Blogging is quite a funny business. There are many bloggers that I am very good friends with, but there are many more who I have acquaintances with, or some even we occasionally comment on each other’s blog, and that’s about it. “My Ninja Naan” was one of the blogs I discovered fairly early through my blogging journey. I would read the blog but not comment on it. I don’t know why… I just wouldn’t. Fast forward to now, the blog has been renamed as “Chai and Churros” and Henna has become somebody really dear. We keep commenting on each other’s Insta stories and liking each others posts. Hehe… how life turns around, isn’t it? 🙂 I have been thinking of calling her around to be on my blog and I thought this Ramadan was perfect timing for it. She very gladly accepted my invite and even send the post…
Bagara Baingan ~ Hyderabad style Eggplants in Peanut-Coconut Sauce
I guess we all would love to travel some or the other time. I would love to travel, however having a spouse who is not very keen to go around and prefers to be stuck more with his work doesn’t make it a possibility. In turn, B keeps travelling on and off. After an expensive trip to UK last year, he took a break for six months to recoup and then travelled to Hong Kong and Tunisia this year already. My fridge is slowly filling up with his magnets. 😀 My girls keep cribbing that we go nowhere. I just tell them to be patient and InShaAllah, we will go someday. Travelling with a family isn’t cheap though, but with loads of options now, I guess we all must plan in at-least one trip a year, even if it maybe by skipping the trip back home. After having talked…
Gajrela ~ Pakistani Carrot Rice Pudding
I am trying to get back to regular blogging and I am feeling quite rusty. Having said that, when it is the tenth of the month, I have to make sure that I don’t miss out on a challenge that I nurture and manage – the Muslim Food Blogger Challenge! It has been an amazing journey so far and each challenge has been accepted by my fellow bloggers with a lot of enthusiasm. It is this support that makes me want to keep the challenge going on. I am pretty excited by the fact that the challenge is approaching one year in November. Definitely another pointer to keep continuing, InShaAllah… This month, we are exploring Pakistani cuisine. We had done Indonesian cuisine a few months ago, and as per statistics, Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world. Pakistani food is very similar to the Muslim…
Pakistani Mint Cumin Raita
Each time you go to a Pakistani eatery here, there is something standard that will come with everything that you order. The best part about it is that you can dip all your food in it, pour it over your curry to mellow down the heat, or have it just like that. It is my favorite thing to have whenever I go to any eatery. Just try dunking your kebabs in them – they taste amazing. During my initial days of blogging, I had received a request from a fellow blogger asking if I knew how to make the raita we get from Karachi Darbar. This chain of restaurants is one of the most well known Pakistani food chains here. We used to absolutely enjoy the food, but off late, I have not been liking their food, so it’s been a long time since we hopped in. 🙁…
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…
Chukandar Ghosht ~ Beetroot Mutton Curry
Something I like about our neighboring country’s cuisine is that they include vegetables in their meat curries. You will find spinach in their mutton curry, methi in their chicken curry, etc. I guess some of the influences are found in some of our North side states as well, though I am not very well aware of the same. I found “Chukandar Ghosht” in a group mainly of Pakistani members. The color and the recipe allured me. I am sure all of you agree how beautiful the color of beetroot makes any dish look. Just giving you some examples, like the Beetroot Raita and the Eggless Red Velvet Muffins. I had to make it somehow, since my kids are very fond of beetroot. This is such an easy-to-put-together curry, with no tough ingredients and tastes amazing with some hot naans or simple steamed rice. Try to use tender mutton…
Fruit Chaat
“O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, even as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may ward off (evil);” (Surah Al-Baqarah:183) This happens to be my fourth Ramadan blogging, Alhamdulillah. Each time the month comes, it gives me an opportunity to let my readers know about the importance of the month. We as Muslims, celebrate this month as a gift from the Almighty, however difficult it may be taking into account the climatic conditions. But it is His Mercy that this month comes across all seasons as years pass by. So during a lifetime of a person, he fasts easily during winters and with a little bit of difficulty during the summers, however with all the benefits of the month. I have already touched upon the month’s benefits in my posts from the previous years, which you can refer to the archives, if you…
Tarka Gajar Ka Halwa – Tempered Carrot Sweet
I was just having a run-down on my recent posts and I was surprised to see that a lot of sweet posts that I have done recently had a lot of fruits and sometime vegetable in it! Hehe… I somehow seem to have discovered a liking towards including each and every fruits and vegetables into sweet stuff, since I have a sweet tooth just like my blog name is… (Duh!) So I am just adding one more to the list and InShaAllah, many of fruity and “vegetably” (if there is a word like that! 😀 ) sweet dishes will come your way as time passes… 🙂 As I scroll my eyes towards the numbers, this happens to be post #800 on the blog. Sometimes, I still can’t believe that I am the one who has done all these posts on the blog. I consider myself as lazy –…
Pakistani Chicken Pulao
Remember about a rice that I had mentioned in the Sambaar Saadam recipe? It was this one! I hated the initial picture I had taken for this delicious dish. After contemplating for quite long, I decided to put this recipe on hold till I cook it again and take decent enough pictures to accompany the post. So here I am with better enough pictures – this is only my opinion, I hope you share the same too! 🙂 As soon as I saw this recipe here, I had to make it. It was the first time I was cooking with black cardamoms so I was pretty much excited about it. It looks and smells different from the normal green cardamom that I so extensively use in my cooking. I then came to learn that this spice is extensively used in Pakistani and North Indian cooking. Hoping to use…
Aloo Kheema ~ Minced Meat Potato Curry
Yesterday my parents went back home after a short stay. The stay was about 26 days but how fast those days flew! More than me, the kids are awfully moody. I realized that my children are no longer small and they have their set of emotions, when I saw Azza wimping when D left her hand to move towards the passport control. Rasha has had her share of her grandparents but Azza has missed their company when she needed it the most. It was difficult trying to pacify her but in the next 15 minutes, she had given herself up to destiny and got back to normal. I guess there we have a lesson to learn from children – to give it up when it is time, to learn to move forward without what was there in the past. Sometimes I feel I have learned it, sometimes I feel I…
Peshawari Lassi
I am so excited about this lassi. Actually, why should I be? Imagine the scene – the whole house is sleeping. It’s a tired me, cooking a heavy lunch for a big group of guests expected anytime. I had to push up my energy levels so that I could finish off the task within the time. That was when I remembered the Peshawari Lassi that was up on Aara’s space sometime back. When you really want to look out, you don’t find it, right? I was frantically searching on my phone not to find that link. Finally, I just read up a few pages and made this lassi. By the way, I am sure you all know that Peshawar is a city in our neighbouring country, Pakistan… What word should I use for this – “refreshing” is an understatement!!! With those nuts, the taste is just awesome. I loved…
Sheer Khurma
When Suja published her desire to feature guest posts, I was the first one to pounce on it with a comment. I love her blog, Pepperbowl, for various reasons. She does full justice to her tagline – A cookbook with tingling recipes. And it does not fail to tingle anywhere! Each recipe of hers is a treat to the eyes. I love her photographs and the simple way that she goes through each and every recipe. It is a pleasure to be writing this guest post for her… After a lot of thinking, I decided to give her a kheer which is normally served during special occasions such as Eid and marriages in the Muslim community in parts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. “Sheer Khurma”, which basically means “milk in dates”, is a type of thick vermicelli pudding with lots of nuts and dried dates. Though not very popular in Kerala –…
Kulfi Falooda
There is this little shop a few buildings away from where we stay, which is hidden in the midst of a lot of buildings and textile shops. All that outlet sells is Pakistani sweets and falooda. The queue of people to have their falooda keeps increasing on a daily basis. Even the quantity that they serve in a bowl has shown a decrease over the years, even thought the prices have gone up! Whatever said and done, the falooda they serve is a class apart. From the time we were small, when my D heard about the outlet from one of his friends, we have been a regular over there. He would treat us to it at least once in a month, amid to the protests of my umma. Nowadays, we don’t have it much thanks to our faster pace of life, but then when my B craves for it,…
Zafrani Murg Masala | Chicken Saffron Curry
I feel so refreshed today, thanks to the long hours of sleep I got last night. My kids are very fidgety as far as sleeping is concerned. They hate to sleep! Seriously, what’s wrong with today’s kids? My umma keeps telling how much we used to sleep as kids and lamenting about the lack of sleep of my kids. I keep telling them, my darlings, you should understand that when the time comes when you really want to sleep, you will not be able to sleep, just like your ummi is!!! Hehe… I really miss my sleep… Those long hours of undisturbed sleep, waking up to the slight sun rays peeping through the curtains… Now life is so mechanical that you have to wake up when the alarm rings or else your whole schedule goes for a toss! Life is never the same always, right… hehe… Yesterday, a change in…
Murg Chanay – Chicken and Chickpeas Curry
One week of Ramadan has flown by and we are into the second week now. Isn’t it like that always, that the time you were so much awaiting for, comes by and flies by before you even realize? This is one such time for us… when blessing are promised in bountiful and when each and every good deeds with the right intentions will be taken into consideration… The Prophet (PBUH) has said: “Whoever fasts in Ramadan out of sincere faith and hoping to attain Allah’s rewards, then all his past sins will be forgiven.” (Sahih Bukhari) Further more, the Prophet (PBUH) has also said, “Fasting is a shield; it protects you from hell fire and prevent you from sins.” Both these Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet, as we call it) only goes to specify how important fasting is in terms of purifying one’s soul and mind. It all depends upon…
Chicken Pulao Biriyani
Days seem to be flying like mad. The first quarter of the year is finished and the first week of the second quarter is also completed. Isn’t that scary? Sometimes, I go home planning to do a lot of things, but then a meal, a laundry and a couple of blinks later, I realize that it is already time to put the kids off to sleep. So bye bye, goes the plans… Is it just me, or do you guys feel like that now? Now again for a biriyani recipe today. I just love biriyani, in fact our whole family does. Every Friday, we have to make biriyani or something like pulao and chicken/ beef/ mutton, complete with a pudding or kheer/ payasam. Nothing less will suffice. Sometimes, it feels like a chore. If it does, then I just go ahead and make biriyani the pressure cooker way, which is easy…
Be My Guest – Punjabi Shahi Colored Zarda
It’s a Saturday and time for the next guest post… Seriously, I am so happy that whoever I have written to have always come back with a positive response, be it Meena, Hasna and now it’s Noor. I am not sure if you are familiar with her – but her facebook page has over 1000 likes, which is not bad at all!!! I came across Noor through FB and was instantly attracted to her page. I am big fan of Pakistani cuisine and she had a lot of traditional recipes with some really nice pictures, and not only that, her blog is beautifully and very professionally done. I was not sure how she would take my request for a guest post, so I contacted her through FB message and was surprised to find a nice homely lady, ready to give in. This is the first time somebody has asked her…
Custard Sewiyan ~ Vermicelli with Custard
I have again been playing with the gadgets!!! I’ve changed the header, changed the fonts and slightly the colors. I’ve made the blog totally white, and now I am again looking around to make my blog look a bit more better. I somehow don’t seem to be satisfied with what I have. But now, I love the header. Do you like it too, friends??? 🙂 Actually speaking, my head is buzzing with ideas… Last time, when I put up the coming soon part as “Surprise!”, Divya, who blogs at Dishing, asked me if it were a giveaway. 🙂 I’ve never got any giveaways so far, mainly because I can’t keep a track of what all I should be participating. I blog for the fun of posting what I am trying and becoming successful, as well as the level of interaction with people with similar mindsets – read it as…