Pakistan Celebration Part I-The Food

As we started to prepare for our end of the month feast and celebration, it all felt like it went by so fast. How could we already be at the end of the Pakistan month? Some months seem to last a long time and by the time we finish the month off with a celebration of food, music, and trivia, we feel like we have actually visited (well almost). Other months, feel like they fly by and we are adding our construction paper flag to the folder with other flags from countries gone by, and we are already starting to shift gears to the next. Pakistan was one of the latter months. This doesn't mean that we didn't have a chance to enjoy it at all though, because we had a great time making the beautiful flag, listening to several different genres of Pakistani music and eating the food. The food was so absolutely delicious and will be made (and eaten) again by this mamacita. 

As I briefly mentioned in the last post, this month we did something different. We took our "show on the road." My brother and my sister in law whom I have mentioned before here, were visiting and so we decided it would be super fun to have our celebration while they were here (really, the celebration was already on the calendar, but we were excited to learn that they would be here for it). Since they were going to be in town, they were staying with my parents and since my parents have a nice big house, with a nice big table and plenty of plates (read: more than seven, yes seven. We had eight but one got broken), we decided to bring the celebration to them. 

I had done some searching and found some free Pakistani radio here. There were a variety of genres, which I really liked so we could change it up to suit our moods and still get the exposure to new music, but I could only get it to play four or five songs at a time before it would stop. We listened to this while we created the flag and made the napkin rings, but I knew that while prepping and eating dinner it wouldn't be convenient to have to keep pushing play in order to listen to the music. So I asked my brother (who is not only our family technological guru, but he is also our family music guru and can find any kind of music at any given time) to either fix it or find some music for our dinner. He created a play list that was mostly of the Qawwali variety and we were set for the night.  

We started off with punch and appetizers. 

 I asked my friend from Pakistan, "What is a good quick and easy appetizer?" She replied with, "Buy some puff pastry sheets, then make the filling with mashed potatoes, add some chili powder and other spices if you want and fill the puff pastries then fold them to make little triangles." I added chili powder, salt and pepper, I was afraid to add anything else for fear of messing them up. They were so delicious! So, yeah, you guessed it, that is what you get for a recipe on this one.

The appetizers that were so good I could have eaten 25 of in one sitting.  

Preston and I getting the food ready. 

We had appetizers left over, so we put them on the dinner table.
In the basket, in the middle of the table, is Naan.

Dinner is served. 

While we ate, as I always do, I asked the trivia questions. This is fun because it sparks conversation over dinner and educates us as well as our guests while we take in the delectable flavors and music.   

Pakoray made with eggplant, potato, cauliflower, and onions. A.K.A. One of the most delicious foods you will ever put into your mouth. (Also, In case you are curious, I did deep fry them, and no, I don't feel bad about it and I will totally do it again).

For the meat eaters, Beef Tikka with our version of Mint Chutney. 

Fruit Chaat. 

Dessert, Ras Malai.

With the food eaten, we had one last thing to do for our Pakistan Celebration. Wednesday I will be posting about it... Do you think you can guess what we did? I'll give you a hint, it's something we have done before.  


IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD:

This week (Nov.2)  is the Dia de los Muertos holiday. This is a holiday that is celebrated in Mexico. It is a time to honor and celebrate deceased loved ones. In our house, we will be eating some Mexican food and celebrating some of our loved ones whom have moved on. We will also be pulling out the Dia de los Muertos decorations that we made last month. We might even create some more. Check back next Monday for a post about it. Until then, if you want to have your own celebration, you can learn more about Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) here.