Rhubarb Berry Crumble & Blog Anniversary

Tags

crumble, desserts, Fruit crumble, raspberry, Rhubarb, Rhubarb crumble, strawberry, sweets

Enjoy the spring with this fresh and sweet rhubarb berry crumble.

If you think you can do something …
you can do it! and
If you think you can not …
you’re right … you can not.

It’s only the WILL! And God mercy at the beginning.

We’re as powerful as we want to be!
How close we are to success is how confident we are.

Yes, It’s my blog anniversary. My blog is turning two this april, I can’t believe the days just went by so quickly, and here I am… still enjoying the love of making, photographing, and sharing food with you friends.

Yes, I remember the last time I was out for a couple of months and was going to quit blogging, but thought to give myself another chance, and with some friends courage, I returned, and promise to keep up as long as I can.

This semester I didn’t take classes toward my biology master degree, but the coming months will be so hard that I need to manage the time between studying, posting recipes, and my house duty. So please be patient with me.

Todays recipe is pretty sweet, delicious and makes a good dessert in any season and occasion. The best part that it’s so easy to make and so so yummy…
To celebrate the spring I used rhubarb with fresh strawberry and raspberry, the blends are gorgeous sweet and sour, flavored with some sprinkles of rosewater, makes the berry heavenly aromatic and adds a lot to delicious berry taste. All topped with a crunchy nutty layer of oats that screams buttery flavor.

Rhubarb Berry Crumble

1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup sliced fresh berry(I used strawberry & raspberry)
1 cup sliced rhubarb
About 1 teaspoon rosewater
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, soft
Roasted pistachio for serving
Ice cream any flavor of your wish, to enjoy with.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a large bowl, mix white sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, strawberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. Add the rosewater and mix. Place the mixture in a small ramekins.
Mix 3/4 cup flour, oats, brown sugar, and Butter until crumbly. You may want to use a pastry blender for this. Crumble on top of the rhubarb and strawberry mixture.

Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp and lightly browned.
Enjoy with your favorite ice cream, and sprinkle some crushed pistachio on top.

Coconut Rice Pudding Parfait with Mango and Basil

Tags

coconut, Coconut milk, cold dessert, desserts, mango, Milk, pudding, rice, rice pudding, sweets

 

Refreshing light but creamy, mellowed with coconut, layered with fresh and sweet mango that infused with basil, it sure comforts and cools.

I’m sure I did mention before that I’m big pudding fan, but here you’ll read it again. I love pudding, any type, any flavor. Rice pudding is on the top, but this is the one rice pudding that can actually feel refreshing. Custardy and creamy, it taste like nothing I’d ever seen rice do, and yet comfortingly familiar, milk and sugar being the first things to teach us what delicious means. To make it looser and lighter, I finish it by stirring in coconut milk, which also adds its own sweet, tropical character to it. part of it is how you can make it more looser and serve it colder, layered with fresh mango infused with aromatic fresh basil, so it sure cools you.

Coconut Rice Pudding Parfait with Mango and Basil

2 1/2 cups water
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup short grain white rice such as Japanese or Arborio
2 cups whole milk
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) coconut milk
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
14 fresh basil leaves
2 large firm, ripe mangoes, peeled, pitted and finely chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice

In a large, heavy saucepan over high heat, bring the water and salt to a boil. Add the rice, then reduce heat to low, cover and cook 20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and let the rice stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir the milk, coconut milk, brown sugar and granulated sugar into the rice.

Bring the mixture just to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and cook at a bare simmer, stirring frequently at first and constantly toward the end, for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture is thick and creamy and the rice is soft.

Transfer the rice to a bowl and let cool to room temperature, stirring frequently to keep a skin from forming. Refrigerate the rice pudding, tightly covered, for at least 4 hours, or until thoroughly chilled and set.

To serve, cut 6 basil leaves into fine shreds. In a medium bowl, stir together the mango, shredded basil and lime juice. Spoon 1/2 cup rice pudding into each of 8 short glasses.

Add 2 tablespoons of the mango mixture to each, then top with about 1/4 cup pudding. Finish with 2 more tablespoons of the mango mixture. Garnish each serving with a whole basil leaf.

Creamy Rice and Orange Pudding

Tags

arborio rice, desserts, layered pudding, mastic gum, middle easern, muhallabia, orange, orange pudding, orange rose water, pudding, rice pudding, مهلبية بالبرتقال, ارز بالحليب

Not so different from the western-style rice pudding, but this one has the orange water and mastic gum for flavor and is finished with a creamy layer of orange pudding topped with pistachio. These are normally found in an Arabic or Pakistani food store here in the US.
This middle eastern pudding is a favorite both summer and winter, especially liked by children and always served to invalids.

You can use any short grain rice, I used Arborio rice. Mix rice with water first and let cooked until softened, this way the rice will give all starch it need to thicken the milk pudding without adding any eggs or corn starch.

What make this a middle eastern favourite is the flavor of orange water, the mastic gum, and some people like to add also rose-water, but all it depends on what’s your taste bud like. You can use vanilla to flavour the rice pudding or cinnamon, or any flavour you like….

Also I like to add more cream to the the milk, one brand that I always use is the Nestle media creme, you can find it in a local walmart store, may be the Mexican section.

1\2 cup Arborio rice
1 3\4 cup water
3 cup milk
1\3 teaspoon mastic gum
1 tablespoon orange water
1\4 cup granulated sugar
1 Nestle table cream

for the orange pudding

1 1\2 cup fresh orange juice
1\4 cup sugar
1 1\2 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon orange water

Rinse the rice under cold water and put it in a sauce pan. Add the water and place it over a medium heat, bring to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 -20 min or until the rice has absorbed all the water and become very soft.

Pour in the milk , increase the heat to medium and bring back to boil, stirring occasionally. Cook for 5 min, then lower the heat and cook for another 10-15 min. Stirring the mixture so that the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add in the sugar and cook for a few more minutes, still stirring. Add the orange water, the mastic, and stir for another minute, finally add the cream stir for 2-3 minutes until thickened. It’s important to keep stirring while simmering to insure it will thicken.
If the pudding not thickened (which is week chance this will happen if you stirred it well), just in a separate cup add 1 tablespoon corn starch to 3 tablespoon cold milk, stir it to dissolve the starch in the milk then add it gradually with continuous stirring to the rice pudding. stir well until thickening.

Take off the heat and pour into individual cups. Prepare the orange pudding.
In a sauce pan, add the orange juice the corn starch and sugar, stir well until the starch dissolved, put on medium heat, keep stirring until boil. Lower the heat and simmer, keep stirring, cook for 5-10 minutes until begin to thicken, add the orange rose-water, stir for more 2-3 minutes, then take it off.

Fati from Fai’s Recipes have tagged me over questions about my self:

Describe yourself in 7 words…

Food Passionate specially creamy desserts
Dreamer
Love reading romance novels in arabic and english
Like soft music
Not very talkative or social personality, but I’m a very good listener
Like the smell of fresh laundry
Palestinian Muslim

What keeps you up at night?
well, lots of things; some times my kids homework, commenting to other foodies, working on a new post…., and yes, finishing the last couple of chapter on a very interesting novel.

Who would you like to be?
Me and only me. My dreams go now to finish my graduate degree, and then decide which dreams will fit better for me to wear it…

What are you wearing now?
I just dropped the kids to school, so definitely my jeans….

What scares you?
Snakes, I always have bad dreams of them…don’t know why? any suggestions?

What are the best and worst things about blogging?
The best is meeting and sharing the love with YOU, FOODIES.
The worst is THE TIME, it really killing me…

What is the last website you looked at?
Fati’s recipe to copy the questions for the tagging.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
MY over sensitivity, sometimes it puts me in troubles…

Slankets, yes or no?
Do you mean the sleeved blanket or not…?! sorry, didn’t understand it…

Tell us something about the person who tagged you…
Fati,  Another Food Passionate. I like to read her blog; she’s creative (can quickly adapt with  the failed recipes and make a successful meal), Honest with the results, she makes a very delicious esh elbulbul and many many middle eastern recipes.

As for the rules, I have to pass the questions to another foodies, whose not tagged yet. So I would like to pass it to some of the ffodies I like to follow :

Nami @ Just One Cookbook

Manu @ Manus Menu

Ann @ Sumptuous Spoonfuls

Jammi Ann @ A Dash of Domestic

Joumana @ Taste of Beirut

When You Crave for Sweets: Raspberry-Lemon Layer Bars

Tags

almond, chease cake bars, coconut, dessert bars, desserts, lemon cream, raspberry, raspberry desserts

These bars are addictive, layers of good things match up together into a sweet creamy with a touch of sour taste . Something you can be proud to serve on any dessert table.

Whether you have little time or a lot of time, when you crave for special desserts, you are looking for good times with the family and friends. No matter how simple or sophisticated the dessert is, the sweet tooth can feast on anything sugars taste.
I’ll admit it, the first time I saw the recipe on Kitchen Aid (best-loved recipes), I fall in love with it. And because I love raspberry too, I added some raspberry jam to the cream cheese layer(which the original recipe doesn’t call for the raspberry). The lemony creamy layer is extremely heavenly, it had no sugar, but the sweetness comes from the raspberry, the chocolate, and the coconut additions.

Raspberry-Lemon Layer Bars

2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs (graham crackers)
6 tbsp butter, melted
1 package(8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 tbsp grated lemon peel
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 egg
1\2 cup raspberry jam (recipe follow)
3\4 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1\2 cup sliced almond or chopped macadamia nuts

For the raspberry jam:
2 cups raspberry, fresh or frozen
1\3 cup sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup

Start making the raspberry jam. On a sauce pan, add all the ingredients for the jam together, set on medium heat, stir and bring to boil. stir again to insure that all the sugar has dissolved. lower the heat and let cook on medium low for 10 min. let cool.

Preheat oven to 350 f. Stir together graham crackers crumbs and butter. Press crumb mixture firmly in bottom of 13×9-inch baking pan.

Place cream cheese, lemon peel, lemon juice and egg in a bowl. Beat on medium-low until smooth. Spread evenly over crumb mixture.

Spoon the raspberry jam on the top of cream cheese layer, and carefull spread it over.

Layer evenly with chips, coconut and almond; press down firmly with fork.

Bake about 20 min or until lightly browned. Cool completely.

Cut into 4 rows by 8 rows. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.