with out feeling like an idiot... while I'm here.. now the recipe for this.. you didn't really need anything from the Arabic super market.. but I picked up a few things i needed to make some other dishes in the book..

Anyways I ended up making it... I did alright for my first go.. I would add a tad of garlic to the filling.. but that's just a personal preference... in the end I'm still pretty proud of myself.. and so was my workmates mum for just having a go :)
Here's the recipe... its found of pg 135 of the Abla's Lebanese Kitchen Cookbook .. Enjoy!!

Ingredients

• 12 Small (10-15cm long) Lebanese Zucchini (or normal Zucchini)
• 2 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 heaped tablespoons tomato paste
• natural yoghurt, to serve (optional)

Filling

• 1 cup (200g) long- grain rice, washed and drained
• 250g coarsely minced lean lamb or beef
• 1/2 teaspoon ground all spice
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons butter, melted
• 1 small tomato, finely chopped

Step One: Wash the zucchini's thoroughly under running water. Cut off the stalks and the very tops of the zucchini's. Remove and discard the hard ends on the bottom but remember the zucchini's need to stay intact. Carefully hollow out the pulp (inside) using a corer or small sharp knife leaving a 5 mm-thick shell. Place 1 teaspoon of the salt in a bowl of water and wash the zucchini's - this will keep them firm while they cook. Drain and set aside.

Step Two: To make the filling, mix the ingredients and 1 tablespoon of water in a bowl well. Stuff each zucchini with the mixture, leaving a 2cm gap at the top. It's best to do this with your hands, shaking the zucchini and lightly pressing the mixture down into the centre as you go.


Step Three: Place the zucchini in a large saucepan and cover completely with water. Add the tomato paste and remaining salt and bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 45 minutes. The Zucchini should be tender but not break apart when removed from the pan. Serve hot with yoghurt, if desired.



again.. SO SORRY for the U.G.L.Y photos!

Abla's Lebanese Kitchen

As previously mentioned... I am one BIG Lebanese cuisine fan!! :) its my absolute weakness that's for sure!!..
I've always been meaning to buy a Lebanese cook book.. but never knew which one would be the best one.. I mean yeah.. they're all the same.. but I like ones that have pictures of the finishing result.. I like to see what I will be cooking pretty much and have a rough idea how it should look..
ANYWAY.. my mum got a dymocks gift card.. and she gave it to me to use.. so I raced out to the Parramatta store and walked myself straight up to the food/cooking section..I think I was there for a goof half an hour going through the different Lebanese cookbooks.. and this was probably my favourite one of them all.
Now I always get in trouble from "the man" for buying cook books or printing recipes out and binding them into my own little cookbook and not using them.. they just like to sit on my book shelve.. but THIS BOOK!... has got me cooking like crazy!!! took me a while to get into the whole cooking thing at first.. but now I'm just HOOKED!.. hehe so later on I'll be posting what I've made from this book.. :)

Chocogram

WAYYYYY back in February.. was my birthday.. I turned 23... not that I really needed to share that information with you...
ANYWAYS... I was looking through the "food" folder that I uploaded from my mobile and this was in it.. I think it's one of the coolest things ever!.. if you haven't heard about it ... its called a "Chocogram" cool huh!?

One of my friends... who I'm lucky enough to work with .. got me this... now there's always a joke between she and I about not being able to find our names in anything.. such as a keyring.. cards.. anything.. that comes with a name on it.. one year she got me a personalised puzzle.. with my name on it.. "Georgilyn" that is.. and its sitting on my bookshelf in the study room of my house.. I must say.. it was one of the most thoughtful gifts i have ever received.. this year she has done it again.. with my personalised chocogram.. and being February (hottest summer month in Australia) I was SO shocked that it hadn't melted when it was delivered.. and a bonus to this is that the chocolates are actually REALLY yummy!.. because know how you get some chocolates.. and they're a little on the dodgy side hehe... these were great!!..

Now... my only problem with this gift.. was..I didn't know which square to eat first hehe.. because i didn't want to ruin it.. it was just so good.. so.. I started with the white chocolate blanks.. then the smiley faces.. and then held off a day.. to come back and find my damn partner had eaten the "r" out of my name.... geez.. he could of started with the " ' " or anything BUT my name..

Anyway.. I thought I'd share this with you.. as I think its such a great.. but simple gift to give someone.. something that they would enjoy and appreciate :)

http://www.chocogram.com.au/

CAKE DECISIONS!! & Abla's Pastries Granville

I'm getting married in October... and there was one thing that i thought I'd be crazy the most about...
and its CAKE! I said to my so called "wedding planner" you won't have any problems with me.. as long as i get a good cake and the food that is being served is perfect..

so i think a couple of months ago he took us to Abla's Pastries where my cake is going to be made.. as a lot of people know already...
I'm one big Lebanese cuisine fan!!.. I LOVEEEE everything about Lebanese cooking!!.. and surprisingly.. the amount of times i have driven past Ablas Pastries i have never actually gone in and bought something.. its hard when you really don't know what is what.. and the proper name for it all.. but this was MY opportunity!!. it was like heaven!! i got the "wedding planner" to recommend me things i should taste and buy.. because i was just so excited..!! i think i headed up spending $60 on sweets.. and brought some to work! just so i could try a bit of everything!...

I was very satisfied indeed.. i almost forgot the reason why i was there to begin with... to taste cake!!...
their cakes were pretty yummy!! Not the BEST CAKE EVER!! but it was still nice and tasty!..
The man and I decided to go with White Chocolate Mud for our top tier and then marble mud (never fails) for the rest of the tiers and the give away cakes to the families.. now its just deciding what cake design I want.. I KEEP CHANGING MY MIND!!.. it's so exhausting!!..

check out Abla's .. to fulfill your sweet craving taste buds :)

Abla's Pastries
48 Railway Parade Granville NSW 2142
http://www.ablaspastries.com.au