It's been a looooong, long, long tiiiime!

Hello everyone!

I can't believe almost a whole year has passed since I lasted posted here. It has certainly been a whirl wind of a year.

My family welcomed a new healthy baby boy, born 13/10/2014 and thankfully he's been pretty good so far! I also had my in laws stay with me from Jordan for a few months, I can't thank them enough for all the help they gave me.

Seeing as I have a newborn and have chosen to breastfeed I found it vital that I try anything to keep my milk supply as high possible. So far I have tried eating and drinking fenugreek. Although it's great since it's all natural, on consumption you may find that your skin will start to smell like this seed. I didn't feel as though it has done a great deal to increase my milk supply so I ditched that and when onto lactation cookies!

I have searched for some recipes and have found that the main ingredients to make the cookies "work" are brewer's yeast, oats and flaxseed meal (linseed).

So far so good! I have noticed a slight increase in my milk and I get fuller faster and never really feel 'empty'.

You will find that the brewer's yeast will give it a bitter taste, which is what you want, as it is the component that has the most health benefits.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup butter ( low fat is best)
3/4 Brown sugar
1 egg
1 Tsp Vanilla
2-3 Tbsp Linseed meal
2-3 Tbsp water (depending on how moist you want it)
1 Cup wholemeal self-raising flour
1 1/2 Cups oats
 Your own additional ingredients e.g. choc chips, coconut, nuts etc

Method

Pre- heat oven to 180 gas or 160 electric. Line biscuit try with baking paper.

1.Using a hand mixer or table top mixer cream butter and sugar then add the egg and vanilla. Mix well.
2. Place Linseed meal and water into a cup and allow to sit for a few minutes.
3. Place dry ingredients into the butter and sugar mixture along with water and linseed. Combine well.
4. Mix in oats and added extras to taste.
5. Using a teaspoon, scoop out mixture and place onto prepared baking tray. Wet the back of the spoon to slightly press down on the dough.
6. Allow to bake for 10 min.
Cool on baking rack.

In addition you could use a linseed (flaxseed) mixture which includes carob and berries.

Note: Using whole seeds is better than using crushed. The nutrients slightly deplete in the cooking process.

I hope you enjoyed my come back post! I hope this will help any mummas out there who deed a boob boost!

Recipe of the Week

Here again!

I've decided that Sunday will be the day where I will choose a couple of recipes that I've used during the week that I love. Of course this doesn't mean that I won't add more according to everyone's requests.

Lets get started. This week I made an Arabic dish called "Fatet Lahmeh". The recipe I used is from the Manal Al-Alem cookbook 2010.

Thankfully this book has English translations to all the recipes in the book.  
So here it goes:

Ingredients:
1-1.5kg diced lamb
1 tsp salt
1 onion quartered
2 cinnamon sticks
10 whole black peppers
3 cups short grain rice
10-12 cloves minced finely
2 tbs ghee
3 rounds of Arabic/pita bread cut into 2cm squares
1/2 cup of vinegar.

Method:
1. Place lamb into either a pressure cooker or pot with onion, cinnamon, pepper and salt. Cook until tender.
2. Once meat it cooked drain it out and keep the water for later.
3. Cook the rice (however you usually cook it)
4. Heat up some vegetable oil and deep fry the bread. Set aside.
5. Place ghee and garlic into a saucepan and saute on high until the garlic turns golden.
6. Pour the vinegar into the garlic and bring to a light boil for 1 min.

How to assemble the dish:
1. Place fried bread at the bottom of a deep dish
2. Spoon half the garlic and vinegar mixture onto the bread. At this point you will also need to wet the bread with some of water that the lamb was cooked it. Just enough to wet the bread or else they bread will go completely soggy. You want there to be a bit of crunch!
3. Evenly spread rice over the top of the bread.
4. Place meat on top of rice in an evenly fashion.
5. Drizzle the remainder of the garlic and vinegar mixture over the meat.

Next recipe is a sweet one. These Arabic butter biscuits (from what I'm told) originated from Jordan.
These would have to be the most EASIEST bikkies you'll ever come across. These are also I sometimes treat as you will find out soon.

Ingredients:
2 cups ghee
2 cups icing sugar
3.5 cups plain flour
nuts of your choice

Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to about 160 C fan forced (180 C gas)
2. Using an electric mixer, mix the ghee and icing sugar until well combined with a smooth texture.
3. Add in the flour and mix on medium until well combined.
4. The consistency should be that of dough. 
5. Take small amounts of the dough and shape them however you like.
6. Add either almonds, pine nuts or pistachios to the the shape for decoration. Or you can leave it plain.
7. Bake for around 15 min. 
Here are some examples of how 'Gharaybeh" can be shaped:

Baking tip!
 You don't want them to go brown! These bikkies are meant to be pale in colour. once you notice them starting to crack from the tops they should be about right to come out.


   

Here are what mine looked like:

I hope someone gives these recipes a go and let me know how you went!

Tasty hugs!

“Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.” 
― Julia Child