Puri - A fried Indian bread

Puri is an Indian bread commonly consumed in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and other countries of South Asia. It is eaten either at breakfast with a cup of tea or it can be eaten as a bread with a variety of curries. According to Wikipedia, the word puri originates from the Sanskrit word 'purika' which means filled. it also means bread in Georgian. Some time back I did a post titled "The great Puri disaster" where I explained to my readers how I struggled making this Indian bread. However, my mom is a genius in the kitchen and hence her puri comes out perfectly on the first attempt. In today's blog post mom will be sharing her puri recipe with all my blog readers. If any of you out there have tried the recipes under the page "Rey's Kitchen Delights", kindly provide me with feedback....

                                1. Place one and a half cups of flour in a dish

                                2. Add 1/2 (half) teaspoon salt

                                3. Add 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

                                4. Add 1 ounce butter

                                5. Rub the butter into the flour until it forms crumbs

                                6. Add 180 ml of milk and water (90 ml milk and 90 ml water). 

                                    Add the mixture slowly to make a nice, soft dough

                                            7. This is how the dough should look after mixing

                                                all the ingredients.

                                8. Divide the dough into equal portions as depicted above

                                9. Roll the dough into a circle. Not to thick and not too thin

                                10. Cut the circle into fours as depicted below.

                                

                                11. In a pot add oil and heat on stove. The oil needs to be nice and

                                      hot. Adjust temperature whilst frying accordingly

12. The video above depicts clearly how the cut up

                                          triangles should be fried. Puris should not be oily.

                                          If they turn out oily after frying it means that there is 

                                          something wrong with the dough. A perfect puri would

                                          blow up nicely when frying and it would be soft and mildly

                                          crisp. A hard puri is also indicative of the dough made 

                                          incorrectly

                                13. The end product!! In our home we usually serve roast chicken

                                      with puris. We also serve puris with pateria and kheer

                            

My niece JUJU - stylish fashionista :)))))- the apple of my eye

So Monday afternoon my nieces J and J surprised me with a gift that they had bought for me for my birthday. They were super excited to hand it over to me. My niece Juwairiyya really makes me laugh. A few days ago my mother was trying to explain to her that it is now time for her to sleep in her own bed in her own room. So after she listens to what her dadi has to say she says," But dadi why does hun (her father) and Ameena (her mother) sleep together and why do you sleep next to dada ( her grandfather).. You all sleeping together so why must I sleep alone.' so we all started laughing. Then whilst having lunch the other day out of the blue she said, " Dadi I must eat up all my food, because dadi you know the poor people they got no food and Allah Paak gets cross when we waste our food and they got no clothes dadi, they wear the same dirty clothes everyday." So we all stared at her surprised...And last night she got me laughing into stitches. She was chatting to her grand father and suddenly I asked my dad a question. She told me, " Foi stop it, Dada isn't when two people are talking then foi mustn't talk also. Isn't dada I'm right." As she was right my dad said,"You are hundred percent right. You must teach your foi some manners." :))))))) TOOO CUTE....

A big thank you and the initiative will continue

Boxes filled with clothing all packed, sealed and ready to be sent through to the Al Falah Charitable Trust in Malawi. I would like to take the opportunity in thanking everyone out there who have contributed towards this worthy cause. Many of you have actually driven all the way to my home to drop off the clothing. May God Almighty reward all of you in this world as well as in the hereafter. I wish to add that the collection drive would be an ongoing process and hence if you do have old clothing or unwanted clothing that you wish to hand down to someone else you may inbox me on facebook or email me at desertmoonsdiary@gmail.com and I will tell you how to get it over to me.....

A sincere thanks from the bottom of my heart

Dearest Facebook friends and blog readers. 
I an deeply touched and overwhelmed that many of you have sent me happy birthday messages even before my own family. I am not a person who celebrates my birthday. It is very much a normal day for me and reminds me that time is passing by fast and running out for me to accomplish my goals that I have set out for myself namely to establish a business and to assist, empower and educate those who are less fortunate than I am..Exactly a year ago on this day I was on my way to Medina with my beloved Mother and it was the best four days of my life spending quality time with a woman who supported me and molded me into the person I am today. I thank all of you who sent me inbox messages and those of you who wrote on my wall for your continued love and support. May God Almighty fulfill all your dreams and bless all of you in abundance. Remember that in life no matter how good you try to be to anyone else, there will always be selfish and spiteful people out there who will try their best to bring you down. We all make mistakes in life as this is part of human nature. As long as we make a concerted effort to correct our mistakes from within and ask for forgiveness, that's all that matters for God Almighty sees what lies in our hearts. No matter what anyone else says or writes about you, walk with your head high for the only real relationship you should be concerned about is the relationship that exists between you and your Creator. Kindly remember me in your prayers. Prayer is a powerful tool..When you are happy and all is well remember that you are probably happy because someone out there prayed for your happiness...Hence try and lead a life of good.. A simple smile is an act of charity...Helping an elderly person is an act of charity....The person you helped in life will pray for you and God Almighty will accept their prayers as a gift and reward to you.....

As a side note, my Mom made me laugh this morning...Instead of surprising me with a normal birthday cake, she decided to make traditional South African vetkoek for breakfast this morning which is my favourite...Mom you are the best......:))))))))

HAVE A PLEASANT DAY FOLKS!!!!

Racism and the shocking GUPTA family

                                                         Picture - abi-shameena.blogspot.com

Whilst apartheid has been abolished many years ago, racism in South Africa is still rearing its ugly head. A few days ago I was having a conversation with an elderly white Afrikaans speaking woman. I asked her about her origins and where she grew up. Quite casually she replied stating that she was born in the Nelspruit region of South Africa on a farm that was surrounded by many plantations. There was apparently only one supermarket along with three " coolie" shops. I was quite surprised that she actually chose to use the derogatory word "coolie". As she was an old woman I did not lash out at her and her overall demeanour and mannerism with me was quite a pleasant one. Whilst in the company of friends recently, a gentleman in our company related a story to me that totally disgusted me. At a birthday party, the birthday girl was gifted with a substantial amount of money. One of the family members took the money and hid it away in a safe place. However, when it was time to leave the venue, they could not remember where they placed the money. Hence they started accusing the waiters on duty of stealing the money. After a few minutes of moaning and groaning eventually the money was found. The manager of the venue then asked the family to kindly apologize to all the staff members. In quite a rude manner, the mother of the family said that she will not apologize to black people. In other words it is below her to apologize to a black person. What kind of a sick mentality is that? And then we have the GUPTA FAMILY who think as though they own South Africa. Businessman Mr. Atul Gupta says that South Africans should be thankful for the investment the Gupta family is bringing to the country.He did not understand why there was a concern about the landing of an aircraft chartered by the family at Waterkloof Air Force. Well I guess with excessive amounts of wealth, it is easy to bribe anyone to get anything that is desired. After all bribery and corruption is the order of the day in South Africa. There are new reports surfacing stating that the Gupta family insisted on being served by either White or Indian chefs and waiters only. They refused to have black waiters serving them. These reports have apparently quoted a member of the management team at the Lost City Hotel. If these reports are true and I'm sure, very soon the truth will prevail, I do not think that we as South Africans need to welcome such despicable people into our country. It is a shame that they hail from the very same country as the great Mahatma Gandhi, who came to South Africa to fight for the rights of Asians in this country and to liberate Asians from the clutches of apartheid and to bring about equality between all people irrespective of race, colour or creed.

South African religious scholars going Cuckoo

I thought the Saudi religious police were crazy, but I think the South African religious scholars are not far off.

I was invited for lunch this afternoon at a friends home as they are leaving for Umrah tomorrow afternoon. May Allah take them safely and accept their umrah Insha allah. Ameen. Whilst sitting and chatting to members of the extended family about the mundane activities of life, suddenly one lady brought up the topic of the Turkish mosque and praised the masjid for its extreme beauty and architecture. She also made mention that she would love to be at the masjid during the month of Ramadhaan. Then a few other women joined in the discussion and I was shocked beyond belief that a few of the women mentioned that recently they attended an Islamic program whereby they were told by a 'Deobandi" scholar that they should not visit the Turkish masjid. For heaven sake, the masjid is a place of worship, why shouldn't South African Muslims visit the masjid. Is it because South African Indian Muslims are far more superior over Turkish Muslims. What kind of mentality is this? This is not what the Prophet Muhammed (saw) taught us. I think some of our South African religious scholars are going cuckoos....They are losing it. Instead of uniting people they are dividing the community day by day.My late grandfather would perform his salaah in any masjid, whether it was built by the Sunni community or the Sufi community or any other community. He would always say that it is only a masjid, a building, a place of worship. What you have in your heart is between you and your creator.Performing salaah in a masjid built by a differing sect only encourages dialogue and creates respect between people. The minute you start saying you can not perform salaah in that masjid because it is built by those people, that's when division is created within communities.A big thumbs up and hats off to Mr. Ali for giving South Africa a piece of Turkey. Through him, nations have now formed a bond and a connection and he has accomplished something that many wealthy Muslim South Africans could not achieve.To these foolish religious scholars who are famous for judging, branding and labeling people, I honestly feel sorry for all of you, for you have missed your goal in life and that is to unite the Muslim Ummah. It is narrated in Saheeh Muslim that the Prophet (saw) said :"My ummah will be divided into seventy three sects. All of them will be in the Fire except one."Thus at present we can see that our very own religious scholars are causing our Muslim societies to divide into various sects and schools of thought. Islam is such a simple religion that can accommodate to the needs of any person irrespective of class, creed or nationality. All we need to do is follow the sunnah and way of life of our beloved Prophet Muhammed (saw) and remain steadfast on the teachings of the Quraan. Everything else is absolute nonsense and baseless innovations in my opinion.....