Kusa b’Jibn (Zucchini-Cheese Pie)

Sarah and I have been kind of MIA because time goes by so quickly and all of a sudden it's Memorial Day and almost summer vacation. Crazy!! And a new blog post is long overdue because even though this blog is my number 1 priority, so is cleaning the house and cooking dinner, giving Katie a bath, and giving myself a bath, and writing reports for work and hanging out with my husband and well, you get the idea.

Here is a recipe for another one of my grandma's Syrian recipes: Kusa b'Jibn - a Zucchini crustless cheese quiche/pie, similar to Spanach  B'jibn (Spinach Cheese Pie) which Sarah has blogged about in the past. Kusa means zucchini in Syrian and Jibn means cheese. I recently was co-host of a baby shower for a wonderful friend of mine who just gave birth to the most beautiful little girl. The Kusa b'Jibn was a hit by all the guests as well as by their husbands who crashed the party at the end.

This is the first time I have ever made Kusa b'Jibn, but I've eaten it many, many times in my life. This is also the first time I have ever seen it this color. When my mom makes it is green. Something to do with the way I cooked the onions turned it brown. The pictures would look better if it was green, probably, but either way: DELICIOUS!!

Kusa b'Jibn 

1) 5 medium sized zucchinis, peeled and sliced
2) 1 onion, diced
3) 1 container (16 oz) of cottage cheese (fat free, 2%, 4% - your choice, I used 4%)
4) 8 oz cheddar cheese, grated
5) 3 eggs
6) salt & pepper to taste

Put the onion and zucchini in a pot with a small amount of oil and cook until soft (approximately 20 minutes). Meanwhile mix in a medium bowl the cottage cheese, cheddar cheese and eggs. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Drain any excess water from the cooked vegetables and add them to the cheese mixture. Put in a casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes UNCOVERED (it should no longer be watery).

Spanach B'jibn

Finals are finally over! (ha--see what I did there?) And, sadly, so is winter vacation. :( So here I am again, with a new and delicious blog post! This time I decided to write about spanach b'jibn, a yummy dairy dish made by my mom and served to all our company: Naomi, Mike, and my aunt and cousins who visited from New Jersey over break.

It was so amazing having the family together for a week, and one of the best parts was the delicious meal of manicotti with a special side dish right off this blog. Or should I say right from my Grandma's repertoire.
This dish is really self explanatory: It's spinach (spanech) with cheese (jibn). And what could be more delicious? It's a fairly simple recipe but the result is impressive and good for a meal. Alternatively, it can also be made in separate ramekins and served separately.
To save the leftovers (if there are any:) just refrigerate it, and either microwave it later or eat it cold.
My mom was nice enough to not only make the spanech b'jibn but take pictures of the process as well, and here's the step by step:

Take a half of an onion or a whole one if it's small and sauté it in a pan with a bit of oil. After the onions are a little browned, add in the package of spinach, and wait until it defrosts and softens to take it out of the pan and transfer to a bowl. You can use fresh spinach as well.

Here's how it looks now:

Next, time to incorporate the other ingredients. Go ahead and dump in both kinds of cheeses and the eggs.

Beautiful.

Mix it all up with a pinch of pepper and a tiny bit of salt (not too much) and pour mixture into a casserole dish to bake in the toasty oven. If you want individual portions, you can use little ramekins and serve one to each guest or family member.

    
After 45 min.-1 hour of baking, (about 20-25 min. for ramekins) it will be ready.
A pretty delish dish! We gobbled it right up with barely enough to reheat the next day. Enjoy!

Spanach B'jibn

Recipe:
1 package frozen spinach (or fresh)
half a large onion
oil for sauté
16 oz. cottage cheese
6 oz. shredded cheese (muenster, cheddar, or any of your choice)
3 eggs
pinch of salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350.
Chop onion and fry in pan with a little oil. Add spinach until it gets soft and defrosted. Put spinach and onion mixture into bowl and mix in cottage cheese with other cheese and eggs. Add a dash of pepper and a very small pinch of salt.

Pour it into a casserole dish and put in oven for 45 min-1 hour uncovered. If in separate ramekins check in 25 minutes.

Cheese Ejjeh

Another version of ejjeh (Syrian Latkes). This one is with cheese instead of meat. It isn't the healthiest food, that's for sure, but Chanukah comes but once a year. (I don't suggest eating this all eight days, though.) 

It is essentially a cheese omelet, as the ingredients are just egg and cheese. 

But it is the cheesiest cheese omelet ever. 

And did I mention it’s fried! 

By the way, a fellow half-Syrian friend of mine (shout out to Dave!) told me that 'ejjeh' means 'cake'. 

 If you are a cheese lover than this recipe is for you! 

Doesn't it look good?

           And just like the meat ejjeh, you can eat this in a sandwich with tomato and lettuce. 

I was out of lettuce and tomato, so we had to do without. 

But there was no way I was making dinner without something healthy. So I sauteed mushroom, eggplant, and pepper for the side. That way I got to enjoy my fried cheese sandwich guilt free. 

Cheese Ejjeh

1)8 oz. of cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, I used Monterey Jack)

2)3 eggs & 1 egg yolk

3)salt & pepper to taste

4)oil for frying

In a bowl, mix together all of the ingredients.  Heat oil on the stove. Drop 3 large spoonfuls of cheese mixture and cook for 2 minutes on each side (until it bubbles). Continue until the cheese mixture is all used up, stacking the pancakes on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the extra oil.                               

Cheese Fila and Katie's Birthday Party

My first recipe post since my LONG break. So, it's  got to be something special. Can't think of anything more special than cheese fila which were made for my baby's first birthday party. It's the perfect come back recipe!

I went shopping after work on Friday to buy the ingredients for the fila. I only had one hour to make the fila and I had other things to cook as well, but I was determined to do it. And excited because I was making one of my favorite of my grandmother's recipes for my daughter's first birthday party and so this was a fun thing. My daughter was very happy to see me after I had been away all day at work and wanted me to hold her. How am I supposed to make fila with her in my arms? I kept putting her down and she would get distracted by all of her birthday toys and then 5 minutes later she wanted me to hold her again. Which was fine. After all, she didn't ask for this party.  It's technically for her birthday, but really it's for my husband and me and our friends. Right? First thing I had to do was mix the 2 type of cheeses together. Time was a tickin'. I put the farmer cheese into the bowl. I poured the mozzarella cheese on top of it. And immediately I smell it. The mozzarella cheese I had just picked up from the market moments before was rotten. Gross. I had to throw it all away and just use whatever cheese was in my fridge. I had a little bit of feta, a little bit of tomato and olive cheese, a little bit of cheddar. I was going to make this work. Even if things weren't going as planned and I was running out of time. I was determined!

 I had to throw away a whole entire package of cheese!

 I mixed the cheeses together. My daughter was playing nicely now with her toys. Phew! And now for the time consuming part. It's easy but time consuming. Really fun thing to do with a friend, parent/child, or spouse.
First I rolled out the fila and cut it into 3 pieces. My grandmother used to only cut it in 2, but 3 goes farther! And I like the fila better when they're smaller. Notice my 3 pieces are completely different sizes. Try to make your pieces more equal than mine. Or not. Since mine did come out delicious!

Now put all 3 piles on top of each other. You want to work somewhat fast because the fila dough dries up when it is out too long and becomes difficult to work with. Take each piece, one at a time of course, and spread melted butter on it with your pastry brush and then fold.

Now put a little bit of cheese on each corner and fold into the shape of a triangle (up down up down).

The fila were delicious and my daughter's party was so much fun! 

The party was Sesame Street themed. Here are some pictures of my Sesame Street creations. And yes, most of my ideas were inspired from Pinterest.

Elmo, Oscar, and Big Bird Veggie Platters. Cookie Monster Donuts.

Homemade mini vanilla donuts with blue frosting, marshmallow and chocolate chip eyes with a cookie in their mouths!

While I based Oscar and Elmo from multiple posts on Pinterest, I'm proudest of Big Bird because he was my own creation. I made my Aunt Sharon's delicious corn salad (corn, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and basil), made onion dip eyes with olive eyeballs, and used baby corn as the beak!

Cheese Fila

What you need:
1)1 package of fila dough
2)Butter (at least one stick)
3)8 ounces mozzerella cheese
4)8 ounces farmer cheese
5)2 eggs
6)Pastry Brush
7)Sesame Seeds (Optional)

Mix mozzerella and farmer cheese together in a medium bowl with the 2 eggs. Mix until combined.

In a cup melt butter. I did not specify how much butter because I never know. What I do is cut half a stick of butter and melt it for 30 seconds in the microwave. I melt more as needed throughout the whole process.

Open the package of fila dough (usually it is sold in the frozen section, so make sure it is defrosted before you use it.) Roll out the fila dough and cut it into 3 even sections. Pile the 3 sections on top of each other.

Take one piece of fila and use the pastry brush to brush the melted butter onto it. Now fold it in half, using the butter to help seal it. (You do not want to skip this step. The butter is part of the reason that cheese fila is so amazing!)

Take a small spoonful of the cheese mixture and place it on the end of the fila and fold over into a triangle, and continue folding until you get to the end. Repeat with each piece of fila. As you complete one, put it on an ungreased baking sheet. Put them on the tray with the points facing inwards and so that they make squares. Like this picture:

When the tray is full spread melted butter on top of all the fila and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
Now you can either bake them or freeze them, or probably both.

Freeze them on the tray so that they don't stick together. Then move them to a tupperware and make sure to put wax paper between each layer.

Bake on 350 degrees on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 30 minutes or until slightly brown and toasty.

Kalsonnes's Peanut Butter Makeover

I was first thinking about just sticking in a spoonful of peanut butter into each wanton skin and seeing how that would come out. But then I thought that that isn't really kalsonnes. Kalsonnes is all about the cheese. So, instead I added a little bit of peanut butter to the cheese mixture. Now I could really find out if peanut butter will make kalsonnes better.

The Results: Mixed (Split right down the middle).

Mike, my father, and I all liked it. Sarah, my mother, and Sarah's friend all hated it.

I really liked it and don't understand what there is to hate about it. However, would I make it again? What I think I would do (and what I suggest you do) is when making the regular kalsonnes recipe, I would put aside 1/2 a cup of the cheese mixture, add 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and make however many kalsonneses that makes. But I don't think I would ever make a whole batch of it like I would the pesto kalsonesses. So, while I liked it, it wasn't as big of a hit as the pesto version. And Sarah has found out sooner than she expected that peanut butter does not always make everything better.

Recipe:
For every cup of cheese mixture, add 2 tablespoons of peanut butter.

Put a dollop of peanut butter/cheese mixture in each wanton skin, put water on all 4 sides, fold over.
Boil until the kalsonnes rise to the top. Eat and hopefully enjoy.

Kalsonnes's Pesto Makeover

Everyone I asked--Naomi, my mom, my friends--all thought that pesto and kalsonnes would be a perfect match. It turns out they were sooo right! I adore kalsonnes and thought the original recipe would always be my favorite, but from now on I want pesto kalsonnes to be the only kalsonnes. Not putting down the original recipe, of course, but adding four tablespoons of the basic pesto recipe--I actually added some spinach to the basic pesto recipe--turned great Syrian food into amazing Syrian food.

The Result: Success!!

Recommended by everyone who tasted it (Me, Naomi, Mike, both my parents, and my friends), everyone should try this recipe!
So in fact, everything is better with pesto!(Well, at least kalsonnes is--we'll see about everything else!!)

Here's the recipe:

Pesto Kalsonnes

1) 1 package of wonton skins
2) 7 oz farmer cheese (about half a package)
3) 7 oz muenster cheese
4) 1 egg
5) 4 tbs of basic pesto recipe (my pesto had one and a half cups of spinach added to mixture)

Mix last 4 ingredients together and put in center of wanton skin. With finger, rub water on four sides of wanton skins and fold over into triangles or rectangles.

Kalsonnes

Kalsonnes are Syrian cheese raviolis. They are also one of my absolute favorite foods. We make kalsonnes and then freeze the extras. The kalsonnes are boiled and then served with melted butter (although now that I am more health conscious I will eat it without the butter. It is so delicious by itself that the extra fat is not necessary.) The real kalsonnes recipe involves making your own dough. Most people make it the lazy way now. We use wanton skins instead of dough. This is the way that I know it and love it. Even my grandmother stopped making it with real dough, so I only know of it with wanton skins. However, my mother says that it doesn't even compare to kalsonnes made with homemade dough. It's time consuming enough, stuffing each wanton skin, that it never seems worth it to give me additional work and make the dough as well. Until now. Now is as good a time as any to give it a shot and see exactly how much better than wanton skins home made dough really is.

So my grandma's recipe said to crack 2 eggs, fill all 4 halves of the egg shells with water and pour into bowl, add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Then it said to keep adding flour until the dough is no longer sticky. My grandma's recipes are like all grandma recipes out there - not very precise. So I just poured in a whole bunch of flour, way, way too much. Then I put the dough into a bowl and covered it with a towel for an hour and a half. I then kneaded it by hand for 5 minutes and covered it again for 20 minutes. I ended up with VERY thick dough because I had put in too much flour. It was so thick.

I used a wine glass to make circles and then I rolled the circles out with a rolling pin to make it a little thinner and then filled each circle with cheese and then folded and pinched it closed.

As I was rolling the dough thinner, I knocked the wine glass down and it broke into a million pieces and I hope no glass ended up in my dough. I think my kalsonnes came out looking pretty nice. I now know to use a lot less flour because they were really thick to eat, but yum none the less. I will most definitely attempt to make the dough again. It really was not that much work. Hardest part was rolling it because it was so thick. A thinner dough will be much easier to deal with.

So because it was so thick it didn't end up being such a big recipe. I was left with soooo much extra cheese. I have the best husband ever who very willingly went to the market at 9:15 pm to buy wanton skins for the extra cheese.

That's a lot of left over cheese! So much so, that it filled almost 2 packages of wanton skins. I placed a dollop of the cheese mixture in the middle of each wanton skin and then I stuck my finger into water and rubbed all 4 sides of the skin and then folded it over.

Easy as can be, but so time consuming. I thought it would never end. This is the kind of activity to do with a partner. And let me tell you, every second of torture is so worth it in the end. You won't regret it. Just freeze them and eat a little at a time whenever you get a craving for deliciousness.

And now I will post 2 recipes. The grandma recipe which has no measurements and a more precise recipe so that you have better success than I did.

Grandma's Kalsonnes Recipe- the not so precise recipe

Dough
Break 2 eggs into a bowl and then take the four half shells and fill with water and add to eggs. Put 1 tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of vinegar and stir all together. Now add a little flout at a time until dough is not sticky. Make into a ball and put it in a bowl covered with a cloth and let it rest for an hour or two.
Filling
1 package farmer cheese
1 package cheddar cheese (same size package as farmer cheese)
2 eggs
Mix together farmer cheese, grated cheddar cheese and eggs

Knead dough for 5 minutes. Cover with towel and wait 20 more minutes. Roll out the dough, cut out circles of dough with small glass. Point dollop of cheese in middle of dough and fold over.
When ready to eat, put in boiling water with a little salt added. Cook about 20 minutes. Drain and eat.

Thanks for humoring me by reading the above recipe. That's the recipe I followed. But please, follow the next recipe instead. I assume you'll get better results with the next recipe. Or just use wanton skins. Which as I mentioned is absolutely delicious.

Kalsonnes - the recipe you should follow

The dough proportions comes from: A Fistful of Lentils by:Jennifer Felicia Abadi
The filling and everything else is the way my family makes it

Dough
5 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold water

Filling
1 pound of grated Cheddar cheese (any similiar cheese is fine too)
1 pound of farmer cheese (can use 2 pounds of Cheddar instead of farmer cheese)
2 eggs

1. Place all the filling ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
2. In another large bowl, combine the flour, beaten eggs, and salt with a wooden spoon. Slowly add the water while mixing it with your hands until a soft dough is created. Knead in the bowl until very smooth and elastic.
3. Use glass with a small mouth to make the dough into circles. Put cheese in center of dough and fold over. (If you are using wanton skins, rub water over the four sides before you fold over.)
4. Put the kalsonnes in boiling water and cook until they rise to the top. Drain and eat with melted butter on top!

Tip:
**Freeze in a single layer (or else the kalsonnes will stick together) on a baking sheet and then transfer to Tupperware.)**

If you want to serve this for company and want this recipe to go farther, what you can do is mix it with a pound of buttered noodles and bake it in the oven covered for 30 minutes. This is what the Syrians call "Kalsonnes b'Rishta" which means Kalsonnes with Noodles.