Tag Archives: My Life

Morocco. Part I

August 19, 2014
milkandbun
12 comments
blog, Blogging, holidays, Moroccan, Morocco, My Life, photography, photos, Rabat, travel, travel photography, trip

Hello there! How is your week going on? I promised to show you some photos from my holiday trip to Morocco, here they are.

Morocco is an amazing and charming country, where time appears to have stood still.. May be the only exception are cosmopolitan cities, such as Casablanca.

Morocco has turned out to be the endless country; we have covered about 2,500 km by car for just only a week. All major cities are located quite distant from each other, but if you rent a car and take a highway, few sights can be seen from the car, but mostly vast fields, and red Atlas Mountains closer to the Southern part of the country and lonely houses of shepherds and farmers. Reasons for stop on the road are limited, only same-looking petrol stations spread unevenly along the road. On the radio were played Arabian songs, thus we were forced to recall all word-games from our childhood, and looked at passing scenes. Moroccan landscape is very diverse, we passed medleys, mountains, coastlines… I was surprised to see a lonely house in the middle of corn or sunflower field, but after several hours, it became normal to see a small hut far away from the road, even in the middle of dried and cracked area.. Once, I and husband felt ourselves in the middle of nowhere! We drove an amazingly awful and damaged road across the desert, pure darkness surrounded us and I have never fell myself in a such dark place, there was no even a single light around. While we drove, we decided to stop in the middle of the road, then we switched off the car lights, opened the windows and began to listen… Nothing! It was absolute silence and pitch darkness…

Street Food

Spices and Herbs

Selling Wool

Beautiful Handmade Carpets

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Spending time in the heart of the Moroccan cities is one of the great ways to enjoy this country. They call old part of a city – Medina. Very ambient place with narrow streets, and ancient buildings, souks (markets), craftsmen’s and regular workshops.. Medina is cars free, so you can walk and enjoy! But be careful – it’s easy to get lost in its chaotic, tiny alleyways. I was amazed by an exotic medley of smells that came from spice souks! And all those fruits and vegetables stalls.. Fruits are so cheap, that I wish I could buy a hundred kilos of cherries and figs! I imagined how many delicious pies and jams I could made! 😀

Rabat Life

Okra

Aromatic Herbs!

The first city we stopped by was Rabat. It’s a capital, which lies on the Atlantic coast. To describe the city in few words, I can say the following: amazing wooden stuff, beautiful carpets, honey-touched and the tastiest figs ever tried, cheap cherries (around 2.6US$ per kg), too fatty cheesy pastry (wasn’t good), yummy street-baked crepes (yes, crepes!), pestering henna-painting women, and gorgeous green doors!

Red currants ‘n’ cardamom Muffins

Some time ago in Russia, small cakes-muffins-were called keksi, but since muffins’ popularization many people call them muffins! I think, almost all people like muffins, and may be some of you have a special recipe or ingredient. I do like experiment with flours and spices; I’ve bought soy flour recently and trying to use, I don’t see much difference with it so far.. If you know any good ways or recipes to use it, I would appreciate if you share it with me.

So, about other additions to muffins batter, berries are one of my favorite. Raspberry is best-loved, but what about currants? I’ve seen in a blogosphere couple posts with it, and surprised, that it is not widely-grown and not quite popular. Poor berries, if only they knew how underrated they are. When I lived in Russia, I ate lots of black, red and white currants. There were too many of blackcurrant bushes in parents garden, so I even dislike to pick them up.. Twigs of sour and bright redcurrants were easier to pick – straight away to my mouth! 😀 Blackcurrant in Russia is like blueberry in USA, has similar shape and taste, interchangeable berries.

Today recipe combines Russian and Eastern flavours – red currants and cardamom. Enjoy!

Red currants ‘n’ cardamom Muffins

Servings: 6-7 medium muffins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

70g plain flour/all-purpose

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 baking soda

a pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cardamom, finely crushed seeds

30g soy flour

25g wholemeal flour

30g ground flaxseed

1 egg

2 Tbsp sunflower oil

70g kefir (or sub with yogurt)

80-90g liquid honey (I used dark one)

120-140g red currants, or mix of red and black (or sub with blueberries)

Method

In a large bowl, beat egg and honey, add kefir, oil, and stir. Sift the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, add flaxseed and cardamom into egg mixture. Combine.
Lightly cover berries in a flour, then carefully fold them into the batter. If using frozen currants, don’t defreeze them, add to the batter straight from the freezer.
Fill muffin tins or one cake tin and bake in preheated 180C/350F oven for 20-25 minutes.

Cherry Strudel with nuts

First time I have tried strudel at home. It was a frosty winter day, I was at home finishing a homework after school, when my mother came and told me she’d got a new dessert recipe! I was so excited, because it has been a habit in our family, almost every evening we had a tea with some freshly-baked pies, buns or danishes whether it were homemade or store-bought.. Easy to guess, it was a strudel recipe. At that time of the year we could make only apple-raisin filling; compare to today it was impossible to buy even frozen cherries, only if you hadn’t froze it by yourself last summer. So, we had some nice apples, which were picked from garden and kept in a cellar, raisins and walnuts; the recipe worked so good, the pastry turned thin and smooth.. and we liked the result – new, mysterious and so delicious strudel! 🙂 Believe me or not, since then I’m using exactly the same pastry recipe and it works! 🙂

Certainly, you can cheat and use filo pastry, though you should try to make the pastry from scratch at least once, it only sounds complicated. Most of you know, that nothing could beat the homemade pastry! 😉

Do you know, that first strudel recipe is dating back to 1696; strudel legend says that the Austrian Emperor’s chef was perfectionist, he even made an order that strudel pastry should be so thin that you could read a love letter through it!

Cherry Strudel with nuts

Servings: 6-8
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Ingredients

Pastry:

250g all-purpose white flour

1 egg

50g melted butter

125ml warm water

a pinch of salt

Filling:

700-900g pitted cherries

3-5 Tbsp caster sugar

4 Tbsp finely crushed almonds or breadcrumbs

3 Tbsp walnuts, coarsely chopped

3 Tbsp hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

40g currants (black)

40g golden raisins

3 Tbsp cognac/brandy/rum

40g melted butter, for glazing

1-2 Tbsp icing sugar, for serving

Preparation

The pastry. Sift flour on to a clean surface, add salt, and make a well in the middle. Slightly beat an egg with water and butter, add the mixture into flour. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, time to time punch it down and throw until it becomes elastic and smooth. Wrap it in clingfilm and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven 200C/400F. Line the baking tray with baking paper, grease it with some melted butter or oil.
The filling. In a cup or small bowl, put all washed raisins and cover with cognac; soak for 15 minutes, then pour out remaining cognac. Cut cherries into halves, you may keep some whole.
The pastry. Dust a workspace with flour and roll out the pastry into rectangle as thinly as possible. You can place wet and floured tea-towel, and do it on it. When you can’t roll the pastry any more, begin stretching it using your hands – place back side of your hands under the pastry and stretch it. Keep on going until it is very thin or you can see pattern of the tea-towle through it.
Brush the rolled dough with melted butter. Sprinkle with crushed almonds, leave en edge 3cm uncovered. If using breadcrumbs, brown them in some butter until golden-brown.
Spread cherries, and sprinkle with sugar. Adjust amount of sugar, depending on your taste.
Scatter raisins and remaining nuts on top.
Fold uncovered edges in, then roll up the pastry into a sausage shape.
Gently put the strudel on the baking tray, brush with melted butter. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the pastry is golden.
Allow to cool slightly before serving, dust with icing sugar. Serve while it’s still warm with vanilla ice cream or sauce.

For the vanilla sauce, in a medium pan warm 125ml milk and vanilla bean (don’t allow to boil); add 1 beaten egg yolk along with 1Tbsp caster sugar and 1 tsp cornmeal into pan; stirring constantly, cook on a medium heat for 9-12 minutes, until the sauce thickens a bit. Let it slightly cool and serve with strudel.

Let’s party, lovely bloggers! Let’s drink (ha, only lemonade so far..) and eat all those tasty dishes, that we’ve brought at FF! 🙂

Draniki

Draniki – thin and round potato pancakes, are often pan-fried and served with sour cream. The word ‘draniki’ originates from the verb ‘drat’ (soft t), which means grate, rub. It was originally a common breakfast, and today we stick with this tradition, but in some restaurants it’s served all day long. Draniki are so beloved and popular in our country, that not even every Russian knows, that it is Belarus dish.

Potato was brought to Russia in the end of 17th century, when it was served as an exotic dish only at royal banquets, and potatoes were sprinkle with sugar, not salt and pepper as nowadays. At that time in Belarus, potato had been known for 80 years. Today potato became the main vegetable in Belarus, and now over 200 potato dishes are known.

Similar potato pancakes can be found in many countries, like hash browns in the USA, kartoffelpuffer in Germany, Swiss rösti, or Jewish latkes, and etc.

This is a simple recipe that is easy to prepare and produces great results! 🙂 Enjoy!

Draniki - Russian potato pancakes

Servings: 2-3
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

4 large potatoes

1 egg

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

2-3 Tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped (or 1 1/2 tsp dried)

a good pinch of salt

a good pinch of pepper

2-3 Tbsp sunflower oil, for frying

sour cream, for serving

Preparation

Peel potatoes and grate (using medium or large holes of a box grater), transferring to a bowl of water. Soak potatoes for 10-15 minutes, then drain well in a colander, and squeeze grated potatoes with hand, extracting as much liquid as possible.
Transfer potatoes back to a bowl and stir in egg, salt, pepper and dill. Add flour and mix until well-coated. The mixture should be wet and thick (not soupy!).
In a heavy-based or iron skillet heat the oil until hot, but not smoking. Place the large spoonfuls of the mixture into pan, pressing down and spreading into cm/inch rounds with a fork or spoon. Reduce heat to moderate. Brown draniki on one side about 5 minutes, turn over and brown on the other. Let drain on a paper towels.
Serve warm with sour cream or raw.
Draniki are also good with creme fraiche, herb cream cheese and ricotta.

The remaining draniki can be kept in a refrigerator up to one day. Reheat in a 160C/320F oven, about 10 minutes.

Salad with sauteed vegetables

I want to thank all for your lovely comments on my previous post!

What’s the weather in your country? What do you do to stay chilled? Hiding at home, eating ice cream all days long or chilling near the swimming pool with a cocktail..;) In Dubai almost everybody is hiding inside houses, malls.. Moreover, it’s Ramadan, to drink or eat in public is prohibited until the sunset.

I’m trying to eat more balanced and healthful meal this month, like the below salad. It’s summery and..just eat the salad, man! 😀

Salad with sauteed vegetables

Servings: 2-3
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Aromatic herbs make it so good and appetizing! Eat as is or with grilled sausages.

Ingredients:

2 zucchini/6-7 baby/~600g

2 medium apples, juicy and sour

6 cherry-tomatoes or 1 large tomato

1 red onion

1 clove of garlic, smashed

zest and juice of half lemon

1 tsp fresh thyme or 1/2 dried

2-3 Tbsp parsley/coriander/mint, finely chopped

salt, white pepper to taste

1-3 Tbsp olive oil

Cut the onion and slice into half moons. Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the onion until tender.
Chop the tomato and apples, add to the pan along with garlic and thyme, mix and sauté for 2-3 minutes more. Discard the garlic, put the vegetable mixture in a bowl, set aside and keep in a warm place.
Slice zucchini, add it to the frying pan along with lemon zest and sauté on a medium hit until tender. Add more oil if needed.
Add the veg mixture into zucchini, mix and heat for 1-2 minutes.
Put all the veggies in a big serving bowl, add mint and/or parsley, salt&pepper and squeeze lemon juice. Drizzle some extra olive oil over the salad, if desired.

Enjoy!

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