Moroccan Inspired Carrots

Over the past year I ate Moroccan Carrots from several restaurants including a Moroccan one. I thought they were all the most delicious carrots and I can tell you two of them were the best carrots I ever tasted in my life.

I studied many different recipes for Moroccan Carrots and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients For about 12 servings

3 lbs. carrots

1/4 cup & 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (1/4 C EVOO for roasting the carrots & 2T EVOO to roast the shallots and scallions)

1/2 cup water for roasting the carrots

2 Tablespoons sugar

fresh ground sea salt

fresh ground black pepper

1 bunch parsley -I used a big bunch of curly and tried off stems – clean and rough chop

1 bunch cilantro – trimmed of the thicker ends of stems- clean and rough chop

1 bunch of scallions – clean and separate white ends and green tops – rough chop all but keep separate

4 garlic cloves – fine chop

1 jalapeno – fine chop

2 meyer lemons – fresh squeezed (you are only using the juice)

2 Tablespoons orange zest

1 shallot – chopped up

2 Tablespoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch cloves

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (for the herb sauce)

1/2 cup water (for blending herb sauce)

1/2 cup of Turkish Apricots chopped

1/2 cup roasted almonds chopped

1/4 cup of honey or date syrup for drizzling

Directions

Set your oven to 375 degrees. First step is to roast the carrots. Clean the carrots and place them on baking sheets with a drizzle of olive oil and a a couple tablespoons of water. Sprinkle the carrots lightly with sugar and cover with foil. Roast the carrots on your middle rack. Roast till fork tender. (about an hour) After fork tender remove the foil cover and bring the carrots up to the top rack and let roast till they look browned and caramelized. (15-20 minutes). Apply fresh ground salt and pepper to the carrots and keep warm.

Roast up your shallots and chopped whites of scallions. Set them on a baking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil. Set on top rack of your oven till browned. (about 20-25 minutes). Set aside.

Blend up all the remaining ingredients  (except the carrot toppings of apricots, almonds and honey/date syrup) with your just roasted shallots and roasted green onions.

Pour the herb sauce over the carrots and top with the apricots, almonds and honey (or date syrup)

Moroccan Inspired Carrots

It’s Forking Good and that’s The Forking Truth!

I got these beautiful brandy wine tomatoes from Tolmachoff Farms in Glendale. They are the FORKING BEST tasting tomatoes I ever tried but they always are so ripe you forking have to use them that day or the next. I was out of fresh basil but had fresh cilantro so I forking made salsa.

Ingredients makes about 7 cups so that might be 14 servings plus

2 lbs 10 oz. Tomatoes (cut out cores and chop up tomatoes)

5 oz. Scallions chopped up

1 Red Bell Pepper core and seeds removed and chopped up (or a green if you have a green bell)

4 Jalapeños stems removed and chopped fine (you might need more or less depending on how hot the peppers are, size and your tolerance for heat)

6 Garlic cloves minced

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons black pepper

1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Combine ingredients and blend about halfway so it’s still chunky but is also smooth.

Fresh heirloom brandy-wine tomato salsa.

It’s Forking Good and that’s The Forking Truth!

I got these beautiful sweet yellow tomatoes from the farmers market so I wanted to make gazpacho with them. I dropped the tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes so I could peal them and discovered how sweet and fruity they taste. If I closed my eyes and ate them I would never guess they were tomatoes and got inspired to add orange to the bring out the fruit notes.

Ingredients Makes about 6 cups – about 6 servings

2 lbs. 6 oz. yellow tomatoes

1/2 cup of cucumber (chopped small)

1 large orange (segments with membrane skin and seeds removed and then chopped) and use about-

2 tablespoons of orange  zest.

1/2 red bell pepper – stem and seeds removed and fine chopped

1/4 cup chopped scallions

1 jalapeno chopped fine (you may need slightly more or less depending on the heat, size of your pepper and your taste)

3 garlic cloves minced

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 Tablespoons white vinegar

2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice

1/4 teaspoon aleppo pepper

1/2 teaspoon cumin

2 teaspoons kosher salt – 1 teaspoon kosher salt + 1 teaspoon kosher salt to add to a pot of water

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro

2 Tablespoons fresh basil

Directions

Put a pot of water on the stove to boil and add a little salt. Cut light x cuts on bottom of tomatoes and drop in boiling water.

Remove tomatoes after a minute or two. Let tomatoes cool and peal them and remove the tomatoes button where it was once attracted to a stem.

Lightly chop the tomatoes and blend them. Add the rest of the ingredients and adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve Chilled.

It’s Forking Good and that’s The Forking Truth!

Pizza semolina flat bread

This flat bread comes out crispy and is much lighter and thinner than pizza.

This recipe makes two 14 inch round flat breads 8-16 servings depending on how forking much you eat.

set your forking oven to 475 degrees with a seasoned baking stone in the oven.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup bread flour

2/3 cup semolina

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 pack of yeast

1 cup water (temperate that your yeast needs)

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

an extra drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to lightly coat a pan

Directions

In a big bowl add your sugar and yeast then add the correct temperature water that your yeast needs and let the bowl sit in a warm place for about an hour till it gets all bubbly. Then add everything except for the salt.

Mix well and shape into a ball.

Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for about an hour.

The dough should double in size. Now add your salt.

Punch the dough down and try mix it up good and shape into a ball again. Cover with plastic wrap and let it double again.

Divide the dough in half and use a lightly oiled pizza pan to stretch out the dough. Place the stretched dough in your 475 degree oven for about 4 minutes, then remove and flip it on to a board to transfer to the baking stone. You might want to top it at this time or partially top it and add everything except for the cheese because your not adding much cheese to this bread and it might burn.

You will need to watch the flat bread in the oven. It should only need 4-5 minutes. When you add the cheese it will be hot and the cheese might melt on. If the cheese doesn’t melt enough you will only need a minute in the oven for the cheese.

Forking Good

Genuine Sardinian Parchment Cracker topped with Red Bell Pepper Pesto and Sardinian Cheese

This delicious sauce is easy to prepare. It’s something that nearly everyone would like. The Sardinian Parchment Cracker is very light and thin. The cracker needs only a small amount of pesto and I topped it with Sardinian  Fioro Sardo cheese. A similar cheese would be a pecorino. Instead mixing the cheese into the sauce I prefer to use a vegetable peeler and peel some on the top. That way it’s more layered with textures and flavors and the cheese doesn’t get lost in the mix. I also tried to make this sauce as healthy and light as possible and used a minimum amounts of oil and nuts.

Ingredients

8 Roasted red bell peppers (skin, stems seeds removed) you also need to keep the liquid from the roasted peppers.

2 garlic cloves minced

1 large red thai chili minced

2 oz. pine nuts toasted

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon aleppo red pepper

1/2 cup fresh basil (cleaned, stems removed and I packed the leaves in really tight)

Just combine and blend.

Red Pesto

Forking Good!

Pastrami Lovers Pastrami and Rye Meatloaf as a sandwich with a Red Russian kind of dressing

This recipe makes 18 individual very flavorful moist pastrami and rye flavored meat loaves. I do forking note that I found on WORD HIPPO the correct way to spell and say the plural of Meat Loaf is Meat Loaves. Sounds forking weird but these meat loaves come out delicious and moist.

Set Oven to 350 degree and you will need slightly oiled baking sheets.

Ingredients

2 lbs. lean ground beef (I used 93%)

10 oz. Pastrami Chopped (I had a fatty chunk and trimmed off all the hard fat and had 10 oz. remaining)

2 beaten eggs

5 garlic cloves grated

7 oz. seeded fresh rye bread

3/4 in. ginger grated

1 Tablespoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon fennel seed

1/3 teaspoon white pepper

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon allspice

pinch cloves

1 lb. silken tofu beaten

3 oz. crispy fried onions

1 teaspoon of liquid smoke

Some cooking oil or cooking spray to oil pans with

fresh ground sea salt

fresh ground black pepper

2 or so Tablespoons of  caraway seeds to sprinkle tops of meat-loaves with.

Directions

Combine all the ingredients except oil, fresh ground sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and caraway seeds.

Measure each loaf into a 4 oz. oval shape. You should have 18 individual loaves.

In about 25 minutes your pastrami meat loaves will be done. They freeze and reheat well. For the Red Russian dressing kind of dressing i mixed up some tomato paste, dijon mustard, spicy relish, prepared horseradish, water, fresh ground sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Any sort of mustard sauce would also go well with them too. They’d go great with the pickled white beets with caraway seeds and also would go great with braised cabbage.

Forking Good!

White Beets

If you like rye bread you’ll forking love pickled white beets with caraway seeds.

Many people roast beets and then marinate them to make pickled beets. I find that they are very easy to pickle when you simply roast them in about 1 part water, 1 part vinegar (I usually use apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar) 1 part sugar and about a tablespoon of salt. You want the liquid to go about half way up on the beets.

I started with around three pounds of beets. I just cut my beets in half. Place them in a pan. Top the beets with water, vinegar, sugar and salt and cover with foil. Let them roast at about 375 degrees until soft (about one hour). Keep liquid but pull the beets out to cool. When cool enough to handle the skins just slide off easily.

I slice the beets up and add back to the liquid and add thinly sliced sweet onion. They are better the next day but I got pickled beets already.

I usually like them plain but I do take out a small batch and sprinkle some caraway seeds on the beets to give them a different flavor.

Pickled White Beets with Caraway Seeds

Now I have pickled white beets with caraway seeds. I think even people who don’t like beets would like these. Pickled white beets with caraway seeds are uniquely delicious. If you like rye bread you’ll forking love pickled white beets with caraway seeds!

Forking Good!