My mom always made this baked omelette when I was a kid but I was never a fan of it then.
As I grew older, this became one of my favourite dishes. It is tasty and a healthy alternative to fried omelettes.
Here is the recipe.
1. Butter a rectangular small baking dish (8 x 3 or so).
2. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp bread crumbs in the baking dish to coat the butter well.
3. Whisk 8 eggs in a bowl, season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add some chopped vegetables (total of about 2 to 2.5 cups). Today I used carrots, onions, broccoli, green and red peppers. But zucchini, parsley, asparagus or any other vegetable will work as part of the mix.
5. Sprinkle with 4 Tbsp bread crumbs, mix well and pour in baking dish.
6. Bake in 425 oven for about 40 minutes, until loaf looks fully cooked and starts to brown at the edges and top.
You can serve it hot, warm or even at room temperature. It is great as a main dish or cut into small squares and served as hors d'oeuvres at parties.
But most impressive is the ease of making this omelette. When a somerville kitchen blog follower called me with a 911 for a recipe to make for a special one's birthday breakfast, and knowing she does not cook, I gave her this recipe. She sent me the picture of her production with the following note.
"It looks like it might possibly be the best looking thing I have ever made. It tastes great too. When I took it out of the oven and saw it, I was jumping up and down with excitement.
You can now say if I can make it, ANYBODY can."
I was invited today to a truly Lebanese feast at a Lebanese home. The hostess, cooking for her family for over four decades, put an impressive spread for just five of us (including her) attending.
The lunch began with a huge bowl of Tabouleh and a large platter of Humus.
As the hostess rightly pointed out, these two platters are the first (and a must) to show up on a Lebanese dinner table. We then progressed to three Mehshi (a search on the word on this blog will give you few entries describing those). The Mehshi selection included:
Selek (chard - picture on the left), Warak (vine leaves) and Kousa (zucchini).
There were also small Lebanese spinach pies. These were hand made with a very delicate flour and oil dough and stuffed with a mixture of spinach, onions and spices.
I know one loyal somerville kitchen follower who adores those and I bet she is really craving those right now - they were excellent.
Another part of the feast was the Lebanese-style grilled chicken - marinated with garlic, olive oil and thyme.
Chicken is served with a garlic dip (bottom corner of the picture). This is simply crushed garlic and canola oil whipped into a mayonnaise-style texture. Garlic lovers will fall heads over heals over this dip.
But my favourite part of the meal is Kebbeh Nayeh. If you do a Kebbeh search on this blog, you'd see several versions of this dish. This was a raw meat version and one of my favourite Lebanese dishes that I am not able to figure out how to make it myself. I typically eat it when I travel to Lebanon so it was a special treat to have it here today.
Our hostess comes from a Lebanese northern town that is famous for their Kebbeh. As such, this was a perfectly made platter, so perfect that I ate half of what you see above on my own.
We were on the table over two hours!
What a lovely generous feast, delicious food and great company.
Thank you Susan!
It is six months to the day with somerville kitchen growing in content, readership and following. Page views have been increasing, on average, 33% every month. As of next week, guest correspondents are starting to appear on the blog. So thank you all for your support and following. A contest with somerville kitchen home made Lebanese dinner as prize is in order. Read on...
The Contest
I am looking for somerville kitchen business cards' designs submitted by you, the readers. The purpose of this card is to pass on to others face to face to help them remember the blog's address and visit it more often. It will have on it, at minimum, the blog's name, url and the Facebook profile name (somerville kitchen). The card will not have any personal information. It should be catchy, creative, striking, and aligned with the overall look and feel of the blog itself. It could be one sided or two, depending on your recommended design.
The Prize
The three short-listed designers will be invited, with a guest each, to a Lebanese dinner party at somerville kitchen. In line with the six months anniversary theme, the dinner will feature six Lebanese appetizers, a Lebanese stew with six vegetables, and a dessert spread of six Lebanese sweets.
Deadline is end of February. The presentation of the design does not have to be graphic designer quality or printer ready, as long as the concept is clear and the creative elements (font, colours, layout, etc.) are all identified.
Please let me know if you are participating. If you are out of town and you are a winner, feel free to fly over or send some locals you know on your behalf. Please email all entries to eshmun@shaw.ca. Good luck!
Kitchen Tip
Never waste any bananas, even if they turn black. Just put them in a plastic bag and freeze them.
Those frozen bananas came in very handy today when I wanted to have a sweet snack around for the weekend - Banana Cake.
I have had this cake's recipe since the 70's and I have no idea who gave it to me (was it you mom?). But it is simple, it works and all yours to try. Simply mix all ingredients and bake. You can also throw in nuts or chocolate chips at the end before baking.
2.25 cups flour 0.5 cup vegetable oil
1.25 cups sugar 1.5 cups mashed bananas
2.5 tsp baking powder 2 eggs
0.5 tsp baking soda 1.5 tsp vanilla
0.5 tsp salt Nuts and/or chocolate chips optional
Bake in 375 oven for 40 - 45 minutes. Feed leftovers (if any) to birds, they love it!
No Chinese friend (hint hint) invited me for a Chinese New Year dinner celebration, but one dear Chinese friend suggested a bakery to check out in Chinatown. So between New Town Bakery (158 E. Pender St. in Vancouver) and Gain Wah (218 Keefer St. in Vancouver), I managed to put together a semblance of a feast.
A Chinese colleague used to bring those baked snacks to the office every year on this occasion so I could not resist buying some. And those New Town Bakery snacks were the best I have tasted.
However, other items from the bakery - egg rolls, steamed buns - were disappointing (the coconut buns were good though), but sure looked good on the table.
On the other hand, Gain Wah food was excellent as usual (see Gain Wah entry from last December). To celebrate the occasion somerville kitchen served chow mein with beef and black beans sauce, gai lan with chicken over rice and BBQ pork.
Now the most interesting learning about this Chinese New Year is that Year of the Rabbit is Year of the Cat in the Vietnamese culture. A great article on this at Northwest Asian Weekly.
Photo by Vivian Nguyen/NWAW
When a friend suggested we meet at the "Caribbean" restaurant on Main Street, I had no idea what she is talking about.
And then I realized it is The Reef - I have passed it so many times, never been there, so it's definitely time to try it.
A spread of tapas included:
Mission Tacos
Two crisp corn tacos with jerk chicken and all the toppings. Tasty and filling.
Jerked Wings
Baked (not fried as per the menu) wings. These were big wings and packed with meat. Very nice coating.
Chana
My favourite item - a warm chickpeas salad with West Indian flat bread (the bread was not very good though), fresh greens and Dahi (thickened yogurt). The spices on the chickpeas were excellent.
Jamaican Patty
Each culture has its own version of dough and meat so we could not resist trying the Caribbean version. Home made beef patty served with chutney. Yummy.
The Reef
4172 Main Street
Vancouver, BC
It is February 1, and despite the freezing temperatures we still get at night, a Lebanese proverb says: February, no matter how loud it screams and kicks (referring to any February storms), it will always have the smell of summer in it.
In the proverb's spirit, I thought I will feature a summer story from le jardin. I had three sunflowers that were huge and as high as the house. Once they have had their days, I dried the flowers and extracted all the seeds.
The big question became what to do with the seeds. Roasting them, using a common sense recipe, was the most logical solution.
I spread the seeds in a pan, sprinkled them with oil and salt, mixed them around and roasted them.
Given that I have not made sunflower seeds before nor was I following a recipe, I had no benchmark for roasting. So I kept roasting them until they were crunchy and opened easily with my teeth.
Now I had a whole bunch of seeds, they were fun to eat and crunch, but there is a limit to how much one could eat in a month.
The only interesting recipe I found was for a Pumpkin Seed Brittle. It looked easy, it worked well, but it tasted horrible. Was it because I did not take the shells off? Or was it because they were salted? Any thoughts anyone?
At least the cat enjoyed his flying to the heights of sunflowers along the way.
