Baby Apple Sauce

Baby apple sauce with my secret ingredient..... dates!  Not just any dates, these are called "Sukkari" which literally mean sugar dates, and they in fact taste exactly like sugar! I had a bunch leftover from Ramadan and usually take one with my cup of black tea to avoid having to sweeten it with sugar. 

When making a healthy apple sauce for baby you want to also avoid the white refined (and even brown) sugars, in fact it's better to avoid most sweet all together I think to not get them hooked on it. Sugar is just as addictive as drugs. 

After giving birth I became quite addicted to it, now that I'm almost a year past I'm getting back to my normal self but because I never had much of a sweet tooth to begin with, even as a child I felt very strange all of a sudden craving all these sweets, in such an uncontrollable way, I would eat anything in my way, donuts, ice cream, chocolate on a daily basis, it was the only thing that really got me through my day and I looked forward to it. Whether I was addicted from starting a habit or it was hormonal due to post partum hormones or breastfeeding I'll never know but I'm glad I'm now away from it and it helps that I'm just not craving it any more and going back to my old self otherwise I would have had to put myself on some kind of diet to slowly stop. 

So back to the apple sauce, a super healthy treat for your baby and all home made. The easier thing to make as long as you don't burn it, like me. I'm always walking away from fruit on the stove and burning it so learn from my mistakes and stay close by. Its better to add more water than less because the sugars in the fruit tend to caramelize quickly once the water evaporates. 

I'm using ginger golds, home grown in Ontario here, they are slightly tart which is what I want. My secret ingredient, dates add just enough sweetness and I only throw in one or two upon removing the seed. 

Baby Apple Sauce 

Ingredients:

2 apples, peeled and cored, chopped into bite size pieces of slices for easy stewing

1-2 sukkari dates (of if you can't find 'em use Medjool) pits removed.

water, enough to cover. 

Directions:
Add all to the sauce pan and bring to a boil then simmer on low until fruit is soft. If there is too much water leftover allow the liquid to evaporate by removing the lid and staying close by to keep an eye on it and avoid burning the fruit. 

Once removed from heat and cooled add to blender and blend smooth. If you need to run it through a sieve to remove any date skins you can. 

Double the batch and freeze any extras for later if desired. 

Baby's first Ramadan

Ramadan Mubarak to all my Muslim followers! Hope you're having a blessed third of Ramadan so far... Baby has been keeping me very busy but I wanted to quickly share a couple of shots of my Ramadan decor, these beautiful pieces are by a lovely sister who is starting up a little Eid business both on Etsy and locally, please check out her shop - MyLittleEidShop  for these gorgeous birch mosque cutouts and many more upcoming products that she's working hard to bring to all of us.

And I can't leave you all without a recipe so I'm sharing my favourite Ramadan sweets, the famous Luqmat Al Qadi which we make all across the Middle East. Of course we covered it before on the blog but I have perfected and tweaked it a little so here it is
Luqmat Al Qadi 

Dates with Eggs تمر بالبيض

Have you ever had maple syrup with your eggs?  Well I know this looks and probably sounds unsual but it's really good and quite the same, the molasses-y taste of the dates goes beautifully with the eggs and makes a nice breakfast, brunch or light dinner eaten with bread, it popular in many parts of the middle east.   I

This is a simple recipe, it's really just two ingredients and you can alter it to your taste but here's how I do it: 

- 4 eggs

- 1 loose cup of whole dried dates chopped into small pieces (you cold leave them whole or buy already chopped pieces)

- Salt
- Olive oil or butter

Chop dates, set aside.

Heat pan, add some olive oil and sautee the dates on medium low, they are sugary so they can burn, keep an eye on them and this point here is just to soften them up a bit, I add a bit of water from the kettle (remove from heat, cool down and then pour water as not to burn yourself)  
Let them soften a bit until all the water evaporated and then remove and set aside. If you like that sweet/salty thing in your desserts and snacks then add a tiny sprinkling of salt to your dates like I do.

In another pan or the same one rinsed and wiped dry add some more olive oil or butter and scramble eggs very gently on medium low, seasoning with salt, just a sprinkling and adding the dates in towards the end of cooking (if you add them too early they can turn your eggs very grey - will taste fine- but this is why I use this method to keep the dish looking pretty)

Serve warm with fresh arabic style flat bread as a breakfast, brunch of part of a delicious middle eastern spread.  

This dish has that bread pudding eggy sweet souffle flavour and dates are super healthy so I think you'll like it ;-) 

 

Enjoy! 

Mersu: An Ancient Confection

Here's a healthy super easy recipe, no baking required and they make wonderful little energy boosters.

These little treats date back to the the Babylonian times as some of the earliest treats known to man. They were called Mersu as mentioned on the old Babylonian culinary tablets.

They are still popular today and back home my grandma taught us how to make these, she would knead the dates into a dough and then us children would gather around and follow her lead of rolling little balls out of the dates and stuffing them.

There are a few steps so it's a bit of an assembly line but it's fun. Also there are variations so you can make whatever you like but what I remember was walnuts, coconut and sesame seeds.

My favourite is the walnut date sesame seed because I love the crunch of the hidden walnut piece inside and then the toasted sesame coating just works beautifully with the sweet date paste. It's really addictive!

So we begin with date paste, or those dry pitted dates from the bulk store bin.

Chop your dates up with a knife then pour some hot water over your dates, so for every 2 cups about a 1/2 cup of warm or hot water. Let it sit for a bit then drain the water off.

Now start kneading until you get a dough.

You could add a drop or two or oil to help with the mixing.

Prepare your ingredients in advance:

- A bowl of toasted sesame seeds

- A bowl of coconut

- A bowl of chopped/ground pistachio

- Walnuts (cut into quarters or halves - small enough to fit inside)

Now take a bit of dough and roll it between your palms.

Take a piece of walnut and shove it inside then close it up and roll it again.

Now set these aside until ready to coat them. Once you've prepped a descent amount you can move to rolling them into whatever coating you like or if you have help your little ones can do this for you.

Set them aside and you're all ready to go!

It's that easy.

Enjoy with tea, arabic coffee, as a nice snack or energy boosting treat!

During the recet Iraq war there was a time when the American soldiers were doing surveillance in all the houses so they paid a visit to my grandfathers house, when they entered my grandma was sitting in the living room rolling these little treats and they were curious as to what they were so she let them taste, they loved them so much and so she offered for them to take some. They were delighted and began filling their pockets with these little sticky confections.

Yumyum!