Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients:

4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
1/2 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
8 oz. fettuccine, cooked, drained
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Method:

MIX cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, milk, butter, white pepper and garlic powder in medium saucepan; cook on low heat until cream cheese is melted and mixture is well blended.

TOSS with hot fettucine. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

This is basic alfredo recipe and you can put sauteed shrimp or chicken breasts into it as well and adjust accordingly :)

Impromptu

I was doing laundry and packing up to leave town while wondering what in the world we were going to have for dinner that day. I looked in the freezer and saw that we had ground beef. So my initial thought was to make spaghetti sauce (tomato) and pasta. I waited for the meat to defrost and prepared my ingredients. It was only after the ground beef was ready that I noticed we were out of tomato sauce. Bummer! (Don't you hate when this happens?) I thought long and hard about what to do with the ground beef...



and this is what I ended up with!




I like to call it ground beef sauce w/ Pasta (minus the tomato part :)



Needed:

- 1/3 lb of ground beef
- half an onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes cut up into bite sized pieces
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 cups of water
- chopped parsley


1. Boil your ground beef until ready. (or fry if you're short on time)
2. Sautee your onions in the meat until golden brown.
3. Add your diced tomatoes. Let it sit and blend for a 10 minutes. Add water if necessary.
4. Add your minced garlic gloves.
5. Mix in the chicken stock cube.
6. Last step add your parsley.

You can eat this really with whatever you want. We wanted pasta so we used it as a sauce.

Enjoy :)

Good Company for Eid

I thought I was going to lay off cooking for a while, but as it turns out, I had picked the wrong time to do so as Eid was just around the corner. Apparently (as I've come to realize a few days ago), we, the Aal Hamzah, have somewhat established our biannual Eid Open Houses in the past years, such that when I didn't email the sisters about it for this Eid, I received questions. Not in email, but on the forums!

Here is some of the exchange:

"I'm also wondering, are we coming over yaa UmmSakinah?" asks my dear K.

"Why don't you girls just call if you can come over? I don't have anything prepared though...got really fed up with cooking," I respond.

"You don't have to cook UmmSakinah... we just like chillin' with you and the family on Eid though..." she replies back.

"Then you all are very welcome to come over, but call first just to make sure,"I write back.

And somehow, it all percolates into,

"Fantastic...the time sounds great..see you girls tomorrow inshaallah!!"

And here I am, with renewed vigor, after having cooked up a 13 x 9 oval casserole dish of stir- fried Farfalle, replete with accurate measurements (an effort to train myself to write proper recipes) and of course with photos (which I truly enjoyed taking).

After spending days of tension headaches and crazy mood swings, I really look forward to having some good company.

Eid Al Adha Stir Fried Farfalle

You will need:

1 lb. box Farfalle (or any kind of pasta), cooked al dente
3 Tablespoons Canola oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 yellow onion, minced
1/2 Tablespoon chili paste*
3 Cups ground beef
1 Tablespoon oyster sauce (I used the Lee Kum Kee brand)
2 Tablespoons light salty soy sauce (I used the ABC brand)
5 Tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 Maggi cube
1 Cup sliced carrots
1 Cup bean sprouts
2 Cups thinly sliced bok choy/nappa cabbage/cabbage
1 Tablespoon lemon juice


You will have to:

1. Heat the canola oil in an open wok or wide saucepan, and toss in the minced onion and garlic
2. Saute for about 1 minute before dumping in the chilli paste. You can add more if you wish to kick up the spicometer
3. Saute for 1 minute more before adding the ground beef. Keep stirring.
4. Add in the oyster sauce, Maggi cube, tomato ketchup, soy sauce, and sliced carrots, and stir until carrots are soft and ground beef are cooked
5. Add the bean sprouts, bok choy, and Farfalle
6. Stir well, making sure to turn the mixture over several times such that the pasta are evenly coated in the ground beef sauce, and the bok choy and beansprouts are slightly cooked (not too cooked).
7. Sprinkle evenly with lemon juice and enjoy it with some good company.

Serves 8 - 10


Cook's Notes:

• You can omit the chilli paste if you wish
• You can omit the beansprouts and substitute with other vegetables if you wish
• It's best to use a flat metal spatula to cook this with as it's easier to shovel the pasta and flip it over in the last step
• * You can make the chilli paste by soaking some dried chillies in hot water to rehydrate them, and then blending them with just enough water until they come together as a wet paste. Refer to this post.
  
• I mix the smaller dried chilli peppers with the larger sweet ones so as not to make a chilli paste that is too pungent. (Rule of thumb: the smaller the chilli pepper, the hotter it is)
• You can keep this in the fridge for other uses, though be careful not to let it sit in the fridge too long without using it, as it can get moldy. If you don't use it a lot, either keep it in the freezer, make only enough for the dish that you are going to cook (but it's more energy efficient to make a big batch).
• You can also buy the ready made chilli paste called Sambal Oelek at Asian grocery stores.
• More information about dried chilli peppers on Cook's Thesaurus.

And, mashaallah, such good company it was too! Having these sisters over for Eid really made my Eid extra special. Jazakillah khair K, for asking me,

"Are we coming over, yaa Ummsakinah?"

Baked Ziti

My older sister is our resident Italian cook in the family. I had my sister's baked ziti for the first time a few months ago. I attempted weeks ago to make her baked ziti recipe. I changed a few things around for this one. Instead of ziti, I used rotini. You can also use penne or any other kind of pasta you like. I just happen to love rotini!

Here's what you'll need
- spaghetti sauce (baked ziti is delicoius with a really good tomato sauce. You can use your favourite recipe or you can use my recipe posted here.)
- 1 lb of rotini pasta
- 2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese (next time I'd omit this... I'm not a cheese person, so more than 2 kinds of cheese is too much for me)
- around 150 grams of ricotta cheese

- whatever spices you prefer (I add spices in my sauce and not directly on the pasta)

Recipe

1. Make your sauce and sit it aside.
2. Make your pasta. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees at this point.
3. Mix your pasta with as much sauce as you prefer, and mix it really well.
4. Add your ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese, and only 1 cup of your mozzarella cheese and mix well.

5. Top with 1 layer of your sauce and your remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.

6. Bake for 35 minutes.

Serve with a nice salad and a slice of garlic bread.

Enjoy!

Ground Beef Spaghetti Sauce

Often times I ask myself why I didn't watch my mom cook more often while I was home! She ran her own restaurant for a little over a year, and yet I still didn't learn from her.

"Why don't you bring your girls in the kitchen?" her friends would ask, baffled at the fact that we were over the age of 15 and still having our mother cook for us.

One of the first things I learned to make was spaghetti sauce. You can't possibly run a Somali household and not make pasta. I thought long and hard trying to remember what ingredients my mom used. Determined to make it without calling her, I experimented until I made it just right.

So, here's my ground beef spaghetti sauce recipe:

You'll need:

- half a pound of ground beef
- 1 jar of Primo's tomato and basil spaghetti sauce (or any spaghetti sauce of your choice)
- one whole onion, chopped
- red and green bell pepper, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 Maggi chicken cube
- a handful of chopped parsley
- 1 lemon

Recipe:

1. Boil the ground beef in 3-4 cups of water on medium heat.
2. When there is very little water left, add your jar of spaghetti sauce, and 1 maggi cube
3. Add 2 cups of water
4. Add your chopped onion, and your bell peppers.
5. Leave on medium heat for 25-30 minutes
6. Now mince your garlic cloves and chop your parsley, add them to the pan. (The aroma this creates is fantastic!)
7. Squeeze 1 lemon and add it to your sauce, then leave on medium-low heat for 20 minutes and let it simmer

This is delicious with lasagna. (recipe coming soon!)

Enjoy :)

Cheesy? Yum!!

One of the easiest dish to prepare, and one of the easiest to make ahead and freeze for lazy cooking days, or for hectic days for that matter! I present, the Cheesy Yum. The name..ahh, the name was borne out of three active young minds; my children.

I no longer make this because I can't take cheese, so I have been depriving the family of this dish the kids particularly love. Bad mother? Nahh...just being practical. A Cheesy Yum at the expense of an exhausted mother who no longer wants to cook anything because she has to cook two separate meals, one for her and another for the family, because of the allergies, is simply not worth it. Either they put up with it for a while, or forgo her cooking forever.

This dish is very versatile. I love the fact that it can be prepped ahead of time, refrigerated, and baked the next day. Or, it can also be baked, cooled, cut up into generous squares, wrapped up, frozen, and voila! You got yourself a homemade frozen dinner!

Cheesy Yum

1 1 lb. 9 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
1 box/ packet of spaghetti
2-4 cups grated cheese (mozzarella and cheddar) enough to generously sprinkle over the dish
1 medium-sized onion, minced
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
dash of chilli powder (can be omitted)
2 Tsb oil
1 lbs ground beef

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit
1. Cook the spaghetti , drain, set aside
2. Heat oil and saute the minced onion and garlic till fragrant
3. add ground beef and stir for about 3-4 minutes
4. Dump in the spaghetti sauce
5. Cook till beef is done
6. In a large bowl or in pot (if it's big enough) combine the cooked spaghetti with the cooked sauce
7. In a 9 x 13 casserole/pyrex dish, pour this mixed spaghetti combo
8. sprinkle grated cheese over it, and bake in the oven until the cheese melts and browns a little bit
9. Cut immediately into serving size pieces, and dig in while the cheese are still gooey and soft!

Cook's Notes:

• You can also prepare up to step 7 and put it in the refrigerator to bake the next day
• You can also cool it completely after it's done, then cut into serving size pieces, wrap each piece with plastic wrap/ aluminum foil, and freeze them. You can then have these as your homemade frozen dinners. (Good for large families, or for mothers who have to plan ahead for some occasions/events that require them to cook ahead and store so the family would not be without homemade food)
• You can also make your own spaghetti sauce as below:

1. Saute the minced onions and garlic till frgrant
2. Add 2 Tbs tomato paste
3. Add 1 lb. ground beef
4. Add 1 can tomato sauce
5. Add salt, pepper, oregano, and any other additions you like in your spaghetti sauce
6. Cook till beef is done

Grated cheese; check.
Spaghetti; check.
Spaghetti sauce; check.
Onion, garlic; check.
Ground beef; check.
Oil; check.

What are you waiting for? Cheesy? Yum!!