Christmas Delights with a Middle Eastern Flair

We are now in the season of ‘Know Better’, but for many of us the will power loses, and the eyes take over. What I am referring to is the temptations presented with all the Christmas goodies. As I looked at our desert table Christmas Day, I just knew there is going to be a lot of extra effort expended in January to atone for the eye issue.

As my wife is of Lebanese decent, those deserts tend to dominate. We had the typical cheese cake, home-made cookies, apple pies but the table also had a sprinkling of names like baklawa, farina cake, and kataife.

Here‘s a glimpse as to the issues I’m dealing with:

Baklawa: Batlawa

In a recent post, Barbara Todaro also described an Armenian pastry called Paklava, and this would be the Lebanese version. It’s layers of philo dough, with crushed walnuts as a center, there’s a taste of butter, and then a glaze of simple syrup, which is a sugar-water mixture with a touch of lemon juice.

The farina cake is a layered pastry with a very fine farina base, much finer than Cream of wheat with a ricotta cheese center, again glazed with a simple syrup.

Kataife starts out looking like a small pancake, cooked in a similar manner. When it’s just about golden brown on both sides, it’s filled with either ricotta cheese or crushed walnuts and folded over then sealed and covered with the simple syrup.

Cindy Jones also just described her sugar coma, and the toils of trying to stay away. I will eventually get that message but by then all of the deserts will be gone.

The New Year will be an effort to reduce, when that starts depends on what is put out on New Year’s day.