I have two confessions to make.

(1) I’m sneaky. I like to bake, but I don’t have time to make amazing cakes from scratch (even though I have this jaw dropping book that i love to read for fun).

(2) I *love* caramel, especially with fruit. Pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorites – the drizzly brown sugar that coats the sour-sweet pineapple and bakes until the edges get all chewy. *sigh*

So, to solve these problems, I’ve learned that you can do spectacular things with a box cake mix if you just shake things up a little bit. My mom got me this mini bundt cake pan – it has six tiny bundt cake molds and one box cake mix can make at least twelve little cakes total. These cakes look super fancy, but they really are just fancy cupcakes. Pineapple upside down cake is perfect for this pan, because one pineapple ring fits perfectly in the bottom.

I love this with pineapple, but I ran out of pineapple rings and still had more batter – I subbed apple rings and found out that this works great with apples too. I’m basically using the side of the box, low fat version of a boxed pineapple cake mix – all that makes this fancy is the shape!

Recipe here: (more…)

Dates are a staple of every Ramadan iftar. It just doesn’t feel like Ramadan unless you eat one of these soft, chewy, super sweet fruits. (I don’t consider those icky dry, pitted things you get in a plastic container from the grocery store to be real dates. Real dates are the big thick Medjool ones.)

Now, if you have dates like the ones we got as a gift this Ramadan, fresh on the vine, you want to just sit back and eat five or six of them with a cup of tea. These have a fragrance and texture unlike anything I’ve ever eaten – soft and perfumy, candy-sweet without being overpowering. Delicious, Subhanallah! (Thanks 3mmo and Fatimah!)

But the normal date eating can get a little boring, or at least too sweet after a while. Enter my friend Amna Baloch, who suggested filling the dates with Cool Whip. Oh. My. God. Long live Amna and may she be happy and healthy all her days InshAllah. The Cool Whip cuts tempers the sweetness of the dates a little bit with a pleasing creamy texture and it’s a surprising change from the regular iftar staple. My father in law especially loved these.

Before I introduce the recipe, I have to tell you about the Cool Whip trick.

The Cool Whip Trick: I’m sorry to say that I learned this trick from Sandra Lee, the terrifyingly annoying Stepford Wife Food Network TV Show host – but it’s an amazing trick. Giving credit where credit is due. Into 8 oz (one small container of Cool Whip) pour in two to three capfuls of vanilla extract and fold it in gently, taking care not to break the Cool Whip. Taste it – doesn’t it taste like you stood there and whipped some heavy whipping cream into soft peaks and softly folded in some sugar and vanilla? Use this wherever you’d use whipping cream – there’s no plasticy-artificial flavor that Cool Whip can sometimes get.

8 oz Cool Whip, defrosted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Medjool dates (the big fat ones)

Pitting the dates – Using a sharp knife, make a lengthwise incision in a date. Don’t cut all the way through – you might actually be able to feel the pit as you cut. The date will quite obligingly split open. Remove the pit with your fingers and kind of open the date, making sure you don’t split it from the back.

Mix the Cool Whip with the vanilla and fold in some toasted chopped walnuts. (I used about 1/4 cup for half a Cool Whip container).

Fill it into a plastic ziptop bag and snip off the top. (fold the top down about 1 or 2 inches, then scoop in the cream. Fold the top back up and zip closed – see? no mess! Push all the cream to one corner of the bag. Snip off a very little bit from the tip and hold the cone gently in your cupped palm).

Take the pitted, split date in one hand and very gently squeeze some Cool Whip mixture into each (it only needs about a teaspoon).

Refrigerate until iftar time! You can make these an hour or so ahead of serving.

Okay, alright, so it doesn’t *look* that good. But this is comfort food. It tastes awesome, I promise. Don’t let the weird picture stop you from making this chicken.

This chicken is one of the first things I learned to make after Ameir and I got engaged. It’s stuffed with a creamy spinach stuffing that keeps the chicken incredibly moist while baking, and then smothered with a mushroom gravy. It’s based on this recipe from Kraft Foods, which I used to browse compulsively for something that didn’t look too hard. Over time, I’ve adjusted and enhanced it for my taste and it’s something I even make for company, to everyone’s great enjoyment.

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My first lolcat! It was originally captioned as something else but I think this fits better. Vote for it here!

Before this: My Big Fat Pakistani Syrian Life: The Beginning

So now that I was engaged, it was time to break the news to my friends. Ameir and I wanted to keep the engagement party small and intimate, just close friends and family.

First, I told Sumreen, my close friend and roommate of four years, who smiled that gorgeous smile of hers and hugged me tight. We promptly launched into a discussion of wedding clothes, colors, and what she’d wear to the wedding.

In our Senior year at UNC, Sumreen and I had just been blessed with the addition of two new roommates – the Masood Sisters, known collectively as HanaMona. So one evening, after we had prayed Maghrib together and were sitting on the living room floor, I said, “Ladies, we need to have a roommate meeting.” (Mona would later tell me that she thought “Oh God…they’re kicking us out…where will we live now?”)

“So, what are you guys doing on Labor Day Weekend?” I said. “Nothing…” HanaMona answered. “You’re coming to my engagement party,” I said. First, there was a moment of silence….followed by a “Dude. Oh my God.” from Mona and an “I’m going to throw up.” from Hana (she was happy for me, just shocked ). The rest of the week, Mona (a Punjabi mutayaaran in Hyderabadi skin) played Punjabi love songs as loud as they could go on her laptop, yelling “This one’s for you, Homie!”

As the day of my engagement got closer, I stayed pretty calm. I decided what to wear (a buttercup yellow shalwar kameez with yellow and green khussay). The night before the Fatiha, my friends came over and we decorated each other’s hands with mehndi. Nadia and Yasmin, who also spent the night, were surprised. “You’re the calmest bride I’ve ever seen! Why aren’t you nervous? You should be nervous.” But I was fine.

The day of the engagement, I slept in, waking up to the smell of my mom and our longtime friend, Nazia Auntie, cooking up delicious Desi food for the dinner. Wedding-related events usually work this way: one side hosts and the other side shows up en masse all at once. Ameir, his father, and their guests were going to pray Asr at the masjid and then come over to our house.

I was praying Asr in my room, dressed in my buttercup yellow shalwar kameez. Around the second rakah, it suddenly hit me – “Oh. My. God. I’m getting engaged in an hour.”

I finished my Salah, trembling, and started making dua with the words that came into my heart. “Allah, make Ameir and I pure spouses for each other in this life and the next.” This felt right, I knew, so there was no anxiety or discomfort. Instead, I was so thankful that Allah had given me a man that I could love and respect so much, and who loved and respected me in kind.

Yasmin and Nadia were at ease, though, about my nervousness. “Oh good, now you’re acting normally. We were worried about you.”

As we waited, Mona was helping set up the delicious and expansive spread of food my mom and aunts had made. She was making placards so that those with more delicate tastebuds could know what to avoid. (Some Arab friends who don’t eat the kind of tongue-burning spices us Desis do – why would anyone miss out, really? As they like to say, “What is wrong with you people? Even your yogurt is spicy!”).

Other friends were setting up plates, teacups, sitting with me to keep me calm, or peeking out the window on “Ameir watch.” From the living room, I heard someone laugh heartily from the buffet table. “Which Hydro,” laughed Mahroo, “Made these food labels?” Sure enough, there was the label for ground beef: Kheema.

The doorbell rang and I heard everyone come in (I couldn’t see anyone from where I was sitting). There was great joy and lots of hugging. The Muslim greeting “As-Salaam Alaikum!,” “Peace be upon you” was peppered with “Ahlan wa-Sahlan!” a Syrian greeting, rooted in the story of Ali (R) coming to ask the Prophet Muhammad (S) for his daughter’s hand in marriage, which means “We are family, so there is ease and comfort here.”

In the Arab tradition, the “bride’s side” brings food to the engagement party and the “groom’s side” brings flowers. As friends filed in, our house became filled with even more food and beautiful floral arrangements that somehow ended up close to me.

The “Ameir watch” friends became the “Ameir paparazzi” friends as dinner was served. They’d snap shots of him as he was going through the buffet and run back to show me (at no cost, how kind).

The Imam made Ameir take a scoopful of the spicy-hot spinach, saying “You’re marrying a Pakistani now! You have to eat this!” (I’m proud to say that Ameir can now handle almost more spice than I can). I couldn’t bring myself to eat much, but I was as happy and content as I could be (and less nervous, too!)

I loved my house as it was at that moment – filled with the love, smiles, laughter, and prayers of friends and family from all over the world. They were my religious teachers, my childhood friends, my aunties and uncles, 3mmos and khaltos, my parents and my close family. I felt that Allah had blessed me more than I could ever have asked for.

And then, after dinner, the nervousness began again. It was time……

(But you’ll have to wait for the next installment!)

Earlier posts of My Big Fat Pakistani Syrian Life:
MBFPSL: The beginning

I. Love. This. Dessert. I love it. I asked my mom to show me how to make it this weekend – and here it is! This is a Pakistani version of bread pudding made with sandwich bread instead of chunks of a more airy loaf. There are two keys to this dish: golden brown, crispy toast that soak up the sweet saffron-cardamom cream. The toasts are then served in a little pool of saffron cream, sprinkled with bright green pistachios.

Shahi Tukray literally translated, means “Royal pieces.” Shahi comes from the Persian word Shah, king. When it’s used to describe something – food, a monument, some land – it designates that this is something of the Mughal era (or at least something hoping to be associated as such!) As it relates to food, Shahi foods are rich, made with a lot of sugar, cream, meat, and butter to evoke the wealth of the kings. Examples: Shahi Haleem, a rich meat and lentil stew; Shahi Nehari, another rich and luscious meat stew, Shahi Pilau, a sweet-savory rice dish where rice is cooked in broth, then mixed with shredded carrots and plump raisins – sometimes a quarter to a half of it is removed and sweetened with sugar before being mixed back into the savory rice.

Shahi Tukray are no exception to the norm of richness. I crispen the toasts under the broiler, but the old way was to fry each one in butter on both sides. There’s a lot of cream, butter, and zaafran (saffron – which isn’t as rare in Pakistan as it is here, because it’s farmed in Kashmir, but it’s not cheap, either). You can use more or less milk, depending on how much saffron cream you want with each serving. I like quite a bit, so I usually use more milk or cream than other people. Toast, in urdu, is called “Double Roti” – Double Bread. Thus, this dish is also known, colloquially, as “Double ka Meetha” – Toast dessert.

Side note – Do you know why saffron is so expensive? Because saffron threads are actually the dried stigma of a very specific kind of crocus flower which is native to Southeast Asia. The stigmas have to be handpicked out, and each flower produces only three. If I was doing that, I’d make it the most expensive spice in the world too.

Click for the recipe and lots more pretty pictures!
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There’s just something about the combination of savory spinach, crispy phyllo dough, and tangy-cool mint yogurt sauce that works beautifully together. I’d suggest adding a pinch of sumac to the spinach mixture if you have some; it gives it a tangy-spicy kick and a nice color.

Working with phyllo can be a little difficult, but it’s worth it. Follow the directions on the box for more precision than I’m giving here (in terms of how to defrost the phyllo and keep it from drying out).

These are great for parties because you can make just the filling or even the little patties themselves beforehand – just lay them on a cookie sheet and freeze, then bring back to room temperature before baking. The spinach filling is also a good stuffing for chicken thighs (maybe with some walnuts) or pasta shells or folded into an omelet!

Recipe here: (more…)

I love my family. Alhamdulillah, I’m blessed to be surrounded by such great people of all cultures and faiths, united together by their affection for each other. That being said, my family has its crazy, hilarious moments – which just makes me love them more! I’m starting a series of blogs dedicated to my big family. The cast of characters: Ameir (my husband), Maryam, Aishah, Lema, Batoul (his sisters), Mama and Abbu (my parents), Mom (Ameir’s mom), ‘Ammo and Fatimah (Ameir’s dad and stepmom). They make up My Big, Fat Pakistani Syrian life. Enjoy!

He sat behind me in AP English, senior year at Athens Drive High School. Ms. Overby assigned us to three group projects together. But no big deal. I was Power Muslim Woman (PMW), so he didn’t get to me. He was just another guy.

I’m not sure how it started. But one day, a few years later, I found myself thinking, “I want to marry that man.” Ameir was mysterious. Tall, dark, handsome, with a rakish smile that threw me off balance. Kind, gentle, poetic, and made me laugh from the bottom of my heart.

Oh, and he’s Syrian, with a touch of Irish and German. And I’m Pakistani.

He asked me to marry him in the traditional way, telling me of his intention to marry me and asking my permission to speak to my father. I happily agreed, and thusly I entered into a life of a beautiful blending of cultures (and ensuing hilarity).

I didn’t eat for two days before they came for the classic “rishta” dinner, where a man officially comes to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage – Ameir, his father, and Maryam, my friend and future sister-in-law. PMW turned into a nervous, blushing teen. I could say that as soon as I saw him, as soon as we locked eyes, my heart was calm and everything was fine. No, we were both nervous. He blushed like a tomato.

We had dinner, sneaking glances at each other the whole night. Maryam kept kicking Ameir under the table because he was bouncing his leg nervously. I was staring at him while his dad was talking to my dad, and I dropped a grape into my lap instead of into my open mouth. His mouth convulsed as he tried to cover his laughter.

We moved over to the family room to have tea. I served the tea, the ultimate rishta dinner test. I demurely poured a cup for Ameir’s father, the guest of honor, and asked him how much sugar he’d like.

“Just stir your finger in it,” he replied.

I panicked.

Thoughts: Oh my god. My future father in law wants me to stir my finger in his tea. Oh my god. It’s hot….it’ll burn. But it’s my future father in law. What do I do? How long do I keep it in there?

Maryam, who had been my friend for years, came to my rescue. She whispered in my ear. “Just put one spoon. ‘Stir your finger in it’ is a Syrian compliment that means ‘You’re so sweet, the tea will become sweet if you stir your finger in it.’”

And then my dad dropped the bomb. “Ameir, why do you want to marry Taiyyaba?” “Uhh…I…uhh.” said Ameir. “Because Sister Taiyyaba….”

“SISTER?” Maryam and I laughed out loud. “Why are you calling me Sister?” We all laughed, Ameir turned red. He answered something which I found sweet and romantic at the time, but I can’t remember exactly what it was, because then Ameir’s dad asked “Well, why do you want to marry Ameir?” “Uhh…I….uhh.” I answered with something equally sweet and loving.

A week later, we had our official engagement party. Pakistanis call it the “mangni” – the asking. Syrians call it the Fatiha – the opening, the beginning. It’s named after the first chapter of the Quraan, Surat al-Fatiha. Thus, among our family and closest friends, we began our life together. A beautiful, loving, mix n’ match life – and I’m so happy that it’s mine, Alhamdulillah!

In the next installment, a hydro tries to spell urdu, the Imam of our masjid makes everyone laugh, and a brownie pan is used as a daf.

This is so easy to make and works well with fresh and/or dried herbs. The butter kind of hydrates the dried herbs, especially if you bake or cook with this butter later. Add whatever you like to it – it’s a great way to use up the ends of dried herb containers.

2 sticks of butter, softened
2-4 cloves garlic
1-2 tbs. fresh rosemary
1-2 tbs. fresh parsley
2 sundried tomatoes
assortment of dried herbs (1 tbs each: i used oregano, parsley, basil, chives)
Dried red pepper flakes, 1 – 1 1/2 tsp, or to taste)
salt, pepper
Drizzle of olive oil

In a mini food processor, whirl together all the ingredients except the butter until well chopped and blended. (I used 4 cloves of garlic when I used this butter to marinate a roasting chicken. Use less if you’re going to use it as a spread on garlic bread). The olive oil keeps it soft. Mix into the softened butter. Shape into any desired form, or just put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge.

What can I do with this? Spread it under the skin of a chicken and roast (Stuff the cavity with some cubed bread, sauteed squash, carrots, garlic, all softened with chicken broth – then put a layer of sliced onions and lemon in a roasting dish, put the chicken on top, and roast it. oh my gosh.). Melt it and brush between layers of phyllo dough for spanakopita. Spread it onto a split loaf of french bread and toast for a delicious garlic dinner bread. Use it to sautee some shrimp and vegetables.

The possibilities, they are endless.

Best read in coordination with: “So, where are you from?” and “The Professional Hijab”

One year ago: Jalaibi

I’m usually pretty good at standing up for myself with respect to making my personal religious boundaries known to those around me. It’s a deliberate action I think every Muslim in a majority non-Muslim society has to decide to do (or not, I guess, if that’s how you feel). Non-Mahram contact issues are especially predominant: Do I shake hands with someone of the opposite gender? Do I accept hugs from someone of the opposite gender (and how do I escape surprise hugs?) Then there’s the wudu and prayer time issues (getting caught with your foot in the sink).

Lawyers like to network. Networking means contacts, and contacts means jobs and referrals. But in the legal career, networking happens in places that I’m not to happy to be.

The newest thing I’m facing in law school is debating whether or not to attend social or professional events that significantly involve drinking. In college, I’d avoid having to make this choice by not involving myself with social groups that drank. Lawyers “network” by going to bars, cocktail parties, or hanging around the cash bar that inevitably operates at every legal event.

Case on point: UNC Law School organizations have “Bar Review” every Thursday night. Ten points for guessing what that means.

Clue: it’s not a study party.
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