My Most Favorite Pasta Sauce Recipe

This sauce serves as my comfort food, I love everything about it: it tastes fabulous, calls for very few ingredients and doesn't require more than 15 minutes of cooking. Yup, it's perfect.

It calls for a little bit of butter and a dash of cream, but seriously, it's worth it... I don't know about you but butter doesn't really bother me as long as it is used in moderation (a little goes a long way).

A good friend of mine taught me how to make this sauce but her version was much more complicated (I actually forgot all the steps she used so I simplified it down to this basic recipe and it still tastes fantastic). Her version used some chicken in the sauce - I am preferring the vegetarian version of this, but feel free to add whatever protein to it you like.

Ingredients:
1 tsp butter
1 onion, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
6 tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
Salt
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp cream

On a medium flame, melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the chopped onions and keep stirring until the onions get translucent. Add a pinch of salt to the onions. Next add the tomatoes to the onions and season with more salt (taste so you make sure you aren't overdoing the salt). Lower the heat and cover the pan allowing the sauce to simmer for a few minutes.

Next, add the Italian seasoning, stir and cover the pan again until the tomatoes turn into a "saucy" consistency. If it gets a bit dry add some hot water (not too much).

Add the cream (as much as you like -- I prefer not to use more than 1 tsp).

Taste and season to your liking.

Serves 4

If you liked this recipe then you must try:
Penne Arrabiata
Turkish Ground Beef and Yogurt Pasta
Homemade Pesto

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Egyptian "Besara" Recipe -- a Wonderful Broad Beans Appetizer

Are you looking for a scrumptious, versatile and super good for you appetizer recipe? If so, look no further than this traditional Egyptian dish made of broad beans, parsley and other fabulous green herbs. This dish calls for the simplest of ingredients and is ridiculously easy to put together -- the best things in life are always the simplest, aren't they?

I think you'll agree with me that besara is positively delightful.

Oh, and we usually serve this cold.
Ingredients:
2 cups broad beans, soaked overnight
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
1 large handful fresh parsley leaves
1 handful fresh coriander leaves
1/2 handful fresh dill
1 tsp cumin powder
Salt and pepper, to taste

Put all the above ingredients into a saucepan which has about 3 cups of boiling water. Boil the ingredients for about half an hour, until the water mostly evaporates and the beans are cooked. You may need to add more water in the process.

After everything is cooked, leave the ingredients to cool.

Once cooled, add the ingredients to a food processor and process until they become a fine paste with a uniform consistency.

Transfer the paste to a serving dish. You can sprinkle it with caramelized onions if you like. Refrigerate until completely chilled.

Serve with pita bread.

Serves 6

If you liked this recipe then you MUST try:

Baba Ghanouj Dip
The ORIGINAL hommos recipe
Egyptian Felafel

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A Nice and Healthy Potato Salad

I told you that I've been eating a lot of potatoes these days... Here's potato recipe #2 of the week -- I have more by the way, but I'll resist sharing any more of them with you for now.

So I love, love, love potato salads (at any time of the year, not just at summer barbecues) but I don't like them smothered in mayonnaise and other such ingredients that turn a nice and light salad into something heavy and not so healthy...

This is one of my favorite potato salad recipes -- feel free to play around with it and add any other ingredients you like (olives, artichokes, grilled chicken, pickled onions, bell peppers and parsley leaves are a few ingredients that come to mind)... I think you'll agree with me that it is deeeelicious.

So I don't have a stringent recipe for you to follow -- I don't really use measurements for this recipe. I typically use approximately 1/3 lemon and 2/3 olive oil and taste it and adjust based on how I feel...

Ingredients:

For the Dressing:
FRESH lemon juice
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A table spoon or two of good quality Dijon mustard
A pinch of cumin powder
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

3 potatoes (boiled, and chopped into bite-sized pieces)

Mix the dressing ingredients together - taste and adjust to your liking. You can add some cilantro to the dressing if you like for some beautiful color.

Add them to the potatoes.

Chill the salad and serve cold.

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Egyptian Felafel

Here in Egypt, we call felafel "ta'ameya" and instead of using chickpeas we use split fava beans... It's made and served in so many different ways, but it is always its best when it is FRESH... I hate going into a grocery store or deli and seeing a felafel sandwich or platter that has been sitting there for hours... Felafel is best when it is served the second it is cooked -- it has such a beautiful aroma that to me just screams BREAKFAST. Felafel is truly the perfect breakfast dish -- we have felafel sandwiches for breakfast here all the time... What a wonderful way to start the day.

With just a few ingredients you can make this Middle Eastern dish with little effort at all. Also the paste can be frozen so you can make a lot of it and just defrost it when you want to fry some up.

A healthier cooking option:

Now I know you are going to read the recipe and come to the "frying" part and say wait, isn't your cooking supposed to be "easy, NUTRITIOUS, delicious"? I reaaaaally tried to avoid the frying -- I baked some of them by just brushing each side with a little bit of vegetable oil -- it turned out okay but it lost the nice crispy outer layer that I love and when you bake it for longer to get the crispy edges it gets too dry... The choice is yours but I prefer frying -- you only have to fry it for 2 minutes or so on each side so it doesn't suck up that much oil and the split beans are a GREAT source of protein

Ingredients:
2 pounds split fava beans, soaked overnight
Large handful of fresh parsley leaves
Large handful of fresh coriander leaves
Large handful of fresh dill
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 egg

There isn't really much preparation to do to this recipe (other than soaking the beans in water overnight). Drain the beans and place them along with ALL the above mentioned ingredients in a food processor. Process until it becomes a fine paste.

In a large frying pan, heat up some vegetable oil and take half a handful of the felafel paste and make it into a small ball in your hand. Flatten the top and bottom and place in the hot oil. Repeat until you have made as much felafel as you desire and freeze the rest of the paste.

Fry until the crust hardens and is brown, for about 2 minutes on each side (more or less depending on how hot the oil is). Keep an eye on these as they will burn quickly!

Remove from the oil and allow them to rest on some kitchen paper to absorb excess oil.

Serve HOT. It goes great with tahini paste, hommos, or baba ghanouj. Serve with some pita bread.

Serves 8

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