As silly as it may sound, there are only a few things worse that eating popcorn that is not fluffy enough, or not salty enough, or not buttery enough, or God forbid, is burnt. I love it for the healthy snack that it is. It’s replaced potato chips as my favorite thing to crunch on. Being a whole grain that is high in fiber, you’re not just eating empty calories, you’re eating useful calories. Mmmmmm! Here is how you can make the perfect popcorn, without the aid of a popper or a microwave.

1. Take a pot that is quite deep, one of those 10 inch deep things. Cover the bottom with a bit oil (about 2 ounces), either vegetable oil, olive oil, or even popcorn oil (haven’t tried the last one though, so can’t vouch for taste).
2. Place a few popcorn kernels in the pot (about 7), and turn the heat up high, covering the pot.
3. When you hear all the kernels pop, you know your oil is hot enough. (Do not ever uncover the pot before all kernels are popped, count the pops to make sure they are alllll done. Oil will splatter in your face otherwise!) Spoon out the popped corn, and add in about 5 ounces of kernels. Give the pot a quick shake over the heat to make sure all the kernels are soaked in the oil.
4. While the popping is underway, melt 2 ounces of butter (or margarine, I guess), measure out 2 teaspoons of sugar, and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the sugar, mixing well.
5. The popping will begin slowly, reach a popping frenzy, and then will slow down. When you don’t hear a pop for about 5 seconds, it’s all done. Remove from heat promptly, and pour into a big dish.
6. Drizzle the butter over the popcorn a little at a time, and mix the popcorn with a large spoon. When popcorn is well buttered, add the salt/sugar mixture, mix well again, and then eat!

We’ve gone through almost half of a 50 pound bag in about 2.5 months, so that tells you how much our family loves to pop.

It all started with a 12-bag pack of cotton candy. Since the day that thing came into the house, I have to have either that or chocolate every day. I can feel my teeth decaying. Yet, I continue this madness. It has to stop. As soon as the cotton candy is finished, I will see if I can avoid sugar for a week.

Ok. Strike that. Starting today, I’ll see how long I can avoid sugar. It’s a struggle, though, with mom and her latest baking obsession.

PS: Strike the above. Will have to start tomorrow, because I had to open the bag of cotton candy to take a picture, and then I couldn’t resist a nibble…and now, if I don’t finish the bag, it will just melt and go to waste. That would be wrong. We can’t have that!

Today, I did something I have been putting off for quite some time. I made the Greek Spanokopita, and I am kind of not very enthusiastic about tasting it…knowing that there are onions in there just doesn’t help my head. Oh well. I think it’s quite suitable to everyone else’s taste buds…but next time, I am doing away with the onions! You want the recipe, you say? Ok! Keep in mind that I cut down the original recipe to one-fourth, because it would have been just too much. So, if you think you need more, quadruple this, and you should be fine…

Spanokopita
Ingredients
8 oz. spinach
1 oz. parsley
1/4 large onion
2 oz. spring onion
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp chilli paste
1 egg
1 oz. cottage cheese
2 oz. cream cheese
1 oz. cheddar cheese, grated
8 sheets of phyllo pastry
some clarified butter (ghee)

Method
Finely chop the onions and spring onions. Saute the onions in the oil until slightly soft, then add the spring onions and saute for a few more minutes.
Coarsely chop up the spinach and parsley, and add to onions. Add in salt, pepper, coriander, and chilli paste, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until greens are done, and moisture from them has evaporated.
Beat the egg, and add it with the cheeses to the spinach mixture, combining thoroughly.
Take four sheets of phyllo, and brush the butter between the layers. Cut into 6 to 8 strips, depending on the size desired.
Drop about 1 TBsp of spinach filling into each strip, about one inch from top, and fold pastry over, to form a triangle. (This is like filling samoosas.)
Repeat process for other 4 sheets of phyllo pastry.
Bake in preheated 350 F oven for about 30-45 minutes, until puffed and golden-brown.
Serve hot.
Source: Tess Mallos, The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook,

Sister Nisa, I know I said I would hold of on this recipe until after Ramadaan, but since I had some time on my hands (and nothing else to talk about!), I figured now would be as good a time as any…this is a recipe for Lord Baltimore Cake, from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook of 1990…

Lord Baltimore Cake
Ingredients
4 oz. butter, soft
8 oz. sugar
5 egg yolks
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla (synthetic for halal purposes!)
1 cup milk
9 oz. cake flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Method
Cream butter with sugar and vanilla, beating till light and fluffy. Add yolk and beat well; then add egg and milk and beat thoroughly.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, and fold into batter.
Bake in 350 F oven for about 20 minutes, or till golden brown and bounces back when pressed with finger.
Makes 20 cupcakes or 2 8-inch rounds.
Source: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook; 1990; p. 569-570

Note: I forgot to publish this on the correct day…many apologies…

Umm Layth, my mother must have gotten your vibes, because I went downstairs to see if she wanted me to make anything special for tonight, and guess what she said? “No, I made Kheer, so you can go do some extra dhikr.” So, before I get to my dhikr-fest, here is the recipe that she used. I will take a picture later, hopefully…If it sounds like something you want to try, then let me know how it turns out.

Kheer (Rice Pudding)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rice, American long-grain or basmati
1 cup water
4 cups milk
2 rounded TBSP rice powder, dissolved in some extra milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut
2 rounder TBSP ground pistachios
1/2 tsp kewra essence

Method:
Boil rice and water for 10 minutes.
Add milk, and boil for 30 minutes.
Add rice powder, sugar, and coconut; cook for 10 minutes.
Add pistas and essence.

Can add saffron, slivered almonds, for extra specialness.
Serve hot or cold.

Note: You can increase the rice powder for extra thickness, but I don’t know by how much; guessing you can play around with even after it’s cooked; just make sure to dissolve it in liquid first so that no lumpiness occurs.

The past few days have been oddly hardly on me. Waking up for suhour has been such a nightmare, and then going back to sleep (tsk tsk, I know) and waking up again feels like the same nightmare all over again. So, today I decided to do what I should have been doing all along: I stayed up after Fajr, did some stuff for a few hours, and went back to sleep around 9, for a couple hours. It felt so much better this way–but I hope the effect lasts. Mom says we are not eating enough, and that’s the fast taking it’s toll, so eat more! But, it’s impossible to eat more! I mean, how much can you eat realistically? And this from my mom who doesn’t eat, but nibbles! Well, I don’t like eating till I am stuffed, so this will have to do, inshaAllah.

Today, we hardly cooked. We have plenty of leftover samoosas and meat pies and dessert, so we just made this egg-fried bread for something fresh. Oh, and mommy’s blender gave up on the second day of Ramadaan, so we ordered her a replacement via Amazon, and she likes this new one so much, she can’t stop making smoothies and milkshakes . I mean, she makes them in 2 glass increments, rather than all 6 glasses in one go, just because it thrills her to see it crush the ice into snow, and blend the fruit till its all smooth. May Allah give her lots of pleasure with it, and may it be full of barakah for all it’s lifetime!

I wonder if this happens to anybody else: I start to pray Taraweeh, and I think to myself “Ok, this is going to take a while…try not to loose your concentration, because you only get to do this one month out of the year…but 20 rakaats is a lot…do I have enough cold water here…etc.” So basically, this sounds like a really bad lament regarding oh-my-God-taraweeh-is-so-long-how-will-I-survive?! And then I get to the last four rakaats, and I feel like “Oh no, only 4 left…only 2 left…oh, I am already done! Did I pray too fast?!” Hmmmmm, maybe I should not have admitted to the badness of my initial thoughts…but, oh well, what’s a blog without a little bit of painful honesty?

Onwards…I made a pink dessert for Iftar today. Mom asked for it, saying “There is something really simple you didn’t make in a longggg time…make it today…” So then she made me guess what this simple thing could be, because Allah knows I tend to make simple things quite often…I guessed, “crepes?” She said “No.” I guessed “Black Forest Cake (knowing this fulfills her definition of simple!).” She said, “No!” I guessed “Apple Pie?” Again, “No!!! Silly girl! You didn’t make Phirni in forever!” Oh, duh, now this is simple! It’s basically a ground rice pudding, quite identical to Muhallabieh, except that we flavor it with rose water rather than orange blossom water. Recipes ensues, for those who wish to give it a go.

Ground Rice Pudding, aka Phirni, aka Muhallabieh
Ingredients:
5 cups boiling milk
1 cup rice flour
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
3/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1 teaspoon rose water
some red food coloring
1/2 cup heavy cream

Method:
Boil the milk in the microwave while you combine the rice flour, water, and sugar in a pot, until there are no lumps.
When milk is hot, pour into rice flour mixture, add cardamom, rose water and enough coloring to achieve a desired shade of pink, and keep stirring until mixture thickens.
Remove from heat, and whisk in cold cream thoroughly. Pour into serving bowl, and let chill in refrigerator. Sprinkle with slivered pistachios, almonds, or shredded coconut for garnish.

(Picture is from last Ramadaan, because I simply cannot be bothered, for once in my life, to take a fresh picture…)

For some reason, the only thing I can seem to talk about this Ramadaan is food. Weird, considering that all day long, food is really quite distant from my thoughts. Water, on the other hand, I could die for while fasting…Anyhow, blog post of today is again concerning basbousa. It may seem like an obsession, since I made it again today, but really there is a good reason: Though everybody liked yesterday’s basbousa, I didn’t like the color of it, and was certain my mom gave me the wrong recipe, coz when she makes it, it comes out more golden than brown…and it turns out she gave me the recipe she likes, but doesn’t make, coz she prefers to make the one she doesn’t like, but everyone else adores. Confusing, I know…welcome to our family!

So, today, I made the thing over again, and here is the recipe…it’s from Tess Mallos’s book called “The Middle Eastern Cookbook” published in 1979.

Basbousa
Cake:
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla (or orange blossom water–my preference)
2 eggs
2 cups fine semolina (farina)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 yoghurt

Syrup:
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
grated lemon rind
1 TBsp orange blossom water

Method:
Cream together butter, sugar, and orange blossom water, till light and fluffy.
Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift together the semolina, baking powder, and baking soda, and add to butter mixture alternately with yoghurt.
Place batter into a greased pan (8 x 12 inches), and bake in a preheated 350 F oven for about 40-45 minutes.

While baking the cake, prepare the syrup: Dissolve sugar and water over heat, add lemon rind and orange blossom water, and then bring to a boil until somewhat thick, about 25 minutes.

When cake is golden brown, remove from oven. Let cool slightly, and pour syrup over cake. Cut cake into diamonds, and sprinkle with almonds or pine nuts if desired.

So, it seems like this year’s Ramadaan is soooo much more peaceful for me than last year’s, as in the fact that there is no outside drama. I guess everybody is working on reining in their inner shaytaan while the big shaytaan is in chains. InshaAllah, we will all be successful in being our best, and the good habits of this month will hopefully spill over into the post-Ramadaan days and months…Ah, lovely mehru is hoping for some delectable recipes…but hey, you guys can share your treats too! Today, I was going to make some crepes, but mom told me it’s going to be too much work for the first day….and she was right: after salaat al ‘Asr, I fell asleep and only woke up about 30 minutes before the iftaar. So, clearly I was too zonked to make crepes. So, I made what mom was feeling for instead: Basbousa, those semolina cakes that are drenched in syrup. Yes, mehru, the recipe follows

Basbousa
Cake:
2 cups cream of wheat
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup sugar
3 TBsp melted butter
1 TBsp orange flower water
Blanched split almonds

Syrup:
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 TBsp orange flower water

Method:
Mix together cream of wheat, baking powder and sugar. Add in sour cream and melted butter, and mix with a spoon until well blended. Pat mixture into a greased pan, and then cut lines in the mixture in the shape of diamonds (I did it as squares, because I am lazy that way) and place a split almond in the middle of each almond (I skipped the almonds coz my mother didn’t want almonds for a change). Bake in a preheated 35o F oven for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Prepare syrup: dissolve sugar in water and orange flower water over medium heat. Boil till slightly thick. Pour over basbousa as soon as it is out of the oven, until no more syrup can be absorbed. Let cool, and serve with whipped cream if desired.

There is an article in today’s LA Times, Food Section, about gelato ice cream, and how its the new fashionable food. I don’t really get how food becomes fashionable, and falls out of flavor, but that’s a whole other story. I mean, there was a cupcake mania…do people all of a sudden stop liking cupcakes because gelato is now “in”? Weird. I like cupcakes always. And I like ice cream (whatever name you want to call it by!) always. And whatever the next “in” desert is, I will probably be liking that always. Its all “in” for me, all the time. But anyhow.There were several things that just made me first shake my head in amusement, and then in disgust. First for the amusing one. There is one gelato shop that makes a pistachio-flavored ice cream, and…

Seeking the right pistachios for the gelato they make in their new Altadena gelateria, they traveled from Rome to Sicily, finding them at last in the little town of Bronté. California pistachios, he says, don’t have the right depth of flavor.

…they just completely dissed our home-grown pistachios. Whatever! I am outraged…but amused at the same time, coz I think I am highly unlikely to ever be able to distinguish California pistas from Sicilian ones from Turkish ones and so on. Pistachios are pistachios. End of!

And then they listed all the finest gelato places around southern California, and I must say the last one on the list is just ick. I mean, the guy has a specialty gelato made with foie gras. What is foie gras, some may ask? According to Wikipedia, “Foie gras [fwɑ gʁɑ] (French for “fat liver”) is “the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage” (as defined by French law[1]).” Now, that might sound delish (well, not to me, but whatever), but not in ice cream! I mean, come on! Ice cream and duck liver just sounds wrong. Imagine how much more wrong that would taste!