(bright music) - Hey guys, it's Yumna.
AKA Feel Good Foodie.
And today I have a special guest
in the kitchen with me today.
It's Summer Homayed and she is also a Michigan girl.
So Summer and I went to high school together
and we reunited on Instagram
through our passion for cooking.
So we both like to do a lot of Middle Eastern recipes
with our own flair.
And I thought it would be fun to cook together.
So Summer, tell us a little bit about you.
- So I'm Summer from Summers Homemade Meals.
And I originally started catering
and somehow my page kind of turned into a blog
because a lot of people ask me for recipes,
as I would share small tips.
And here I am now with Yumna who I went to school with,
who is an excellent blogger.
And now we're gonna like, collab.
- Yes, exactly.
So today we're gonna show you how to make kousa.
It's basically Lebanese stuffed squash.
And so we're gonna show you
just the basic method of how to make it,
and then two variations.
So let's get started.
- Yes - Okay.
So here's what you'll need.
You'll need some Mexican squash.
This is what it looks like.
This is basically the essence of the recipe.
Then you also need some ground beef.
I've got in here, some short grain rice,
but Summer's gonna use some riced cauliflower.
- [Summer] Yes.
- And then some tomato sauce.
All right.
We're going to get started by coring the squash.
And meanwhile, you've got some bone broth going on.
- Yes, so in the pot,
I am creating my broth for my stuffed squash.
So I have in the pot, some beef ribs that I'm pan searing.
I'm gonna cover them in water once they cook very quickly.
And then I'm gonna add some salt and bay leaves.
- Perfect.
Okay, so you are the pro at this.
Summer will literally do like, what a hundred of these,
for catering, maybe less, more?
(Yumna laughs) - About 300.
This is a popular dish. - I--
I usually make eight for my family.
So she's definitely the pro at this.
And she even has an amazing tool for it.
So I'm gonna let her show you guys how this is done
because I'm still learning.
And so the other thing is for tools,
we should talk about tools.
Like the popular thing that I grew up having is this one,
what we call a ma'warra.
It's basically like, I would call it, I don't know,
like a squash corer, is basically what it's called.
So as you can see, mine is rusted, it's old.
It's just here for show.
Second thing you could use is an apple corer.
So this is probably a lot more easier to find.
This is a Martha Stewart one and a Cuisinart one.
And these work wonders,
and they're much faster than the old tool I was using.
And Summer's gonna show you her third tool,
which is magical.
- So before I ever start using my actual electric corer,
I start with a apple corer.
And some of you are gonna have a challenge
finding the right one,
but I have discovered this one from Macy's,
which is amazing.
And you basically go in, twist a few times,
and pull it right out.
So I've made a bunch of holes here in these kousas
and I'm gonna show you guys how quick this is.
Turn on your machine, by the way you have speeds,
you've got fast and slow.
Let me show you guys fast and slow.
I like to start off with the slow speed
and just going in and cleaning out the inside very quickly.
Now, just like any human activity,
mistakes happen, but we are done.
No carpal tunnel, guys.
- That's perfect.
- Would you like to show them how to do it
the old fashioned way?
- Yeah.
You literally just take this and you're digging.
And the first one is always tricky.
I mean, you're digging like this small, as you can.
And you're just.
(Summer laughs)
I mean, it.
This is why I only make eight because (laughs).
- [Summer] You do that and I'll do this, go.
Wait, let me,
let me speed this up since I'm a little professional here.
- Oh, that is so funny.
I can't core squash under pressure (laughs).
So an important thing to note guys though, is everyone asks,
what do you do with the inside of the squash?
And don't toss that out.
It's really good in omelets, you can also throw it in soups.
What else do you do with that?
- You know,
I've seen people actually turn it into baba ganoush.
- Yes. - Yes.
- Oh, interesting. - I have.
- I have seen, I have heard of that before,
because it's basically like the same family.
- Yes.
And-- - All right.
So we're going to keep this going
and I'm still on the first one
while Summer has done like seven.
So now that we've cored the squash,
- Yes. - actually Summer
cored all of them.
- I did.
- Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna show you
the two different kinds of stuffing.
So I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna show you quickly what I do with mine
and then Summer will share hers.
So I have in here some ground beef,
I do have a little bit of fat on it.
It's not completely lean.
So it's like probably 90, 95%,
so that the little bit of fat gives it some flavor.
So I'm also going to add some seasoning to that now.
We'll do a heaping teaspoon of salt,
a little bit of black pepper.
- [Summer] Yum.
- And some seven spice.
I'm also gonna add an onion
and we're going to cook that all together to brown the beef.
- Nice.
Here, add a little bit of ghee.
- [Yumna] Should I?
Okay. - Oh yes, you should.
- [Yumna] Oh.
- [Summer] This is gonna be so good.
- Summer is messing with my recipe.
- But they don't know. (Yumna laughs)
And can we add a little bit of lemon?
Is that okay?
- Sure.
- Citric acid, that's okay.
I know some people are,
it's forbidden. - Sure.
- But I swear it's gonna intensify it.
You will love it.
- Summer, we have my version and your (laughs).
- No, no, no.
You know why?
'Cause I know it's different because
you're cooking it. - Look how much butter
she put in it!
- Oh that was not, that's nothing.
(Yumna laughs)
Wait till we get to the keto one.
- All right, at this stage,
I'm gonna go ahead and add two cups of rice.
And I'm also gonna add more salt,
probably like half a teaspoon.
All right.
And now we'll just mix all of this together.
So my hashweh, AKA stuffing, is all done
and now I'm gonna let Summer share her stuffing.
- Okay, guys.
So now we're gonna do the keto stuffing.
I have a lot of keto stuffing
because I have a bigger family then Yumna.
So what I have in here is two pounds of cauliflower rice
to two pounds of coarse ground beef.
I use 85/15, a little fattier meat
because one, it's keto, you need the extra fat
and two, it gives more flavor.
- Oh.
- I also have in here, a heaping spoon of tomato paste,
don't panic, keto lovers.
It's going to be distributed between maybe 20 pieces of--
- [Yumna] I love how that's like you're heaping spoon.
(both laugh)
It's like half a cup of tomato paste.
- I reduced the amount
so that you guys can make this for your families.
But my family is huge. - Perfect. Perfect.
- So then what I have here is ghee
and ghee is huge because of the flavor.
And if you don't know what ghee smells like,
we were talking about it, it smells like popcorn butter.
Mmm, it's so good. - [Yumna] So good.
- Adds so much flavor.
I'm also gonna add salt and pepper,
be generous, about a tablespoon of salt.
And then you could always,
you can always oversalt, you can't under salt
and then some pepper.
And the reason is
because the pepper enhances the flavor of the seven spice.
And I'm gonna add about a half a tablespoon of seven spices.
If you do not have Lebanese seven spices,
you could always use all spice.
That is perfectly fine.
- Yep.
- And then I'm going to mix this together.
- Awesome.
So now we're gonna move on next to stuffing the squash
with our stuffing.
So for stuffing the squash,
I'm just gonna take one that's already been hollowed out.
I'm gonna take some of the stuffing
and literally drop them in here.
And you can use your hands too,
to just kind of poke them in.
And because the rice is not cooked,
we don't want to stuff it all the way, right?
- Yes. - We want to make sure
that we leave a little bit on top
because the rice is gonna expand.
- So with me, with the keto kousa,
what we're doing is we're over stuffing
because the meat, since it's fatty, it's going to shrink.
And then the cauliflower's not going to grow like the rice.
So you really, really, really want to overstuff your--
- It's the opposite.
- Yeah, your kousa.
And that we're just basically throwing it
into our pot with our beef ribs.
And I added a little bit of tomatoes into my pot.
- And then my pot right here has
a sauce that's made up basically of just tomato puree
with a little bit of water and sliced garlic.
It's literally three ingredients.
And I just have that boiling
while I'm taking care of the stuffing.
Do you seal them with anything?
- No. - You don't seal them, okay.
- I know you do with tomato, right?
- I do.
I actually take a little bit of a wedge of a tomato
and I pop it in there and I seal them.
I don't know.
That's something my mom has always done.
So once it's sealed like this,
I just drop it right into the pot.
- Actually, my mom used to do that.
- Yeah.
- But now that our family is so big and there's nieces,
and this is a family meal.
- Yes. - This is a meal
that we all come together to eat.
- Yes.
- If my mom makes it, if I make it, my sisters make it.
The whole generation - The whole generation.
- comes over to eat.
- That's awesome. - So--
- That takes time to do that.
- Probably why my mom
doesn't put a little tomato at the top.
- Yeah, we still put that in and it's a nice little sealer.
So, what we're gonna do now
is we're gonna continue doing this.
We're gonna cover it and cook it for an hour.
And then we'll come back
and show you guys the final product.
- Yes.
- [Yumna] All right, you guys,
one hour later of simmering this kousa,
and this is what they look like.
- [Summer] I know.
- [Yumna] Oh my God, yours looks amazing.
- [Summer] So does yours.
I'm so excited to dig in. - [Yumna] So good.
- I'm excited for the keto
'cause this is my first time ever making the keto.
- Mmm. - So good.
- I'm excited.
I'm excited we did this, this--
- Me too.
- I think I'm gonna make keto from now on.
- Mmm-hmm.
- [Yumna] I want to try yours.
- [Summer] Okay, let's switch places.
- [Yumna] Okay (laughs).
- So we're gonna try each others.
- [Yumna] This looks so good.
I never would've thought to put cauliflower inside of this.
Such a good idea.
- It really did turn out amazing.
That's the first time I've ever made that.
I'll write down the recipe for you, Yumna.
- Mmm, it's so good.
- Mmm.
- Oh my God, I love it.
That's perfect. - The tomatoes
are really intense and
that rice is tender. - [Yumna] Yes.
- [Summer] Perfect.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Check out the video description
for the full written recipe
and Summer will be sharing the link to hers
and I'll be sharing mine as well.
And we hope you guys enjoyed this duo recipe
and thank you for coming over.
- Yeah, it was so much fun. - Been so much fun.
So please go ahead and like, subscribe, follow us,
so we can make more healthy-ish recipes
with feel good ingredients.
See you next time.
- [Summer] See you guys.