Wednesday 17 August 2011

Mulokia

Having lived in the Middle East for 20 years I have a love for Middle -Eastern food. Most people think of the food of that area as purely Lebanese food like koubi, tabouli, shawerma, stuffed vine-leaves, kousa but there are variations in every country of the region.
One of our favourite dishes is mulokia, a staple of Jordanian and Egyptian cuisine. It's made from the leaves of the mulokia plant (jew's mallow in English). I remember sitting on cushions on the floor with other women spending all morning stripping leaves and laying them out to dry in the sun, ready to be packed away to use in the winter.
Photo courtesy of Pinakbet. This is what fresh Molokhia looks like and this is what I would like to be able to buy, but I've not found it anywhere in England. So I have to use the dried version which I found in Taj supermarket in Brighton.
Anyway here is my finished dish.

Here's the recipe if you want to make it yourself.
Fry 1 chopped large onion til slightly browned. Add 1 chopped large tomato, cook for 2 minutes. Add 1/2 bag of mulokia leaves, chopped. Add 1 pint hot water, 2 oxo cubes and 1 whole garlic finely chopped. Bring to the boil then turn to a low heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Serve over rice.
Most people serve this with chicken either cooked in the mulokia or roasted, but we like it without.

Thursday 11 August 2011

Wednesday's Words of Weightloss Wisdom

So true, so very true. I am my own worst enemy.

Friday 5 August 2011

Recipes with Heinz

I have entered a recipe competition on the All Recipes website. The competition is sponsored by Heinz soups, so your recipe has to feature Heinz soup, obviously, as a 'secret ingredient'.
I have used their new soup in a tube called Squeeze & Stir. It's a cup-a-soup but in a tube. It's a puree rather than a powder and makes a mugful of soup when diluted with hot water and stirred. There are 4 flavours to choose from - tomato, tomato and basil, vegetable and minestrone.
This is what I have made using the tomato and basil flavour. I'm sure if you had seen the photo before the mention of soup you'd never have thought that soup was an ingredient.