Pumpkin Soup

It's pumpkin season, always reminds me of Thanksgiving in the States! Today I have some friends coming for supper. I have made a wonderful soup that I would like to share with you. Choose a pumpkin from a reliable source. And why not an organic pumpkin to make the soup even more special? First cut open the pumpkin, scoop out all the membranes and the seeds. Cut the flesh into even cubes. Put on a baking tray with 1 or 2 whole garlic without peeling. Take apart the garlic to have individual cloves in between the cubed pumpkin. Take out the olive oil and splash it on to baste the cubed pumpkin. Add a dash of coarse sea salt all over. Turn on the grill of your oven. Let the pumpkin and the garlic roast and become charred. When you finish, put all in a large casserole. Add chicken stock to cover the pumpkin, cook until tender for about 25 minutes. Remove the garlic cloves from the soup. Puree in a blender. Top with freshly cut parsley. If you are feeling adventurous, cut up some fried bacon and serve. Voila!

Largest Tabbouleh in the World - List of Ingredients

According to the booklet given out at the Saifi Exhibition the tabbouleh weighed 3000 kg. My goodness! Check this out, wonder who can't beat that?

Ingredient:
parsley - 1600kg
medium onions - 420kg
lemon juice - 450kg
salt - 24kg
fine burghul - 60kg
olive oil - 300 liters
ripe tomatoes for decoration - 1500kg
lettuce for decoration - 250 heads

Easy Jalapeno Pickling Recipe

As promised, I will let you know how to pickle your jalapeno peppers. First get 2 liters of water (not from the faucet, I use drinking water). You will need 1 1/4 cup coarse sea salt. Bring to the boil the water and salt and leave to boil until the salt has completely dissolved. Turn off the fire and leave to cool. When the liquid is cool, add 1 cup of white vinegar with 5% acetic acid. Mix thoroughly. Pack tightly the jalapeno peppers in chosen sterilized jars and fill with the prepared brine. Close the jars. Boil them in a water canner for 10 minutes at least to sterilize them. There you have it, this is the base to pickling ... now you can be creative by adding dried leaves, seeds, or any condiments to your pickles. Don't use ground spices as it will make the pickles very cloudy. Bon Appetit!

Pickling Jalepenos / Writing about Sweet Wine Making

My friend Fady Daw, an organic producer, who founded Adonis Valley gave me a whole bunch of jalapeno peppers on Sunday night. He makes a red chili pepper paste with the jalapenos. Today I am going to dedicate some time to pickling these wonderful treasures. I absolutely love everything that is HOT! (well, almost!). Anyway, there's really nothing to it. I will give you the methods of preparing these pickles so if you get your hands on some, you can pickle them and enjoy them all year long. Nothing should ever go to waste, actually that's why I am so intrigued with mouneh making because you really use every single ingredient / harvested vegetable or fruit fully and conserve it for later use without any spoilage or waste. Fantastic!

I am also to dedicate time to writing about the wonderful day I had yesterday with Francois's father making sweet wine and awarma. Can you imagine that one can make wine at home? The whole process is so interesting + the family story is even more. When you are welcomed with such hospitality in a beautiful village where all you can hear is your voice and perhaps a distant goat, you realize that this is heaven on earth. We sat down for breakfast outside to eat kisheck bi awarma. It was so delicious. Salwa, Francois's mother put 2 heads of garlic to prepare this rich soup, 2 tbs. of awarma and kisheck powder diluted in water. I ate the whole garlic cloves and to my surprise did not feel sick or full after the meal. Usually if I eat garlic, it's off to bed or I'm sick the whole day... I had so much energy. Francois's father gave me some sweet wine, dated 10 years back, to finish off this lavish breakfast. It was delicious! It had the same taste as the wine served in church with communion. So today I shall write about this wonderful day and how to make wine at home for those who feel that they want to adventure themselves into such a production. I thank God for days like this when you come home with photos of a lifetime and memories which keep you going ... for one needs fuel to keep going ... that's mine!

Anyone for kisheck bi awarma? You can make your own, it's quite easy. Get yourself 2 garlic heads, yes heads ... not cloves... You won't die I promise... 1 onion, 2 tbs. of awarma, 2 cups of kisheck, and about 3 to 4 cups of water. In a cooking pan, add the awarma and the onion, fry. Add the garlic cloves and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add the kisheck, mix then slowly add the water. Bring to a boil and cook for an additional 5 minutes. It's done!


I call this photo, PRIDE... pride of a father, pride of a producer, pride of carrying traditional recipes of one's forefathers...

What better way for a father and a son to spend quality time together than by producing homemade wine? Well, perhaps drinking it later!

Oops, I almost forgot to post this photo taken by Francois entitled Me and the Goat, when will I ever have my own? Dreams... dreams... (I will one day, I feel it!)


You have to cook the fat (liyeh) before adding the meat to make the awarma - the Lebanese meat preserve par excellence ....



Practice makes perfect ...



I shall post the jalapeno recipe later ...

My weekend - Tabouleh / Aredna

Enough about Food Wars, does everything have to be about war? Can't we just enjoy hummus and tabouleh without thinking that someone or some state is stealing it from us... Can't people understand that this is just borrowed land and borrowed time... Can't we appreciate our differences instead? Build on them, share them, and teach our children ... stop being a dreamer, not in your lifetime...

Anyway, I was able to go to the Tabouleh Festival and let me say it was amazing! I was very impressed. A lot of people showed up at the tent in Saifi and it was very crowded. The ambiance exciting, the goal was met. It smelled like onion... It was a huge tabbouleh indeed! The children sang the song tabouleh tabouleh and we went home satisfied ... We had a little something to do with the success of this immense event. That was the goal!


My son Albert singing, with Omar Farhat playing the derbakeh.


I also went to see Aredna, the food exhibition in Dahieh. I learned again something new about the mouneh - that depresses me because I thought I knew it all. No, not quite... I learned how to make debs teen, meaning fig molasses, another recipe to include in my book. I bought interesting packages to add to all my mouneh items in my pantry. I got a bag of dried Damascus roses. I intend to use them to decorate cheese platters and to add them in some of my cooking to give an exotic touch to the dishes. I bought another bag of "cammounieh", I can't get enough of this spice mixture. I really find it to be a piece of art. Its smell is just exquisite and the dried rose petals are so gorgeous in the mixture. I bought a bag of red lentils from Yohmor, a village known for its lentils in South Lebanon. I have been told that they are quite special. Of course, I passed by to see my friend Abou Cassem. I got from him some za'tar roughly sieved to use in cooking my tomato sauces. A man in the corner was making brooms, I could not resist for a mere 4.000 LL. Some producers sell bags for flavoring stock. I got a whole bunch of those to use for my chicken stock. I also got a bag of dried rosemary to use to season meats. I'm thinking of going back again because it is truly an exceptional market. Producers and farmers come from all over Lebanon: Hermel, Jbeil, Bekaa, Baalbeck, etc. It is so interesting to talk to them about their production and stock up on mouneh items for the winter. My next visit will be to see if indeed there is something else that I can learn from mouneh making. Min' shuf!

Here is the man who makes the brooms:

Hands off hummus article

Lebanese to Israel: Hands off our hummus!

By ZEINA KARAM (AP) – 22 hours ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_bC3N1RPvWmQjmX_DO2hbP1uIqAD9BHJ4L83?index=0

A Full Week in Beirut Made Especially for Foodies

Come join producers and farmers from all over Lebanon every Tuesday in Hamra, in the Bread Republic alleyway; for more info check out this link!

http://www.mercatidellaterra.it/network/beirut

There is also a grand food exhibition / market in DAHIEH starting Oct. 23 called AREDNA... It will include over 100 food producers and farmers... I have been visiting this exhibition for the last two years and found it to be by far the best market ever... It's a MUST SEE for people who are intrigued to live through something exceptional... FOODIES OF COURSE! I will take photographs and post them when I go...

I wonder what Souk el Tayeb is cooking up this weekend... It's truly a wonderful week for food market lovers: the food fight in Saifi, the Slow Food Earth Market in Hamra, and the weekly market on Saturday of Souk el Tayeb.

AND to top it off: for those who love to read about food ... Le 16eme Salon du Livre Francophone de Beyrouth, meaning the 16th Edition of the French Beirut Book Fair in Beirut. We are spoiled!

I will write more later ...