I woke up today and had a great breakfast of seared halloumi cheese and a fried egg. I love the consistency of the halloumi when pan-fried with some butter and pepper. The squeakiness of the cheese was paired really well with the melting consistency of the egg. If you haven't tried halloumi before, you should! It's an amazing cheese from Cypus that is known for its literally "squeaky" consistency (you can hear it when you chew) and its saltiness since instead of being pasteurized, it's brined. This breakfast commenced what was an obsessive search into recipes I could make here in Egypt. So I spent the majority of today stalking other food blogs and compiling recipe backlogs. One of my biggest objects of fascination was Cafe Fernando, a blog that is based out of Istanbul and makes AMAZING food. 5 hours later I was about to implode out of hunger. He was discussing some of the shortcomings about cooking in the Middle East, namely the lack of certain ingredients. It's so odd but the things I can't find are items I never thought I'd "miss" like: sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, wheat flour, flax seed, or cream cheese. However, he prepared a cheesecake and gave directions on how to make it using Labneh, a Lebanese cheese made of yogurt forming a less fatty and more tart "cream cheese." If I strained the labneh for an hour it would increase in density and make it thick enough to substitute for cream cheese in a cheesecake recipe. I didn't have any of the ingredients so I thought about other things that require cream cheese. The mushrooms sitting in my fridge decided it all. Stuffed Mushrooms. I have a really great recipe that I love and I wanted to try it out with labneh. Unfortunately I was missing both crackers and Parmesan cheese - two of my favorite parts. A little improvisation and 20 minutes in what I hope was a 350 degreeF oven (there are literally zero identifying markers on my oven) and I had stuffed mushrooms! They had a really nice consistency but not quite the cheesy-goodness I was hoping for. 3/4 a box of almond-date cookies and some tea later and I wasn't complaining :P I saw a really great Jacque Torres chocolate chip cookie recipe that had me drooling for chocolate chunks and lots of unsalted butter (and I know that's a quick shopping trip away but...it seems impractical and I'm trying to put on my serious face).
In other news, I am still counting down until my cruise! Until then I have to study my Arabic alphabet like crazy because ALI decided that "yeah I pretty much know it" is "you don't need to review it at all so we'll put you in the class where you skip those chapters altogether." Hopefully I can avoid being re-assigned to a lower level class (which would be starting at Arabic 0 as opposed to my Arabic .5) so until the cruise I'll be reviewing! Wish me luck! I'm heading out to meet some other people from AUC in Maadi, an area of town nicknamed "little America." Funnily enough, I'm going there to meet some Egyptians so either A) they like America too or B) the rumor isn't entirely true.
I also noticed that I have a lot of blog views! I'm not sure if that's because some people are refreshing the page a bunch or there are actually people out there reading it. Either way, thanks! Feel free to subscribe to my blog and receive an email every time I have a new post. Much love!
In other news, I am still counting down until my cruise! Until then I have to study my Arabic alphabet like crazy because ALI decided that "yeah I pretty much know it" is "you don't need to review it at all so we'll put you in the class where you skip those chapters altogether." Hopefully I can avoid being re-assigned to a lower level class (which would be starting at Arabic 0 as opposed to my Arabic .5) so until the cruise I'll be reviewing! Wish me luck! I'm heading out to meet some other people from AUC in Maadi, an area of town nicknamed "little America." Funnily enough, I'm going there to meet some Egyptians so either A) they like America too or B) the rumor isn't entirely true.
I also noticed that I have a lot of blog views! I'm not sure if that's because some people are refreshing the page a bunch or there are actually people out there reading it. Either way, thanks! Feel free to subscribe to my blog and receive an email every time I have a new post. Much love!
