Passing Through This Life

so with the kids at home for two weeks and between the fighting arguing and what not their always what to do for afternoon snack ... so today i decided to do an algerian classic which is kissera all you need is semolina salt and oil and water as to how much is pretty much up to you   i used today i kilo or semolina and about a tsp or so of salt and oil about 3/4 tbsp  rub all together and then add water until you bring the dough together then roll it out or here in most home they use the palm of their hand and flatten it out .... as to how thick or thin is really up to you as that too varies here then place on a tabona and tajin  or you can use your cooker with those flat pan here is what a tabon is like    place your dough on top of the tajin and cook on a low to medium heat till it looks like this   and then enjoy with a hot cuppa or some hot chocolate  

oh my , oh my,  this has taken me some time after many day and lots of yarn i have finally finished my daughters crocheted bag it didnt go to plan as i didnt have the right type of wool but none the less it looks good and the main thing is that my daughter loves it i joined a site called ravelry that was recommended by a friend and this is where i found the pattern for this bag .... to see the pattern log on or register first this is how the bag looks on the site   and this is how my one turned out     as you can see it is a lot bigger as with real wool it would have shrunk but none the less it`s not bad.......  

sometimes the kids do have a late breakfast because they cant get up ... especially while on holidays form school .... those are they day where a very light lunch will do so today i sliced up some chicken breast and coated then i flour, egg, and breadcrumbs that i mixed garlic, pepper cumin, carwia, and coriander . salt   i fired in a small amount of oil .... then i made dome yogurt dip .... that natural yogurt, garlic and mint and bought some algerian bread   put it all together and yuuuuummmmmmyyyyyy

so i`m getting use to making these paratha it has taken it`s time but i got their so tonight i decided to try them with a potato stuffing which a good friend made for me the first time i tried them and masha`allah i loved it so i used 4 cups of flour about 4 tbsp of oil salt water  enough to make a soft dough i mixed everything together and then oiled it and left it for 20/30 mins then i made the filling 4 potatoes carrot courgett garlic spices (what ever you choose to do) i boiled the potatoes and once cooked then i let them cool down then i placed them into a frying pan and grated a carrot and courgette  and added garlic and spices and cooked on a low heat while mashed and mixing everything into the potato... once cooked let it cool start with the dough and take a size of a walnut and roll it out thin then brush over it with melted butter and roll it and knot it (look at pic above to see ) once your finished all leave for another 20 mins then go back and each piece roll it out again

  Virtues of the Prophet (PBUH) and Companions – 7th Muharram 1432 (13th December 2010) Narrated Muawiya (Radi-Allahu ‘anhu): I heard the Prophet (Sallallahu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam) saying, “A group of people amongst my followers will remain obedient to Allah’s orders and they will not be harmed by anyone who will not help them or who will oppose them, till Allah’s Order (the Last Day) comes upon them while they are still on the right path.” Bukhari Vol. 4 : No. 835

so the name says it i set out to make paratha and ran out of time as dh arrived home early and couldnt wait to eat so i cut the time in half and this is what i came out with well the pastry was 3 cups of flour a pinch of salt 1/2 tbsps of oil (i added 3 ) water (i just poured until til i had a soft dough filling mince ( as much as you like ) i small onion cut finely three cloves of garlic pepper / salt / cumin / Cinnamon and parsley (a hand ful) once i mixed the ingredients for the pastry i oiled it and placed it to the side for 20 mins normally after this i should roll out into discs. Brush with melted butter and roll into a sausage which you then knot and leave to rest for another 20 minutes but i ran out of time so i just took it from when i oiled it and made small balls and rolled them out i place the filling on one half and then covered with the other half and then roll the rolling pin over it and placed on my hot plate ( tajin)

well i always like to try new things and the most recent is pakoras  i know many ppl who cook them and i have eaten them once and loved them ... so my thought is lets try them ... so i did and masha`allah they were delicious  even my dh like them   and they are very simple to make too   i just sliced some potatoes and onions also i chopped some parsley ... the recipes that i found them from said coriander but i had none and it also said a small chili but i too had none so i added chili  powder instead as well as some pepper and cumin and salt then i added a little water and then a little gram flour and kept doing that until the mixture was wet and once done i fried them and masha`allah i think they turned out great but i will leave that to the experts to say whether it is or not

so as each meal come i`m stumped in what to cook and if it was only one meal but here in algeria  lunch time isnt just a simple sandwich it`s a meal ..... and with growing children and a husband one dish isnt enough so your always thinking what else can i make with it .... so masha`allah i`m always looking for inspiration and flicking through blogs galore  and one recipe i found which is very common here in algeria but is considered  a meal in it`s self is garantita ... but in my house hold it`s a side dish   so masha`allah i found this recipe here jazak`allah khair umm z it is my first time to cook it and i hope it came out well ..... my dd10 loved it and my dh said masha`allah ... so it seems a hit     another side dish is potato cakes which is a very simple dish   i just peeled and wash and cooked 4 big potatoes once cooked i mashed them now sometime i put a little milk and butter and once mashed i let it cool down but this time i didnt then i added 1 small onion 2/3 cloves of garl

so i love to cook with a cheese called kiri or philli  it make a delicious dish  .... so the many way i do it is   i make the sauce   chicken breast (as many as you like) 1/2 onions mushrooms white pepper /salt/ginger and kiri/philli cheese   here are two pics of a sauce i make with them     in the first pic the chicken breasts are sliced into two and pre cooked a little before beginning the sauce and half way through the sauce i added them to finish them in the second pic it is cut in to small pieces and fried a little with the onion and mushrooms and then add the spices when the sauce is near finished add your cheese and lower the heat and allow to simmer until the sauce has become thicker   the first pic i make this with lataka`s recipe here and what i do is put one of the lataka`s first then a little sauce then a piece of chicken the some more sauce and then another lataka and sauce and i end it with a piece of chicken on top and pour some more sauce over it   sorry i have no pic

so one of my friends made this dish and masha`allah i was so impressed at how easy it was i decided to try it so jazak`allah khiar nicola and to the sister who`s name is sarah who had it first... this will become a regular in my house it went down a treat and nothing was left so here is where the recipe for the chicken kebabs are the rice is simple .... i just cooked white rice  and cooked some peas and carrots and boil a couple of eggs and when every thing was cooked i mixed them together and then grated the eggs ... i halved it so that i could put olive oil over one and butter in the other as some of us dont like olive oil a nice and simple dinner or lunch

so i love this dish it`s so simple and quick... and always get finished in my house   this is just 1 small onion black pepper salt chicken peices peas and chips   fry onion till slightly soft then add chicken and fry till a little brown then add pepper and salt and continue add water and bring to a boil then add your peas   while you leave that to cook and the sauce reduces fry your chips and when the chicken and sauce is finished add your chips  ... and their you have it  

so i have made another cardigan but this time i changed the stitch to a hdc and added xtra stiches so as to fit my nearly 1 year old   but i did follow the patern stitch where it looks like a ruffle ... the out come masha`allah and it looks wonderful on her  

i had forgotton to post the links to the tutorials of the crocheting so here they are   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVUWsJmMneM&feature=channel   in this their is a series of videos just follow them as he explains .... this video is for the baby cardigan ... i already posted the video of the hats and as you will see at the side of each their is a list of other masha`allah

i really wanted to make a cardigan for my daughter so i google to see what i could find and found a really good tutorial and a very simple way of making it   and this is what i came up with ... the only problem is that it is for a new born... so after a sleepless night i found a way of making it for my nearly 11 month old ..... so that will be my next project so some lucky person out their will be getting this cardigan for their daughter

so making hats has become something natural for me i feel like i have been at it for years ..... well in fact i have been just crocheting for a little over three weeks and i`m loving it masha`allah   so as you would have see i have already made two hats for my 10 month old ... but even that wasnt enough so i decided to make another but not using the same stitch or the same type of wool so i found another tutorial where u you use a half double crochet stitch instead of a single crochet stitch now the lady that was doing the video was making a hat for a smaller child but i need it for my 10 month old so i read alot of the comments and learnt that you just increase the amount of stitches ... with that off i went and as i was going i would check to make sure that it would fit my daughter in the video the lady goes as far as round 6 with a total of 48 stitches i increased it to the 11th row with a total of 72 stitches and just continued until it was long enough to fit her head   i also adde

so i`m sitting in my chair finishing my first blanket and thinking to myself what can i do now , then my 10 months old wobbles over to me and as i`m looking at her i think she need a hat so i went on a mission to learn how to crochet a hat and bam i found a lovely tutorial on how to make one and masha`allah it was so simple http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWFUOay8ajk so i sat down with my yarn and started it took basically a half day to make  and as i went a long i kept thinking how to make more out of it so here is how it is before i added to it and this is it after i finished  

so this is one of my most favorite dishes , being Irish i love cabbage and to join it with garlic makes all the difference   this dish can be made two ways , it can be made in a white sauce were you use onion or a red sauce were you use garlic ... tonight i made the red sauce   ingredients   1 head of cabbage mince meat garlic small amount of rice chickpeas peper, salt, cumin, carwia 2 eggs a little flour tomato puree   method   so i take the leaves of the cabbage one by one and place them into a pot of hot water to soften them a little while they are being soften i put the garlic and some oil in a pot i used my pressure cooker and fry on a small flame then add spices and chickpeas add some water and continue to cook i closed my pressure cooker and cook it for about 20 mins while this is being done i took the leaves from the water a left them to cool while i made the mince mixture which is mince, a handful of rice , 1 egg , and a pinch of each of the spices and mix well then i laid out

so as you can see form my earlier post i have begun to crochet but the piece i did before i was not happy with so i took it apart and decided to re do it even with this one i have made mistakes and that being not counting the number of stiches but i have learned no and decided to start another project at the same time so what am i making ..... well i am making two blankets .... one is from a granny square and the other is a star shape the star shape one i`m very happy with and have done all the counting that is need with it masha`allah granny square blanket star shape blanket     oh i should have put the link to the pattern for the star shape here it is

so how far have i gotton on my crocheting well i decided to keep going with my granny square and i have even added a second colour to it   the only thing is i know i have made mistake in it as you will see with the picture it`s not a complete square in some places but i think for a beginner it`s not bad .... well i hope that it`s not ... lol

so i decided to give this a go my best friend masha`allah has so much patience to take me on, and what laughs we had in the teaching method so she has decided to teach me a granny square so i have spent most of my day starting and then ripping , starting and then ripping so in the end what did i get for my trouble   so umm z how did i do

so masha`allah i was watching a lovely blog that i really enjoy reading and came across this recipe so i decided to try it , and masha`allah it was delicious so thank you henia we really loved this to find recipes please look here at Simplicity`s table by the sea then then

my memories of soup as a child was a packet taken from the cupboard and water added to it and heated on the cooker so when i moved to algeria i found that nearly everything is done form the beginning even soup now in my dh familys house they mostly make all different veg with celery leaves but thier is only so much of that you can take so i have tried different ways of making soup and todays soup is just veg with the bones from a chicken breast , where i had used up the breast   so what i used for this today was   2 courgettes i big fresh fennel 4 medium carrots 1 onion 2 big potatoes 2 luft and the bones from a breast of chicken   all i did was  wash all veg  peeled and sliced them and placed them in a pot then i added a little salt and black pepper and put the lid on and placed it on a medium heat to draw out the jucies from the veg then i added the bones once everything was cooked i took the bones out and picked at the bones to remove the little bits of chicken left on them and then

it`s hard always trying to think of what to cook and sometimes i get so fed up of it all so tonight i decided to make potato gratin and some spiced chicke n   so used my blender and chopped my potatoes and onions     then add bachemal sauce and grate cheese on top i only put a little as i didn`t have enough bachemal sauce   butter flour milk salt /pepper and garlic if you choose to as for quantity it depends on how much you use i just eye it as i have been making it for years     as for the chicken i just used some spices from my cupboard and sprinkled it over the chicken and i put a little pil in my hands and rubbed it into it as i don`t like too much oil   and thats it , i hope you enjoy

so my kids have been driving me mad about making coleslaw they have become experts in it if we buy it when in the uk they oh umi thats not nice yours is nicer , what a way to get to your mothers heart so of course i made it for them     you need i head of cabbage     and about three to four carrots (your choice)   and 1 medium onion   now some ppl dont use onions but i like the tang it gives     and their you have it mixed with the mayo i made previously   enjoy

till i came to algeria i never knew how to make mayo then i was in my bil house and his wife was making it so i watched with interest and masha`allah could not believe how easy it was   here we have 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard 2 egg yolks and salt mix well and add oil slowly , about 1/2 litre till you have this     then add some vinegar and juice of 1 big lemon or just add to taste    

so i don`t want this blog to turn out to be all about cooking so i thought i would share what my children do in school this year my dd11 has entered secondary school and now all she talks about is art they are teaching them different shapes and patterns so here are a few samples of what they do