The almond paste filling made up nicely. I followed the suggestion to let the almonds sit in the water for an hour so that they would be softer to grind. Removing the skins which had filled with water, dark water spurted out that stained everything it touched. The almonds too had taken on a dark hue. The next time I wouldn’t let the almonds sit in the water for more than 5 minutes. The small pieces of mastic exploded under my pestle and ground nicely. I did try one as you can chew this sap as gum and it reminded my of the all natural spruce gum that I used to buy in Maine; I think it could make a good substitute that is easier to obtain, but I checked on-line and it was not cheaper. I used half of the suggested amount of rose water. I took Zosia’s suggestion to use the filo dough. But it also was difficult to manipulate. One sheet makes such a thin covering that it would tear while rolling and also when trying to shape it into a spiral (especially in the beginning which dissuaded me from trying to make individual snakes.). You can see the tears in my picture taken before coating with powdered sugar. I worried that the heavy concentration of cinnamon in the egg yolk would overwhelm the delicate taste of the almond paste filling, but it did not. I had planned to use the chopped almonds instead of the powdered sugar, but am glad that I did not want to peel any more almonds as that would have been overkill. There were definitely enough almonds in the filling. After baking, the filling tasted a little caramelized and amazingly good in the delicate crisp pastry. I do think you could bake it to look like a rattle snake with a little manipulation and that could also be stunning.

I used whole chickpeas and soaked them during the day. I had the first harvest from our local farm with fresh turnips, turnip greens and kale to use. I substituted some lamb for the beef. The chickpeas were nice and tender after only 1 ½ hours of cooking, but it took longer for the lamb to become tender. The cooking of the second half of the greens in a skillet smashed under a plate with cilantro, parsley and tomatoes seemed weird, but that was the best tasting kale I have ever eaten. I wish I had seen the need for goat’s milk, I used cow’s milk instead. This was a lot of work with 3 different parts, but I had some help and it was well worth it. It was a fantastic use of greens and I loved it with the barley couscous.

What a lovely showpiece for beautiful blood oranges! I used the baby greens as in the salad on the previous page. There would have been a greater color contrast if you used the recommended baby romaine lettuce, but the red greens complemented the blood oranges nicely too. I chopped my almonds instead of crushing them and I kept thinking I was biting a lemon seed. The dressing was great, but next time I would prefer it on the greens instead of over the sliced oranges. I also am finding that I am not a fan yet of orange flower water, but being in the middle of an orange grove in full flower I realized it smells how the water tastes, so I am still trying (to like it). This salad bears repeating.

A garden explosion in your mouth! This is my favorite salad from this cookbook so far. Very ripe tomatoes, Florida onion (substituted for red), celery and orange pepper (in the picture I did not see that see used the called for green pepper either) in fine dice. I had only small capers as all my other recipes call for the small ones; but now I will look for and know what to do with the larger ones. This is the first time I have like the taste of the preserved lemon. It and the capers added such great bursts of flavor.

I had not even noticed that this was a soup until I added add the water. As someone else had mentioned in their review, the water used in the recipe is not listed with the other ingredients. This recipe seemed like it made a small amount with just 4 ounces of ground lamb. Since the only ground lamb I could find came in a 1 lb package, I quadrupled the recipe. Imagine my surprise when I needed to add 12 cups of water. Only about half of that fit in my largest pan. Of course the reduction of water increased the spiciness. Steaming the orzo turned into the second diasaster as I left it to steam for the requisite time and just had a bottom layer of partially cooked pasta and the top layer was dry. So I dumped it all into the pot and tried to break up the lumps. I love thick soups and this turned into a hearty, flavorful satisfying soup with orzo pasta and chickpeas. The orzo continued to expand and the next day the soup was even thicker.

I love Moroccan mint tea, but do not care for green tea, so was surprised that was the basis for this tea. I obtained gunpowder tea and fresh spearmint. I thought that for my teapot, 1/3 cup of sugar was too much. The next time I will try ¼ cup, but add more mint. I did not mind the gunpowder tea at all. I will definitely try this again. She did specify spearmint, but I am interested in trying the chocolate mint in my garden.

This sounded intriguing with the Mastic and anise seed for flavoring. The directions worked beautifully. I haven’t found green anise seed yet, so used the regular kind. Grind the Mastic before you add the warm toasted anise seed, better yet, let the anise seed cool first. I had good luck grinding the mastic previously, it had just exploded under the pestle, but here perhaps because I added the hot anise seed to the pestle first, it made a very thin sheet, which just became thinner as I ground it with the salt and sugar. This is a very thin soup, and as you can see from my photo, this is one of those recipes where what you cook does not match the picture in the book. That picture is the same color as mine before adding the ground up spices. After it simmers with the spices it did turn the light beige color that she indicates in the recipe. I liked it very much once you get used to how thin it is. I preferred just a very small amount of butter on top instead of the honey. Because it is so thin, I enjoyed eating the skin that forms on top while it cools. This makes a large amount.

I specially ordered the chickpea flour for this recipe. The batter was so incredibly watery that I did not see the need to add any of the 2nd half of the water. My flour was also so fine and the batter so smooth I also skipped the straining step. I used a 9 X 13” pan instead of the 14” deep dish pizza pan. I was surprised after the 30 minutes of baking that this very thin batter had thickened and now looked like the dried muddy plain of the Mississippi River. The oil I brushed on was rapidly sucked into the batter and so after the second baking step while the oven was turned off I did not obtain a glazed-looking surface. We chose the ground cumin topping. This was very hard to get out of the pan as I saw the oil I had used to coat the pan rise through the batter before I even got it into the oven the first time. This was very thin and tasted OK and I could see it would be great as part of a Vegan meal to add protein and be filling. It was interesting to try once, but I much prefer breads made with yeast. No one was interested in seconds and I do not see the need to try this again.

Warning, be sure your container is big enough. I started with a large spaghetti sauce jar, which sure seemed big enough at the beginning, and it was easy to stir with a long, square chopstick. It started off slowly, but I finally found nice warm places in the kitchen and it really took off. When I fed it, it was almost up to the top of the jar. I ended up putting it in a large bowl and just letting it bubble over. I do not understand why she asks you to save ½ cup when the recipe only requires ¼. My son warned me of the blue cheese like smell emanating from the jar; and it was very strong.