1057. Express Haloomi Potstickers

I have been making these little ugly gems for years, yet never thought about blogging it because it was a mindless non-recipe to me. Convenient for breakfast, or a savory snack, or even a light dinner, these haloomi parcels have come through many a time for me.

1056. Honeycomb Chocolate Bark

Chocolate bark has been around since I can remember, but its popularity has soared recently. To make your own, you should know that it is fully customizable to what you have in the pantry. Generally you only need 5 or 6 ingredients, and this combination stood out to me due to its variety in colors and flavors.

1055. Kishk Soup

Kishk is very similar to kubba lebaniya, but the fact that it is made from fermented and dried yogurt changes everything. Some might call lebaniya pungent due to the intensity of garlic and mint that goes into the dish. Kishk is way more pungent, gutsy, and intense, due to both the buckets of garlic, and the fermentation of the yogurt (further intensified through drying). So an acquired taste, it is, but anyone who has studied the fundamentals of nutrition can tell you kishk is the super food.

1054. Sweet Chilli Shrimp

Barring salt, pepper, and a smidge of butter, the only ingredients in this wonderfully tasty and uber fast dish are shrimp and sweet chili sauce. To further enhance the convenience factor of this recipe, frozen shrimp can be used. Served with a side of noodles or rice, maybe even some sauteed vegetable thrown in, this is the definition of wholesome fast food.

1053. Austrian Poppy Seed Torte

Mohntorte is an Austrian poppy seed torte/cake. It is also popular in Poland and Germany, so naturally each region has their input to the torte, morphing it into many variations. This version uses absolutely not butter or oil, and very little flour. The result is an almost-meringue cake.

1052. Salmon Fava Chowder

If you like moules et frites or clam chowder, this is a recipe for you. No exotic nor tame shellfish are used here, just the domestic salmon fillet. Typical chowder ingredients are added, which include potato, corn, and cream, but non-typical ones are what truly make it pop, like dill and fava beans.

1051. Iraqi Aubergine Rolls

While I do enjoy participating in all the MENA Cooking Club challenges and appreciate any cuisine of the various countries that make us One Umma, I am bias when it comes to the Iraq challenge. I love this country so much and actually feel physical pain to what it has been reduced to. But there is no despair for those who believe, and as sure as the sun blazes in the sky, Islam will conquer and its enemies will cower.

1050. Orange Fruit Cake

Meet the fuitcake who you will actually like: Orange Fruitcake. I don't know if you're anything like me, but I tend to buy somewhat more dried fruit than I will actually use. So I end up with small quantities of various perfectly edible dried fruit. This recipe is the perfect delicious way you can use up those little nuggets. What really makes the cake special is the orange-infused batter enveloping this colorful gems. The cake is much more fruit than cake, allowing it to have a long shelf life when stored properly.

1049. Iraqi Spinach Fatayer

My mother, Allah rest her soul, used to make the most amazing spinach fatayer. What excelled them was the sour factor, combined with a perfect pillowy pastry. As is traditional, the parcels would be triangular in shape. After several trials, I think I have finally found the recipe closest to my memory of hers.

1048. Iraqi Spinach Meatball Stew

Most stews use cuts of meat that take a good while of stewing, such as lamb shanks, ribs, or backbone. While you can taste the love and comfort, the downside is the sheer time that goes into them. The Iraqi solution to have your stew and eat it too, express style, is using meatballs.

1047. Chicken Moghrabiya

This is a famous Lebanese family dish consisting of pearl couscous cooked in broth and mixed with cooked chickpeas and shredded chicken chunks. What sets it apart though from any carb-and-chicken dish is the unexpected use of caraway spice.

1046. Cauliflower Savory Cake

This cauliflower savory cake is perfect eaten at room temperature with a leafy simple salad. Now I tasted it while still warm from the oven, and it was good. But when it cooled down to room temp, it transformed to an entirely new beast.

1045. Instant Bread Pudding

My connotation with bread pudding strangely comes from Jane Eyre. I say strangely, because long before I read and loved the book, bread pudding was a childhood treat to us. Stale bread would be broken up in a mug while the milk heats in a saucepan. Once steaming and near-boiling, the milk would be poured over the stale bread, and sweetened with a couple of teaspoons of sugar.It was the best treat ever to the innocence of a child.

1044. Iraqi Red Pumpkin Stew

Although I was hesitant to try this dish because I thought pumpkin would be too sweet to have in a stew, I went ahead anyway because it is documented that pumpkin stew was one of our beloved Prophet's (peace and blessing be upon him) favorite foods. And that is saying something, as meat was certainly not a daily occurrence and would mostly be reserved for occasions. In summary, I am so glad I gave it a go. That one go led to three other goes in the span of just over a week.