Continuing from where I left yesterday, we landed in Muscat at around 10:30 pm. You can understand the excitement, that despite being so tired, I was not ready to settle down, so much that I started dozing in between speaking to her at around 2:30 am and she pushed me off to sleep. 😀 Oman celebrated their Eid on Monday, so her family all went off for their Eid prayers while we caught up with some sleep. After waking up, again we had a lot of chatting before we pushed off to their friend’s house for lunch. Even there, we wouldn’t stop talking and our host was surprised that we have known each other since school days, that is almost 25 years of our life! 🙂 I didn’t want to leave so soon, but then, we have to be thankful for the little we get, right? I am thankful…
Arseeyah ~ Emirati Rice Chicken Gruel
I was ready with the Samak Koufta and Shorbat Adas well before in time, however this dish had to wait till the start of Ramadan to be made. Arseeyah is considered to be one of the Emirate’s comfort food. What is not comfort in it? Rice, chicken and some simple spices amalgamate into a wonderful dish, so very close to Harees. During my casual browsing, I landed up on this blog and it was love at first sight. It was one of the few blogs on the world wide web which had some Emirati recipes. I wish she would have continued blogging since the blog hasn’t been updated since Ramadan 2013. 🙁 Anyway, it is a treasure trove of a lot of simple recipes and I have almost bookmarked the entire blog to try! 😀 The one recipe that did pique my interest instantly was this dish. I did go…
Simple Tuna Stir Fry
I have yet not recovered from the overdose of cheesecakes of the Blogging Marathon. 😉 At times, too much sweet can also cause you lethargy and laziness. Even though I am still the “BST”, I am trying to reduce my sugar intake gradually, taking into account my constant weight gain over the past few years. I don’t know if I need to “thank” blogging for that, but to an extend, I must say “yes”. Even though I make very small quantities of dessert, it somehow ends up majorly into my system and considering that I have a super cooperative metabolism system helps in adding up the flab all over. You will still keep seeing a lot of posts, since they are all from my drafts. I am on a mission to go on slow as far as my cooking escapades are concerned till I shed off a little extra…
Bakmi Goreng/ Mie Goreng ~ Indonesian Fried Noodles
We are on the tenth of the month, so time for the Muslim Food Bloggers Challenge of the month! The way days fly from one tenth to the other is unbelievable. Sometimes I feel we have enough time to handle things, but this time, it came to a point that I had to whip up something so quick so that I could at least be a part of the challenge. It doesn’t happen to me usually. I like to plan and be prepared in advance, but sometimes things just don’t work out in your favor and plans keep getting postponed, only for the deadline to be staring at you. Alhamdulillah, still I was ready a week ahead, not too late I suppose. 😉 This month, we explore Indonesian cuisine. Why, you may ask. Indonesia happens to be the largest Muslim country in the world, accounting for 20% of…
Cheesy Chicken Pizza with Wheatgerm Crust
There is one thing I am slowly convincing myself – that I can’t escape from night photography. Period… I have always wondered if people would stop reading my blog if I don’t improve my pictures. Would you? Please do tell me… 🙂 Once during a casual conversation, Lubna had mentioned that the pictures on the blog reflects the nature of the blog. If the concentration is on food photography, then there will be lesser posts, but if the focus is on recipe sharing, then the number of posts will be more. It actually made a lot of sense to me. I never started the blog to focus on food photography. It was more to keep me motivated to cook, since I know the type of character I am. 😀 I can have long stretches of no-cooking days when we live off the fridge. I don’t want to blame…
Meat Chickpeas Patties
It is the 10th of the month and it is time for the Muslim Food Blogger Challenge of the month! I love hosting challenges and love it even more when there is healthy participation too. We are now in our fourth month, and Alhamdulillah, things are going quite well with a lot of enthusiasm in the team. I would love to thank each and every member who take the challenge and try to participate as much as they can! 🙂 For this month, the theme chosen was “Cooking from the Scrapbook“. Being foodies, we all would have at-least one scrapbook. Either it is a scribbled diary during our school days where we noted our Home Science recipes or copied it from the newspaper that our dad would be angry with us if we run the scissors around it. 😀 It may be a book with all cut-outs, or…
Meen Masala ~ Fish Masala
I wish I could eat fish whenever I wish for. When umma is around, fish is a part of lunch every weekday but I am normally not present during that time. I can’t say I am crazy about fish but I get bowled over by a good fish fry or a delicious fish curry. I guess it can be the signs of a Keralite. 😉 Here are some of the fish recipes on the blog, if you would like to refer back to… Tomato Fish Curry Meen Thoran ~ Fish Scramble Fish Makkanwala ~ Creamy Fish Curry Kerala Style Fish Masala Meen Arappu Roast ~ Fish Roast in Coconut Milk and Masalas – one of my favorites! This Fish Masala is cooked in a shallot based gravy and enriched with some tomato paste instead of whole tomatoes, to give it a nice pop of colors. Apart from the peeling…
Fesenjan ~ Persian Chicken Stew with Walnuts and Pomegranate
There are times when I wish I can go ahead and do a post without much of an introduction. Just do the post… then I wonder, would my readers accept it? I really don’t know… Many of you are used to reading something or the other to begin a post, and I am used to it too. If I don’t do it, then I feel a pinch of guilt within me for not taking an effort to start the post with a subject. But being human, at times, we are just left to be blank. The mind doesn’t give in. It acts just opposite of the way we want it to be. At that time, the best to do is not to pressurize it, which in turn will put undue stress on our whole system. Does it make any sense? 🙂 Last week, we had some lovely climate…
Chicken Shawarma
At times, my mind gets stuck in the past, even though I don’t like it. However good our present may be, sometimes we allow our mind to loiter in those forgotten lanes of memory. The memories may be good and cherished, but those that you wish to keep aside so that your peace of mind is not disturbed is usually the ones that always end up coming to the forefront. Such times, it becomes imperative to remind ourselves that the best weapon during those moments in the remembrance of Allah. Life is definitely not intended to be a catwalk and we have to equip ourselves continuously with what is required to keep ourselves protected from the whispers of the cursed and to keep our faith. Here is an article I found during my casual browsing that will ease up a lot of matters at heart, InShaAllah… I have been…
Lahori Chargha ~ Lahori Style Chicken Roast
I never hinted on the blog that HD has a small restaurant that serves Pakistani food. It is close to our house. But no, I don’t get food from there all the time. He does tell me to order if I feel lazy but I try my maximum to keep it to bare minimum as possible. Also, I am not really keen in being known to his staff. Also clarifying, I have absolutely no involvement whatsoever in that business of his. 😀 The first time I had Lahori Chargha was when he bought a whole fried chicken as a tester when he hired a new cook. The man was quite old but he was really impressed with his cooking. The chicken he bought was amazing. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, with generous sprinkle of chaat masala over it, it was amazing to dip it into the…
Mangalorean Chicken Ghee Roast
One thing umma was shocked to see was how much fussy my kids are about having onion and tomatoes in their food. Yes, you read it right! Both of them would very diligently pick out the visible skins of tomatoes and separate the onion strands if they can pull it out easily. Umma was comparing them to how we were as kids. She would slice up buckets of onions while making her chicken chukka and still it wouldn’t be enough for us. We would look into the other one’s plate and tell, “Ethrayullo?” (Only this much?) 😉 I now feel we have literally given her a hard time. The kids prefer dishes where there is nothing to throw away, so roasts like these are always welcome. The recipe is adapted from here. I do already have a ghee roast on the blog, but this one is a totally…
Macarona Bel Bechamel ~ Egyptian Macaroni with Bechamel
After taking a month off last month, we are back with a bang with the MENA Cooking Club challenge! This month, we are cooking from Egypt. Egypt needs no introduction. The land of the Nile and the Pharoahs, that’s how everybody knows it to be. It is a country that everybody would want to visit at least once in their lifetime, and that includes myself as well. For this month’s challenge, we were given three options: Macarona bin Bechamel – a macaroni dish, with beef and with bechamel sauce; Touly – also called the Egyptian ratatouille and Fateer, which is a delicious layered Egyptian bread. Fateer is something that we buy from Union Co-op at times and eat it just like that. The bread is really greasy but you can’t stop it at one bite. I wanted to try it but looking at the amount of butter/ghee…