Why Can't We All Get Along?

I know my blog is entitled my life through meals and books, but today I'm going to talk about a Movie I just watched.

I live in a city that has a huge orthodox Jew population. Their is an entire part of the city that is dominated by temples, kosher delis, and Jewish bookstores. This part of town also has a restaurant that serves kimchi fried rice (delicious), so I frequent this part of town often. Growing up, I've always been taught at my mosque, at home, at my Islamic school, to respect all religions. I have had friends from all different faiths.

When I first went to this area, I saw a lot of Jewish women with head coverings, and I thought that was really cool, almost bonding us in this secret society that the outside world doesn't take a part of. I started smiling at other women as I saw them on the street. Sometimes I receive puzzled looks. I found this confusing.

I think the problem I'm facing here is that everyone is divided in their neighborhoods and groups that some people are not exposed to each other in a positive manner. Therefore, for some people, a friendly smile from a Muslim person might be weird. They probably think Muslims are supposed to hate all other religions (which is totally against our religion.) Unfortunately, due to propaganda, so called "Muslims" who misinterpret Islam and ruin it for the rest of us, many people believe that Muslims are taught to hate all other religions.

Why this long rant? Because it ties into the awesome movie I just watched called "Arranged".
















The movie is about a Muslim woman and an Orthodox Jewish woman working together in an elementary school in Brooklyn. It explores their expectations from their families and the friendship they develop from sharing many of the same values. This movie was great. Why?Because the Muslims were not terrorists and beating their wives. The Jews weren't miserly and loud mouthed. Instead, it portrayed Muslims and orthodox Jews accurately and as human beings. It was authentic and heart warming, and most importantly, shows us how we can all bridge the gaps we have between people of different faiths and societies. I think everyone should watch this movie so we can understand each others cultures. More importantly, it'll encourage us to reach out with a friendly smile to people different then us and open up the doors of understanding and break down all the barriers we have built.

Go watch it!! It's on netflix. And make your friends watch it too.

Comfort Food

So I just finished reading this book, and its called Lucky Girl. I must say, it was very interesting. The book is about this young Taiwanese girl who was adopted by an American family at the age of 8 months. She later goes back to get to know her Taiwanese family, and discovers her heritage. Now usually, books like this are sappy and she uncovers some deep dark family secret. But this book is a true story, and it really goes through the emotions and perils of adoption. It's very well written, entertaining, and my favorite part, brutally honest. Definitely worth reading. Heres a link to the book:

Lucky Girl: A Memoir

Now, my post is entitled: Comfort Food. All of you know, everytime I post a recipe, I tell you its my favorite food. But, those of you close to me know that I absolutely love anything cooked with yogurt. Yogurt pasta, Kiba fi labaniya, Mahshi Ajoor, shish barak etc, etc. So now I shall share with you my favorite yogurt recipe, ( #2 being my greek yogurt pasta.)

Shakriya.

The name alone sounds comforting. Shukur means to give thanks, and Shakriya almost sounds like it is thanking you for eating it.  Everytime I eat this meal, I feel like all is well in the world, and I want to personally thank the delightful combination of meat, yogurt, and rice in my plate.And I do, by enjoying every last bite of it. I think I'm a fat person living in a thin person's body, desperately and slowly coming out.

So heres the recipe, enjoy! =)

Ingredients:

1) 2 pounds of stew meat OR if your feeling particular rich that day, two pounds of cut up ribeye ( without the bone.)

2) 1 Large onion sliced

3) 2 tablespoons of allspice ( Or arabic pepper, that brown powder.) 

4) 12 cups of water

5) 2 large containers of GREEK yogurt ( you cannot use any other kind of yogurt, only  greek. You can find this @ publix, trader joes, most organic food stores.)

and thats it for the ingredients! How simple is that?

Now to prepare the food.

Take a large pot and melt a teeny bit of butter and some olive oil, and add the stew meat and onions and a sprinkle of salt. Brown the stew meat a little bit and then add the water and allspice.

Bring it to a boil, and then turn the heat down and let it simmer for one hour.

After one hour, check the stew meat. It should be done and tender. If you cook it on high for an hour, its going to get very chewy and hard. The key is to cook it on medium to low heat, just so that its simmering, so that it slowly cooks and becomes tender.

Near the end of cooking your meat, take out another large pot, and put it on medium low heat. Take the greek yogurt and dump it into the pot. You have to constantly wisk it until it becomes liquidy and warm. Once its warm and more liquid like, turn the heat off. You cannot let it boil. If it boils, the yogurt will fall apart. If it does fall apart, just put it in a blender, or use a handmixer like I do.

Slowly start to add the stew meat water. I usually do a cup at a time and wisk it in. You need about 9 to 10 cups, depending on how watery you want it. If you want it thicker, then add less water. Once your done, keep wisking it. Again, if the yogurt falls apart ( and it should'nt if you are wisking) use blender or hand mixer.

Strain the meat and onions out and add it to the yogurt mixture. At this point you can taste it and add salt if you want or more allspice, but I usually let whoever is eating to add it to their own plate.  enjoy!

For a side, I usually cook the rice in the stew meat water, its yummy and a beef broth. I also saute some vermicilli noodles in the pot before I add the water and rice.

We're Back!! =)

So I haven't posted in a while! I've been busy. First I visited my family and then visited the in-laws, so May was a fun month Alh. Now I'm back in Pittsburgh and ready to share a recipe with you iA!

First, lets start with the recipe. The other day I had a HUGE craving for some green beans, so I decided to make some fasooliya, which is a green bean stew. This is probably one of my favorite dishes ( Don't I say that about everything though?) . Theres two variations, so I'm going to give you both, one with stew meat and one with ground beef. Lets start with the stew meat one.

For the stew meat, get some beef stew and cube it. Saute it with some onions and then boil it on a simmer for about 20 minutes ( It's not supposed to be fully cooked). Turn it off and proceed to make the green bean recipe.

Ingredients:
1) one pound to a pound and a half of fresh green beans ( This is important, make sure they are really fresh and yummy, they should snap easily if you bend it.) If you MUST use frozen and your too busy, then make sure you get reallly yummy frozen green beans.
2) 2 freshly chopped tomatos
3) 1 chopped red pepper
4) 1 chopped green pepper
4) 1 sliced onion
2) 2 tablespoons of ground coriander ( NOT fresh, it has to be ground.)
3) 1 and a half tablespoon of minced fresh garlic ( don 't use the jarred stuff its gross).
4) 1 tablespoon of tomato paste.
5) 1 eight ounce can of puree tomato.
6) One chicken or vegtable bouillon cube.
7) 1 lb of ground beef or beef stew ( whichever you decide to use.)

- Take the green beans and wash them. After that, what I do is just snap off the ends with my thumb and then just break them in half.
- If you decide to use ground beef, add it at this point. Add some olive oil to the pot. Combine the ground beef, all the vegtables, garlic, coriander and stir fry it together until the meat starts to brown. If your using stew meat, then add all the other ingredients except for the ground beef.
- After the beef starts to brown, add enough water until its about an inch or two above the green beans. If your using the stew meat recipe, add the water that you used to boil the stew meat with.Usually around 5 to 6 cups.
- Add the tomato paste, puree and vegtable bouillon, and bring it to a boil.
- If your using the stew meat, add it at this point. 
- Bring to boil, and then simmer for an hour and a half, until the green beans are done and the sauce is consistent and is thicker.

And your done! I usually serve this with plain white rice. Its sooo delicious. Enjoy! 

Disclaimer: I mentioned in a previous post that my green bean stew wasn't that great, WELL I've worked on it a lot, and realized that its all about the green beans that you use. If you use ones that aren't fresh it ruines the entire dish. 

Re-Invention

So the past few days, as I've been lying around on the couch, I've realized that I have basically accomplished nothing these past few months. I've decided to make my blog more productiive, and take a new approach to it. NOW before all my fans go crazy don't worry, I'm still going to post recipes, BUT I'm also going to start writing litarary reviews / criticisms of books I'm reading. I feel like that will work my brain a little bit. Sometimes I feel like my brain is oozing out of my ears. I think this will stimulate it a lil bit. =)

Sakeena Lo Mein

So I just made some DELICIOUS Lo Mein, courtesy of Sakeena Ahmed. =)

Here's the recipe she gave me:

Ok, so here's the recipe.  It's a recipe for Vegetable Lo Mein, but you can easily add chicken/beef/shrimp to it if you want.

• 16 oz. lo mein noodles, uncooked

Sauce

• 1 cup vegetable broth/chicken broth/beef broth (depending on what you are making)
• 1 Tbspn corn starch
• 3 Tbspn soy sauce
• 2 Tbspn thick soy sauce (available in Oriental stores)
• 1 Tbspn sesame oil

Ingredients

• 2 Tbspn peanut or olive oil
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup shredded carrot
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup snow peas
• 1 tspn salt
• 1/2 tspn black pepper
• 1/2 tspn dried crushed red pepper (optional)
• 3 stalks scallions, coarsely chopped

Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 3 minutes.  Rinse, drain, and set aside.

Mix the sauce: broth, cornstarch, soy sauce, thick soy sauce, and sesame oil; mix well and set aside.

Preheat a wok or large nonstick pan with the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and stirring constantly until the garlic is light brown about 1 minute.  [If making beef/chicken/shrimp, add now and stir fry until cooked.]  Add the carrot and mushroom and turn the heat high; stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Add the snow peas, salt, black pepper, and red pepper; continue stirring for another minute.  Add the sauce, stirring well and bring to a boil.  Add the noodles and stirring well for 2 minutes.  Add scallion, stirring well and serve hot.  Serves 6-8.

* I made it with chicken, so I marinated the chicken in some cornstarch and sesame oil before I cooked. 

We're Back to Stuffing

The halabi bug has bit me once again. I feel an urge to stuff something. This time, I've decided to stuff indian eggplants. Indian eggplants are the cute babies of the eggplant world.

 I searched online to see why they are called Indian eggplants. This is all I could find:

"The Indian eggplant is known for its tenderness and sweet flavor. It is small and round with smooth skin and a red-purple color. The skin does not need to be peeled; it can be used interchangeably with the American eggplant. Another variety, the Indian paint eggplant, has white stripes. It is more fragile, but are perfect for stuffing and baking " 

So I didn't find out why its called an indian eggplant. Maybe it was discovered in India. 

So I went all over town  trying to find some indian eggplants, and they have disappeared off the face of pittsburgh. They are usually really easy to find. I finally found some yesterday @ the veggie market in the strip district. My mom is known for this dish. All her recipes are yummy, but her fetat al magdoos is Amazing. Anytime she has a dinner party and she makes it, people talk about that dish the most. So here we go:

Ingredients:
 For the Yogurt:

1) 1 container of Greek yogurt.
2) 3 tbsp of tahini
3) 5 freshly squeezed lemons
4) 1 clove of garlic, smashed

For the Sauce:

4) 1 small container ( 6 oz)  of tomato paste

5) 2 Tablespoons of vinegar
6) 1 teaspoon of pomengrate syrup

7)  sliced onions
8) 1 tablespoon of butter
9) Two beef bouillon cubes
10) 1 package of pita bread ( make sure its yummy, not that nasty supermarket brand)

For the Eggplants:
11)  half a pound of ground beef
12) around 3 tbsp of pine nuts
13) 9 Indian eggplants ( just enough to cover the top of your casserole)
14) One sliced onion

Garnish:
15) Some chopped parsley

- This recipe is easy, but has alot of steps, so I'm going to divide it up. First lets start with the eggplants.
- The eggplants need to have the insides removed, and I usually use a special tool called a Ma'wara. You can usually find it in the arabic store. It looks like a knife that is a half circle, so you just cut off the top of the eggplant and then clean out the insides. Make sure you dont make the skin too thin, it needs to stay thick because the skin is really yummy, just hollow it out a little bit so you can stuff it.
- Now, take the pine nuts and roast them in a saute pan. After your done take them off.
- In the same saute pan, melt about half the butter and saute half the onions. Add the ground beef, and cook till finished. Once it's done, add the pine nuts. And there you have it, its the stuffing for the eggplants.
- Take the eggplants and stuff them.
-  Take a pot, and fill it with some frying oil ( I use peanut). Now, you need to fry the eggplants in the oil, but You only put enough oil so that it doesn't cover the eggplant. You just have to saute the eggplants in the oil, so your not deep frying. Take each eggplant and saute it in the oil, and keep turning it around in the oil till its cooked. It's about 5 minutes an eggplant, and the skin needs to be soft. Make sure none of the oil gets in the stuffing though, so you put half an inch of oil in the bottom of the pan.
- Your done with the eggplants! That's the most labor intensive part. Now, all you need to do is make the tomato sauce.
- Take the rest of the butter, and saute the onions in a pot.  Then, add about 5 cups of water, the jar of tomato paste, the pomengrate syrup, the vinegar, and the bouillon cubes, and some salt. Let it boil for about 30 minutes till all the flavors are combined.
- Take the eggplants and soak them in the sauce for about 5 minutes when the sauce is done and then take them out. 
- Take all the yogurt ingredients and mix them together in a bowl.
- Now, chop up your pita bread into squares and bake them in the oven until they are crisp.

Assembly:

- Take a casserole dish and layer it with pita bread.
- Take the tomato sauce and soak the bread with it.
- Then, take the yogurt mixture and pour that on top.
- Then, take the eggplants and put them on top, and garnish with parsley.

AND your done! Enjoy doing the dishes though, bc theirs ALOT! But its worth it, because it is so yummy.  If you want to make it fattening, take some pinenuts and almonds, roast them in butter, and pour it on top of everything before you add the parsley. =)

Beef Curry Nastiness

I'm sure all artists have had their shares of errors. Maybe Micheangelo painted a painting that looked like it was made for Bed, Bath and Beyond. Perhaps Wolfgang Puck food poisoned some people ( he actually did, I read an article about that once.) Today, I made a mistake. One of the biggest ones in my entire culinary career.

For those of you who know me, I am an avid reader. Lately I've been reading alot of books about Asia. The latest book I read was by Lisa See, called "Shanghei Girls." It was really good. And throughout the book, the protagonist kept making this dish called "Beef Tomato Curry Lo Mein." Now, besides the fact that I love books about Asia, I also LOVE asian food. I can eat it every single day and not get sick of it. The more I read the book, the more I wanted some Beef Tomato Curry Lo Mein. I googled the recipe after I read the book, waited patiently for some flank steak from the halal butcher, and happily made it today.

I followed the recipe EXACTLY. When it was done cooking, it looked absolutely delicious.I picked up my fork, scooped up a generous serving, and took a big bite. I swallowed, and then I gagged. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten in my life. I had to go spit it out and gurgle in the sink to get the taste out of my mouth. My apartment REEKED of the smell. Curry powder and white wine vinegar DOES not MIX people! My husband came home and tried it, and thought it tasted good and ate from it. I'm starting to question his opinions on my food now, because if he could eat that, then he can pretty much eat anything.