Author: Sawsan Abu Farha @ Chef in disguise

Tamriyeh: a Palestinian dessert from Nablus

Our Arabic flavor recipe for the Month of April  took us to Nablus! Rania Al Wazani invited us to make Tamriyeh, the popular Nabulsi dessert from scratch.

Last year, in my Romanieh recipe post I took you on a little trip to the old markets of Nablus.
Nablus (sometimes called Nābulus) is a Palestinian city in the northern West-Bank, approximately 63 kilometers (39 mi) north of Jerusalem. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim

When it comes to food, Nablus is a gastronomic heaven,famous for its signiture cheese “the Nabulsi cheese” and its wide array of sweets, ranging from kunafeh, a stringy, cheesy, crispy, sweet, gooey, delicious dessert which defies definition.

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Freekeh soup

Although Freekeh (pronounced free-ka or free-k-) has recently joined the “super food” club, it has been popular in the Arabic cuisine for centuries, mainly in the Levantine area and north-east africa. Freekeh is roasted green wheat that is used to make soups, pilafs,salads and stuffing for chicken and poultry. It is one of my favorite ingredients because of its versatility,  earthy nutty  flavor tones,and of course because of its nutritional value

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Arabic seven spice blend

Spice blends remind me of the trips I used to take with my dad to down town Amman. There was a time when you could only buy your spices and spice mixes at the old parts of the city. Sure, it is more convenient to have a supermarket or a mall around every corner where you can buy everything that you need (and don’t need) but I always found it enchanting to watch the process of making a spice blend.

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Homemade Italian seasoning and a trip to Dubai miracle garden

After writing my post about the things I could not have prepared for when I moved the UAE a while back a major sandstorm hit the whole Gulf area. Heat and humidity can be annoying but a sandstorm is a completely different ball game!

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Esterhazy torte

This post is long overdue, this gorgeous cake was our daring bakers challenge for January (I know!) but hey, better late than never  😛

For the month of January Jelena from A Kingdom for a Cake invited us to start this year with a dreamy celebration cake. She challenged us to make the Esterhazy cake a.k.a the Hungarian dream. What better way to start the year than with a sweet dream?

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Rice pudding with orange curd topping

So many of you have kindly written to me asking how I was coping in  Ras Al Khaima, wondering about my new life here. I’ve been meaning to write a long post about this for months! but something always comes up! So I have decided to break it up into a series of posts. I will tell you a little bit about the great move, life in the UAE and how I’m coping with the whole idea of being an expat. Do stay tuned 🙂

If you are here for the recipe, scroll to the end of the post, you will find the English and Arabic versions

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Triple P:perfect personal porridge

For the March Daring Cooks’ challenge, Ruth  from Makey Cakey invited us to start the day with something warm, nutritious and filling, . We got to experiment with different techniques and flavorings to create our own perfect personal porridge.

Before I started this blog, the word porridge would conjure images of a sloppy, pale , tasteless mass. Little did I know that, when properly made, porridge can be a tasty, flavorful and nutritious way to start the day

Baked banana apricot oatmeal

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Quinoa and spinach salad with smoked paprika vinaigrette

The first Monday of the month means  it is time for our secret recipe club reveal. I always look forward to sharing my recipe choice with the group. Keeping a secret for a month, sneaking around your assigned blog, looking for inspiration is fun but sharing your creation with the others and finding out what the person who was assigned to my blog made is the part I love the most.

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Feteer meshaltet “Egyptian layered pastry”

Flaky layered pastry,crackling with every bite, irresistibly decadent no matter what the filling is. Whether you choose cheese, minced beef, chocolate, coconut and raisins, halwa or muhallabieh, this deceivingly simple looking pastry is bound to have you hooked after the first bite.

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Food photography and styling.. How to tell a story with your pictures

This will be the first lesson in a series of posts about food photography and styling. The aim of the series is to share what I have learnt through the past 4 years of food blogging, being the photographer and the stylist behind this blog.

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