Monthly Archives: October 2011

Chocolate and cream roll, gluten-free

How many of you are secretly happy for a Halloween night with trick-or-treaters knocking at the door and the excuse  to stash pounds and pounds of candy at the house? I was! Well, the kids are grown and neighborhood kids are not knocking these days. This cake is a great consolation:  flour-less, moist, creamy and [...]
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Falafel express

  When in Beirut or any other Middle-Eastern city, making falafels at home seems superfluous; after all, every neighborhood offers at least one great falafel joint. In Dallas, however, one needs to plan a trip to a Middle-Eastern restaurant or make one’s own from scratch; the made-from-scratch version requires some time. This is a speedy [...]
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Middle-Eastern carrot cake

According to Nawal Nasrallah in her Delights from the Garden of Eden, the recipe for this carrot cake was found in a tenth-century Baghdadi cookbook. Well, the recipe may go back to medieval times but it is still popular today all over the Middle-East in one form or another. The method is simple: Cook the [...]
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Lamb shanks in citrus sauce

This is a medieval Iraqi recipe dug up by  Mrs. Nasrallah in her book Delights from the Garden of Eden. Very simple to put together: The lamb shanks are browned then braised over gentle heat in a sauce of citrus juice and a medley of vegetables and spices. This recipe would work really well in [...]
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Delights from the Garden of Eden by Nawal Nasrallah

I am aware that for a lot of people the word Iraq conjures violent images of blown-up vehicles, death and destruction. When I think of Iraq however, I am still starry-eyed and try my hardest to blot out these dark and tragic  images. The Iraq I saw (years ago) was magical. Imagine being led in [...]
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