This week’s post isn’t about me, it’s about another cool black chef — Coolio! I’ve included a hillarious video below where he shows us how to make a simple, healthy and delicious Caprese Salad– with attitude!
Love, Naimah
image: indianfoodforever.com
Lentils are one of the dishes that are hardest for me to cook. Well, beans in general, even though they’re so cheap and sooo good for you. I always hear that I should make from my vegetarian relatives who can cook and who have lots of time on their hands… basically, the opposite of me.
I’ll tell you a little disaster story that I had with beans a few years ago, which mas made me think twice about cooking any sort of legume. I got some random beans from the shop because I was going to make … something… and I boiled them for a while, till they seemed done. Then, I drained them, added some spices and ate them. They were OK I guess.
Then, my sister came into the room and said: “Oh, you made beans! Funny I didn’t see you soak them overnight!” I stopped in mid-bite and looked at her dumbfounded. I said, “Well, I didn’t.” She laughed at me and said, “Naimah! You aren’t going to feel very well tomorrow!” And boy, was she right…
I’m interested in cooking lentils because I want to eat less meat, and I keep hearing from vegetarians far and wide how great they are. So here goes, I’m going to learn to cook them. Dal Shorva is the easiest lentil dish I could find. It sounds tasty (I like cilantro, tumeric and ginger), and you don’t have to soak anything. Hopefully it will work, so… here goes… something.
[recipe via about.com]
image: flikr.com
I think it’s important to remember and celebrate Haitian culture at this tragic time in the country’s history. I wanted to write a post with a whole Haitian meal. The dishes included are: Squash Soup, Fried Cubed Beef, Picklese Vegegtables, Sweet Potato Bread, and Sweetened Fried Plaintains for dessert. To drink, we will make some Mango Juice… Let’s get started!!
As a Carribbean woman myself, my heart goes out to my fellow islanders. I hope we all do everything we can to help these people because the truth is, this could have happened to any one of us or our loved ones.
Mesi (“Thank You” in Creole), Naimah
image: cookiesbycartier.com
OK, so I do consider myself as a ‘Happy Go Healthy’ type… but once and a while I do have my cake, and I do in fact eat it (all!). Whenever I go out for dinner, I’m usually the one who would love to “skip straight to dessert,” and I mean that in the literal, non-sexual sense! That being said, I do believe I may be more healthy than I actually give myself credit for… I love chocolate covered cherries, pumpkin pie and apple atrudel, all of which contain one of my 5-a-day!
This evening, I intend on pushing the boat out and attempting to bake a cake. After extensive research, I believe I’ve found the recipe which best suits me; it’s a decadent chocolate carrot cake, which will give me some veggies, as well as what we all really want… CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!! erm, excuse me… here’s the recipe!
For Cake Layers:
For Cream Cheese Frosting:
For Chocolate Glaze:
Thanks Blisstree.com! As you can see, this is much more complicated than those I usually go for, but I am a believer that yummy chocolately goodness requires a bit of effort.
Love to all, Naimah
I’ve been wild recently about sugar. I know! It’s not an ideal way to live your life, but I just can’t help it! I just want to eat chocolate all the time!!!!!!!!! But not just dry cookies and biscuits. I’ve had a taste for warm, soft chocolate and Gu makes the best!!!!! They have chocolate souffles, chocolate puds, chocolate mascarpone, melt-in-the-middle chocolate, everything!!!!!! Of course, they’re quite small and they are also expensive, so I decided to try and find a simple-ish recipe to get my chocolate at home, and to maybe burn some calories cooking over a hot stove before piling on the pounds eating goodies… :O I found this really straightforward recipe on deliaonline.com:
umyumyumyumyumyummmm (that’s my full of chocolate face noise).
Enjoy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[image: culinspiration.files.wordpress.com]
I’m on a mission to find out what Christmas tastes like… I think we in the UK would say it tastes like turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and maybe ham. How do you recreate that in a sandwich? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far!!!
Insert bad auntie Christmas joke here: ‘Well, it’s beginning to taste a lot like Christmas!!!!’
Naimah xoxoxo
OK let’s talk yummy scrummy food!!!!
I made the tuna pasta bake the other day, and it turned out really really well!!!! I put too much sauce in it, so was more like pasta bake stew, but I loved it, and I’d love to try the same recipe with different kinds of fish and different sauces. I used tortellini that has sun dried tomatoes in it, I’ve got my eye on some spinach and ricotta tortellini for the next batch. But more on that later!!!
I am still on the hunt for easy, healthy recipes and I love a good yogurt parfait in the morning. Here’s how I make it:
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
Hope you enjoy this yummy, easy recipe with a million variations. I know I do.
See you next time bunnies, Naimah xoxo
I’m a real meat and potatoes girl. Actually, that’s not true. I like simple foods that are healthy and easy to cook. So, not meat or potatoes (they’ve got a high glycemic index, and don’t even get me STARTED on red meat).
But back to simple healthy dishes! I was at my friend’s house, and he basically made me the most delicious, quick meal out of tuna and pasta and cheese I might have ever tasted in my 30 years on this Earth. It was lovely!
I’m always looking for some great ways to incorporate fish into my posts. So this lovely fish dish is one of the recipes I’d love to make. I’m going to reconstruct the recipe from memory, so hopefully it’s alright! (change the proportions as you see fit) I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Ingredients
Preparation
[image: aka.weightwatchers.com.au]
If you’re not British, then you’re in for a treat. I think that British food has a sometimes deserved bad reputation, but this dish is genuinely very tasty, and the recipe is actually very flexible. Just wait until you hear about a bubble and squeak.
The idea behind bubble and squeak was to use up whatever leftovers there were after the Sunday Roast.* You can eat it with lunch and cold meats on Monday or, as I prefer, you can eat it with your fry up** in the morning. Here’s how to make it:
Ingredients (vary as you see fit)
You might wonder where the name comes from. Well, it’s from the sounds that the food makes when it’s cooking. When you boil the potatoes, you hear the “bubble.” And when you fry everything together, you hear “squeak!” When you eat it, you don’t hear anything becuase you’re eating!
*Sunday Roast is basically a roast meat (chicken, beef, pork), chips and a Yorkshire Pudding and roast vegetables like carrots, parsnips or brussel sprouts. It’s a traditional British Sunday meal where the family sits down, and maybe even invite friends round to share the meal.
**A British fry up is a traditional (very greasy!) breakfast that is basically lots of food fried together. You usually have some combination of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, mushrooms, baked beans, black pudding, and fried tomatoes. It’s delicious!
[image: foodnetwork.com]
[image: artsdesiregifts.com]
I’m into the Christmas spirit ALREADY! But, this year, I want to do something a little different. I really want to try to make these traditional Moravian Cookies. The Moravian community originated in Czechoslovakia and immigrated to Old Salem in the USA in the 1700s. They took with them their traditions of simplicity, service and fellowship. AND they brought these yummy cookies!
People, these babies are wafer thin, crispy, spicy and warm. YUM! They don’t do it like that on this side of the Atlantic! Here’s a recipe from Old Salem, which was a colonial village in what’s modern-day North Carolina. I love American Southern food!!!!