Egyptian Ghorayebah or Ghreybeh Cookies for #Food of the World

For this month's Food of the World event, we are going to Egypt. I have a ton of vegetarian Egyptian recipes bookmarked that I wanted to try for today, but then I ended up making these easy-to-make 3-ingredient cookies.

I met some of my blog buddies last month and I was wondering what to take for them. Then I googled for Egyptian cookies and these Ghorayabeh or Ghreybeh came up. Like I said the recipe only has 3 ingredients and is very easy to put together with ingredients straight from the pantry. Some of the recipes had cardamom, but I kept it plain. If you want add a little ground cardamom or vanilla to flavor the cookies.

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Mohanthal for ICC (Gujarati Besan-Mawa Burfi)

Valli picked a simple and delicious Gujarati special sweet for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge (ICC). I am a big fan of burfis/ fudges because they are easy to make and don't need too many ingredients. Today's burfi is a Gujarati special and is made with besan, mawa/ khoya, sugar and nuts. 

This sweet is very simple to make and can be done in less than an hour. Only complicated thing involved is to know when the burfi reaches the right consistency. I took it out of the pan a few seconds early and the burfi didn't set and was a little sticky. So I put it back in the pan and cooked it for another couple minutes to get the nice, soft, melt-in-the-mouth burfi. It does require quite a bit of sugar and ghee, so eat them in moderation. They can be stored in an airtight container for up to 7~10 days.

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An Ayurvedic Meal (Thali)

With the ongoing BM mega marathon, thalis have become quite popular among our BM group. I wish I had more time to make thalis for some of the states. But it is what it is, so I decided to make a thali for Cooking from Cookbook Challenge instead. Today's thali is an Ayurvedic Thali from Sukham Ayu.

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Bobbatlu (Puran Poli)

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 2/ Day 6
Theme: Traditional dishes
Dish: Bobbatlu (Puran Poli)

I made bobbatlu on Ugadhi day. This is my first attempt at making these traditional sweet stuffed breads and they turned out pretty good - soft and delicious. I believe in mass production, as in making burfis or halwas, I'm not a big fan of hand crafting individual pieces. But I took the leap and decided to make bobbatlu and I'm really glad that I did. It was kind of a confidence booster because they came out much better than I had imagined.

Traditionally bobbatlu are made with all purpose flour (maida), but since I always like to sneak in some fiber and a little nutrition in the form of wholewheat flour, I added ½ cup of atta (wholewheat flour) and 1 cup of AP flour. May be next time I will add more atta to make it even more nutritious.

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7 Cup Sweet (Burfi)

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 2/ Day 4
Theme: Traditional Dishes
Dish: 7 Cup Sweet

Today's traditional dish is very simple and easy to make, but the end result almost makes you look like you slaved away in the kitchen for hours. These burfis just melt in your mouth and all the effort you put into it is mix it for may be 10-15 minutes.

The recipe is quite self explanatory - there are 7 cups of ingredients that are mixed until it thickens to burfi consistency. I have already posted the recipe for 7 cup sweet a while back, but this is one has slightly different ingredients. I used half cup each of cashews and almonds instead of 1 cup of coconut for a smoother burfis.

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Churme Ka Laddu

Churme ka laddu is a very famous Rajasthani delicacy. These are made with atta or whole wheat flour. Traditionally the dough is deep fried in ghee, low and slow until golden brown, then powdered and mixed with the sweetener and made into laddoos using more ghee. 

Since I try to minimize our ghee consumption, I found this healthier version of the laddoos on Sanjeeta’s blog and used her tip to bake the dough instead of deep frying. I used a little more ghee than the original recipe and the resultant laddoos are delicious with a melt in your mouth texture. 

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Dal Baati

It's time for Blogging Marathon #12 and I chose "Rajasthani Specials" as my theme for this week. I've heard a lot about Rajasthani cuisine, but never tried to make any dishes myself. So when I saw Srivalli's theme for this edition of the BM, I wanted to try as many delicious Rajasthani recipes as I can. 

For Day 1, I made the most famous dish from the Indian desert - "Dal Baati". Recipe from a dear friend who shared her family recipe with me when I told her that I will be making Rajasthani dishes for my blog. Big thanks to her for a fool-proof modern day kitchen recipe that tasted amazing. Baati's are traditionally baked on charcoal grills or well heated cow dung cakes. But for the modern day home cooks, ovens are the best alternate to use.

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7 Cup Sweet

Diwali is so much fun with lots of food and firecrackers. I miss the firecrackers part in U.S, but to compensate that I made this really sweet treat.

7 cup sweet tastes similar to Mysore Pak, but it is way easy to make. As the name suggests it has 7 cups (a cup could be any measure) of ingredients and that’s it, cook them all together to make this delicious treat. You can also make 5 cup sweet, by omitting 1 cup sugar and 1 cup coconut.

Updated Pic from April 2013

Ingredients:
Besan (Chickpea flour) – 1 cup
Sugar – 3 cups
Grated Coconut – 1 cup
Milk – 1 cup
Ghee (or unsweetened butter) – 1 cup
Method:

• Combine all the ingredients together in a heavy bottom pan on medium low flame.
• Cook stirring occasionally for about 20-25 minutes or until the mixture starts to get frothy. At this stage, you have to be hovering around the stove more often, stirring. Keep stirring frequently for another 15-20 minutes.
• After a while, the whole mixture starts to pull away from the bottom of the pan and starts moving with the spoon. Remove onto a greased plate at this point and allow to cool.
• Score into squares or diamonds when slightly warm and enjoy the melt in your mouth taste of this simple sweet.