Saturday, December 24, 2011

Dhalpourie!

Guess what I did with our brand spanking new Kitchen Aid mixer?! I made dhalpourie!! :D It wasn't as great as my mom's, but it was dhalpourie. It was only my first try and it didn't turn out like a professional Trini would make it but, there's lots of room to improve! Dhalpourie is probably the most difficult kind of roti to make and it takes the most time! It took me and my sister about an hour to cook minus the few technical difficulties we had with our mixer!
We bought the Kitchen Aid because we eat a lot of roti in this household. And since I discovered that it can knead dough I knew I had to get my hands on one. I was so excited to use it for this recipe that I had to take pictures and post about it. :)


To start off, boil 2 cups of dahl (yellow split peas) in some water with 2 tablespoons of saffron. 

Boil it for about 15 minutes. The peas can't be too soft.

Then, with the use of my handy dandy Kitchen Aid, I used the grinder attachment to grind the peas into a powder along with 3 cloves of garlic.

After the dahl is all ground, toast some ground cumin and add about 2 tablespoons to the dahl mixture.

Now set that aside and it's time to knead the dough!

The recipe I used was 6 cups of flour and 6 tablespoons of baking powder with about 3 cups of water. Add more water if the dough is too dry and add more flour if the dough is too wet. Let it sit for about 20 minutes.

Divide the dough into equal parts. We got eight dough balls that were a little smaller than a baseball.

Make a bowl out of the ball of dough and add some of the dahl mixture.

Close it in by pinching the edges together.

Set it aside and repeat with the other dough balls.

Roll it out like a pizza.

Place it on the tawah (flat cooking dish made of metal used for cooking roti). 

Brush some vegetable oil and flip. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side.

Roll it up and break it in half. I ate mine with curry lamb (made by my sister) and curried potatoes.

This is one of my all time favorite foods and now that I know how to make it I will be eating it all the time. :) Like I said earlier, it wasn't THE best dahlpourie (the dahl needed to be boiled a little bit longer) but I will be practicing a lot since the Kitchen Aid makes it so easy! 
Hope every one has a happy holiday season no matter what you celebrate! :D

Thursday, December 15, 2011

My Big Fat TRINI Family!

For those of you that don't know, my family is really big. I mean really, really big. Both my mom and dad have a lot of aunts and uncles so that gives them a lot of cousins. I can't even begin to count how many there are. But this is normal. All Indian families have ginormous families. I meet new family members very often and now, thanks to Facebook, I meet them even more often!
Our family is also spread out all over the world. From California to England, Canada to Trinidad, every where I turn, there's someone I'm related to! If you think about it, I probably have ancestors in India that I don't know of. If my great great grandfather migrated from India to Trinidad, what if he left behind some brothers and/or sisters in India? If so, that means I have distant cousins in India! I could be related to the Bachchan family! I wonder if that would make me rich...
Before I forget, I love my family and I love being part of my family. I don't mean to call anyone fat by the title of this blog. I just wanted to emphasize the amount of Indians there are that are related to me. However, I do see a trend in big bellied Indians as age increases. This is only because we have delicious food. Here's a new word to add to your Trin-glish dictionary: 
Dahl-belly Indian: [dall beh-lee indian] equivalent of a beer belly or beer gut in the US.
But that's a whole other post! :)
The following picture was taken this summer. This is probably not even a quarter of my family. It would be very difficult to get everyone in one spot from both parents' side. 
There is never an end of the line to your family. It keeps going on and on and on whether we know about it or not. 
So how far back have you gone into your family tree? Feel free to share your experiences!





Thursday, November 17, 2011

Do Squirrels Make Noise?



Found this in my back yard this morning. I'm curious to know if the squaking noise I heard is actually coming from the squirrel or a nearby bird. See the squirrel there, right in the middle of the screen. If anyone knows, please fill me in! :D

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Simply Trini Cooking

I found this link that has proven to be very useful to me. Just wanted to share for anyone interested in learning new Trini recipes or interested in adding a new twist on current recipes. I can't wait to try the recipe for fudge! So fattening but that's why we workout right??? Enjoy!! :D


Path to many future food comas --> http://www.simplytrinicooking.com/#axzz1dqCd8NlZ

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Things That Make Me SMH...

There's a lot of things that make me SMH, but lately I feel like I've been doing it way too often. For those that don't know SMH means Shaking My Head as in shaking your head left and right and saying to yourself "I disapprove" or "that is so stupid" or "why????"
I don't mean to offend anyone, but I have to SMH at the video to LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It." I felt so traumatized after seeing that. If you haven't seen it yet I don't suggest watching it, but if you want to know what I'm talking about then you can watch. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say I don't like the song. It's quite catchy. Every time I hear it though I cringe and think what have we, as a society, come to? And what in the world are we going to think of next? It seriously worries me because if this is what we look at for entertainment, then in 10-15 years, what are our children and grand children going to be looking at? I really don't want my kids to grow up in a place where men shake their junk on camera for a living.
I also SMH when people "try" to save calories by drinking diet soda but still have french fries or eat a salad with lots of dressing and then complain about their weight. I mean really??? Who are you trying to kid here? You really think switching from regular soda to diet soda is going to make you lose weight? (No.) That dream body comes with hard work and determination. You have to want it first to make it happen. Once you want it and you know what your goal is, then strive to do anything to make it happen. Don't just make one change, make many changes.
To the people that post their every move on their Facebook statuses: here's a big fat SMH! Who wants to know your itinerary for the next hour except for maybe your stalker?? "Just got done with homework, now time to eat then shower and chillax time!" Also, to anyone who likes that person's status or comments on it...SMH!
So what makes you deem a situation SMH-able? I hope I didn't offend anyone and if I do, I never intended to, I was just trying to be funny. Sorry in advance!
Peace

Monday, October 3, 2011

Chicken Korma?

Hi all! I recently tried out this recipe called chicken korma. I got this bottle of curry paste that claimed to be chicken korma and I was so tempted to try it out. I had chicken korma at an Indian/Pakistan restaurant and fell in love with it so that's why I had to try this recipe. The bottle came with it's own recipe so I just followed that one. But, once a Trini, always a Trini. I used our bottle of green seasoning (Chinese celery blended with garlic and bandanya [don't know the English to that but AKA, shadow benny]) because we Trinis just can't get enough of that stuff to season our meat. So all you have to do is brown the chicken with a bit of oil and then add the bottle of curry paste to the pot and let it simmer until it's done cooking...and that's exactly what I did. And to my relief it turned out great! I was a bit skeptical because after adding the bottle of curry paste to my chicken, this really not-supposed-to-be-coming-from-food-smell filled the air. It definitely didn't smell like curry at all but more like a vinegar smell. I thought to myself, this is not chicken korma!!! After several minutes of panicking and wondering what to do I decided to just let it simmer for a while. My sister told me to add more onions and cilantro because you can never have too much of that. Lo and behold! It started smelling a lot better! 
About an hour after I started cooking, I turned off the stove and decided to taste this sucker. What met my taste buds was a very tangy but sweet flavor. The onions were very much needed to add texture and to not just have a boring dish of boiled sweet and tangy chicken. It didn't hit the spot that I wanted when I had the chicken korma at the Indian restaurant, but overall, everyone was happy with the meal. I served it with basmati rice and instead of naan, I found something way better. Because I can never find restaurant quality naan in the Indian groceries, I used tortillas! I just butter the pan lay one tortilla flat and then butter the side that faces up, wait until you get air bubbles then flip it over and wait a few more mins. It's kind of fattening, but really delicious if you want to risk it. I took a picture of the chicken with the rice, but not with the tortilla-naan to show what it looks like. Sorry :( But, I hope it inspires you to make something similar. Peace! 
The finished product! :D

Sunday, September 25, 2011

You Know You're a Trini When...


You make a drink and ice cream with peanutbutter but you never put it on your bread.
You put ketchup and pepersauce on your pizza.
You show disappointment by sucking your teeth (steupsing).
You know what is a "zaboca."
You call fries "CHIPS."
You dip your bread in your morning coffee.
You call all hard candies "sweeties."
You respond "Doh mamaguy meh" when someone pays you a compliment.
You know what "mamaguy" means.
You know the meaning of several indian words: eg. "dahl", "bahgee","channa", "barra", "chunkae", "bowgee" and use them in every language. (and actually believe them to be the correct "English" terms).

http://www.stouteweb.com/trini/jokes.htm

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Love at First Bite: Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake


Seeing that I will have a lot of time on my hands this fall, I decided that I wanted to try out a few recipes that I've had my eye on. Last week I tried baking an apple-cream cheese bundt cake. Well, I didn't really have my eye on this one because it was the first time I heard of a cake like that. My parents received a humongous slice from one of their clients and brought it home for us to sample. At first sight, it didn't look like a cake that I would eat. It was topped with a caramel glaze and pecans. Sounds yummy, but I wouldn't have come running to it. After tasting, it was love at first bite. :) It was very moist and reminded me of Thanksgiving. There were a lot of warm spicy flavors and the cream cheese filling complimented it perfectly. I got hold of the recipe and found out that it came from Southern Living magazine. It was part of their collection called "10 Tempting Apple Desserts." A few days later, I was all over that recipe. Total preparation time took me about 45 minutes. It's easier for me to put everything together if I have all of my ingredients spread out in front of me. That way I eliminate time running back and forth to the refrigerator or pantry. Baking time took exactly one hour and fifteen minutes as it said on the recipe, but to my displeasure, cooling time was two hours. That meant I had to wait two hours to add the glaze and that I had to wait to eat it. :( So I decided to just let it cool properly overnight. In the morning, as far as I could tell, the cake looked perfect and I proceeded with making the glaze. I didn't have a bundt pan so I improvised with a rectangular baking dish. That was a bad idea because when I poured the glaze over the cake (while it was still in the baking dish) it pooled in the corners of the dish and I had to spoon it over the surface to get one even layer. My glaze needed a little more time on the stove to melt because it gave the cake a candy like crunch that wasn't supposed to be there. All in all, everyone said they loved it. Probably because it was made by yours truly...just kidding. :) I hope they were being honest because I loved it and I plan on making it again! If you decide to try it out or any other recipe in the apple collection, let me know how it turns out! Peace! :D


For this recipe and others click here: http://www.southernliving.com/food/entertaining/tempting-apple-dessert-recipes

Monday, August 29, 2011

Trin-glish

It's the country where there is a song about everything, the curry is amazing, and there is a holiday almost every week. My "sweet sweet T an T!" I left Trinidad when I was only seven years old. I don't remember much, but I do wish that I could jump back into the memories I do remember. There are so many things about Trinidad that I could write about, but I figure I'll take it one subject at a time. Most Trinis speak the language of Trin-glish. The official language of Trinidad is English, but Trinis have their own version of certain words. Yep, we are just that cool! Just kidding. For example, before we left to come to the US I remember my mom telling me that in the states, the word for 'sweet drink' is soda. From then I started practicing using the word soda instead of sweet drink. It was so weird at first but I stopped using the word soda and started using the names of drinks instead like coke, sprite, etc. To someone who is not accustomed to hearing this blend of English and Trini everyday, it may sound like a different language. Words like baigan, shatine, maco, and giddy are just a few that are not normal to the American ear.

Here are some of my favorites:

Allyuh: [all-yuh] you all; Allyuh comin' by we today?
Bonx: [boncks] to hit or slam; Oh lawd, ah bonx meh head on de cabinet dey.
Chook: [chuk] to pierce or poke; Oh god-oi, ah chook meh hand wit de knife!
Dotish: [doh-tish] stupid; Yuh dotish o wah?
Gyul: [gee-ul] girl; Aye gyul, wha goin' on?
Lime: [lime] a party or get-together; We limin' on de beach today.
Maco: [mako] to be nosy; Why you so maco in meh business?
Mamaguy: [ma-ma-gai] to suck up to someone; Raj Kapoor: Gyul yuh lookin' nice. Shaniqua: Boy doh mamaguy meh.
Steups: a sound made by sucking air through one's teeth; used to express disapproval; Husband: Dat dotish man gone an bonx meh car again. Wife: He guh pay fuh dat eh, steups.
Tabanca: [ta-bank-ah] a love sick state; Sally have tabanca, she husband leave she fuh another woman.

For a full list of Trin-glish words, go here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_Trinidadian_English

Peace! :D




Thursday, August 25, 2011

The End of the World


I wanted to share this dream that I wrote about a few weeks ago. It's really long but really interesting. If you are my friend on Facebook, then you've probably already read it, but if not then I hope you enjoy it!

I had the weirdest dream last night. Of course that's what I say whenever I have a weird dream, but this one was by far the weirdest. And what's even weirder is that I had a strong urge to write about it and post it here on facebook. As if someone will be able to help me interpret this?? Maybe not but...I really hope it doesn't come true. At least not in my lifetime. Now I can tell Michael that I know what it feels like to have a dream like this because he is always dreaming about this kind of stuff and I'm always at a loss for words when he explains them to me. So without further ado, let's get on with the show.

It started off with me volunteering at the local hospital, making a delivery to the first floor. I was walking down a window lined hallway looking out at the courtyard (which they don't even have at the local hospital) at an elderly patient in his wheelchair sitting at a table. He looked really old and battered like a pile of dirty rags. It reminded me of the house elf in Harry Potter named Kreacher. As I was watching him, he started making hand movements on the tabletop. I continued watching with curiosity and then I realized he was moving his hands as if to paint a picture with his fingers. Not like a kindergartener would do but like an artist would when creating a masterpiece. All of a sudden the windows disappeared and I was standing right next to him and I could see the painting come to life. It wasn't very significant or I would have remembered it more in detail, but I know it was a painting of the night sky with stars, the sun and rays of light with gigantic raindrops. Then the patient got up from his wheelchair, I complimented his work, and he approached me with a hug. It was a fairly long hug and passed the standard time for which you hug a person. Then a fellow volunteer (I don't know who she was) who was with me had to come and pull us apart. She had a look on her face as if to say "I had to step in because he might have wanted to harm you and this is what we learned in orientation". So I let go and was on my way.

We wandered over to I guess what was the nurses station. The other volunteer started conversing with the nurses and received a double task to do. I said I'll take the second part of the task which involved making a delivery to the third floor of the hospital. When I arrived at the elevators, there were a lot of people running around and I was wondering what could be going on. There were also some random people standing aroud answering everyone's questions. Then a tall, black woman (she looked like Beth from season 6 of HGTV's Design Star) emerged from behind the elevators and told the officials that they (the hospital) locked the back elevators on purpose because they (the hospital) didn't want the black people to use them to get out. Then I looked around and saw another woman asking how to get to the fifth floor. (There is no fifth floor in this hospital!) The woman she asked pointed her in the direction of the professional buildings of the hospital and told her it's through there when in actuality she was pionting to another elevator which exits out of the building.

Now this is where it gets really gnarly. When the doors to the elevator opened, it no longer revealed a square box to take you to a different floor but it revealed a human sized chute that would vacuum you up and eject you from the building. I looked around quickly and realized that I need to get out. I ran down the hallway towards the elevator to the "fifth floor" and saw that the chute had some type of radiator that you could risk getting caught in and dying instead of escaping. The tall black woman realized what was going on and she took an iron rod and smashed the wall which revealed another chute that took you out of the hospital. I evaluated about 3 chutes and finally found one that looked safe enough (without a radiator) to escape. I looked at someone in front of me go first. It was like he knew what to do. It reminded me of the floo network of fireplaces in the Ministry of Magic in the Harry Potter movies. Without hesitation I ran towards the chute and as soon as I reached the opening, I was sucked up into the giant sized vacuum. I remember drifting upwards for quite some time. I tried looking above me to see how long I would be travelling up, but I couldn't open my eyes since there was a lot of wind and it kept them closed. After about two to three minutes of travelling, I finally exited the chute. What came next was like something out of a science fiction film. 

I landed on something that looked like a cushion but was hard like metal, felt like suede, and it was a purplish pinkish color. The cushion was part of many different cushions in all shapes and sizes floating in mid air. It was part of a warehouse like room that was very dark but we were able to see what was going on around us. There were several other people on the cushion who had escaped before me and the man that had got sucked up before me announced that an asian person needs to find a particular person (whom I forgot the name of but it's not important) and bring him here. I paid no attention to this request and tried to get down from where I was. Then I realized I could jump from cushion to cushion and started jumping everywhere until I reached what I thought was the edge of the warehouse. We were all in a gigantic aircraft hovering in space! I saw the entire earth below me covered with water. The Capitol Building in Washington D.C. was surrouded by a body of water, New York City and all of it's characteristic buildings were covered up to the rooftops with water, the White House was also covered with water. The world had finally come to an end.

Looking back now I saw that no one was in a state of terror. I continued jumping everywhere and landed on the buildings protruding from the worldwide ocean. Everyone was jumping out of the aircraft and jumping down to Earth to explore. It was like a video game. You have to keep jumping and landing on buildings and structures, if you touch the water you instantly sink and die. I managed to bounce all the way around the world (which wasn't as big as it is in real life). I remember seeing a college campus that I think was Harvard. I saw little cartoon characters like the ones you see in video games trying to save themselves from the water. It was funny to look at but now that I'm thinking about it, it sounds sad. The rest of the dream was fuzzy. I know that I ended up on the rooftop of my house and that I was going to spend the night there all by myself with no fears whatsoever.

When I woke up I was in a moment of bliss where I realized the world had not yet ended and I was safe in my bed in my room. I still feel really indifferent about the dream because it's not like I was panicking or scared throughout it, I was calm and happy and thinking "This is so cool"! And I don't know what the first part about the old man was about but I know it was part of the dream and my dreams are random like that. Aren't they all? There was no one in the dream that I know which was odd because I usually dream about people I know. I don't know what made me write this but I feel like this dream needs to be remembered because I've never had an "end of the world" dream before. Michael Spencer, you are rubbing off on me too much!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Hello, my name is Fadeelah.

Hello world. I decided that my first blog should be an introduction to me. I'm a virgin to blogging and I've never really had a diary or a journal. I wanted to start this blog so that I can have something to do in my free time.
As of August 19, 2011, I am 25 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall with long black hair and dark brown eyes. I still live at home with my parents and sister which is totally normal because I forgot to mention, I'm Indian!! *high five* Well, not the typical sari wearing aunty and topee wearing uncle type of Indian that comes to mind when you hear Indian, those are the East Indians. I'm an island-ized Indian or West Indian. My family is from Trinidad which is an island located in the West Indies in the Caribbean. We have ancestors that come from India and throughout the generations their traditions became acclimatized to the island culture. We don't speak a different language, we speak english but with an accent. We still have the same morals and values as East Indians though. Girls are not allowed to date, it's socially unacceptable to kiss in public and the like...
My family tree is really big. Every where I go, I find out that I'm related to someone or that person knows one of my family members. I get new friend requests from distant family members almost every week and when I find out who they are it's something like my parent's second cousin's son's daughter... It's a small island so it's expected. I love being Indian though because we have the best food on the planet. Can anyone say curry?? It's the most delicious invention in the world. I watch a lot of Bollywood movies, but lately they have been getting a little bit cheesy. I think it's because they used up all the good story lines and all that's left to write about is the typical boy meets girl and falls in love with her, but they can't get married...
I chose the name Fadzy because it is a very near and dear nickname for me. I added 101 because I figure that I will have posts about how my mind works and why I have certain opinions...hence Fadzy101! 
I like to cook but I'm a bit lazy to do it. I don't have any hobbies, but I knit when I feel like it. I don't collect anything, but I want to. I'm not known for anything, never been on the news or in the local newspaper. I got to see Matt Damon and Emily Blunt filming in front of the Statue of Liberty for their movie The Adjustment Bureau and I once met the Disney channel actress Christina Romano and got her autograph!
That about sums up a general idea of who I am. I don't know what I'll be writing about on here, but be prepared for some random stuff! Until the next post, peace!


One big happy Indian family