Greetings Treat-A-Weekers,

I am so excited to share my blog post this week because I am coming off of a joy-filled, gorgeous weekend spent with my  extended family celebrating the biggest religious holiday of our year, Eid, and writing this blog will make the good vibes last longer!  Eid, is an Arabic word meaning “feast, celebration, or holiday” and the Eid my family and Muslims around the world just celebrated marked the end of a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset in order to promote greater empathy, charity, self-discipline and spiritual connection in ourselves. I liken fasting for a month to running a marathon – people think you are both a hero and a lunatic for doing it, but they admire your strength and tenacity.  Furthermore, as the faster/runner, one feels so accomplished, so proud of oneself at the end of the month/race, that it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks -it’s all about your own personal best.  I myself have yet to fast all 30 days though I hope to one day — I fast as many days as I can and give myself a break when I  have an excuse (there are some) or absolutely need to…but enough about the fasting, more about the celebrating that follows Ramadan as that, my friends, is a true bona fide treat!

The pictures in this post were taken this past Friday at my parents’ Eid open house in Ohio.  My parents have hosted an open house attended by anywhere from 200-300+ people every Eid for decades now.  When I say open house, I pretty much mean it is an all-day come and go, and EAT-as-much-as-you-wish, two-buffet event that is pretty much open to every person my parents have befriended in our religious community over the last 4 decades. I will be honest and say that their choice to host the open house every year, twice a year, has not always been viewed positively by me.  When I fly to my hometown for a weekend or a few days (which sadly is not that often anymore), I generally selfishly want to spend quality time with my immediate family, chill, see (or try to see) a few close friends, eat at or order from my favorite restaurants and generally reminisce about the grand old childhood I had as a Buckeye. The Eid open house does not allow me to do this.  Why, you may ask? Well, because my Mom pretty much works non-stop for at least 72 hours in the days prior to Eid and when I show up (admittedly the night before), it is time to WORK.  We put folding chairs out inside and outside of the house, wash dishes, do grocery shopping, hit Sam’s club for sternos/canned heat for food chafing dishes, buy 12 2-liter bottles of 7Up and a dozen cans of crushed pineapple for my Mom’s famous pineapple punch, empty carloads full of goods and groceries and help my Mom as sous chefs in the kitchen while getting our next generation of kids fed and in bed at a somewhat reasonable hour.  Since I don’t live in Ohio anymore and have not since 2002, I can’t even say that I do the lion’s share of work after my Mom — that distinction falls on my brother.  But my sister and do our best to be as helpful as possible despite our only true desire upon returning home being to veg out with our extended family.

All that being said, this past Eid, I really took stock of and made the most of my parents’ Eid open house experience.  I decided to invite some former co-workers [pictured above] who I had not seen in years who are dear to me and love Indian food (the main type of food featured at our open house as my parents are from India) so that I could share the experience and food with them and catch up.  I made an effort to speak to as many open house guests as I could and really soaked in how much they appreciated my parents’ tireless generosity, hospitality and commitment to tradition. I listened to the many guests who indicated that it is was this very open house that makes Eid so memorable for them, some indicating that they would not know where to go or what to do were it not for my parents’ invitation.  And almost every person had a favorite dish they loved to eat year after year.  My Mom tends to cook (and a in a few instances cater) the same foods at her Eid open house table that she grew up enjoying on Eid in Madras.  Thus, she features traditional main dishes [biriyani (rice and meat), haleem(slow cooked spiced lentils with tender chicken bits mixed in], side dishes  [spicy garbanzo beans/chole, shami kabobs/spiced meat patties, raita/yogurt chutney] and dessert [sheer korma – a sweet, thickened, milk-based dessert with vermicelli noodles and almonds] and adds and varies additional menu items here and there based on the season or her culinary mood.  That said, a few years into her hosting the open house in America, she noticed that little kids were not eating as much of the traditional Indian foods she prepared as she’d like to see (yes, she is the quintessential cultural matriarch who believes that food = love) because they were too spicy. That would simply not do for my Mom so she created her own version of an Indian flavored, non-spicy spaghetti dish that kids (and adults) love called savieah.  She also started making two versions of this dish (one with ground beef and one without) a few years back when my vegetarian sister-in-law joined the family so that she and others who forgo meat would have something special and tasty to eat every year.  This pasta dish is perhaps now her signature, most beloved Eid dish — a treat that friends wait to enjoy all year for.  My Mom is the kind of chef who does not use recipes so I asked her to try to recreate the dish with guesstimate measurements as usually she tastes as she goes along.  She said I needed to try to make her recipe first before I published it, but it is questionable whether or not I will get around to doing that — Thus, for the adventurous readers among you, you will have to try this out and adjust seasonings to taste.  Just know that this easy, delicious crowd-pleasing Indian-style pasta is worth experimenting with… here is the recipe:

Malika Aunty’s Delicious Eid Pasta/Savieah Recipe [Vegetarian]- Serves at least 10; Can be Vegan or Non-Vegan (with yogurt and meat sauce)

Ingredients:

2 packets Angel Hair Pasta (any brand)

4 large onions

2 tbsp Garlic Ginger Paste (available at Indian grocery and some specialty foods stores like Whole Foods)

3 tsps turmeric

2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

2 tsp cardamom powder or 10 crushed cardamom

2 tsp hot chilli powder (optional) {you may want to omit if your or your kids don’t like spice}

1 bunch cilantro washed and leaves finely cut up

1/2 bunch of mint washed and leaves finely cut up (optional)

4 tbsp. yogurt (optional – omit if dairy free/vegan)

8 small roma tomatoes

2 cans diced tomatoes

juice of 1 lemon

salt to taste (and for use in cooking pasta)

olive oil (for cooking pasta)

2-3 green chillies/jalapeno (optional)

1 pound ground beef (optional, omit if vegetarian)

Procedure

Cook Angel Hair pasta

Cook pasta as per directions on box.  Add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of salt to the boiling water and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  When the water boils, add spaghetti. Cook until al dente/or 3/4 of the way cooked. Drain in colander and set aside.

Cook Sauce for Pasta

In a medium sized pot, fry cut up onions until brown in veggie or canola oil.  Add the two tablespoons of garlic ginger paste [OPTIONAL – add meat now if you wish]. Keep stirring the onions/paste on a low flame and then add the turmeric, coriander, cumin, salt (2-3 tsps. is recommended), and hot chilli powder.  Keep stirring and add the cardamom powder or pods, and 4 tablespoons plain yogurt, if you wish.  Add cut up Roma tomatoes and keep stirring with the onions and paste until cooked.  Then add the two cans of diced tomatoes and continue cooking on low flame.  Add cut up green chillies, and 2/3 of the cut up cilantro and cook.  After all fully cooked [meat browned if using meat] add the juice of 1 lemon.

Mix & Bake & Garnish

Transfer the cooked sauce to a foil tray or baking dish and then add the spaghetti.  Add one packet of frozen peas to the top.  Put aluminum foil on the tray and bake for about 20 minutes at 350.  Stir, garnish with fresh coriander and mint leaves, and serve.

And there you have it, an original recipe, loved by many, born of my Mom’s creativity and desire to provide crowd-pleasing fare to each and every guest, even the youngest at her Eid open houses.  I hope the cooks among you will try it and let us know how it turns out. As for me, when and if I chose to host an Eid open house at my  new home in Boston in the years to come, my personalization of my Mom’s tradition is going to be to: a) to add many more chocolate bite-sized desserts 🙂 and b) invite any and all muslim and non-muslim friends who want to attend to share in the food, joy and experience just as I have shared in the food and joy of many friends’ Diwali festivals, delicious Christmas dinners and gift exchanges, and soulful Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s and Shabbat dinners over the past several years.  Sharing is caring, peeps.

Until next Monday, I remain, yours truly,

M