Borani Banjan (Afghan Layered Eggplant Dish)

For this month's International Food Challenge, we are visiting Afghanistan. Big Thanks to Saraswathi for giving me the opportunity to host this month's event. Researching for recipes and sharing with the group was quite a fun experience. 

Afghani cuisine has many similarities to Indian cuisine especially in the variety of spices that they use in their dishes. Afghanistan is located on the historically important trade route called the Silk route/ Silk Road which meant Afghani cuisine is influenced by the trading communities on that route. Afghani cuisine has the influences of Iran, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and China.

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Brown Rice Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash & Pomegranates

Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving meal yesterday. We had our Thanksgiving party at our friend's house and we had some amazing food and great time chatting. I felt like I was in a food coma yesterday after eating all that food.

So today I have a healthy and light salad recipe to get back in track before the holiday and more noshing starts. This salad is very filling, colorful and tastes great. Using brown rice makes it fiber rich and fills you up very easily.

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Afghani Sheer Payra (Afghani Milk Fudge)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes from A-Z International Marathon

Dishes: Afghani Sheer Payra

I'm going to end this month's blogging marathon on a sweet note. I have made this delicious milk fudge from Afghanistan 3 times in the past 1 month. It is that simple to make and quite a crowd pleaser. My husband really liked the fudge because it has a really nice flavor from ground cardamom and rose water.

The only thing that takes time in making this fudge is melting sugar and boiling the syrup and letting the fudge cool -- other than that the whole process is very simple and quick to make. The most important and critical part of successfully making this fudge is the consistency of the sugar syrup. it should not be too thin (fudge won't set) or too thick (fudge would be very very hard). 

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Lebanese Moussaka (Vegetarian Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes from A-Z International Marathon

Dishes: Lebanese Moussaka

For Day 2 of blogging marathon, I picked my favorite ingredient and made this delicious Lebanese eggplant dish that I bookmarked long time ago. I made another hearty & comforting Lebanese dish for the mega marathon and mentioned about how I wanted to try this Lebanese Moussaka dish from a local Middle Eastern restaurant.

It so happened that we went to that restaurant a few weeks later and my husband ordered their Lebanese Moussaka and he really liked it. That is a really big compliment coming from an ex-eggplant-hater. It sure was very very tasty and I decided it was time to try the dish at home.

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