Hello loyal readers. You have heard me talking about the Royal Foodie Joust for weeks now. But I can’t hlep it, I am just so excited about all the beautiful entries that I have recieved for the first of these montly events! So if you still have not signed up on the forum, NOW IS THE TIME, so you can vote for your favorite!

Click here to go to the Forum!

Click here to see the entries for this month’s Royal Foodie Joust!

Click here to vote for your favorite!

May the Best Cook Win!

This dessert is the final installment to my Mediterranean Medley class I taught last week at
The Culinaria which is inside Bakers & Cooks here in Ocala, FL.
I developed this recipe to try to emulate the flavors of baklava without all the work involved and without all the sweetness. I know, I know, I love Baklava like the rest of you and I know that the sweetness is what really makes it, but I was looking for a way to introduce people who may not have had baklava to the flavors, or give those who enjoy baklava another take on it. Plus, who doesn’t love ice cream?! Those little banana bites I did a while back were so cute I just wanted to keep the theme of bite sized goodies that are so flavorful and delicious you only need a bite to feel satisfied! These are the perfect little dessert for a BBQ, movie or game night or anytime you feel a craving for a little something sweet!
Also, here is a little reminder – if you would like to participate in the FIRST monthly Leftover Queen Foodie Event – The Royal Foodie Joust, you have until midnight TONIGHT (EST US) to enter. Click here for more details! Read the rest of this entry »

July 1st, 12 AM Eastern Standard US Time. If you want to participate you need to post a recipe that contains a dried fruit, a nut and a cheese on
The Leftover Queen Forum under The Royal Foodie Joust.
You can find all participation guidelines on The Forum!
Let the games begin!

Well everyone, I did it!
I got through my first Daring Bakers Challenge and I am thrilled with the results. I am not sure bagels are something I would make from scratch again – they are time consuming and so easy to buy, that I am not sure it is time efficient! But I am thrilled with the fact that I was up to the challenge and met it with creativity and fun! This month’s challenge, REAL HONEST JEWISH PURIST’S BAGELS was chosen by Freya and Jenny.

Well my first challenge was not without its tragedies as baking for me generally is, but I was able to overcome them! The first hurdle was when I started the recipe and was proofing my yeast and realized that I did not have enough yeast. So I had to run out to the store for yeast and start all over again. Not much lost – just 6 TBS of honey and some poor little yeast whose dream of being baked into bagels were crushed as they were un-ceremoniously dumped down the drain. Next tragedy was when I started boiling the bagels and the beautiful smooth crust on them began to break down, and they really looked like blobs of cellulite floating in my pot. Not very pretty.

Thankfully through the baking process they smoothed out and became the beautiful little baked goods they were meant to be!

The rules of the challenge were simple – follow the recipe, do not add anything to the dough and be creative only with the toppings or the spread inside. We were reminded that this is intended to be a savory baked good – so keep the sweets out of it! So here is my version…
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I often get asked by people how they can create traffic to their blogs, get people to comment and really build their website. So I have decided to respond to these questions by writing a post about it!

The key to building traffic, getting people to comment and therefore seeing the results in your blog’s potential is to NETWORK! Networking is the key to all businesses because if you can’t get people to come to your business or in this case, blog, then it will become stagnant.
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I have seen many variations of Fattoush Salad around the blogoshpehere as of late. It is no wonder, as Fattoush salad is one of those colorful, fresh, flavorful salads that pairs up so well with the summer season and foods of the summer. It is also one of my favorites. I am one of these people who never eats the same salad twice. Sometimes I have a common theme, but there is always something that gets tweaked along the way depending on what is in the fridge at the given moment. Salads are great for the Leftover Queen in all of us! I love variety of texture, taste and smell in my salads and almost more than any other dish, a salad has to be colorful! It has to represent all the beauty and bounty of the season.
This is why I love Fattoush Salad. There are many varieties of this salad. Kind of like
Stuffed Grape Leaves (which is probably why I paired them in a meal together!), there are as many varieties and as many methods as one can imagine. However, this is my favorite version.
Sit back on a warm summer night with a bowl of Fattoush, some Stuffed Grape Leaves a glass of Shiraz, put TheLegendary Fairuz, one of my favorite CD’s and therefore in honor of this post, my featured Product Of The Week on in the background, close your eyes and you won’t remember if you are in your own backyard or the busy streets of Beirut.

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Hi Guys!

Only one week and counting until the FIRST monthly
Royal Foodie Joust! This month’s challenge already has 5 delectable entries! Please check out the Leftover Queen Forum for more details on how to enter! Due date is July 1st and the winner will be announced on July 6th fter 5 days of voting! If you cannot enter, at least stop by and vote for your favorite!

Last week..was it really last week? Maybe not, but anyway, I wrote about the Mediterranean Diet and its health benefits. I suggested a book: Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health and just to illustrate how wonderful it is, with regularity I will be posting easy delicious, fresh recipes from the book for you to enjoy and cook at home.

Who doesn’t have some extra carrots lying around, or a jar of olives. Or if you are like me, a jar of Harissa….if you do, you can make this salad in minutes. The hardest part is waiting the ½ hour for the flavors to marry!
This is an incredibly flavorful and delicious salad. With so many textures and tastes it is a symphony for your mouth. This kind of dish is what makes me fall in love with food all over again and makes me giddy with excitement upon eating it. All of my favorite things in one dish, sopped up with a warm pita bread and life just doesn’t get any better. Well, maybe it does if you add a nice glass of Shiraz into the picture! I am going to be running around like a crazy mad woman for a few days getting ready for my class, so I leave you with this to carry you through! This is also my entry for Salad Stravaganza! Go check it out to enter your favorite salad!

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