Umm Ali

Umm Ali = (Ali’s Mother)

I got this Arab version of bread pudding from my mother. Rose water can be found in specialty stores and in some grocery stores in the ethnic food aisle. It’s added to desserts throughout the Middle-East. Rose water drops in regular water is offered to guests to drink and to sprinkle on their faces to refresh themselves.

1 package puff pasty sheets, baked according to directions on package.

3/4 cup chopped pistachios

2 T lemon juice

1 cup milk

¾ c sugar

Cinnamon to taste

1 beaten egg

2 tsp. rose water

1 c light cream

More cream to serve.

Grease baking dish. Crumble pastry into dish. Sprinkle with nuts and lemon juice. Heat milk, sugar, cinnamon, in a saucepan to a simmer (don’t boil). Stirring continuously, slowly add egg. Pour egg/milk mix over the pastry. Sprinkle with rose water. Pour 1 cup cream over the top and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve warm with additional cream poured over the top. It’s also good with raisins, walnuts, pine nuts, and/or a finely chopped apple instead of, or in addition to, the pistachios.

At a Saudi wedding, I, my mother, and siblings were separated from my father, of course, who was sitting with the men. We tried to get by on our pidgin Arabic. The dinner was brought in: a whole sheep laid across a platter of rice, skull grinning at us. The sheep’s belly had been stuffed with spaghetti which now squished out like guts. I was offered a piece of meat and—too late—realized I had been honored with a chunk of the liver. Grabbing a glass of water to wash it down, I discovered—too late—that it was a glass of almost pure rose water, to honor the guests and show off the family’s wealth. It was like drinking your grandmother's perfume. Moral of the story: Use rose water sparingly.

Zucchini Bread

My Grampa always pronounced it "zoo-chee-nee" and I still don't know if he was joking or not. You can't have a garden without zucchini and you can't have zucchini without a LOT of zucchini. My boyfriend suspects me of sneaking it into everything and he's not far from the truth. (Try it in brownies.) I shred the extra and freeze it in measured amounts so I can toss a cup into this or that all winter long. If you're going to use frozen in zucchini bread, let it thaw and squeeze some of the water out before measuring.

3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 1/4 cups sugar
2 cups grated peeled zucchini (peeled? why bother! and I always go way generous on a "cup" when I'm adding the zucchini. I squeeze it too, even if fresh. Then I can add more!)
3 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon (come on, add more than that, it's good for you!)
Sometimes I throw in flax or wheatgerm or nuts if I have them on hand.

Combine dry ingredients. Beat eggs til light and foamy, add oil, sugar. zucchini and vanilla. Mix lightly, then beat well. Add dry ingredients and mix til blended. Pour into 2 greased floured loaf pans. Bake 350 degrees for one hour.

Spiced Puffs

Spiced Puffs

I think this is a Depression-era recipe, at any rate, it's been used for several generations in my family. It was my favorite kind of muffin as a child and one of the very first things I was taught to cook. My very very picky younger daughter loves them too.

1/3 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup sour milk (to sour milk, add 2t of vinegar to milk and let stand for a few minutes) or buttermilk or plain yogurt

Cream shortening and sugar together, beat in egg and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add alternately with sour milk. Fill paper lined muffin tin. Bake at 350 degrees. 

Mrs. Dresser's Cheesecake

When I was fourteen and living in Saudi Arabia, other Saudi-American families were hard to come by. Rumor had it that there were exactly eleven living in the Kingdom, and we knew four of them. One of those American wives gave me her cheesecake recipe. If Saudi-Americans were hard to come by, then cream cheese was an endangered species. Once in awhile a shipment would come in, and my mother would buy up every block and freeze them. And I would make cheesecakes. I developed quite a reputation among the expatriate community. Especially given the scarcity of the main ingredient. Somehow, there was always cheesecake at our house.

Decades later, waiting out a tornado warning in my basement, flipping idly through a dilapidated red plaid cookbook, I discovered a scrap of newspaper, carefully attached to the front page of the dessert section with masking tape, with the recipe for Mrs. Dresser’s cheesecake. I recognized the ingredients and amounts instantly. I wondered at how much distance and lifetime separated Mrs. Dresser from the cookbook’s previous nameless owner from a foreign wife from a teenage girl in Arabia churning out cheesecakes? Definitely a recipe that’s withstood the test of time and space. Oh yeah, and according to the note in the margins it “freezes too!”

Mrs. Dresser's Cheesecake

24 graham cracker squares

1/4 lb. butter, melted

24 oz. cream cheese

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

1/2 pint sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon sugar

1 can cherry pie filling

Crush crackers, mix with melted butter, press into bottom of 9 in. spring form pan. Chill while preparing filling. Beat cream cheese till fluffy. Add 2/3 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and eggs; beat well. Pour over chilled crust; bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. (Handwritten note: bake on lower shelf, takes much longer than 20 min., about 45.) Blend sour cream, one tablespoon vanilla, and one tablespoon sugar. Spoon over cake and return to oven for five minutes. Refrigerate at least overnight. Before serving, spoon pie filling over top. Serves 12.

Baked Lima Beans with Marshmallows

Baked Lima Beans with Marshmallows

I was thumbing through an old card box of recipes at a garage sale and when I hit this one, I knew I had to buy them. I've never dared try it though.

Soak beans over night. Boil one pound of lima beans and add while cooking 1 1/2 oz. butter, pinch of garlic, and salt and pepper to suit taste. After beans are boiled, place in oven pan to brown. Add 1 1/2 oz butter and 1 1/2 oz. brown sugar. Place several strips of bacon on top of beans and bake. Keep juicy while baking by adding hot water if necessary. Dot top with whole marshmallows, place under broiler flame until toasted a golden brown.

What's in the crockpot?

Foul Medames that's what. It's an Arab dish, called the national dish of Egypt. And that's pronounced fool not foul. Don't ask me why it's transliterated that way. Okay, maybe I have a guess why. There are some things my Dad makes that are to die for, but the first time he ever made foul--my first introduction to foul too--I don't know what he did, but it stank so bad that my mother made him eat it standing outside on the front porch. The smell left a lasting impression on me and I didn't try foul until I was an adult and discovered I quite like it. So here's what you do:

Get a bag of dried fava beans, medium or large, doesn't matter. Put them in a crockpot and add water til its an inch over the top of them. (I like to throw a handful of dried garbanzo beans in too.) Let them soak overnight. In the morning, add more water so they again have an inch of water over them, throw in at least one or two cloves of crushed garlic, okay, maybe three or four (I like garlic), the juice of half a fresh lemon, a couple slurps of olive oil, and sprinkle of cumin. Turn it on low, cover, and let it cook for 9-10 hours. If you want, take a bit out, mash it up, and return it to the crock to thicken the liquid. How whole or mushed they are is personal preference. Add salt and more cumin or lemon as you wish too.

Now let it cool and put it in the fridge overnight. The next day, reheat it and serve it with any or all of the following: chopped fresh tomato, greek yogurt, sunny-side up egg, hot sauce, tahini, green onion, and, of course, flat bread. That's it, easy peasy, or easy beany. Makes a great breakfast or have it for lunch with a nice chianti.

Browsing the pages

I enjoy flipping thru the glossy pages of a new cookbook or magazine as much as the next person, but my first love is old cookbooks that are falling apart and over-stuffed files of vintage recipe cards. There you will find the handwritten notes in the margins, the yellowed newpaper recipes paper-clipped to a page, the editorial notes about quality, quantity, or even who's favorite it might be. Perhaps these messages make me feel connected to other cooks from the past: other women in other kitchens, doing their best for their families; perhaps in a world swimming with foodie opportunities they help identify what's actually worth trying (so many recipes, so little time); or perhaps they justify my own compulsive need to editorialize whenever I give out a recipe. Whatever...here they are, recipes and notes from myself and numerous anonymous cooks who have left their marks in the margins of my collection.

First Up...

Alfredo Sauce

You can substitute Neufchatel cheese for the cream cheese, and use skim milk, to make a—ha!—lower fat version.

1 stick butter

1 cup milk

1 pkg. cream cheese

1 cup freshly grated romano or parmesan cheese

Nutmeg to taste.

In a saucepan on med.low heat, melt butter in the milk, bring to a low simmer. Cut the cream cheese into chunks and melt it in the milk mixture, stirring frequently. Slowly add the cheese, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth. Sprinkle with nutmeg to taste. Serve over pasta, or try it on a baked potato. Also good with diced ham and peas, bacon, grilled chicken and/or chopped salami mixed in.

This recipe was given to me in the 1980s on a 3x3 piece of scratch paper by a friend who originally got it from a newspaper who originally got it from a local restaurant. Afraid I'd lose it, I copied it into a new journal I had picked up for a trip to Saudi Arabia to visit my parents and siblings. It went to the other side of the world with me, fed my family, and came back home again. I made it for my ex-husband the first time he ever came over to my house. I think he married me for it. Of course, you can’t make a sauce of love and then put it over plain old store bought pasta; try making your own fresh.