About Easy Dine Recipes
A friendship, two kitchens, and a couscous dinner that went wrong
We’re Sarah Zain and Karim, two college friends from Morocco who now work together across two continents. Sarah lives in the United States and leads the recipe writing, kitchen testing, and editing. Karim is based in Morocco and manages the website, strategy, and business.
The idea for Easy Dine Recipes took shape after Sarah served a couscous dinner that came out clumpy and dry. It was a dish she had grown up eating and thought she knew well. Working out what had gone wrong made her want to write down the details that familiar family recipes sometimes leave unsaid.
Before the website, there was a hot plate
We met in 2014, during our final year of college in Morocco. Karim was in the university library trying to fix a broken laptop. Sarah was working through a recipe from her grandmother’s handwritten Arabic notebook.
Our friendship soon moved beyond the library. Sarah would invite Karim to her small student apartment for study sessions, which often ended with something cooking on a cheap hot plate.
Sarah cooked; Karim helped figure out the shopping and how to make the ingredients fit a student budget. He also volunteered for the tasting.
After college, Sarah moved to the United States. Karim stayed in Morocco and began working in technology and digital strategy. We stayed in touch through messages, calls, and conversations about what Sarah was cooking in her American kitchen.
The dinner that gave us a reason to start
Around three years ago, Sarah tried making her grandmother’s couscous for a dinner party in the United States. The grains turned out dry and clumped together.
She called Karim, frustrated that something so familiar had gone wrong. We spent two hours going through the preparation, and Sarah traced the problem to the steaming technique.
She adjusted her approach and made it again the following evening. This time, it came out the way she remembered.
That experience gave the website a purpose. Sarah wanted to record more than ingredient lists: the steps, decisions, and small corrections that help someone understand a recipe well enough to make it themselves.
Meet Sarah Zain
Recipe Writer, Editor & Kitchen Testing Lead
Sarah is Moroccan and lives in the United States. Her cooking draws on the North African food she grew up with and the ingredients available in the American supermarkets where she shops today.
She develops and tests recipes, writes the articles, edits the instructions, and gives final editorial approval before publication.
What Aunt Khadija taught her
Sarah’s aunt Khadija ran a small bakery in the medina in Marrakech. One of Sarah’s strongest memories is that her aunt rarely relied on a timer. Instead, she paid attention to the bread: its crust, its sound, and the changes that came with baking.
That stayed with Sarah. A cooking time is useful, but so is knowing what you are waiting to see, hear, or feel.
It is why she pays attention to the descriptions in a recipe. “Cook the sauce” leaves a reader with questions. Explaining the consistency they are looking for gives them something practical to work with.
A testing example: preserved-lemon chicken tagine
Sarah made her chicken tagine with preserved lemon four times while working on the sauce.
The first three attempts were acceptable, but she was still looking for a better balance of consistency and tanginess. On the fourth attempt, she reached the result she wanted. Her husband’s response—“You’ve outdone yourself”—made that version particularly memorable.
This is the kind of detail she wants to carry into her writing: what needed attention, what changed, and what made the finished dish work better.
Meet Karim
Founder & Strategic Manager
Karim manages Easy Dine Recipes from Morocco. His work includes website strategy, hosting, maintenance, publishing systems, presentation, and partnerships.
He handles those responsibilities across our portfolio of websites, while Sarah leads the food content and editorial decisions for this site.
At home, Karim’s dependable Tuesday dinner is harira: tomatoes, lentils, chickpeas, ginger, and turmeric. It is the meal he turns to when he is tired and wants something warm.
Grilled fish with chermoula is another family favourite, and something he makes at least once a week. He also cooks recipes for his family in Morocco and shares his feedback with Sarah.
How our content comes together
Sarah is responsible for recipe development, kitchen testing, writing, editing, and final editorial approval. Karim manages the technical preparation and publication of the approved content.
During review, Sarah checks that the ingredient list and instructions agree, that quantities are clear, and that the preparation follows a sensible order. She also checks the timing and the descriptions of how the food should look as it cooks.
Kitchen testing and editorial checking are different activities. Reading through a recipe or checking its measurements does not establish that it has been cooked, and an illustration does not document a cooking test.
If you find an unclear instruction or something that needs correcting, please let us know through our contact page. Reader feedback helps us improve the explanations.
How we use AI
Sarah writes the articles and supplies the personal memories and cooking context. We use AI to help with grammar, spelling, readability, and formatting. Sarah reviews the edited wording and remains responsible for the final article.
Our visual workflow also includes AI-assisted image enhancement and some AI-generated food illustrations. An enhanced or generated food image should not be treated as a record of a particular cooking test.
Personal experiences, recipe testing, and publication approval remain human responsibilities.
Welcome to our table
Our friendship began with student meals in Morocco. Today, food is still part of how we stay connected, even with an ocean between us.
We hope Easy Dine Recipes helps you find something you want to cook—and gives you the details you need when a familiar dish does not turn out quite as expected.
— Sarah Zain & Karim