Sesame Street birthday party - Part 1: The Invite!

I can’t believe it’s almost 2 years since our lives were turned upside down by this little monster we call Ali. In this short time he has completely stolen my heart and ruined my carpet/walls. No I’m not speaking of a pet, I’m talking about my son! Although, some days I think getting a pet would’ve been easier. All jokes aside, it’s true; parenting is challenging but it is SO rewarding and just the sight of his smile beaming after a long day at work is enough to reassure me that indeed my life is perfect. But I’ll save the teary eyed ‘can’t believe my baby is growing up’ post for later. 

Currently, I’m in party planning mode overdrive like the crazy mama that I am. My little man is turning two and I am just bursting with ideas for the party I want to plan for him. We started out wanting to do a casual small birthday party but due to my obsession with planning nothing ends up ‘small’ or ‘casual’. I’ve decided to go with a Sesame Street theme since he’s currently in love with all things Elmo and Ernie-Bert (said as one word), but mostly because Ali is a monster in himself so he deserves a spot on Sesame Street! 

The first item to tackle on our party planning list was the invites:

To me the invitation defines the party. Personally I love sending out mailed invites the old fashioned way, but after spending several hours on Etsy realizing how ridiculously people spend on invites I decided to go with online invitations. Being a child of the new age, I know email invites not only saves on costs but guarantees a faster responses from my guests too. In college I would create event invitations via Facebook for simple gatherings all the time, however for this event I wanted to try something a bit more sophisticated, stylish yet possessing the same ease of delivery and response.

I wanted the invite to set the tone for our party, that it’s fun, whimsical and just a bit different than what you might expect. 
 
Enter: Paperless Post

I was shocked that I hadn’t heard of this website before, since they have some of the most creative designs I’ve ever seen! Also, I loved the amount of options the website gave me, they have both e-cards and paper cards too. While some require payment, there is a wide variety of free cards too, especially if you are emailing. I had already created a .jpg file of the invite I wanted to use and was easily able to upload it into a template. I tried this on other websites, ahem Evite, and none of their templates would allow my image to fit correctly. It was requiring me to reformat the size which then compromised image quality. No such issues on Paperless Post! 

The best parts:
1) free download of their IPhone app. I’m able to track my event, see who’s responded and who hasn’t, change event time/location all on my phone. And if you’re a mom on the go you know this is a blessing! Plus you get 10 ‘coins’ for downloading the app which can be used towards future card purchases. You can earn more coins from liking them on Facebook or referring friends. (great way to earn those snazzy paper invites for free!)
2) you can track if people have opened the email (can’t use the ‘it got lost in the mail’ excuse, I saw you opened that email liar liar pants on fire!) and you are notified if email addresses are invalid so you can follow up with guests.
3) The website does not require guests to register in order to respond to your event (some websites require it or if you’re using Facebook Events it’s hard to send to someone who doesn’t have an account)

No, I’m not being paid to rave about this site, but trust me once you start browsing through their selection you’ll see what I mean. I’ve already picked out styles from their bridal/baby shower invites that I plan to use it in the future. 

If you’re a busy girl who is on a time/money budget, but still wants to set a classy tone for your event this is probably the invitation station for you. (See what I did there with the rhyming!) 

PS- Take a look at the invitation I created for my son’s birthday.
This was all using Paint software (free on every computer in the world) and some copy/pasting of images I found on Google. Who says you have to pay a ton for adorable invitations.

From one mama to another: Go ahead click on the image to enlarge, right click and save it. Then go into Paint and take your own creative liberties on it, just like I did  :)

 

 

Holiday Family Extravaganza

It’s been a busy few weeks! November sort of flewby. Thanksgiving was great. My sisters and their families who live out of state all came in for the weekend and it was a wonderful time catching up with family. It’s so great to see our family expanding mA. We now have 8 grand kids in the family with 2 more on the way. By next year’s Thanksgiving reunion we’ll have 6 kids below the age of four all under one roof. Needless to say we’ve become quite accustomed to the rowdiness!

This year was the first time I contributed a few items to our Thanksgiving dinner. I love cooking in general but in my family full of amazing cooks I’m pretty much the baker. It doesn’t help that I have a chocolate loving husband either! So this year, the dessert table was all my responsibility. I made: pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with cream cheesefrosting, apple crumb pie, and 7 layer magic bars.

For dinner my mom made roast leg of lamb along wthe turkey (both of which were AH-mazing!), but I helped with the side dishes.We all LOVE a good green bean casserole topped with fried onions so that was definitely on the menu. This year I also tried to spruce up the usual boring ol’ mashed potatoes by making what I call Cheesy baked mashed potatoes. It was pretty simple and just a bit more fattening (by a bit I mean A LOT), but tasted great! My 14 year old nephew who is well on his way to becoming Top Chef also prepared a pasta dish for us using his own béchamel sauce. By now I’m sure you can tell we are big foodies and take our Thanksgiving meal seriously. Everything turned out fantastic and we were stuffed turkeys by the end of the night. 

But to continue the never ending eating marathon, Friday morning I put my newly purchased waffle maker to use and made Belgian waffles for everyone (using my own recipe for the batter too!), we went out to downtown Princeton at night, saw their newly lit Christmas tree then headed out to an amazing Pakistani restaurant in the area called Taste of Punjab. It's a no frills sort of place but their food is yum-may! It was a weekend filled with tons of chatter, eating and very little sleeping but it’s one weekend out of the year that we’re all able to be together so we thoroughly enjoy it! 

All our little munchkins minus one!

The Fab Five!

Yes I do enjoy dressing up him up like the little man that he is!

Below are recipes for our thanksgiving weekenddishes:

Pumpkin cupcakes(this recipe doesn’t include it, but I just added in semi sweet chocolate chipsinto the batter because we are chocoholics!)

Cream cheesefrosting

Apple Crumb Pie

I used a store bought crust because honestly Ijust didn’t have time to knead out dough. But I will say, I wasn’t too satisfied with the crust’s thickness (Pillsbury brand). Maybe next time I will have to attempt making my own! Also, I followed this recipe for all the ingredients, measurements and cook time, but I chose to make my own crumb topping rather than doing a lattice crust.

For the crumb topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

5 Tbsp butter

Mix flour, brown sugar and the butter gently in abowl until it takes on a thick breadcrumb consistency add in choppedwalnuts/pecans/almonds to your preference and sprinkle on top before poppinginto the oven!

7 LayerMagic Bars (or Hello Dolly’s)

BakedCreamy Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

I added extra butter to make them extra creamy.These were definitely a hit!

Eating Skinny!

So I stumbled up on this article and it got me thinking:

Practically everything on this list are things my Desi mother has been unconsciously feeding us for years. Remind me to thank her for the amazing metabolism I had for most of my life. I say that because lately I find my metabolism majorly slummed and it’s probably because I’ve taken out all the great stuff from my diet that I used to eat before. The more I think about it the more I realize that this may be the secret why I never saw my mother/grandmother ever doing all the crazy diets or intense exercise routines most American women succumb to in order to control their appetites. Even reflecting on myself, as a teenager while I was still eating mom’s home cooked desi meals I wasn’t thin but I was able to maintain a healthy normal weight without much struggle at all. And the moment I added in a mix of exercise into my routine I was able to drop weight quickly. Nowadays it’s like I breathe air and I’ve gaining 10 pounds!

Desi women are not skinny by nature; we have wide hips and curvy midsections. It’s just who we are. Butttt I wouldn’t call Desi women obese. The main things I see women of south Asian descent have is good self-control when it comes to food and a pretty good metabolism. I’m not talking about us Desis who grew up here and been subjected to tons of junk food loaded with sugars and carbs. I’m talking about the real home grown edition of Desi, like our moms and grandmas. I know I have AWFUL self-control when it comes to delicious food. Pizza, mashed potatoes, lasagna, and chocolate cake I can’t remember the last time when I said ‘oh I’ll just have 1 helping thank you’. But true Desi women who grew up eating wholesome home cooking just ate less and that was their unconscious effortless portion control/ weight loss regime.

So according to the article, these are the ingredients I need to bring back onto my plate:

Chili peppers – The first thing you think of when you hear the words Indian/Pakistani food is spicy. Ultimately, you aren’t a Desi if you can’t handle the heat. And it was only when I grew up and read up on it that I found out that the spicy taste does wonders for your metabolism! Yay spicy food! :)

Pine nuts- As a kid I remember my Ammi and Dadi roasting up chilgozay (pine nuts) to snack on in the winter. Meanwhile, in the summer time my mom would dry out the seeds of all sorts of fruits for us to munch on. I specifically remember cantaloupe seeds but I know pumpkin and sunflower seeds were definitely something we ate while pretty much oblivious to the massive amounts of nutrients they are loaded with. Something all women are known to do is eat out of bored, but Desi women hit it on target by nibbling on something that would suppress appetite in addition to decrease their fat stores!

Cinnamon sticks- I never knew it until I started cooking myself, but cinnamon is common a spice used in most curries. I put whole sticks of it in my Pulao to add aroma, but if you ever cook curries with garam masala it’s one of the main ingredients in it. Who knew it’s a metabolism booster?

Red Lentils – Every Desi child knows what daal is, masoor ki daal to be specific. And, whether you liked it or not you definitely ate it a few times a month if not weekly. I personally LOVE daal with kaali and khutti daal being among my favorites; plus it’s honestly one of the easiest meals to prepare. The added bonus, all the protein and good fiber in lentils is great at keeping you full for longer.

Fennal tea- I drank gallons of it post-delivery as my mom insisted it will help sooth my breastfed son’s digestion and mean less gas for him from all the things I eat. Little did we both know that it actually helped me lose a ton of my baby weight! Too bad I stopped drinking it as soon as I stopped breastfeeding; I need to get back on this stat! (buy some fennel boil it in water, tea doesn't get much simpler than that!)

Overall- After a long and tiring day at school/work, while it’s easy to pick up food at the drive thru or cook 2-minute ramen noodles (loaded with sodium and preservatives that only cause you to bloat!), small efforts like cooking up some daal and adding in a dash of ‘lal mirch’ will do your body good..


**There are a bunch of other items this article mentioned that I personally do love eating (apples, watermelon, raspberries, avocados), but they aren't very 'Desi' so I'll just mention them here and encourage everyone to add them into your diet!

(photos courtesy of Google Images) 

What this storm is all about

Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white

sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.

― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Quite a bit happened from the last time I wrote here. We had a little event last Tuesday called Hurricane Sandy. Just a little gust of wind and a couple drops of rain. No big deal. YEAH RIGHT. My family and I were some of the VERY fortunate ones and we only lost power for 4-5 days. Besides dealing with lack of heat, hot water and no cell reception we didn’t suffer any loss at all. Lots of people near the Jersey shore, Hoboken, Staten island and other towns in NY dealt with major damages like flooding and harm to their homes, cars and sadly even lives. The entire week was a major shock of reality that at any given moment life as you know it can change so count your blessings.

It was also a big reminder that we live in a great nation. Our mayor took to Twitter almost immediately and began answering questions and addressing problems of down trees in neighborhoods. Comfort stations were set up in locations which did have power for people to charge their electronics, take a hot shower or simply enjoy the heated shelter. It was frustrating not knowing when power would be restored, but it was comforting to know that officials were working hard and continuously to restore life back to normalcy. Our township arranged a Trunk or Treat event over the weekend since the hurricane occurred too close to actual Halloween and roads weren’t safe for children to be out. It was a wonderful idea since the kids really did need a positive change from all the chaos that had been ensuing all week. A week later now, most people we know have had their power restored, lines at gas stations no longer have 4 hour wait times (Governor Christie instated a ration system which helped but also less generators are being used so demand has gone down too), and most importantly, the in pour of help to locations who desperately need it is amazing.

My husband and I plan on joining an organization this weekend who is working with the Red Cross in setting up shelters in disaster struck locations. I feel so guilty for complaining about anything I endured when I see entire towns completely under water, homes swept away and lives lost. The very least we can do is pray for them, and a little better is to roll up our sleeves and help them recover.

 

Today also is an important day for me for two reasons. My Nana (maternal grandfather) passed away 2 years ago today and as an American it is also Election day. Those two events are totally unrelated but combined they created emotions in me that somehow relate. Remembering my Nana reminds me of the kind of person he was and the memories he left us with. Memories we will cherish forever. Thinking about him reminds me that one day I too will be 6 feet under, and makes me wonder how do I want my posterity to remember me? Sandy was just another wake up call that life can be taken at any moment and all that remains is for the ones left behind to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I want to change myself so when people pick up the pieces of what I leave behind they are filled with pride to have been a part of my life. I truly wish to help others, not just with my money and my words but with my time and efforts. I intend to become an active member of my community, for example by voting for officials in my town and state and on a large scale for my nation’s president. My governor and mayor made me proud this week and I will continue to support them. I hope to do things within my community that actually make a difference. I want my grandchildren someday to remember their Nani not just for her love for high heels, chocolate, Cinderella, and a crazy obsession with handbags. I truly hope to change myself to be a generous person. A person whose essence is kind and giving. Often times we only help others when it is convenient for us or when it serves our ego, but it’s another thing to just make that generosity a part of your nature. It becomes what you are doing all the time without even realizing it. I want giving/kindness to become natural to me, not something I take time out to do. We have a few brief moments in this place, let’s spend them doing something wonderful.

Look here to see what I wrote about the last election and what it signified to me.