:: TWELVE ::

Want an easy cake recipe?

It doesn't get any easier than this one...

• 3 Eggs
• 1 Cup of oil
• 2 Cups of flour
• 2/3 Cup of sugar
• 2 sachets of baking powder
• 3 tbsp of milk

whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil.

add the flour and baking powder... loosen the batter slightly with the milk and pour into a lightly greased & floured cake pan....

Bake for 20-25 minutes on a moderate heat, and then dress her up

 Often we'll add choc chips, fruit or dried fruit to the batter before cooking...

sometimes we leave her plain and smear the top with strawberry jam and coconut...

It's not the most glam of cakes, but she's steadfast and frugal... and above all quick!

back to super-frugal

Running a household budget is pants!
Plain and simple it's a pain in the neck from start to finish and almost anything can throw it off track.
Can you tell I overspent? Well actually it's not so much a case of over spending, it's doing daily battle with see-sawing prices that seem to have gone mad this month.
Of course the weather has alot to do with that.. we've had so much rain that it's affected our local market, and pushed the price of veggies up to a miserable level.
A couple of months of ill heath and eating out of my stockpile also didn't help matters... and I'm trying to build it up from scratch again, mainly because it helps to free up some cash in the long run and also because it's just so much easier to have things on hand.

So I'm back in super-frugal mode, and am cooking the dishes that I always fall back on when I need something tasty  but kind on the pocket...

The quantities are all relative to how much you feel like cooking, but it's more or less equal amounts of onion; tomato and green peppers gentle sautéed with as much garlic as you can comfortably handle. I also add some paprika for colour and season generously with salt ans coarse black pepper. Once it's looking relaxed and mellowed out break some eggs into the pan and put a lid on top so that they poach in the liquid. Only poach them till just cooked though, what your looking for is a yolk that will ooze out into your saucy goodness when broken. We eat this as is, with crusty bread from a communal plate, even better cook it in something you can take straight from stovetop to table. Delicious...

:: TWO ::

You know it's so hard negotitating computer time when there are offspring lurking. I could swear they conspire to create diversions to make it easier for each other to whip the laptop away from me when I'm least suspecting it.

Yesterday I just gave up... there's no point fighting a losing battle is there?

We were out for most of the day anyway, and had a lovely time catching up with a special friend. Which of course means I didn't actually do any cooking.
I redeemed myself today.I have no pictures to prove it, which is a shame but I know you trust me, right?

Want a recipe anyway?
This is one of my favourite warm salads. I always have salad on the table. It's an easy and effective way to pad out a meal, is relatively inexpensive (depending of course on what you use!) and of course veggies are full of goodness. Ticks all those groovy boxes kids!

Warm Green Bean Salad


Boil some green beans until just tender. (I used about a quarter of a kilo)
Once they're cooked, finely chop a good handful of fresh parsley, and put it into a frying pan with a couple of generous slugs of good olive oil and saute gently without colouring the parsley.
Add some grated garlic (three for me) to the pan and saute for a further few minutes (without browning the garlic) before adding the beans and a little salt.
The beans will only need about five minutes to warm through and take on the flavours of the garlic and parsley.
Serve dressed with the oil.

The recipe was given to me by my husbands aunty. Green beans are relatively inexpensive most of the time here so it's a good tasty and economical side dish.
We had this tonight with a simple beetroot salad. And some oven roasted chicken with new potatoes.

Meat is still pretty expensive here at the moment, so a good option is chicken. It's still not cheap for the average Algerian pocket, but still alot more affordable than red meat.
I try to be as thrifty with a chicken as I can. We certainly wouldn't use a whole chicken in one sitting.

Today I threw the wings in the freezer, I'll save them up bit by bit till I have enough to make some hot wings.
The offal also went in the freezer. I use it up when I have enough to make a decent sized meal. Usually in a spiced sauce, but sometimes, if I have enough it gets roasted with turmeric, lime and corriander. I know for some, cicken offal might have a bit of yuck factor, but I really reccomend trying it.
The cat got the neck today, and the skin... although chicken necks can also be made into a really tasty dish aswell, so the cat doesn't always get the benefit of my generosity.
I saved most of the breast for tomorrows lunch which left me with  the drumsticks, thighs, back and a small bit of breast.

Baked Chicken

Put your cicken, cut into pices into an ovenproof dish along with one lime cut into quarters, a whole head of garlic (split into cloves but not peeled) and sprinkle over, a good heaped teaspoon of cumin, and also turmeric, some salt and freshly chopped corriander. A few good slugs of olive oil are all you need now before mixing everything into the chicken with your hands. I often add potatoes at this stage and roast them along with the chicken in the pan.
It's good to leave it for as long as you can before cooking, but I've also been in a rush and cooked it right away, and it's still delicious.

Cook until the chicken is just cooked through, and the potatoes are tender. You can cover with foil, it'll help create a wonderfully rich gravy.

Serve with a fresh handful of corriander leaves thrown over if you like.

For me the most delicious parts of this dish are the lime, which becomes so lush and soft that you can eat the whole thing, skin and all. And the garlic cloves  which wil have burst out of their skins, and which taste so mellow it's imossible to resist them. We fight for the garlic cloves in my house.. and I regularly use two bulbs to account for the theivery that goes on under my nose at the table!

And that's me for the day. I'm tired and have to be up with the larks. The boys have lessons in the masjid at subh, and it takes forever to get a boy out of bed even at a reasonable hour, never mind at 6am!
It's the start of a new school week and we had some lovely brothers come over this evening to fix our dreadful terrace so that it won't leak anymore insha'allah.
After hardship does indeed come ease, May Allah ta'ala bless each one of you who made dua for us. Ameen

xxx

That was some week!

But we got to the other side of it. Not completely unscathed, but a few battlescars add to the character in my opinion. We've been easy on ourselves over the past few days. Been to see a good friend, had a couple of walks out to the market and local shops, done plenty of tea drinking and soul searching. And a fair amount of gentle crafting to stop the brain from oozing out of the skull.

In short we have attempted nothing we had any chance of failing at this week. We all needed gentle passtimes to serve as a balm. & dh went away for a couple of days which meant even more lounging about being restful so all in all, I do feel alot better. Not 100%, not by a long shot. But better.

 

We've been discussing moving on from this rented accomodation to another. we have seven months left on our lease.  And it can be hellish finding decent rentals here. We don't want to stay in ths house for a third year if we can help it. My landlady and her daughters are wonderfully warm and genuinely caring people. But the house has been a bit of a disaster. Alot of Algerian houses are unfortunately. And I'm ready for pastures new to be honest. 

It might not be far, having said that... it could be. It might just even be a new house in the same-ish area. But a change is as good as a rest right?

In the meantime, well dh has phoned and said he's on his way home. Children have gone off to tutors and will be home at 11-ish. It's Friday, so I need to get a crack on with lunch, which on a Friday should be cous-cous but I like to go against the grain whenever I can so that's NOT what we'll be having here.

Friday lunchtime in Algieria is about equal to a Sunday afternoon dinner in the UK.  It's a day when alot of families make the effort to get together. Some people will eat early beofr going to Jumuah, but with my men leaving the house at 12.30-ish and my propensity to lose all track of time, that's  never likely to happen in my home. Instead I fall into the second camp, which means Lunch at 2.30pm, followed by a siesta.

One of my favourite meals (and I make the exception of serving meat on a Friday lunchtime) is a chicken djouez (stovetop casserole) and croquettes. 

I always serve my croquettes Algerian style, in my casserole. but these would be just as nice with a salad, or with a cut of meat and some veggies. Today I'll tell you how to do the croquettes, and then when my dh finally opens up shop again and we have access to chicken once more, we'll do the whole thing, djouez and all insha'allah.

Right, so take a quantity of nice floury potatoes, how ever much you think you'll be able to eat! You'll be mashing them once they're cooked so boil till nice and tender.

Mash them, or put them through a food mill while still warm.To the mashed potato you'll want to add some salt, and I use some stoned cut olives mixed into my mash. (My neighbour uses parsley and tuna which is also nice). Mix in the olives and then roll the mash into golf ball sized balls.

 Make an Indent with your  thumb and put a small nugget of cheese inside the hole before closing it up and re-rolling. The cheese we use is La Vache qui Rit ( basically laughing cow) because apart from President, Camembert and Edam it's what Algeria has. But you could go wild and use something else more to your tatse.

What you need now are dishes of flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. Just enough for the amount of croquettes you've made.

Dip each croquette into the flour, then the eggs and the breadcrumbs before shallow frying the croquettes untill crisp and golden. Ideally I would have loved to show you some finished, but they don't last long enough on the plate for me to click the capture button.

These keep well in the fridge, and would probably freeze well too.
They're easy on the purse too which is always a bonus in my book.

 

And now off to tackle the ever present chores and cooking. Athough, if I might get back later to show you some wips, if I can get hold of the dh's phone for long enought to take any decent pics.

Winter...

is really starting to make its presence felt masha'allah.

The rains have arrived and it's feeling chilly at either end of the day now. The duvets and bedcovers have come out, and the children are out of their summer clothes and wearing vests and long sleeves.

It's still warm later on in the day, even with the rain, but there has been a definate shift in the weather which means it's time to get ready for a colder spell that will no doubt be welcomed by many after such a long, dry summer.

In our house it means rain proofing ourselves. Algerian houses are built to cope only with dry or hot weather. In the winter, even though the weather could be fairly spring like here in Algiers, inside your house it could feel close to freeezing. And rain? you don't want to know about it truly... I thought a lifetime of living in the UK would have me prepared for that one... but there's something so damned relentess about the rain here.

Anyway, our tarp is up, and it will stop most of it from coming in insha'allah.

We have what is typical of alot of homes where I live, an open roof! If you look at the photo you can see just how exposed we are in the winter months.

I'm planning my winter cooking too, finding new recipes to sit alongside the familiar ones I already use.

 

There's just something so comforting about coming home to a house full of the smells of things cooking,

My children spend alot of time walking back and forth from school so its important to me to have good hearty meals on the table when they come in.
And as much as I rebel against it sometimes, it's what I signed up for right?

 

I make an exception to my normal rule of no sweet weekday afternoon teas in the winter. I think it does the children good  to have a little something sweet to tide them over till dinner time.

I already posted my recipe for Flapjack a while back, but just in case you missed it...

 

And all you need to do is melt the butter, along with the sugar and honey

stir in the oats, and press down into a baking tin. And bake of course until nice and golden.

I like my flapjack to be fairly thick, so that it's moist and gooey in the middle, 

use a tin that gives you the right amount of depth to achieve the fapjack you'd prefer. 

Obviously the thinner it is the crunchier it will be, so beware!

We're heading towards a half term holiday here from Tuesday. November 1st is a day to commemorate the start of the revoloution against the French occupation in Algeria, and it's followed hot on it's heels this year by Eid-al-Adha. Which is why the children are benefitting from this double whammy by getting an extra holiday!

So we're preparing for a break (of sorts) possibly some family days out and a bit of travelling if we have time insha'allah in between everything else that seems to go on round here.

And with what's left of my weekend I'm off to tidy up a little, make some lunch and then insha'allah spend the afternoon with a book and some crochet. There are blankets to be made!

I hope you're all having a restful weekend

xxx

We're  finally waving a fond farewell to the heat, here in Algeria. It's been a long hot summer with little  to cool us down, and so the change in temperature is more than welcome, and so is the rain
The children however will be sad to see the end of their leisurely summer days. During the holidays and even after school, children (mine included) tend to camp out on my doorstep, playing, chatting, eating...you name it it all takes place out there.

We're gearing up for winter in my house, looking forward to the seasons vegetables and fruit, trying to plan some winter crafting, and generally loking forward to cosying up a bit insha'allah.

And what better way to cosy up, than with a nice hot cup of something and a cookie....
I know I've been promising recipes for a while, and it's been hard to find a slot in my day to blog with a clear mind and without feeling as if I should be doing something more important. But this small patch of time, after they've all left for school and before the day's chores begin seems to be just right.

Unfortunately for us, this morning is all about waiting to see if the children get sent back home from school.

We are being hit with the threat  of a fresh wave of school strikes, my chidren came back home on Thursday evening proclaiming La Grève! with more relish that I care to admit... they've only had three weeks back!

So I'm off to have some tea before the innevitable happens, and peace is shattered for the day...

Okay I said cookies right?

 

 Peanut Cookies

300g flour

100g ground peanuts

200g soft butter

200g icing sugar

pinch of salt

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons of baking powder

2tsp vanilla

Place all of the ingredients into a large bowl.

Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolks.

Mix well to form a soft dough.

Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thickness.

You can cut thoe dough with cookie cutters or into fingers, whichever is your preference.

If you're in frugal mode, use the leftover egg white to lightly brush over the cookies before baking, adding a sprinkling of ground peanuts before putting them in the oven on a moderate heat for about 15 minutes.

My egg whites got thrown in the freezer, and we went for the "dredged with icing sugar" look, but have fun dressing these up in whatever way takes your fancy. I did a batch of  these dipped in chocolate and they were fab!

Your cookies should be lightly golden coloured on the bottom and pale on top when done.

Nothing much left to do after that than make yourself something nice to drink and settle back and enjoy the fruits of.

 your labour.

Week one...

of Ramadhan has already passed and we're finally falling into some sort of rhythm in my house.
it's exhausting and doesn't include alot of sleep at the right time, but this of course is small fry when you consider the reward insha'allah.

We had a pretty tough first week emotionally and it was tough keeping on track, but this is real life and stuff happens... the trick is to roll with the punches and to keep moving forward.

Week one for us tends to be pretty low key, as we try to concentrate on adjusting to fasting long hours, so other than keeping up with our Qur'an and (for some of us) attending Taraweeh there hasn't been much else going on.
We try to remain aware of  our reason for fasting and we've pretty much cut out all other distractions such as TV, non-islamic reading and non-essential internet usage.

For the small people there has been baking, and as we move into week two we'll include some crafts to keep their fasting minds occupied although all in all they seem to have coped amazingly well.

 

although judging by the way my sweetie looks here, the wait for cake can sometimes be just

too long!!

You can find our biscuit recipe and the tutorial for our advent calender here insha'allah

the reality...

of trying to feed a family in a third world country on a frugal budget means shopping carefully, cooking from scratch and taking good advantage of what the market has to offer when prices are relatively low.

We're reaping the rewards of good weather with an abundance of summer fruits.

Apricots, nectarines, Strawberries and peaches are all affordable enough at the moment for most people to be able to indulge in at least some...

The trick here is to wait it out a bit and resist the temptation to buy fruits when they first make their way into the market.  The price of fruit at the end of May and beginning of June was so high in my area that it meant fruit was beyond alot of pockets. 

However as we've moved into summer, prices have come down and people are busy buying fruits not only to enjoy now but  also for preserving  (mostly as Jam) for later on in the year.

Vegetables too will be preserved before ramadhan comes in, to try and avoid as many of the price increases as possible.

It becomes essential for people to stock up on what they use most before the innevitable happens and the prices are hiked up enough to break even the hardiest budget.

We're mostly enjoying our fruits as they come, chilled a little in the fridge but eaten fresh and healthily... sometimes though when the craving calls for it...  a summer crumble hits the spot nicely.

 

For me the math is simple..it's just as much fruit as you want in an oven dish big enough, perhaps with a little sugar tossed in if the fruit is too tart, perhaps also some sultanas and chopped nuts...though not always... and then crumble topping and for me,  it's a no nonsense half fat to flour combo with a fistful of sugar thrown in for good measure. I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to crumble, the more freeform and rustic the better, It's not meant to look pretty but to soothe the soul and comfort...

and on a good day I would have been able to upload the photo of peach crumble that goes with all this waffle, unfortunately my connection isn't playing ball and obviously has me on a one picture per post quota!

So you'll just have to go out and make one of your own to drool over... we had ours with ice-cream....

xxx

This recipe, or a version of it was given to me by a friend and has become a favourite in our house.

 For those of you who insist on naming their recipes, this is called the chippy-cheesy-spinach bakey thing in our house.

I use about 6 large bunches of spinach and 2 kg of potatoes..no I'm NOT joking!
Chip the spuds, fry and set aside.
Spinach gets chopped up small, stalks aswell..no wastage please, we're frugal fanatics.
Then it gets thrown into a pan of already softened onion... Cos you've been softening that while you've been diligently chipping chips haven't you...

lots of garlic gets added..I use at least 7 cloves but you could use less if you don't share my opinion that spinach tastes a bit bleugh without it.
Salt and black pepper is all I add then to the spinach..
Then once it's cooked I layer the chips at the bottom, a little of a large baking dish (lightly oiled to prevent sticking),
arrange the spinach on top and then beat together 6-8 eggs and pour over.
Top the whole lot with grated cheese, if you have...I didn't this time and it's still yummy, and bake in the oven till the eggs are set. cut into wedges and serve with salad it's good hot or cold, great for picnics and pretty good on the purse too...

My two eldest often joke that something mystical happens to me at 4pm and the Engish woman in me slowly starts to appear, and no matter what else may be happening in our lives EVERYTHING stops for afternoon tea. In Algeria everything stops at roughly the same for coffee, and people take great care in most houses to have things set out properly...especially if guests are around. In our house, more often than not... there will be a fresh cloth on the table a jar of weeds..sorry a beautiful posy..handpicked by dd11 and some sort cake or baked goodness. Having said that though, it's sometimes as simple as a bought brioche and some buttered baguette, but those teas are nowhere near as satisfying. There is something significant in being able to meet up at a more relaxed part of the day, after the rush of getting to school and before the misery of trying to get everyone into bed at the right time..and actually having the time to listen to what's been going on in each others day....

 
I have a smallish kitchen in our rented house, and no work space.. so the dinner table that lives up one end of our sitting room also doubles as my prep area

anything and everything..from cake to dolma gets made at this table... and then once assembled back to the kitchen for cooking

my poorly bubba who has been brave in the face of the most horrible teething pain, helped mama make chelsea buns this week... the yummy cake at the top of the page is a carrot cake the recipe for which is...

4 eggs

1 cup of oil

a cup and a half sugar

 1 sachet of baking powder

2tsps cinnamon

 2 cups of flour

 1 cup of golden sultanas

 2 cups of grated carrot

 and the method is a s simple as mixing all the dry together (leaving the carrots and sultanas to last) mixing all the wet ingredients together, then mixing the wet to the dry. Then stir in the carrots and sultanas, and pur into a greased and floured tin. It really couldn't get any easier!

 I guess our cake takes about 30-40 minutes to cook in our one temperature oven, so proceed with caution on the baking front and bake as you know your own oven to bake best....

Oh, and happy teatime!

time to get some of THAT list accomplished I think...it's been vegetating for as long as...well for as long as it's been written really. I am prolific at starting things.. I can start prjects like other people inhale air..I am however rather less proficient at finishing them...

I've spotted a few things on my list that I have in fact done..but I wouldn't be playing fair if I crossed them off without diligently photographing each project and lovingly posting here would I.. and no of course it hasn't crossed my mind... you'd take me for that kind of  a flake huh?

Peanut butter.... yes it was on my list.

I've been making it for months...in fact I've been making it since my batch of store bought...came all the way from the UK by car..peanut butter ran out ...

it's easy...in fact it's a cheats project..because there is nothing to it... and I defy you not to feel like a leather sandal eating, plait wearing, tie dyed earth mother when you're slathering your home-made peanut butter onto home-made bread...

as always... {and truly...would you have it any other way?} eyeball everything..it makes life so much more interesting...

take peanuts...skins on is my preference..and roast gently on a tray in the oven. It takes about 5-6 minutes in my Algerian oven that also masquerades as a furnace!

then chuck all your lovingly roasted peanuts into the blender and blitz blitz blitz baby....

add a 1-2 tablespoons of oil as neccessary to get the right consistancy and salt to taste, also a tablespoon of honey if you like...my lot like the slightly sweet egde it gives..

and then watch idly by as they devour it quicker than you got it into pots!

and the rest of the list? well ... back later with an update insha'allah

I'm off to tackle a couple right now!

Rice...

A frugal-ish meal if ever there was one..depending of course on how expensive rice is in your part of the globe these day...

my dh usually brings me a 25kg bag of good basmati from the UK..and I ration like crazy till his next trip and then pad out with dishes made from the shorter grain rice we get here in Algeria...

We like rice anyway it comes usually... but when we're in super frugal mode.... we have it like this...

okay as always..I deal with rough measures and use according to how many I'm feeding and how generous I'm feeling...

for my family of 8 non gloop eating people....(baby still not partaking of this dish!)

3 cups (and by cup I actually mean MUG) of basmati rice, boiled

2 of the same measure of lissan al usfoor

4 large onions

brown the lissan al usfoor in a lttle oil or ghee till it's a dark brown colour and smells nice and nutty.

once it has coloured add water enough to cover, bring to a roling boil then simmer till tender...

while that's cooking prepare your onions by frying them until deep brown, and then set to one side to cool down and crispen up.

all thats left once the lissan al usfoor is cooked is to mix it into the rice, season with salt to taste...then serve with the crispy onions on top...

deliciously simple..

after a long ...

and slightly chilly walk home from school what better than a warming bowl of something reminiscent of soup..

my neighbour sent this dish in with the recipe one evening and it's been a firm favourite ever since...

in a pan soften a finely chopped onion in a couple of tablespoons of oil, add to it 2 fresahly grated tomatoes, a big fat cove of garlic and a small tin of tomato paste...some salt (to taste) and LOTS of black pepper... add a couple of litres of cold water and bring up to the boil...throw in a bag of elbow macaroni and any extras you fancy (frozen veggies if you live in a land blessed with such wonders) I used some green beansand carrot in this batch..but I've also used chickpeas and my neighbour sometimes throws in leftover chicken or turkey meat...bring it back to the boil and simmer gently till the macaroni and veggies are tender...if you have algerian carrots and bans you might want to cook them out a bit in your soupy sauce first...

it should be nice and thick by the time it's cooked..and it's lovey with a bit of harissa stirred in at the end..though maybe only for the grown ups....

We have this at least a couple of times a week and the children love it..

and that walk home from school?

well, we kinda love that too...

teatime treats...

are not always easy to come up with...

afternoon tea in Algeria isn't optional,

it's part of life...

and anytime between 3.30 and 5pm you can smell coffee brewing and you will know that on tables all accross Algeria it will be accompaied by anything from baguette to m'semen

to be honest my children seem to think that afternoon tea is a full blown meal rather than a snack to tide them over till supper time,

but Scones and Jam sre a good way of tempting them to have a little bit of a pick me up before going off to their after school activities rather than eating something heavier that will overload them and leave the feeling lethargic..

We don't have scones everyday of course, but when we're running late its a quick recipe to make up an of course they're delicious eaten straight from the oven...

the basic recipe is

8oz plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4tsp salt

1 1/2oz butter

1tbsp sugar

185ml of laban (buttermilk)

into seived flour, add the salt and bicarbonate then rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips till it resembles breadcrumbs...

add the suar and any dried fruits you might be using

(we use dates, sultanas, lemon or orange zest even sometimes)

bring together to a soft unsticky dough with laban...you may not need all of it depending on your flour.

And the secret to a nicely raised scone...make sure you roll your dough to a good thickness before cutting..dont be tempted to roll it out thinly so get more out of the dough...

brush on a little milk and bake for about 12 minutes in a moderately hot oven...

I would show you an "after" shot but they got eaten as soon as they were cool enough to handle

The recipe is an easy one to inrcrease if you need to

we never do less than a quadruple batch...

our Algerian neighbours love them...

Life...

has a habit of getting a bit relentless at times.

I think I'm passing through one of those phases.

There is not enough sleep to be had and cooking and housework just seem to be never ending..

Now, I know there are women out there who find housekeeping pleasurable,

who even seek solace in the rhythmic pattern of a day spent pottering...

I just can't figure out how...

Perhaps it's impossible with young children in the house, perhaps it's a state of being that can only be achieved once your children are able to willingly pick up their own mess, and respect the fact that you've already done a days work cleaning the house before they've even got their breakfast in front of them....

Whatever it is that fills women with such satisfaction in housekeeping... I wish I possesed more of it...

In the meantime, life plods on...

A new month came, provisions had to be bought, meals had to be planned....

Frugal is the aim, as always..so the emphasis is on pulses and veggies and lots of good homecooked food...

sometimes I enjoy cooking..knowing that I'm filling the fridge and bellies with good wholesome food,

at other times it's just another one of those chores that HAS to be done.

There are no short cuts here, life is hard, and often times expensive too... so there is no choice but to cook from scratch and with hard core frugality in mind....

This month as promised, I'm sharing some recipes, and one of my favourite standbys are Latkes.

All of my children love them, as does the dh...

the science behind it is simple, it's just potatoes, onions, flour, eggs, salt & pepper

all mixed up and fried in spoonfuls till golden....

I've been cooking these for more years than I care to remember and eyeball it all the time, depending on how many I'm feeding and how many  I want in reserve for the fridge monster (ds13)

but if your a wee bit less than confident without a full blown recipe..

LATKE

6  potatoes

1 Medium Onion
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Salt
black pepper

3 Tablespoons Flour
 Oil for frying

grate the potatoes, and the onion if you're brave enough... though dicing finely or blitzing it in a machine will work just as well... then mix in the other ingredients and you're ready to go...

Some people put their grated potatoes into a muslin or tea towel and wring out the startchy potato juice before adding the other stuff... there is a difference of opinion on this topic for latke makers... and I personally prefer not to do this..

but it's up to you..try both ways and see which you prefer.

of course it's not essential, but one excellent tip is to have a cold glass of milk somewhere close by the stove, cooling latkes should always be sampled while the rest of your batch is being cooked..and if you cook as big a batch as I do you will definately need the sustanance...

Apple Pie...

is comfort food at its best...

unfortunately I forgot to bring my pie plate with me when I came to Algeria,

So when we had a glut of apples to get through we had to improvise a little.

We made a sweet pie crust recipe,

anyone will do...

And then we added to it unpeeled, sliced apples

cinnamon, sugar and sultanas.

We didn't work with weights or measures (except for the pastry)

Just filled the pastry, which we rolled into a disc untill it looked like it couldn't hold much more..

then folded the edges up and around it to make a crust.

And there we have it, a wonderful rustic looking pie..

We had ours with ice-cream, but could just have easily made a nice home made custard to go on top.

delicious

Garantita...

is one of my favorite snacks,

cheap, cheerful and tasty....

though admitedly not alot of peoples taste...

a garantita sandwich here will cost you just 10 dinars so it's easy to see why it's popular.

We make a huge tray, and eat it hot from the oven with harissa and baguette.

On occasion there are even some leftover... but it's much nicer eaten warm.

You'll need...

2c Gram flour/chickpea flour/hameesa garatita (depending on what you call it)

4c water

1/2c oil

1tsp salt

1 Egg

Black pepper

Ground Cumin

                    

My preferred method is to chuck everything  (except the black pepper and cumin) in the blender and blitz it till it smooth..

I have done it by hand but for some reason chickpea flour I believe was designed to irritate the female of the species by clumping and lumping beyond all normality...

So for goodnss sake don't be a martyr...whazz it with something that will do all the hard work for you.

Oil a tin generously, and then pour the mixture in..

bake it in a medium hot oven until a skin starts to form, the sprinkle the black pepper and cumin over the top...

My oven is Algerian and only works on one super hot setting..and my garantita takes about half an hour to 45 minutes... it's done when it feels firm but still has a bit of wobble to it... just like a quiche.

Then all you need to do is slice open a huge wadge of baguette..spread it with harissa and dollop as much garantita as your belly will hold ...

I'm convinced that if your one of those oddities that doesn't like it, it's cos you've had a batch that was unloved in the making process.. I used to hate it with a vengence too...

But look at it...how can you resist? Give it another try...go on..

By the way, I always double the recipe given... we like it ALOT