Ramadan Recipe #5

Alright today i will be doing two recipes to keep myself up to date.  Wish i was this persistent with other things, but i am only doing this because i am getting a break today from cooking.  I will be going to this amazing Interfaith Iftar Dinner.  Sharing a meal with people really is a wonderful thing.  As i was sitting here uninspired i started staring at my wall and thought that i should paint it.  It looks old and boring.  Then i started thinking that i should eat more salmon.  I am in need of some Omegas.  Than i started conjuring up this amazing recipe in my head.  A combination of a few already existing recipes.  I shall make it amazing, and i shall call it mine and I shall call it Salmon Pockets.( this line was inspired by finding nemo).  If anyone does try this recipe before me please let me know how it turns out and if you have any great suggestions than please do comment. 


Salmon Pockets (this recipe may make 3 or 4 pockets depending on the size of the salmon)


1 lb Salmon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder


This is a Basic Duxelle recipe for Beef wellington

• 3 pints mushrooms

• 2 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp parsley

•  salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 egg
1 lemon


Frozen Puff pastry Sheet






 Cut the salmon in to small 2or 3 inch squares Rub salt and pepper on salmon and set aside
In a food processor.  Process mushroom, shallots and garlic 
in a sauce pan add 1 tbsp butter  and olive oil then add the  mushroom mixture. Cook for atleast 5 minutes add in cream and cook until the liquid evaporates. 


Thaw pastry dough, roll the dough and cut into squares a few inches larger than the salmon so it can be wrapped around the salmon. 
lay the pastry spoon on some mushroom mixture
 place the salmon on top 
top the salmon with more mushroom mixture 
Fold over the pastry to make it into a pocket
crack one egg  and beat well


Brush the egg onto the pastry and bake in oven at 400 degree oven for 40 or 45 minutes or until brown and done.


If you dont want to make the pockets.   You can roll the pastry dough around the entire salmon fillet. make one large salmon pocket or purse. 




When ready to eat squeeze some lemon juice on top




You can make a yummy lemon-butter garlic sauce if you would like 


1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 cloves garlic sliced (you can use 2 tsp garlic powder if you don't like the garlic slices in your food)
salt to taste
1 tsp capers


In a small sauce pan melt butter on low medium heat, toss in garlic slices cook for 1 minute on low then add in lemon juice salt to taste and add capers. turn off the stove and drizzle on top of the pockets. 




You can eat this with a simple parsley salad '


1 bunch Parsley
 1 Red onion 
2 Roma tomatoes 
salt 
pepper 
olive oil 
and lemon juice


Please try it and let me know!!!

Ramadan Recipe #4

OK i know i am falling one day behind, but i honestly don't know where the time goes.  These long days are making me take full advantage and  making me  get  as many things done as possible and still have time to cook and pray and read and relax and read some more, plus after returning from Taraweeh  i don't have to force my kids to go to bed early.  Who knew that  having Ramadan in the summer would be so productive. This is speaking for myself a domestic engineer. I realized the past few days i have been lagging in the health department.  I should be eating more healthy, my mission this year is to buy a super awesome Breville Compact juicer fruit extractor (its only 99 dollars at crate and barrel).  I am hoping one of my family members would accidentally come across my blog and get it for me as an Eid gift or even a 20th anniversary gift instead of a diamond ring.
 Wishful thinking is also one of my weaknesses but it keeps me smiling.  Imagine the possibility of owning a juicer oh the joy and the recipes!

Today i give you another simple dish that you can make.  Shepherds Pie

Shepherds Pie is a very simple dish, i would say the only dish i approve of from the UK, basically made of ground beef, potatoes and cheese.  Hearty healthy and homely? Anyways

1 lb ground beef cooked (left over from yesterday is fine)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup peas (frozen or fresh)
1 lb potatoes
butter
salt
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup cheddar cheese
Panko bread crumbs(optional)

Cook ground beef until brown.  I use my own spices like salt, red chilli powder, garlic ginger paste, turmeric powder and one onion. I like these spices because they have good flavors.  After the beef is browned add in tomato paste and 1/4 cup water  just add in the peas and cook on low for 5 minutes and turn off the stove. It should look a bit like sloppy joe but not too sloppy.

boil the carrots

Boil the potatoes, peel and mash them with butter salt and pepper
sour cream is optional so you dont have to add it if you choose not to.

in a 9X 12 pan start layering

Layer ground beef and carrots
then mashed potatoes
then top with cheddar cheese
If you want to add panko,  coat the bread crumbs with 2 tbsp melted butter and then sprinkle on top with the cheese.

Bake at 350 for atleast 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and brown on top.

You can have this with with a yummy spinach and beet salad.
Spinach
sliced Beets
goat cheese
slivered almonds

Dressing
equal amounts of Olive oil and Pomegranate Juice (you can also use lemon or orange juice)
salt pepper and a pinch of sugar

Ramadan Recipe #3

Day 3 for me and i guess Day 4 for some others.  The moon thing is never ever gonna make sense to me but i must say the only thing all of us can agree on during the early phases of Ramadan is Iftar and what to make for iftar.  Although the days are a bit longer and a bit hotter.  We muslims inherently and systematically Thank God for anything that comes our way.  Alhamdolilla flows out of our mouths like water (that must sound good right about now).  Talking to several people in several iftar dinners.  We say things like "atleast we are not in canada, there maghrib is at 10:30" or We arent in India or pakistan or those hot places. Then we digress into question like "how do people in Alaska do it and go even further north to the north pole".  Not sure if anyone lives there but the group of people i hang out with.  We digress a lot.  Love them all .   I Heard in Dubai its a whopping 100 something.  God have mercy!   Lets not lose sight of it all we need to remind ourselves that Ramadan is about feeling for the poor, the hungry and the weak.  We have to remember to Thank God for everything we have, change the way we look and treat the world.  Our job is to love everyone for the sake of Allah.  Loving for the sake of Allah literally means that you act towards a person in a way that pleases Allah.  If you love "a person" you will do what pleases that person, you may even become obsessed or have crushes on them and do weird things for them like drive into the grand canyon or lie to your loved ones or hurt them just to please the other person so you can get that weird feeling when you are around them, like become selfish and stuff.  I digress again. However, if you love them for the sake of Allah you will treat them the way Allah wants you to treat others. You know,  be kind, respectful, smile and do their laundry occasionally.  Does that make sense?

I m gonna do a lot of recipes that are kids friendly, primarily because i have a lot of kids breaking fast in my house this summer and they have amazingly elaborate requests.  None if which include pakora cholay or dahi baday.  Today i had a strange request for spaghetti.  But i rather not. Since its so late in the evening we have to  make an extra effort to make something healthy and filling and nothing that keeps us or others awake during the night. Since we have to wake up in literally a couple of hours.

Today we make orange chicken bites

Basic recipe

1 pound boneless chicken (cubed)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili powder (optional)

 1 cup Flour
1/2 cup Corn Starch
1 egg
salt
pepper
(this basic chicken nugget recipe is the best the kids love it)

Orange Sauce
3 tbsp Frozen Orange Juice ( Trust me the flavor is more stronger)
Garlic Ginger Paste
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
red pepper flakes
1 tsp oil

Marinate the Chicken with salt, chilli, soy sauce, and garlic ginger paste




Heat a deep fry pan with oil

First crack one egg into the marinated chicken mix well


in a separate dish  mix flour and corn flour with salt and pepper

dip each chicken piece into the flour shake and slowly put in in the oil.  fry the chicken nuggets until brown.


remove then place on wire rack or paper to drain the oil


In a large pot add 1 tsp oil and garlic ginger paste and cook on medium heat then add  2 tbsp frozen orange juice,  1 tbsp soy sauce and brown sugar and red pepper flakes. Dissolve the cornstarch in some water and add into the sauce.  Remove from heat then quickly toss in the chicken nuggets and quickly mix the ingredients together so the sauce adheres to the nuggets. Depending on the size of the chicken nuggets you may have to make more or less sauce.  The proportions are there to follow you can play around with it.  You can lessen or increase the amount of sugar and pepper flakes to your taste.  After coated remove the chicken nuggets and stick tooth pick on each of them then wait for it to be sunset...



okay this picture was from the google images as by the time i made this awesome dish it was gone.  But it really did look like this I promise

Ramadan Recipe #2

After the countless number of times my teenage kids dropped my laptop. I have to finally put it to rest. Being ramadan im trying real hard not to be as pissed off as I would be. The amount of drama coming from this mama would have been hotter then the oil we all fry samosas in. So now im swyping on my droid. Honestly if something happens to my phone then Allah knows how many rewards I will be collecting just holding in the anger and despair of losing my third hand. Patience.

Today will be another simple recipe. I got strawberries on sale yesterday and being of the ethnic decent that I am, I bought a lot.

Today strawberry shortcake. Im so happy that ramadan is so close to the months when fruits and veggies are plenty.

1pound cake
8 oz of whip cream
1tsp vanilla
3 tbsp sugar
8oz of pudding
strawberries

Slice strawberries place in a bowl and add 1 or two tsp of sugar then refrigerate
Make whip cream with vanilla and sugar
Make pudding as directed on box
Refrigerate both
After they cool combine whip cream and pudding and set aside
slice pound cake
Layer the pound cake in a 9x11 dish
Pour in pudding cream and spread
Top with strawberries
Add Another layer pour rest of pudding cream then top with strawberries
Pour the juice that comes out of the strawberries then refrigerate. You can pour this juice on the pound cake first as well before you later with cream and strawberries.

Ramadan Recipe #1

Strawberry Nachos

Ramadan has come upon us and this year I'm going to try real hard to post fun yummy recipes for Iftar.  The number one question i get  before Ramadan is "Are you ready"? I don't know about you all but i really truly find that question very mind boggling.  For many years i guess since i have been married i used to go along with it and just say "yeah i guess so".  But how does one really get ready for Ramadan.  My brain asks me that question all the time. It seems to be a rhetorical question.  I mean does that question mean preparing samosas for the month or stuffing 100 grape leaves and cabbages and freezing them (yes, i did have a Syrian friend who started this process a month prior to prepare and i must say i helped her a few times which in return brought home some amazing stuffed vegetables)..Seriously, i mean i tried getting into it but i ended up frying those things before Ramadan even started because i didn't have the patience to keep staring at them every time i opened the freezer. Although i say to myself in my head when asked that question.." don't you just do it".  As Muslim's haven't we been conditioned to just do it because it is part of our faith.  A part of a Muslim routine like praying, eating, breathing. The Muslim body may not look any different from any other body and it may even function the same as people around the world, but just like the monks up in the Himalayas who choose not to speak for months at all. We have conditioned our bodies to fast for 30 days once a year.  Its not a big deal.  It only becomes a big deal when you make it into a big deal.  If you are anything like me and watch countless hours of discovery channel and national geographic and nova etc you would know that the human being is an extraordinary creature able to do anything by just doing it cause you do what you got to do.  Seriously i see it all the time, having lived in Hot Humid Texas i used to watch these amazing men work in the middle of the afternoon with jeans, long sleeved shirts, boots, gloves hard hat, and that plastic yellow jacket doing physical manual labor EVERY DAY! I m sure every morning they say to themselves today is another day. Just Do It.  I mean Nike people have it down.
  Islam is an amazing religion it has so much logic and truth we choose not to see it. As human beings we pick out the lamest most ridiculous things to question but we forget the amount of mercy Allah has for us. For example  We are required to fast but it also states if you are weak, starving, sick or a young child you don't have to do it.  Since we were young,our mothers have been telling us this is the time when Satan is locked up. So we are extra careful, we think before we act, we do good deeds. It may be a small statement but that's what got me through my teen years.   If we do say or do something wrong we quickly check ourselves and try to improve on our character. It is a good time and as we grow older we learn new things we incorporate those ideas even further to improve ourselves.  We develop empathy for the meek and we broaden our knowledge we better our characters.  

Now to the Recipe:


Strawberry Nachos (My Niece Ayeshas special request every year)
12 Tortillas
Cinnamon sugar
2 pints Strawberries
1 Tbsp sugar
Oil for frying
Paper Bag

1 cup heavy Whipping Cream
1 tsp Vanilla
2 tbsp sugar, more or less according to your taste
1/2 tsp Almond Extract (optional)
toasted slivered almonds (optional)
1 tbsp whipped cream cheese

Slice or cut up the strawberries and put them in a bowl with 1 tbsp sugar.  Put in the refrigerator until ready to use
In a mixing bowl pour in the whipping cream vanilla and almond extract and whip until it looks like whip cream. Add in the whipped cream cheese and gently whip it until incorporated not too much or it will turn into butter.  Cover and place in the fridge
First we cut up the tortillas into squares or diamonds basically 1 or 1/2 inch
i just use scissors and just go at it with the kids whatever shape
Fry the tortillas in oil until light brown take them out and quickly put them into the brown paper bag sprinkle a lot of cinnamon sugar to coat the tortilla chips.  Be very generous.  Shake the bag until all the chips are coated.
After all the tortillas are cinnamon sugared.  
In a pretty dish layer the cinnamon sugar tortillas, top with strawberries.  Then the whip cream sprinkle with almonds then the left over juice from the strawberry just pour on top.  sprinkle a little bit more cinnamon sugar and enjoy!!



Ramadan Kareem!