Bahrain: Chicken Machboos

The Dish: Chicken and rice, with peppers, onions, and tomatoes.  See the original recipe here.
The Country: As you know, protests have erupted in countries throughout the Middle East, including Bahrain.  Protesters have flooded Pearl Square in Manama, and the army has withdrawn.

yummy... yellow food.

Ingredients:
As much chicken as you would like
3 onions
3 medium sized tomatoes
1 red pepper
1 435g bag of basmati rice
salt
cinammon
coriander
tumeric
cumin
butter
vegetable oil
lemon juice

transferring my chicken

Procedure
Heat 4.5 cups of water on the stove.
Chop the onions, sauteé them in a cup of vegetable oil. When they are slightly golden, add in chopped red pepper.  After two minutes, add in chopped chicken.  Add in 1 tsp cumin and 2 tsp tumeric.  Chop the tomatoes and add them in.  Add 2 tsp salt. Stir until the chicken is all the way cooked.
Add in 1/2 tsp coriander and the hot water. Cover the pan and let it sit for twenty minutes.
Take everything out of the pan, leaving behind all of the liquid.  Put it all on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 350° for twenty minutes.  While this is happening, put the rice in the leftover liquid.  Cook until it absorbs all of it. Add more water and keep cooking if the rice is still hard. Sprinkle a little bit of lemon juice over the rice.
Serve the rice and chicken together.

THE FINAL PRODUCT, with some bread.

Notes: The bright yellow color sort of scared me at first, but it ended up tasting pretty good. The chicken itself was somewhat bland, but the tomatoes were delicious.  I know I didn't have all of the ingredients that the original recipe called for, so it may have tasted better if I had all the right stuff.
Rating: 3

Candy Melts = absolute cooking failure

I thought it would be fun to attempt to make cake balls (balls of cake on a stick), but "fun" is the last word I would chose to describe what just happened; words like "disgusting," "nauseating," and "barf inducing," are much better choices.

the devil

So, I baked a cake, a simple, straight from the box, chocolate cake.  I went for a bike ride while it cooled.  When I came back, my grandpa and I began to mash it into balls.  We should have stopped right then, when it would hardly stick to the lollipop sticks.  If only we had known what we were getting ourselves into.... I had bought a pack of "melting candy" the day before, I was excited to use it because it was mentioned in one of my how-to-make-good-cupcakes books.  I should not have been excited.  When I pulled it out of the microwave, it had turned black, and was oozing.  It smelled as if someone had lit a pile of turds, on fire.  The Arizona sun must be getting to me after such an intense Chicago winter because I figured, if I dipped the cake ball things in it, it would all work out.  It began to smell so intensely, and ooze so disgustingly, that my grandpa and I gave up. We tried to clean the bowl, but when the oozing mixture hit water, it started to bubble again, in some scary chemical reaction.  This stuff is dangerous, it actually isn't safe to use.  Stay away from melting candy.

cake balls (aka, turds)

We threw all of it out, but the house still smells like burning poop. We're sitting on the porch right now because the smell inside is so intense.  I don't think I'll be able to eat chocolate for a while.
Oh, by the way, happy Valentine's Day.

Bahamas: Banana Pudding

The Dish: Hot bananas. It's absolutely delicious! See original recipe here.
The Country: The Bahamas are made up of  29 islands, and the country's national flower is the yellow elder.

mashing up the bananas

Ingredients:
Six bananas
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3.5 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup milk

this looks like baby food

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 300°
Mash the butter and brown sugar together with a fork.
Mash up the bananas with a potato masher (or a fork, but that is much slower).
Add it all together, mix it with a fork.  Add in the flour and milk.  Mix again.  Make sure  it is still slightly lumpy.
Bake for twenty minutes.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: If you don't like bananas, you would absolutely hate this recipe, but luckily, everyone in my family likes bananas.  I'm at my grandparents house, so this was the first time anyone other than my siblings and parents has tried my food, and they liked it!
Rating: 4.9

Azerbaijan: Halva

The Dish: Honey and nuts... I think.
The Country: Azerbaijan- they have pretty cool folk dancing.

Can of peanuts.

WARNING: THIS RECIPE DID NOT WORK.
Ingredients:
Honey
Peanuts

it may look, and smell, delicious, but it tastes like you've just stuck about ten sugar cubes in your mouth

Procedure:
Roast the peanuts in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Melt the honey until it is extremely hot.
Pour the honey and nuts in a pan.
Let it cool until it solidifies (which never happened).

doesn't it look all nice and solidified? nope, it's just goo.

Notes: I really wanted this one to work, but it didn't. I just got honey and nuts. It didn't turn into anything interesting after I let it cool- it really was just honey and nuts. My dad said that I might have needed to crush the nuts to make more of a paste. Hmmmm... See the original recipe here.
Rating:   0, sorry halva.

Argentina: Chimichurri Sauce

The Dish:  Spicy, green, sauce.  See original recipe here.
The Country: ARGENTINA, like in one of my favorite songs!!!

don't those ingredients look so yummy?

Ingredients:
1 cup parsley flakes
3/4 cup olive oil
3 tsp red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of dried oregano
2 tsp cumin (I've used a lot of this lately....)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tablespoon garlic
1/2 tablespoon hot sauce (JUST 1/2 A TABLESPOON OR YOUR TONGUE WILL GO CRAAAZZY)

HOT. PAIN. HOT. SPICY. HOT.

Procedure
Put everything in a blender. Blend for about 30 seconds. Yum.

THE FINAL PRODUCT, you can see a reflection of where I'm holding up my phone to take a picture...

I really need to improve my photo skills.

Notes: I came home late from play rehearsal today and ate leftover rice and turkey.... Halfway through my meal, I had an idea- put the chimichurri sauce on the rice! It was awesome. Brown rice + chimichurri = best after-play-rehearsal-and-before-homework snack/dinner.
Rating: 5

Emma, Julie, and Julia

I'm sick. I have strep throat, and up until about half an hour ago, I have had a crippling headache that has prevented me from doing anything worthwhile, like homework.  Or, more importantly, cooking (just kidding... maybe.)  So, since I couldn't do anything important, what have I been doing for the last few days?   I've been watching British movies (Howard's End, Bridget Jone's Diary, Love Actually....) But, I took an anglophile break, and watched JULIE AND JULIA. 
I LOVE THAT MOVIE! Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are both adorable in it, and the food... delicious- one day I will bone a duck or make beef bourguignon. It's funny- Julia Child created recipes, Julie Powell spent a year bravely attempting to "Master the Art of French Cooking," and here I am, sixteen years old, armed with a laptop computer and a spotted apron, trying to teach myself how to be like these women. I like to cook, I like to eat, I like to write. Maybe one day I'll write a cookbook, like Julia, or a book about cooking, like Julie. Maybe I'll call it, "Emma, Julie, and Julia."
Darn, why couldn't my name have started with a J?

Austria: Buttergebäck mit Himbeer

The Dish: Raspberry filled goodness.
The Country:  Austria is where The Sound of Music takes place.  It has a population of about 8.3 million people.

the dough

Ingredients:
4 sticks of butter
4 eggs
2 cups of granulated sugar
4 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
A jar of raspberry jam

one layer of dough + RASPBERRY JAM

Procedure:
Use an electric mixer to cream the butter.  When it is soft, and in tiny chunks, add the eggs.  Mix.
Add the sugar, flour, and baking powder.  Mix some more.
Put the mixture on a piece of wax paper.  Cover your hands in flour and roll the dough into two balls. 
Wrap the balls in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for 2 hours.
After two hours, take one ball and put it in a food processor to get a creamy mixture.  Spread it on the bottom of a pan.
Put a few spoonfuls of raspberry jam into a plastic bag- cut the corner, and pipe it on top of the dough.  Spread it evenly.
Take the second dough ball and break it into tiny chunks.  Drop the chunks evenly across the jam.
Bake at 350° for 50 minutes.

THE FINAL PRODUCT (the brown stuff on the edge of the pan is dough that I accidentally mushed to the side.... oops)

Notes: This is what I spent my second snow day cooking- there's so much snow in Chicago that my school, which hasn't had a snow day since '99, had to have two in a row!!!
Rating: 5- delicious! I will definitely make this again!

Australia: Lamingtons

The Dish: Delicious cake with delicious frosting.  See original recipe here.
The Country: Australia. Home of the Sydney Opera House, and koalas.

cake.

Cake Ingredients:
6 eggs
2/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornflour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup self raising flour
2 cups of coconut
Icing Ingredients
4 cups of sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1.5 tablespoons of butter
2/3 cup of milk

I really ought to get a double broiler.

Procedure:
Mix all of the cake ingredients into a bowl.
Preheat oven to 325°
Mix with an electronic mixer for ten minutes.
Pour into a pan and bake for 30 minutes.
While it is baking, melt the butter.
Put the rest of the icing ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add it to the pot you melted the butter in.
Take a larger pot, and boil 1.5 cups of water.
Hold the smaller pot inside the larger one and stir the mixture until it is smooth. Now, you have frosting!
Cut the cake into 16 squares, and cover it in the frosting. YUMMY.

THE FINAL PRODUCT (the one on the top center had some stick-to-the-pan issues)

Notes: There are about three feet of snow outside, and everything looks white- it's perfect cooking weather.  Maybe I'll whip up some hot chocolate and have a snow-day-tea-party with my Lamingtons.
Rating:  4

Armenia: Hummus

The Dish:  Hummus isn't unique to Armenia- it's eaten throughout the Middle East.  See original recipe here.
The Country:  Armenia is bordered by Azerbaijan, Nakhchivan, Iran, Turkey, and Georgia.  Armenian food is similar to other foods in the Middle East.

lemon juice and chopped garlic

Ingredients:
1 15 or 20 ounce can of chick peas
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp Tahini

everything in the food processor

Procedure:
Put all of the ingredients in a food processor.
Mix until smooth.  Cool in fridge.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Notes: This recipe is extremely easy, and you can eat it with every type of bread or vegetable.
Rating: 4.5

Andorra: Pancakes

The Dish: Pancakes...  See original recipe here.
The Country:  Andorra is located in the Pyrenees Mountains.  Their food frequently resembles French and Spanish food, and they eat a lot of lamb.

pancakes in a pan

Ingredients: 
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
2 eggs
three squirts of honey
1/4 cup sugar
A dash of cinnamon

pancakes before the jam

Procedure
Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl. Let it cool for an our.
Cook it like regular pancakes (until light brown)

my brother's half eat pancake

Notes:  My mother had a genius idea- when I asked what we should eat them with- she said "Raspberry Jam."  IT WAS DELICIOUS.  My brother said, "Emma, these are better than normal pancakes." That made me happier than the fact that I have a snow day tomorrow (gotta love Chicago weather).

Rating (out of five): 5... yes, it's that good.