Boring Sundays

I sometimes think to myself that if we had a kid (or even more) the Sundays would be more interesting...at least there were someone whom you have to be careful of all day...

I miss the wonderful smell of these "Bahar e Narenj"

I have prepared a wish list for 2011...among those wishes that I truly believe I will achieve them, I want to be able to speak in French as good as English...
Do you think it is too much?
I just wish there were someone who was interested in French so we could learn it together...as you know there is 2 situations that a friend is a big motivation first when you want to study(anything),second when you want to do exercise...
Maybe later I would write here some more wishes of that list,so when they come true I will get even more happy!
you know I really believe that you can get anything that you want...so I my wishes are big...really big...since I have a powerful God, and my mind can imagine beautiful future,so why not?

I do really have problem with this division of tasks between husband and wife!
I think this is totally unfair...
but unfortunately Iranian men specially got used to it...and it needs a generation of brave women who really believe that they are not responsible for house work...

Persian New year is coming!

New year ceremony in each country has its own traditions, as well as in Iran. Here I try to explain some of it.

Haft sin, or seven "S"s is a traditional table setting of Nowruz( meaning new day), the traditional Iranian spring celebration. The haft sin table includes seven specific items which starts with "s" in Persian alphabet. The items symbolically correspond to seven creation and holy immortals protecting them. Traditionally families set haft sin table and gather around it until the moment of changing the years, and pray for a new year full of health and happiness and prosperity,then they hug and kiss each other and it is a custom that the elder person in the family (usually the father) gives the rest of the family something as a new year gift which is called "Eydi". Then the family goes to meet the elders in the relatives and it is a symbol of respecting them.

Here is the haft sin items:


1.Sabzeh: wheat, barley,mung bean or lentil sprouts growing in a dish-symbolizing rebirth.


2.Samanu:sweet pudding made from wheat germ-symbolizing affluence


3.Senjed:dried ole aster fruit-symbolizing love


4.Sir:garlic-symbolizing medicine


5.Sib:apple-symbolizing beauty and health


6.Somagh:sumac fruit-symbolizing (the color of) sunrise


7.Serkeh:vinegar-symbolizing old age and patience.





Also we put a bowl of water and our holy book"Quran" and 2candles and a mirror.


This is my haftsin table for last year,now I am figuring out what to do for this year that makes my table special.

Halva

Here is the recipe of Halva
Ingredients:( for 2)
Wheat flour...................................... 7 Tablespoons
Butter........................................... Half cup(you can add more)
Sugar.........................................7Tablespoons
Saffron.................................1Teaspoon(again it depends on the color you want)
Rosewater................................ quarter cup( around 70cc)
Water............................................1 cup(250cc)
Cocoa powder................................... 1Tablespoons

First, we sieve the wheat flour (twice is better), then put it in a pan on a burner ( I am not sure about the name of this!) for at least 10 minutes when we could smell the difference in the smell of flour and also we could see that the color is slightly changing to cream instead of white, it means the flour is ready, this part is really important because it prevents the flour to smell like being raw.

if we want to have a dark brown color halva then we stay a bit longer in this part to change the color of the flour completely to cream or light brown.

the next step is to add the butter ( if Kermanshahi oil is available even better), then we take the pan from the burner to a side to add butter and at the same time we mix it really fast and hard, if you see it is not homogeneous don't worry you can mix it finally! just try your best, then after around 2 minute of mixing put it back on the burner and continue mixing on the burner because the heat helps the butter to melt more and you won't have those little flour not mixed to the other parts.

it takes around 10more minutes ( for this amount of flour) to stay on the burner and you must continue riling ( again I am not sure what is the right verb)
then take the pan over and divide the flour and butter into 2 equal parts.

for one part we add the cocoa to have dark brown halva and for the other we add saffron to have yellow color halva but how? like this:

mix the cocoa powder with half of sugar and half of water, boil it to have something like a heavy liquid, you need around 5 spoonful of this for the half of flour.

now mix saffron with the other half of sugar and water and rosewater also boil it to reduce water, you need 5 spoonful of this.

now that you have mixed cocoa and saffron to the flour you have 2 different color halva.

the important part is to make them stick together, for this you could use a plastic put one color inside a plastic and smooth it then put it on a smooth surface, redo for the other color and put it on top of the previous one, you can cut the edge to make it a good shape or by a mold you can make beautiful shapes.
Enjoy!
(awfully difficult writing recipe in English !)

Pic

Here are the photoes from my wallpapers:

and some photoes from my today's cooking:

a cake in a pot and on a burner!

Final result:

and "Halva 2 rang"

You may think that "Halva 2rang is not much, but we are only 2 people so that's enough!

Happy Valentine's Day!

While we persian people have a perticular day for love in our culture called " Sepandaramzgan" but I myself like to celebrate Valentine's day as well as Sepandaramzgan day because I believe if we call all days of the year love days, still is not enough for loving each other more and more...
so we, my husband and I, went to Midvalley and enjoy a delicius dinner in Nando's then we bought 3 beautiful wall stickers to make a variety in our home...they are very nice and I can not wait to stick them to our walls.
after sticking them I will attach some photos of them.
Happy Valentine's Day...Enjoy being a lover or beloved...

My decision is strongly kept...I feel more relaxed now...I think I can see better all the situations now and consider all my problems and our problems...
I just pray for more patience...

we would have guests for next weekend and I am exited because they are somehow special guests for me. I really need to show my abilities in cooking and designing food and the table. So I am figuring out what should I do...
I think for main course I would serve the guests with something like" Tahchin" and the dessert would be "strawberry and yogurt".
I hope everything goes fine.

New friends new life!

Last week was almost an adventurous week. We went on holiday with our friends and enjoyed the time very much...
on Monday we met our new friends, who are a young couple living in Johor( a southern city in Malaysia). they were really friendly and we had pleasure time with them, they bought a car in here...the same as ours! we went to Putrajaya and it seems they enjoyed the environment, then we has dinner in an Arabic restaurant,the day after that we met each other again in our home, then we went to cinema for the movie" The green hornet" it was not that good that I expected but it was fun!
for dinner they invited us to an Iranian restaurant "Naab" and the delicious food made our night even more wonderful!