“Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you many learn piety and righteousness” (Surah Al Baqarah:183) Ramadan is on us, Alhamdulillah… InShaAllah, with the sunset today, it will start – the time when every aspect of our life is looked into and disciplined… Actually, I always feel that we limit our good deeds and discipline only to these 29 or 30 days. It is said that it takes 21 days to create a habit, so in case we sincerely want to create a good sustainable habit in ourselves, this one month should help us with it. After all, there is even a Hadith in this regard: Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Take up good deeds only as much as you are able, for the best deeds are…
Mince Puff Tart
While coming to the office in the morning, usually I listen to the Quranic recitation of either Sheikh Sudais or Sheikh Mishary Al Afasi. If you ask me who I prefer, it is the latter, but the Quran is beautiful to listen to in whosoever’s voice it is, especially when recited in the way it should be. 🙂 Some verses tend to hit your heart more, maybe because of the situation you may be in. Off late, the below verse has affected me a lot: “Let a man of wealth spend from his wealth, and he whose provision is restricted – let him spend from what Allah has given him. Allah does not charge a soul except [according to] what He has given it. Allah will bring about, after hardship, ease.” (Surah At-Talaq: 7) Many times, I feel I am not doing enough. Alhamdulillah, I mentally empathize…
Kurumulaku Kozhi Roast | Pepper Chicken Roast
I have to say that my quest for easy recipes never end, especially if it means that you hardly use anything in your pantry. 😀 I think after the Shinwari Karahi, this may be the dish that I cooked and loved that has very minimal ingredients. I have previously cooked from “The Suriani Kitchen” and have loved the three recipes already tried and posted. The book surely deserves a review, but why amn’t I doing it? The book I have is in Malayalam, since I couldn’t catch hold of the English version and I was just too impatient. 🙁 I am planning to order the new reprint of this book, but just giving myself time for it, since I have no space and my mission #1 is to create some space for future cookbooks. 😉 So InShaAllah, once I get my hands on the English version, I will…
Caril De Galinha ~ Goan Chicken Curry
It’s been a real long time since I participated in the Sshh Cooking Challenge. Recently, to make it interesting, the challenge had started exploring state wise and started from A. Though I would have loved to be a part of it, my family isn’t very receptive to all kind of foods and also, my time is becoming really tight of late, so I decided to give the challenge a break. Mayuriji was very understanding, and I did mention that when I felt like it, I would be part of the challenge. This month, it was Goa and I was in two minds. I hadn’t signed up initially but then it happened that there was one extra participant without a partner, and without thinking two times, I jumped in. I am glad that I did! 😀 Like I mentioned, this month, we are exploring Goan cuisine. Goa needs no…
Murgir Khorma ~ Bangladeshi Chicken Korma
One tenth to the next tenth just flies, I feel. 😀 I feel like I posted my last MFB post yesterday… hehe… This month, the theme was cooking from a country, and the chosen country was Bangladesh, which happens to be the third largest Muslim country in case of percentage. There is a lot of similarity between the food from this country and West Bengal, which is a state in India that shares its borders with Bangladesh. I kept searching up and down, as I wanted to make sure I cook up something easy and do not miss the challenge at all. A little peak into history and we will know that Bangladesh once belonged to the Mughal dynasty. It was a part of the India when the Britishers ruled it and then went to Pakistan when the declaration of independence was made in August 1947, when the…
Kukul Mas Curry ~ Sri Lankan Chicken Curry
When the themes for the Blogging Marathon #84 were declared, I didn’t think twice about the second theme to choose. It had to be “Sinhalese Cuisine”. There was a little confusion when I started with it. We know Sri Lanka as a country, but a little digging indicated that Sinhalese are the largest portion of people in Sri Lanka, and they are Buddhist. Their food reigns majority in the country. There are then the Tamils and the Muslims who have slightly varied ways of cooking. Sounds similar to how it is in Kerala too! So having cleared up the confusion of what cuisine I can look for, I ended up getting so confused with what I should be trying. Somehow the first to catch my attention was their chicken curry and I had to make it. Though the curry feels so much like our style, it is different in…
Samosa Cups
The climate we have here in the UAE now is just apt for fried goods – anything that is deep fried and can be had hot with a cup of hot chai! The craving keeps hitting every now and then, but most of the time you have to tame your inner beast, taking out the “bad” word CALORIES on it and not giving into it! Hehe… one of those “bad” foods is indeed samosas – deep fried, and sometimes you will get a pot of oil coming out of it when pressed with a tissue. 😉 If you crave samosas but don’t want to deep fry, then here is a baked version! The inspiration came from a contributor called Nizwa, who had shared this on a group. She had basically prepared the cups separately and filled it up with a creamy prawns filling. That is how forgiving this…
Herb Crusted Baked Chicken
Some recipes happen to us in very interesting ways. This one happened on a metro journey. Last year, for a few months, I used to take the metro to office after parking my vehicle at the first station close to my house. Later, when we got parking within our office building – such a relief, Alhamdulillah! – the metro trips stopped. There is a weekly newspaper that appears at the stations every Sunday and I would faithfully pick up one copy for my browsing. There would be nothing much to read as such, but it would have some pretty pictures, little titibits and at times, easy recipes too! This baked chicken is what I discovered in that magazine and got cooking as a part of a Friday lunch as side to some corn peas pulao. The recipe comes together really easy. There is no marination required. The washed…
Baked Rice Casserole
For the Bake-a-thon, I wanted to make sure that I don’t have only sweet bakes being posted. So my eyes fell on this delicious baked rice casserole I had made and clicked sometime back. Usually baked casseroles always involve pasta, like this tuna one and sausage one. As this involves rice instead of pasta but cooked in almost the same style, I had to make it. This recipe was part of a cook-along hosted in a lovely FB group that I am a part of, not only that the recipe was shared by someone who is a good friend too, Nuzha. The other recipe I had posted on the blog after learning from this lovely segment was this jiffy pasta. Anyway, coming back to this dish, it involves a little bit of work, since there is some cooking involved of the layers involved. But the recipe was too…
Chutney Chicken
Sometimes I feel that I can go any length to prove that I am a lazy cook. Everybody asks me, how I manage to cook. I must tell you – there are many many days that I really don’t cook, or just do it to survive because eating out all the time is not an option! Before I started blogging, my favorite pass-time was gawking at food blogs. At that time, the craze of cooking was just catching up. I used to go through, save a lot of them up, print them and also wonder how come these bloggers are all thin when they are eating such heavy stuff! 😀 Now that I am a blogger myself and get asked the same question by others, I can’t help but smile. First of all, I don’t make blog-worthy stuff everyday. Most of these posts you are seeing are all what…
Copy-Cat McNuggets
Sometimes it is the theme that pulls you to participate in challenges. When the email for the Fantastical Food Fight appeared in my inbox, I was actually not planning to participate. But I casually browsed through the mail and noted the theme was “Fast Food Copy Cat”, as tomorrow is National Fast Food Day in the US – wondering what doesn’t have its own day now! 😉 I was really not keen at first, then my kids came to my mind. All they want is the McDonald’s kids meal and for its McNuggets. I don’t need to tell you how much I hate it when we are out, I ask the kids what do you need and they reply, “Ummi, McDonalds!” 😕 Instantly, my head told me that I must search for a recipe for making McNuggets at home! I landed up on this link, saved it up and tried…
Kozhi Vattichathu ~ Malabar Roast Chicken
I don’t know if I would call my weekend “relaxed”, but in a way, it was. After a long day on Thursday, I just wanted to be at home but the girls were adamant they wanted to go to the book fair which is happening at the Sharjah Expo Center. Very hesitantly, I braved the traffic of an hour to be at the fair and we had a good walk. I had already warned the girls that I wouldn’t be buying anything that day, so it was more of a walking and browsing session! Hehe… Friday was a very normal day, very much at home. Yesterday morning, we again headed to the book fair. This time, the girls had a program to attend so I took Humi along with me for company. We walked around, picked up a few books and spent some good time chatting. For the first…
Roasted Chicken, Broccoli and Potatoes
Simple joys of life is what I call this meal – a mix of proteins ,carbs and greens! 😛 We all do this, don’t we? – pick up what’s there in the fridge, pull out whatever is there in the spice section, and just put up a meal. This one was one of those, which was wiped up clean. I normally like to cut chicken on my own, but at times, when I am in a hurry, I order from the supermarket nearby and they cut such small and tardy pieces, since they use a machine. I find it convenient to make curry, since it cooks faster, but you can never make out which is the leg or the breast piece, it all looks the same! 😀 But it cooks really fast, whether on the stove or in the oven, so I do like it for such meals. 🙂…
Jeeraka Kozhi/ Jeera Kozhi ~ Malabar Cumin Chicken
The tenth of the month, so no prizes for guessing – time for the Muslim Food Bloggers Challenge post! This month, the theme was pretty interesting – to pick up a recipe bookmarked or pinned from a Muslimah blogger and recreate it in our own kitchen! It was a tough call for me. I have bookmarks all over the place, and ever since the challenge has started, it has been only increasing. However, a little bit of deep thought and all of a sudden I knew what I should be posting! This Jeeraka Chicken caught my attention as soon as I saw it here. Fathima’s was one blog I followed initially when the cooking bug hit me. I loved her blog for the simple recipes especially the Malabar ones, and the warm clicks. She even did a guest post for me during that time. Unfortunately, the doctor seems…
Chinese Saucy Chicken
Coming back from vacation and getting back to live blogging is something that many bloggers have an inertia towards. It is normal – as a human being, you have a tendency to lazy around to get back to things that you had left unattended. But if you ask me, I have missed blogging. I had gone home with my laptop and camera in tow, determined to learn a bit of manual clicking and working on a few new facets of blogging. But it all happened otherwise. In fact, this is one of the busiest vacations I have ever had, though if you ask me what did I do, I did nothing much! 😀 It started off with B getting hitched. We had a low key yet a relative-filled function. My sister and I instantly hit it off with our new sister-in-law, hehe… Since HD was around for very…