Posts Tagged "food of the sun"
Tajine Tales: Chicken with Smen and Green Olives
It didn’t break!! I’ve blogged a few times about my bad luck with cracking tajines. The most recent tajine that I’ve gotten I didn’t take any chances with – doing lots of prepping before actually using it. I very timidly decided to try it out, cooking a chicken tajine on very low temperatures and only slowly increasing the heat. I felt like a new mom. You know the mom I’m talking about – the one who spends the first 2 weeks with a newborn at home sneaking up to the crib and checking to make sure the baby is still breathing. Gingerly placing their hand close to the babies mouth, making sure there were little air puffs…oh no you didn’t do that? Never mind then…..Let’s just say I checked on it a lot.
It paid off because it didn’t break and the dish turned out great. I was attempting to make Moroccan Chicken with Lemon and Eggs from Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: Traditional and Modern Recipes to Savor and Share
The original recipe is tricky – I used almost all the same ingredients but left out the eggs and lemon juice. It still turned out to be a great dish. Today’s Food of the Sun entry is for poultry main dishes – so here we go!
Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
1 onion grated and excess water removed
2 tbsp crushed garlic
pinch of ground cinnamon
pinch of saffron threads
1 tsp ginger
salt and pepper
1/2 preserved lemon cleaned
2 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro
2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
handful of green olives
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp smen (you can make this without smen just add 1 more tbsp regular butter)
Directions
Clean the chicken and remove any excess fat. In 1/2c warm water soak the saffron threads. With a mortar and pestle pound the garlic with 1 tsp salt. Add in the ginger, 1/2 tsp black pepper, cinnamon and 2 tbsp softened butter and smen. Gradually stir in the hot saffron water. *Note do this very slowly and with a little water at a time – too much water and it will not come together* Mix with half of the grated onion and pour into the tajine. Add in the chicken pieces skin side up on top. Place the lemon, olives, parsley and cilantro on top of the tajine.
Cover the tajine and cook on low heat 275F in the oven. Cook until the chicken is tender. This will take at least an hour. Avoid opening the tajine as much as possible, as opening it breaks the seal and the steam. The meat should be tender. Remove form oven at this point and transfer pieces to a plate.
In a medium bowl mix lemon, olives, cilantro and parsley. Using a spoon remove any fat that has gathered at the top. In a saute pan cook the chicken on medium high heat to achieve a crispy skin.
I wanted to update everyone – I have not yet picked a winner for the tea set giveaway. I’m going to give everyone one more week to register. Deadline is February 11th! I hope that you will link up your poultry main dishes to this post (you’ll get an entry in the giveaway!) There are other ways to win too. Check out the ways to enter and make sure you leave a separate comment on this post for each entry.
Also I want to encourage you all to stop by and visit American Muslim Mom. They are relaunching their site with a new design. I was fortunate enough to get an early copy of Ponn Sabra’s ebook and was very happy to read and review. It’s fantastic. Stop by and check out the site, and make sure that you enter to win some of the items in the super big giveaway! There are over $500 in prizes including my tajine spice trio!
Food of the Sun: Bread…next week!
This week was going to highlight breads of the Mediterranean but I think that we will hold off and postpone for next week. I have decided to leave two weeks to complete each challenge. It will give everyone a little breathing room and a chance to participate. Not to mention allow me to get back into things with French Friday’s as well!
To get you warmed up and thinking about bread I’m going to share the bread recipes that have been featured on my blog in the past.
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| Braided Herb Bread |
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| Traditional Khobz |
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| M’semmen |
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| Zaatar Flat Bread |
There are so many more great breads from around the Mediterranean and I promise next Friday to share a brand new one!
Don’t forget my giveaway!! and check out Henia’s round up from last week!
Giveaway Time!
In conjunction with the Food of the Sun weekly blog theme I have decided to randomly giveaway a Moroccan tea set. I talked about this set a few weeks ago as an item that I had for sale. There were no takers and so I decided to use it as a giveaway! I will be picking one person at random to win a set of 5 glasses and the ingredients for making Moroccan Mint Tea. Would you like to win it?
It’s important for you to leave a comment so that you can be sure to be counted! Make sure to leave a comment for EACH action you do. So if you tweet and blog – leave 1 comment that you tweeted and 1 comment that you blogged!
Past Entries:
Healthy Recipes
Appetizers
Comfort Food
Winter/Holiday Dessert
You can find the complete listing of upcoming weekly themes on the main post.
Food of the Sun: Olive Tapenade Pinwheels
Food of the Sun: Chicken and Cannellini Beans
I’ve been reading so many cooking magazines and cookbooks lately that I haven’t even had time to make recipes from them! I have been trying to incorporate more beans and fiber into our diet, as I am anemic and my husband has cholesterol issues. This truly is a comfort dish. It has the lemony flavors of the Mediterranean and the added flavor from the thyme. Beans are a very popular dish in the Mediterranean and using them is a great way to stretch the dish.
Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 cup of dry cannellini beans or 1 can of cannellini beans
1 whole lemon cut in half
4 stems of thyme
1-2 potaotes
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Directions
In a large dutch oven add vegetable oil and butter and turn to medium high. Next add the onions and garlic and allow to saute until softened. Add the chicken pieces and brown all sides. Clean the potatoes and cut the lemon in half, squeezing 1/2 into the pot. Add the two halves of the lemon and the potaotes to the pot.
Add the remaining spices, herbs and salt and pepper, as well as the cannellini beans. If using dried beans, soak ahead of time for 6-8 hours.
Add the chicken broth last. Cook on medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour, for the broth to reduce. If using canned beans they will be soft. If using dry beans the cooking time may need to be longer. You will want to use more chicken broth to offset the increased cooking time.
Food of the Sun: Holiday/Winter Desserts
It’s here! I am really looking forward to sharing with you all some great new recipes every week. I have participated in a few online cooking memes and have long wanted to start my own. With the help of my friend Henia at Simplicity by the Sea we’re putting together Food of the Sun – with each week featuring a different course all with a Mediterranean twist.
We’re starting off with holiday or winter desserts. My recipe is for Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Gingersnap crust. This is a good blending of Mediterranean and American style desserts. Pumpkin is often found in Morocco, mixed into couscous most predominantly. I have found that pumpkins there are a little sweeter than they are here, which might be attributed to more sun and less storage time before consumption.
This is a dessert plate that I made recently with Whoopie Pies, Cake Balls and Mini Pumpkin Cheesecake.
Ingredients
1 can of pumpkin puree (about 14 oz)
1 package of cream cheese (8oz) softened
pumpkin pie spice (mix of cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg)
3 eggs
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1/2 box ginger snaps
6 tbsp melted butter
Directions
Beat everything (except butter and gingersnaps) together in a large mixing bowl until smooth and set aside. In a food processor crush ginger snaps and add in butter. They will become sticky but will remain loose.
Grease a muffin tin of your choice size. In the bottom of each well, press a tbsp of ginger snap mixture. Top each with the cheesecake mixture, allowing the cups to be full almost to the top. Place into a 350F preheated oven for 15 minutes. The cooking time will depend on the size of the cheesecake you make. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Top with whipped cream before serving.
Read MoreIntroducing: Food of the Sun!!
With burst of colours, Mediterranean food is a feast of the eyes and mouth Mediterranean food is attractive to many for its customs and traditions. . It takes its influences from a spectrum of countries, including ones in North Africa, the North Mediterranean of Italy, France, the Balkans and to the Eastern countries like Lebanon and Turkey.. The beauty of this type of food lies in its simplicity; it is full of nutritious, tasty ingredients which includes fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts.
Every week, Heni of Simplicity by the Sea, and I take turns hosting the Food of the Sun: Mediterranean food blog carnival. …
Keep reading to find out more!
What is a blog carnival?
A blog carnival is a blogging event where the participants submit their posts and the organizer features a selection of the submitted posts. It is a blog publishing event similar to a magazine. The organizer creates the blog carnival by providing a brief description, keywords, categories, and a publication date for the carnival. It is a great way to learn more about the Mediterranean and its cooking. And it’s great way to increase your blogs traffic too!
How does it increase traffic to my blog?
Joining a blog carnival increases your blogs traffic by allowing fellow foodies to easily find your blog and recipes. But also ensures your blog will be shared on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Stumble. And finally you add backlinks to your blog by joining via Mr Linky and by also commenting on your fellow bloggers submissions.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A BLOG, you can e-mail me Amanda or Héni
IF YOU DO HAVE A BLOG, join in by adding your comment with post link, at the end of this post using the , “Mr. Linky” tool .
1. PLEASE make sure your submission a Mediterranean recipe corspondencing with that week’s feature. Also please include which region in the Mediterranean your dish is coming from! All non- Mediterranean recipes will be deleted!
2. PLEASE be sure to add a link in your post back to this post, so your readers can benefit from all the ideas, too. Also this helps out the other participants who are hoping to get more traffic to their blogs.
3. PLEASE only link o the specific post – not your home page. (Otherwise later when new readers find this post and go to your link, they won’t be able to find what they’re looking for.)
4. Two recent posts will be allowed per week. Anymore then that will be deleted.
5. Grab the Food of the Sun logo for your post and site! (Various sizes are available at the bottom of this post.)
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