Tag Archives: food blogger

Spaghetti marinara

Posted on March 31, 2016 | 1 comment

Sometimes it is hard to find the right words to describe how tasty was a dish. In this case and particularly when talking about spaghetti marinara, one of my favorite dishes, all i can say it’s a kind of food where you like to close your eyes and create a mental image while you relish the deep flavors. It’s the dish that shouts “eat me”!

I am a pasta girl, i love all types of pastas and encourage the creativity for the sauces. A classic recipe is never enough for me, i always add my personal input and it comes most of the times bulls eye! This spaghetti marinara is not a conventional one, it has marmite et ponpon touch.

400g ground beef
1 big onion finely diced
6-8 garlic cloves sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chili oil
500 ml tomato puree
1 tsp sugar
a handful celery coarsely chopped
a handful leek coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot shaved
1/2 cup white wine
salt to taste
parmesan or emmental cheese grated for garnish

Cook onion and garlic with olive oil and chili oil until fragrant. Add the beef and cook until it is browned. Pour the tomato puree, wine and sugar and cook for 10 minutes. Add celery, leek and carrots and simmer on a very low heat for an hour, until 3/4 of the liquid has evaporated.

It’s a nice technique to do the ragout, it enhances the flavors and gives it a deep and sharp taste. Anyways “ragout” means reviving the taste, can’t be better explained!

Meantime cook pasta as per pack instructions, ladle with the sauce and sprinkle with parmesan/emmental cheese and savor this must do version of marinara.

It’s not just a pleasure to the palate but to the eyes too. The colors were inviting me to practice my photography skills and the smell was telling me to hurry up and dig in!

If you like this post give it many likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

1 Comment

Posted in main dish

Tagged cooking, food art, food blogger, food porn, how to do, italian food, jaymmy, lebanon, marinara, marinara with a twist, marmite et ponpon, qatar, recipe, spaghetti, spaghetti with beef, white wine

Deck the table with these 5 dazzling hors d’oeuvres

Posted on December 22, 2015 | Leave a comment

Get your Christmas dinner start with these beautiful and easy first course. These relish 5 appetizers takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and bring the wow factor to your Christmas table.

This amuse bouche made with broccoli and cherry tomato is inspired from the Christmas tree. Serve it with cocktail or ranch sauce.

No forks or spoons required for these easy-to-pick-up appetizers; Caprese skewers can replace a salad.

A snowman cheese is an impressive hors d’oeuvre, so cute to be eaten. You can prepare it with any white creamy cheese you like; feta, boursin, rambol, goat cheese….

Go beyond a cheese board with these cute feta thyme appetizer. The tomato hat made all the difference 🙂

Kebbeh is a staple on the Lebanese table, take it to the next level by cutting it into Christmassy shapes like ginger man, tree, star, snowflake, snowman….Kids will love it too.

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

Superhero cake tutorial – Happy birthday Nady!

Posted on December 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

My little hero, a huge fan of superheroes (i guess like all boys of his age) turned three couple of days ago. He definitely fancy a superhero cake, but since he was hesitant which character to choose, i decided to surprise him and merge 4 in 1 cake; spiderman, captain america, batman, and hulk.

I am an amateur baker and self tutor, learning how to work with fondant and dress up a cake like professionals. I put all my heart to decorate this cake to be up to my son’s expectations. I would love one day when he looks back at his old pictures to be proud of this mom. So far i succeeded to do it over three years for his 3 consecutive birthdays. I wish him million cakes of happiness and good health!

This superhero cake looks complicated to do but if you follow me step by step you will find it’s not that hard.

First you need to cover the cake with 4 colors of fondant in equal parts; green for hulk, yellow for batman, white for captain america and red for spiderman.
To start with spiderman, you need to draw the web with chocolate or icing. Start by vertical lines then do the horizontal ones, each one like a semi circle.
For the eyes all you need to do is trace them on the fondant and cut out. Click here for a high resolution file for the eyes. It’s a vector one you can adjust the size according to your cake.
Captain america is super easy, to do his shield, start with a red circle, than a smaller one white, then a smaller one red and a final smaller one blue. Put on top a white star and decorate around the shield with blue small stars.
Batman is the easiest i guess. All you need is tracing the logo on black fondant and cut it out. Click here to download a high resolution file to use it as a stencil. It’s a vector file to be able to adjust to the convenient size of your cake.
Finally hulk, the part that needs the most work. First cut small irregular shapes to look like a wall when put together.
To do the hand, you need to make 4 green cylinders (fingers) and put them on a rectangular shape. Here you need to look at your real fist to try modeling the fondant the nearest possible to real one.
try when bending the cylinder shapes to do fingers, create the knots, nails and do small lines to look like flesh, these details will make it look real. If you don’t have the real tools for modeling you can use a knife.

Et voila the homemade superhero cake! Always add your personal touch, it adds more love and gives the occasion the warmth needed. happy birthday super Nady!

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

Divine Christmas chocolate cookie

Posted on December 17, 2015 | 6 comments

Baking holiday desserts is the most enjoyable thing to do; if you’re not in the festivities mood yet, the smell filling the house when baking these chocolate sugar cookies will do the job!

These melt in your mouth cookies will be the hit for this year and a staple for the coming years. You can consider it as a homemade gift to family and friends.

This recipe makes a pretty large batch, about 4 1/2 dozens to enjoy (of course it could be plus or minus depending on the cutters size). The most important is to use a good quality of cocoa because it’s all about the chocolate taste.

The recipe calls for:

400g butter unsalted and softened
2 cups sugar
4 1/2 cup all purpose flour sifted
1 1/2 cup cocoa powder sifted
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. Add eggs slowly and mix. Make sure to scrape down the bowl with your spatula and mix again. Add vanilla extract and stir briefly.

Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour, cocoa powder and salt) then add them to the mixture. Mix on low speed, when it clumps around the paddle attachment it’s ready. It’s also important at this stage not to over mix the dough. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour. Roll out the dough and cut out cookie shapes.

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the center of the cookie no longer looks wet. Again the baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.

When baking cookies, I usually line the baking tray with parchment paper, it helps cookies to bake evenly and it’s easy to slide the cookies off of the baking sheet without breaking them. Let cookies cool to room temperature then serve.

This is my first batch, lets see how many more i will be doing before Christmas is here. Happy baking!

You can also check last year’s scrumptious Christmas shortbread cookies.

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.

6 Comments

Posted in dessert, special occasions

Tagged chocolate, christmas cookies, food blog, food blogger, homemade, jaymmy, marmite et ponpon, recipe, sugar cookies

The best homemade mushroom soup

Posted on December 15, 2015 | 2 comments

I heart soups, especially the homemade ones, where you can indulge in a flavorful one without feeling any guilt. This soup is so rich in flavors and low in calories. It is super easy to make plus it takes less than 30 minutes to be ready.

500g mushroom sliced
1 medium onion finely diced
50g butter
2 tbsp flour
4 1/2 cup vegetable broth (less fat, less salt)
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a casserole and cook the onions until fragrant and tender, about 2-3 minutes. Add the mushroom and cook about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over while still cooking for another 2 minutes. Pour the broth and mix. When u see the first bubble forming, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Puree in a blender and serve. You can keep aside some mushroom slices if you like chunks in your soup.

If you wish to have a creamier version of this soup, you can add one cup of heavy cream 2 minutes before turning off the heat. You can still enjoy a low calorie soup if you choose low fat cream. Personally i prefer it without cream, i like to enjoy the exclusive taste of mushroom.

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page and follow on twitter. More interesting posts are yet to come.