Nothing is more comforting than the smell and taste of warm bread. This Moroccan country bread is plain, rustic, and simply delicious. The best thing is that you can have fresh, rustic bread in about 2 hours. Bread in 2 hours?! Yup. that's right!! No long rising time or excessive kneading. On the contrary, this...
Recipes List
Spanish Patatas Bravas
Spanish patatas bravas are probably one of Spain's most popular tapas dishes. So what are they? Basically potatoes served with a spicy tomato sauce made with onions, garlic, and accented with paprika. Just about every bar in Spain serves patatas bravas, each with their own twist. When I was in my teens I spent three weeks...
Quick and Easy Marinara Sauce
A steaming bowl of pasta tossed with a quick and easy homemade marinara sauce hits the spot every time in our house. These days you can get some really high quality canned tomatoes that will turn out a superb marinara in less that one hour. All you need is a few basic ingredients. I guarantee...
Akara - West African Black Eyed Pea Fritters
Fly to Brazil and they’re known as acaraje. For Ghanians, it's “akla” or “koose”. In Cameroon and Nigeria, they’re known as Akara or black eyed pea fritters. For consistency’s sake, we’ll be referring to this dish as Nigerian akara. Today, I’m teaching you how to make Akara with black eyed peas. In English, we refer...
Lebanese Cheese Fatayer
Lebanese cheese fatayers are savory pastries found throughout the Middle East. Fatayers can also be filled with meat (lamb fatayer is traditional.) Fatayers are a Lebanese food found throughout the Arab world in pastry shops and market stalls. They can be triangular in shape or cigar-shaped (like the recipe below.) These are similar to the...
Creamy Walnut Tartlets
Creamy walnut tartlets for the win Here I am with another walnut recipe for personal food, my FAVE! Creamy walnut tartlets are sweet, crunchy, creamy. They are toasted walnut perfection in a nutshell, excuse the pun! These beauties are a take on a recipe I found in a French cookbook that belonged to my late...
Spicy Turkish Meat Pastries
I love anything wrapped in a pastry; well, almost anything. Who doesn't love a flaky, fluffy, buttery, melt in your mouth pastry enveloping a delicious sweet or savory filling? I don't know anyone, do you? A school lesson Years ago when I was homeschooling my son, an experience I would like to bury deep in...
Savory Feta Walnut Scones
Savory scones are a win! I love scones in any way shape (there's only one shape, really) or form. Savory ones too? Yup, absolutely! Savory feta walnut scones are the perfect afternoon snack, breakfast, or a great addition to the dreaded department meeting. Move over doughnuts! I discovered this easy scones recipe a few weekends ago. I...
Panforte
[feast_advanced_jump_to] Panforte is a traditional Italian dessert for Christmas. It's from Siena in Tuscany to be precise. Panforte contains fruits and nuts, and resembles fruitcake, only better! Trust me, this is NOT your grandma's fruitcake. My German friend Angela said it reminded her of a similar Christmas German dessert called Lebkuchen. Panforte allegedly dates back...
African Pepper Chicken Soup with Fufu
I grew up in Panama, where there is plenty of yuca and plantain to go around, but I never heard of fufu, the West African staple made of starchy vegetables, until I was older. When I came across fufu, I noticed it resembled the Puerto Rican dish Mofongo, which is a mashed plantain or yuca...