845. Grilled Mortadella Cheese Pita

Grilled sandwiches seem to be a multi-cultural favorite knowing no borders nor continent.
From the Mexican, to the British, Italian, American, and beyond. Today's is the Arab version (one of many), using the famous Lebanese pita bread.

844. Red Fruit Salad

Fruit salads can be a generic mix of whatever fruits you have on hand, or they can be a beautiful reflection of the seasonal bounty. This red fruit salad celebrates Summer in all its fiery glory.

843. Berry Ice Cream Lemon Cake

Full disclosure: you can make this dessert by buying a pound cake loaf, a tub of vanilla ice cream, and a packet of raspberries where all you do is assemble. Or you could take it a step further like I did and amp up the flavor big time by going home made.

842. Long Life Salad

Four different kinds of pulses, a gluten-free grain, a hearty green, nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit, healthy oils, and a hefty punch of fresh citrus is this salad. A fairly long list of ingredients and some prep work is needed, but the pay off if a fantastic one.

841. Torsade Pizza

Torsade in French just indicates something that's been twisted. Like the DNA double helix. Like a spiral. Like fusili pasta. So this pizza rolls the dough (my no-knead overnight bread) into a long rod, then proceeds to twist the rod to create the torsade effect (and minimizes retracting of the dough), before being rolled up into a loose snail shell shape, and topped.

840. Malteasers Bars

Until not too long ago, there was an unreasonable obsession with striving to make food look like it were factory produced in uniformity and shape. Now, not so much. Mass produced products often contain a calculated imperfection or two in a marketing attempt to convey a home-made and hand-made air.

839. Spinach Mushroom Feta Crustless Quiche

With the sheer quantity of quiches in this blog alone, it is no secret I harbor a tender spot for these vegetable pies. This crustless cheesy pie of goodness is the latest addition.

838. Pistachio Basbousa

Basboosa (البسبوسة) is an Arab semolina cake which is very popular in the Arabian Gulf, Levant, and North Africa.
MCW boasts a regular basboosa, a coconut basboosa, and now this pistachio basboosa.

837. Palestinian Chicken Musakhan

This month's MENA Cooking Club feature is Occupied Palestine. The MENA Cooking Club explores the differences and similarities of the Middle East and North African countries through local cuisine. Previous entries include Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, and Oman.

836. Lentil Aubergine Salad

This salad looks so mild and timid, and maybe even a little boring, but my was it an explosion! Brown lentils, fried aubergine, and crispy fried (or toasted) pita bread are layered with tangy rich pomegranate molasses and topped with a yogurt dressing.