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.

Sahlab!

Well, like Nomi said, we are back and better than ever! So since she explained everything already, I'll jump right in with a recipe! Not without my fair share of mess ups, I finally made sahlab (pronounced sechleb), which may have a funny name but tastes delicious! Basically a milk pudding, this simple recipe is great for anyone who likes milk, vanilla, or pudding.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe: (makes about 5 portions)

Sahlab

4 cups milk
1/4 cup of sugar
4 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon vanilla

Put 3 and 1/2 cups of the milk in a pot. the other 1/2 cup mix with the corn starch until well dissolved. Make sure to stir it well before you add it to the pot--otherwise it clumps.
Wait until the milk in the pot is almost boiling and add the rest of milk with cornstarch, the sugar, and the vanilla.

(I'm not really a lefty--but i definitely wanted to hold the phone in my right hand!)

As soon as everything is in the pot, make sure to stir very frequently, or else disaster may be on your hands.
Exhibit A:

I turned my back for 10 seconds and come to find it overflowed! Don't make this mistake!

But not to worry, its all cleaned up. (Although I clearly left a few streaks on the stove. Yuck!)

(Yes, that's Katie's highchair in the background :)

It will take some time to get the right consistency (which is thick), but after about 8 minutes you can stop stirring and remove from heat. Sadly, I think I stirred for a little too long, so it ending up burning a bit. I know--I seem like a disaster! Trust me, it's a one time thing! Plus, it made a cool configuration at the bottom of the pot.

Then all that's left to do is poor into ramekins or cups--whatever you have--and sprinkle cinnamon on top--the best part!

As you can see, I like a lot of cinnamon on my sahlab. It's totally not that a lot came out of the container at once! (for real--that was one disaster that didn't end up happening!)

Well, there you have it. Sahlab! Mine may have been a small fail, but this is a delicious recipe that is a great desert or snack! I might just leave the job of cooking it up to my mom or sister from now on!

Sahlab is delicious eaten hot or cold. Keep it in the fridge. The part that sticks to the bottom of the pot (even the burnt part) is delicious. All my siblings used to fight to eat the "pot" when they were little kids (before I was born.)