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New Year, New Stuff!

March 16th, 2010 | by Zahra | in Zahra Does | No Comments

Oh dear, how delinquent I have been in posting on Zahra Does. I should just change the section to “Zahra Does Stuff Rarely”. But hey, it might be March but it’s also a new year! And with a new year comes new resolutions and awesomely grand plans to improve, most of which are never realized. It’s expected!

2010 has brought great changes for us: we both got new jobs, I have finally gotten a KitchenAid stand mixer and a Le Creuset dutch oven, and, two years later, I gave in and we bought a wedding band for me. Official married lady status: ACHIEVED.

Since it’s almost spring (hello Norooz in less than a week!!), lemme just tell you that it was an insanely snowy winter. And you know what else? My Texas-made boots are USELESS in the snow. I found this out the hard way.

Zahra Nourani in the snow. It happened.

They soak the melted snow right in and freeze my toes.

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We had the awesome chance of being at the Grand Canyon when it snowed too. It was super beautimous. I apologize for the hugeness of the photos, but I thought they were way too pretty-ful not to share!

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But you know, the best part of the winter was that we had about 2 months of down-time to enjoy everything. So hey, there are benefits to unemployment!

Pretty pretty benefits.

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If you ever get the chance, do go see the Grand Canyon during the winter. It’s spectacular.

And then go eat a whole lot of broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. It’s the right thing to do.

Now that it’s almost spring, I will *try* my utmost to at least post regularly on the goings-on. Random, mundane, everyday goings-on. Doesn’t that sound riveting??

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Here’s to the spring! Hope there are more pictures to document it than there were for the winter!

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Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

January 17th, 2010 | by Zahra | in Cookies, Desserts | 1 Comment

I always thought biscotti was a super hard treat to make. It comes in those fancy schmancy packages at the store afterall. But when it was explained to me that it’s simply a twice baked cookie, the doors were opened for me to BiscottiLand.

It doesn’t get any easier than that now does it?

Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa (I used Hershey’s)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup walnuts
milk, dark, or white chocolate for drizzling. Or some combination of all of them.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter with the sugar.

2. Add in the eggs and vanilla. Beat until combined.

3. Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add it to the wet ingredients.

4. Drop in all the walnuts and stir to combine.

The dough will be tough and sticky. And look something like this.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or this handy dandy silicon thing I have. Divide the dough into two batches and set them out on the baking sheet in log form. They don’t have to be perfect.

6. Set in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove, and let them cool for about 15 minutes.

7. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs on a diagonal.

8. Set the slices side-by-side back on the baking sheet and set in the oven for 8-9 minutes. Remove, flip them over and bake another 8-9 minutes.

9. Let the biscotti cool completely and then drizzle with some chocolate.

and because I couldn’t just leave it alone after one drizzle, I also drizzled them with white chocolate. That part is entirely up to you!

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Pizza Dough

January 12th, 2010 | by Zahra | in Misc. | No Comments

Who loves pizza?

I, Zahra, do not love pizza. I LOVE PIZZA. In all caps. That’s how much I LOVE PIZZA.

However, no matter how awesome the toppings on your pizza, it’ll fall short of your expectations if you don’t have an equally amazing pizza crust. I once made the mistake of not taking the dough seriously. Oh what a mistake that was. The internet offered many recipes for yeast-less pizza dough (as I did not have any yeast at that moment and really wanted pizza), so I thought since so many people had tried this method, it was just as good as a regular yeast-full pizza dough. Boy was I wrong.

True, it looked just fine, but it made the list of Worst Things I Have Ever Cooked. It’s actually up in the top three.

So although other people have had these apparent successes, I beg of you, find your yeast packets and make this pizza dough. It’s delicious!

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon yeast
1/3 cup olive oil
Pinch of salt (about 1 teaspoon)
4 cups all-purpose flour

1. Start by measuring out your yeast and salt in a little bowl.

2. Pour in your warm water. Try not to pour as violently as I do and splatter all the yeast everywhere.

3. Stir it just a little and let it sit until nice and foamy. It’ll look something like this.

4. Pour mixture into a bigger bowl and add in olive oil and stir around.

5. Dump in your flour and stir stir stir until a well-incorporated ball forms.

6. Dump out the dough unto a lightly floured surface and knead knead knead.

Until you get a pretty dough ball.

7. Coat the outside of your dough ball lightly with olive oil.

8. Cover tightly and let it rise for about 2 hours. Then, use your pizza dough for all your pizza needs! Or calzone needs! You’ll want to bake at a fairly high heat, 400 degrees or so.

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To those who have been waiting…

January 9th, 2010 | by Zahra | in Zahra Does | No Comments

I apologize for the super long delay in getting this link out. I had to do a lot of sifting through the bad pictures, resizing, etc etc.

But enough of my excuses, the pictures from Sara and Eric’s engagement hosted by my parents can be found HERE!

These pictures are giant monstrosities and Flickr won’t allow the entire set to be full-sized. So each is a measly 500 pixels wide on there. If any of you want certain photos in all their 10.1 megapixel glory, shoot me an email with your address and I’d be happy to send you a CD. Or you could come pick up a CD. Or I’ll send them over email. We’ll figure something out. My email is listed under the “Contact” section over yonder by the header.

Congrats kiddos. We wish you the best.

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Deviled Eggs

January 9th, 2010 | by Zahra | in Sides | 2 Comments

Deviled eggs weren’t something I grew up with. We had hard-boiled eggs, soft-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, but never deviled eggs.

Truth be told, I don’t even like the yolks in hard-boiled eggs.

The first time I bit into one of these lovely lovely things was actually last year. Neil’s now ex-boss invited us over for Easter and one of the other employees had made some. After eating fifteen of them, I decided I really was missing out by not having these as a part of my diet.

So now, here’s my version of deviled eggs. I’m sure you could add many other things to them, and I have, but I’m pretty fond of this recipe. Totally basic and un-frilly. Enjoy!

Zahra’s Deviled Eggs

5 eggs
3-4 tbsp ranch (or mayonnaise I suppose)
1 tsp dijon mustard, more to taste
salt and pepper to taste
paprika for garnish

1. Hard-boil your eggs. The easiest way to do this is to fill a pot with water and a tablespoon of vinegar. The vinegar helps keep everything contained in the egg in the unfortunate event that your egg cracks. Set all your eggs into the pot gently and place the pot over the stove and turn on the heat to medium-high. Let the water come to a boil for about a minute, and then turn off the heat. Let the eggs sit in the hot water for about 15 minutes. Trust me, you’ll have perfectly hard-boiled eggs every time!

2. Let your eggs cool and then peel them. Isn’t that fun?

look how shiny and bald they become!

3. With a sharp knife, split your eggs right down the middle.

4. Scoop out the yolks with a spoon and pop ‘em into another bowl.

and of course, set the whites onto a plate until you’re ready to fill ‘em.

5. Crumble the yolks with a fork and start adding the ranch or mayonnaise. Then, add the dash of mustard and season to taste with salt and pepper.

6. You can then pour the filling into a little Ziploc baggy and snip off the tip to use in filling the whites. Or, you could use a spoon. No one will tell.

Oh me oh my. They get incredibly creamy and fabulous.

I took a bite out of one before I had a chance to garnish them with paprika.

Try not to be like me. Garnish away for the bestest flavor!

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Author Archive

New Year, New Stuff!

Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

Pizza Dough

To those who have been waiting…

Deviled Eggs

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