The Small Things, II

Just a few posts ago, I shared the very first installment of what I hoped would be a recurring blog post! I am happy to be making an addition to The Small Things with this post!

I came across the photograph below in a local daily, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the living and vibrant flowers against the dearth of the desert. I wondered, can life spring in an environment as uninviting as a dry desert?

Scorpian weed in the Mojave desert.

 There is definitely a lesson to be learned from these purple Scorpian weed: Two seeming opposites, coexisting unexpectedly when the conditions are just right...

#Peaceonearth

RECIPE: Baklava

I've always wanted to try my hand at homemade baklava and I finally made it happen this past weekend. Much like the Scottish Shortbread cookies, this recipe is pretty foolproof. There isn't much room to go wrong, even for the novice baker! So don't be afraid if this is your first or second foray into baking.

I basically followed DedeMed's recipe, with a few minor alterations. Her recipes and videos can be found here and here. There are only a few items that you will need to pick up from your local Middle Eastern/South Asian/etc grocery store: Rose water, Orange Blossom Water, Phyllo pastry & nuts of your choice.

Here are the ingredients you will need:

• 1 package phyllo dough
• 1 1/4 cup of butter melted
• 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped nuts of your choice
• 6 tsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp cloves 
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup of Simple Syrup (recipe found below)
• Ground pistachio to decorate

Simple Syrup/Atyr

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp rose water
• 1 tbsp orange blossom water 

 So now that you have all of the ingredients...you're probably wondering what to do with them!

Reviving my Spirit, 2011

Christmas weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 10th Annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention in downtown Toronto. For the first time in ten years, the conference sold out with an estimated 20 000 participants. Last year, it seems they were somewhere between 17 and 20 000. Attracting scholars from near and far, one great addition this year was Professor Seyyid Hossein Nasr, whom I'll discuss a little later.

The subject of this year's conference was "Control, Chaos or Community: Three Ways, One World, Our Choice." A very fitting title, considering the socio-political/economic/popular worldwide turmoil. I think in all this 'chaos', it was beneficial to get some religious/spiritual perspective on what role/responsibility we have as human beings and western Muslims.

As with previous years, a number of scholars attended, including Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson (U.S), Professor Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), Professor Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (U.S), Imam Zaid Shakir (U.S.), Shaykh Abdalla Idris Ali (CAN), Dr. Jamal Badawi (CAN), Attallah Shabazz (U.S.), Habib Ali Al-Jifri (Yemen), Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson (U.S.), Imam Yassir Fazaga (U.S.), with other guests including Shaykh Mishary Alafasy, Dr. Seyyid Hossein Nasr, Shaykh Sulaiman Mulla, Dr. Tawfique Chowdhury and Toronto's own- Sister Tayyibah Taylor.

I thought I would run through a few highlights from a few speakers. My words won't do justice to the emotion and passion behind some of their words, but I will try my best.

RECIPE: Scottish Shortbread Cookies

Count my family among the obsessed when it comes to shortbread cookies- (and desserts altogether). I have to admit, that the holiday season with its plethora of articles dedicated to holiday cookies kind of inspired me to bake! I've always enjoyed cooking new recipes, but as far as desserts went- I only had my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe to rely on! During the past month, I tried making a chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips (not as successfully as I had hoped!) and a shortbread cookie (which was delicious!). I scoured websites searching for a recipe that would best mimic the Walkers brand of Shortbread, and I may have come close!

Some recipes suggested using confectioners sugar (beneficial for its corn starch proportion), while others suggested granulated white sugar. I read that the latter would heed a better cookie texture, so I went with the white sugar!

Some recipes also suggested adding vanilla. I think you could easily skip this and still end up with a delicious cookie.

Here is the recipe I followed.

2 ½ cup all purpose flour

¼ tspn salt

1 ¼ cup of butter

½ tspn vanilla

½ cup and 1 tbspn of white sugar

Yields about 60-70 small cookies

SWATCHED: My new Revlon lippies

This past week, Rexall had another great sale going on. This time, they were offering a BOGO on most of their lip products from a number of major brands, including Revlon, L'Oreal, Maybelline, etc.

I am normally too lazy to head out for these sales...but this time, I had extra motivation: to add some red lippies to the collection! I have never publicly worn red or reddish lipsticks in my adult life, that I can remember. When I was young, I quite enjoyed wearing red lipstick for fun! I used to carry around those mini Avon lip samplers in my frog purse :-)

Last week, for a night out, I wore a daring red lipstick and it felt great, if not a bit bold!

Long story short, I picked up two Revlon lipsticks, one a more classic red, the other an intense coral-red- unlike anything I've ever worn before. I picked up Revlon Colourburst Lipstick in 'True Red' and Super Lustrous Lipstick in 'Fire & Ice'.

I took a few pictures and quickly swatched them here. Overall, I really like both lipsticks. They don't have any funky/fruity smells, I got them at great prices and the colour payoff is insane. I can't speak to their longevity of wear, but a mini-review might be appended to this blogpost at some point.

Wisdom of a quarter century.

In early December, I celebrated my birthday with some week-long festivities with family and friends. I made some wonderful experiences, for which I am very grateful. I am quite blessed.

I wanted to keep this post short. I find the more I think about the past and my future, the more I realize a few 'truths', if you will, about life- gained from my personal experiences.

1- Life won't turn out exactly the way you imagine. But you can certainly try to plan for the best/worst!

2- The older you get, the harder it will be to fight the cynic in you, despite your best efforts!

There are a great deal of other realizations I've come to, but these are probably to two most significant.

"Verily the soul becomes accustomed to what you accustom it to. That is to say: what you at first burden the soul with becomes nature to it in the end" -Al-Ghazali

Come to any realizations of your own after hitting any milestones?

The Small Things...

It occurred to me recently that we live during times of great negativity, misunderstanding, strife and injustice and that sometimes our focus and attention to these issues can be quite depressing. I can't be the only one who feels this way.

For myself at least, hearing about one world crisis after another such as the repression and murder of protesters in Syria, our failings in the First Nations community of Attawapiskat, the horrendous treatment of women all across the world, our deleterious consumption habits, excessive materialism, the 27 million people currently enslaved across the world....etc, has caused me to have a negative perspective on our nature as human beings. They say you get more cynical over time. So lets just say, I'm keeping my eyes wide open to ensure that is not my fate :-)

And so even while I am keenly aware of many of the failings we have as a human race, there is still so much around us that that represents the positive and the beautiful and this recurring blogpost will make a humble attempt to capture that. Hopefully this will be an enlightening venture.

I came across this extraordinary photo, of a Weta- a cricket like creature/insect. It is the largest photographed insect in the world , which means there could be larger undiscovered insects out there! A scary thought indeed.

My sister thinks this is ugly, but when I look at it I can't help but marvel at its creation. We live in a world inhabited by so many creatures. sA. We all have an important role to play as humans, creatures and plant life rely on each other for survival. When we lose sight of this fact, we open ourselves to a whole host of problems...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/giant-weta-worlds-largest-insect_n_1126475.html?ref=canada&ir=Canada

New Trailer: The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra

The opening title of the second installment of The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra turned up online recently! Thanks to my savvy younger sister, I am happily sharing the video below. To see the trailer, click here. This opening sequence really reminds me of how unique and GREAT this series is. There just hasn't been anything like it. Ever.

The expected premiere date is around mid-2012. It seems like the date has been getting pushed back frequently, however :-( So hopefully it will just be 6 more months.

1433 AH: New Year, Same Hopes

It seems like only yesterday I was writing last year's Islamic New Year post. How an entire year has passed us by is inexplicable to me. Where has all that time gone, I'm not sure.

It pays to ponder upon the year's happenings and examine what our experiences have taught us and whether we are closer to 'where we want to be' or should be.

A year ago, in my new years blogpost, I shared a few Qur'anic quotes that encapsulated my hopes for the upcoming year. Looking back, those quotes maintain their relevance as life goals once again- to be ascertained over the years. I won't re-post, but be sure to scan through them if you have a chance.

This upcoming year, I continue to hope for good health, for world peace, for increased humility, for greater communication between people, justice for the oppressed and the humanization of the 'other', which I believe to be the root cause of most evils.

Personally, I hope this year brings some professional stability, an opportunity to meet inspiring people, the chance to increase my knowledge and reading, and an increase in my blog readership :-P

Peace.

Bargain-surfing!

I've never been one to waste exorbitant amounts of money buying clothes, electronics, etc at regular price. Some may call it cheap, I choose to define it as being budget-conscious!

Recently, more and more companies have been offering online shopping and shipping to Canada (Gap, Old Navy, etc) and with the tough economic times, it feels even more important now to save $$$ wherever possible.

Enter the goal of this post. There are a few websites that I frequent that advertise in-store and online deals/promotions/freebies at different retailers across Canada. Apart from these websites, I rely on subscriptions to e-mail alerts from the companies I usually shop at, so that I can take advantage of reduced merchandise, when the wardrobe needs to be spruced up!

One of my top favourite website for promos and freebies, is SmartCanucks. Presented in a very simplified blog, deals are posted multiple times a day! SmartCanuck blogposts have gotten me a host of samples! My travel-size Motrin being one of the highlights!

BargainMoose is another good website, but not a site I visit as frequently as SC. It has a similar format to SC, with a very straightforward design.

RedFlagDeals is another great site- which is probably more well-known for its awesome forums! It has compiled a great list of retailers offering Black Friday sales, fyi.

I've used coupons from Save.ca on a few occasions. Just recently, I used a $2.00 coupon for my Cetaphil face cleanser, at Rexall! Yippee!! They've got some great coupon offerings at the moment, so be sure to check them out. There are a ton of these types of websites online. I will post more once I get a chance.

GroceryAlerts is a website I came across yesterday. I'm not too sure if they are a good website to follow just yet. The bloggers behind the website put together this great book of coupons/deals for use on one's birthday! Take a look.

Any useful websites you visit for deals? Care to share?