Stir Crazy - Asian Food

I've made it to my cheat week, yay!! After eating boiled and baked chicken and/or fish with steamed or raw greens for 53 days, this is my all I can feast on week. Growing up, mom and dad both worked. Dad loves home cooked meals and mom still loves to cook. But my parents loved to dine out, and we would eat out a lot. There were certain places that we visited so many times that the owners and chefs knew who we were. Chinese cuisine must be the most popular cuisine worldwide. They have something for everyone, whether you are a vegetarian, like bland food, or spicy food!

Monday, my sister and I decided to hit up our favorite restaurant, Stir Crazy, which is located at Boca Raton's Town Center Mall. Everything about this place is amazing. There are several items to choose from and everything is flavorful and fresh.

My sister and I both have our own favorites. She likes the passion fruit spritzer and I always order the homemade ginger ale (mind you, the ginger ale isn’t on the menu). The ginger ale is perfect for the warm South Florida weather. We always share an order of their vegetable spring rolls. The veggies inside are cooked right, the outside is crunchy but never hard. If you like spicy bold taste, be sure to ask your server for the hot sauce. We desis want hot sauce with everything!

 

For our main course, my sister got her usual – Blazing Noodles. Since the chicken served at Stir Crazy isn't “kosher/halal” she got tofu with hers. You can order it with shrimp too. The Blazing Noodles are probably one of the spiciest items on the menu. It isn't a sweet spicy; it’s a true spicy with a hint of sourness to it. The menu doesn't state it, but scallions are used. My sister is very picky (which is probably why she’s so tiny).

I also got my usual favorite – Bangkok Noodles. I always ask for mine without the chicken as well, and no bamboo shoots. You can try this with shrimp, and though I love shrimp, I am slightly allergic to shrimp, so I try to avoid them (eating too many shrimp cause my lips to swell). The sauce used in this noodle bowl is on the mild side and is very creamy. I think tofu and bamboo shoots make the entrée too bland. Also, the red curry sauce used is made of peanuts – heads up to those that have allergies

to peanuts.

Eating less and healthy things has trained me in a way that I sometimes am amazed at my new habits. Normally in the past whenever I had Bangkok Noodles, I would leave the veggies and would eat all the flat wheat noodles first. This time however, I picked on the yummy veggies first. I had a lot leftover, and so did my sister, but we basically go to Stir Crazy for their dessert!

Banana Wontons!! One of a kind dessert that no other dessert can come close to. Ever! Warm wontons, stuffed with bananas, covered in sugary cinnamon coupled with cool vanilla ice cream, drizzled with caramel – it’s simply out of this world! If nothing else, I definitely would recommend stopping in at Stir Crazy and having just the banana wontons and then walking around the mall to un-do some of the damage.  

There’s no holding me back while I treat myself to more yummy meals this week. Graduation is in less than 60 days, which means in the coming days (Sunday-ish most prbably) I will be back to eating clean. For now though, stay tuned to read about some more awesome So Flo restaurants this Desi Girl will embark upon.

Tandoor Pizza - Desi Pizza in So Flo

Mithai assortment

We Desis really enjoy our food. When a Desi Girl tries to lose weight, the biggest problem she may face is her undying love for food. We come from a part of the world where everything revolves around food! When a baby a born, instead of mailing out announcements, boxes of laddus (round ball shaped sweets make from flour and sugar) or mithai (traditional desi sweets made using sugar, milk, flour, sometimes coconut and various other ingredients) are distributed. A party is thrown and undoubtedly, yummy food is involved. Similarly, unfortunately when someone dies (yes, we are human, we die too you know) there are several events held in remembrance of the deceased, more times than not, food will be served. 

Since the beginning of this year, 2014, I have been trying really hard to lose weight. I have been eating clean, or at least have been trying. I've been avoiding fats, carbs, sugars, and starches. This past weekend, after 46 days of clean eating and being 15 pounds lighter, the husband and I decided I deserved a cheat meal and we should carryout food from somewhere. With the kids, going out to eat is a little difficult. Like most desis, we don’t use babysitters, we've heard so many stories that we’d rather not risk it. We have three girls and they are very close in age so leaving them with family to get some alone time is a preposterous thought. We wouldn't impose on anyone like that, at least not right now, maybe once the girls are a little older.

Sorry, this pic was taken from the car.

There’s a little restaurant, well it’s not so little anymore. They've recently remodeled and expanded, so they now have a nice seating area which is decent in size. Anyways, down in Sunrise, on Oakland Park, between University and Pine Island, there is a restaurant called Tandoor Pizza. We've eaten there a number of times. They have really good Philly Cheese-steaks and wings. They also sell fresh mithai, and other desi desserts.

I’ve become a pro at making Philly cheese-steaks and chicken wings. Making desi pizza though is a whole different story. Even if you buy the pre-made dough or the ready made crust, there’s something about eating fresh pizza from a restaurant that homemade pizza just can't be compare with. So we called and placed our order, and made the trip down south.

If you’re a desi and can handle spicy food, I definitely recommend eating at Tandoor Pizza. If you simply like to eat delicious food, I recommend the restaurant to you too. You can order a wide variety of pizza’s and your typical desi foods. What has me impressed is the fact that they have this chutney (sauce) that’s made using peppers, and I can only guess it might be jalapenos or green chilies, but they use it in their pizza sauce, and it gives their desi pizzas that kick of extra flaming spiciness which we desis love so much. If you can’t handle spicy food, you can ask them to make your food mild. I wouldn't recommend ordering extra hot, because chances are the food will be inedible (we've made that mistake once).

Halal Meat Lover's Pizza

This time we ordered a Meat Lover’s Pizza. The toppings include beef pepperoni, chicken tikka, and a variety of other meats. All the meat is HALAL, and they have a mammoth of a sign on the window stating that as well. The chef in the past was Muslim, I am not sure if that’s still the case. The 16-inch pie was definitely worth the $18! It had their spicy chili sauce and the meats were cooked just right, all in all it was delicious! There was cilantro and chopped onions on the pizza as well. It was unquestionably one of the better pizzas we've had!

Chapli Kebabs

We also ordered 1 order of Chapli Kebab. 1 order comes with 2 beef patties that have chopped onions, tomatoes, green chilies, coriander seeds all mixed in. It’s a rather flat kebab, hence the name Chapli, which literally means flat in Pashto (Pashto is spoken in Afghanistan and in Northern Pakistan). Not to be narcissistic, but I don’t come across Chapli Kebabs as good as the ones I make at home; by the way, I think I make great Chapli Kebabs because I’m half Pathan. Going back to the kebabs, the Chapli Kebabs at Tandoor Pizza were actually scrumptious! I was totally impressed. 

Another thing I absolutely loved about Tandoor Pizza was their naan. We desis are big bread fans, and finding good naan has become a task. Either the naan will be too flat, or it’s too dry; at some places the naan has been overcooked. I felt as though I was Goldilocks when I took a tiny bite of their naan – it was just right! In fact, I am pretty sure the next time we need to place an order for naan it will probably be from Tandoor Pizza.

Jalebis

Since Tandoor Pizza sells the traditional Desi desserts, when my husband went inside to pick up our order, he bought jalebi. Again, this is a very popular dessert with desis. It is basically a batter made of flour that is deep fried and then soaked in in a sugary syrup. Sometimes they are shaped like pretzels, or they are made in a circular pattern. Personally, I think they taste best when they are warm. My husband on the other hand likes his soaked in hot milk. Since I am trying to lose weight, I stayed away from the jalebis. My husband, well, he can eat whatever and never gain an ounce, so naturally, he ate this delectable all by himself, saving me from the extra calories that I didn't really need anyways.

So for now, my next cheat day, well it’s actually going to be a cheat week that I will be getting, won’t be until the end of this month. I will post about other restaurants in the South Florida area, so keep coming back for more. Until then, this Desi Girl will enjoy her lean proteins and yummy greens! 

Google Analytics

A couple of weeks ago, we were taught about installing Google analytics into our blog. For those that don’t know, this is a service which allows its users to get data regarding traffic and sources of traffic on a website. This service also provides statistics measuring conversions and sales. You can get a free basic version, or buy the premium service, all depending on your requirements. For our blogs, naturally we are using the free basic service. Here are some of the statistics for my South Florida Desi Lifestyle blog from Google Analytics.

From the screen shot to the above, you can see the sources of the traffic to my blog. I haven’t had anyone stumble across my blog through search engines, such as Google or Bing. The majority of my traffic came to the blog directly, 10 out of my 31 visitors, while the remaining all came from various referral sources such as Facebook and blogger.

From the next picture, found below, you can see the bounce rate on my page is 0%. The bounce rate is the number of the people that visit a site and leave without clicking on anything. Generally speaking, if I had visitors from search engines, there might've been a chance of having a bounce rate. Since currently I don’t have traffic from search engines that might be a reason why I have a zero bounce rate. The bounce rate is different than the exit page, which for my site is 31%. The exit rate is the percentage of visitors that also leave without clicking on anything else. Exit rate is slightly different than bounce rate because it just means that the user may possibly have visited another page on my blog, rather than clicking through the website and closing it.  

This picture (above) also shows that the average time spent on page was 1 minute 25 seconds. So some people might be looking at the blogs and scanning it for information or pictures they are interested in, while there might be some that actually read what I've written. However, if you look at the screen shot from above, you will notice that the average visitor is spending more than 3 minutes on the blog! All in all, it’s pretty interesting. 

The next few screen shots display the countries where my blog is being accessed from. Majority of my audience is from North America, while a few people in Pakistan have also visited my blog.

                                            

This picture (below on the right) shows that majority of my visitors are from Florida, which is a good thing since I am blogging about South Florida. Interesting enough, it can be seen that I also have readers in Illinois, Georgia, New York, and Virginia.

This next picture (below) shows there are 3 visitors from Pakistan. 1 visitor whose location can’t be pin pointed down to a city. The map is showing the northern region of Pakistan shaded in, but I am not sure what to think of that. I am not too sure if it’s shaded in because the region is somewhat disputed or if the reader comes from that location. Without trying to say much, this kind of worries me because this unknown location’s visitor has spent close to 9 minutes on each of my 6 pages, and I don’t really know anyone from the particular region that is shaded in. I will try to not over-think this situation, being the mellow-dramatic Desi Girl I am. Hopefully, my writing isn’t offending anyone in that region, or any region of the world, for that matter.  

 

From this last picture below, it can be seen that there were 20 unique visitors to the blog. Even though there were 100 page views, the 20 visitors are those users that access my blog from the same device, regardless of how many times they've viewed it. These 20 unique visitors to my blog can essentially be considered my audience. 

Google Analytics is a wonderful service! It should be used to learn more about a website's audience, and possibly will be able to help businesses to gain more audience and learn about their shortcomings. 

DIY Owl Valentine's Day Cards

I've always liked artsy and crafty projects; occasionally I attempt to take on a new project. Thanks to pintrest, youtube, and of course all the awesome blogs by DIY-ers out there, its pretty easy to take on almost any kind of arts and craft project. 

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, and 2 little kids in Preschool, I got very excited over the thought of making V-day cards at home. Of course for those that don't really have the time nor the patience, there are several generic boxed cards that can be bought. They are pre-printed and you just have to write your child's name on the from line and who it's to on the "to" line. 

Every year until about 3rd grade, decorating a card box, and writing cards out to classmates was about as fun as it got. In about third grade is when it started getting very weird with the pre-printed cards... What makes no sense to me, more now than ever before, is why there are cards printed for kids that have messages such "Be my valentine, Some bunny loves you, I'm Cuckoo for you, Bee mine..." Perhaps its the conservativeness that was passed down to me from my parents or maybe its just me, but personally, I'm not trying to teach my kids that there's a need to have a valentine or a "special friend." Friends are friends, and just that; I am however teaching my kids that they have to be nice and friendly with everyone, even kids that aren't nice to them. 

Some desis have a strict, say no to valentine's day rule. Religions don't necessarily have a "culture" per se, religions guide us. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with taking part of celebrations that are harmless. It's the duty of parents to teach their kids how to find a balance between what is allowed and what should be avoided. There is only so much sheltering that can be done. If kids are kept extremely sheltered, in my opinion it kills their personality. The child may also face a risk of having awkward social skills. Commercial holidays such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc are nothing more than an excuse of letting people know you care about them. Please, find a balance that you and your family are comfortable in. 

spoonful.com

Anyways, going back to making cards, after running several searches on my phone, ipad, and laptop, I finally decided on creating Owl cards, with pencils for the kids. There are lots of ideas out there. You can make flower cards with lollipops, or butterfly cards. You can even print out cards or order personalized cards. There are directions and templates available on blogs for making the cards of your choice. 

ithappensinablink.com

I went over to Michael's and bought some card paper, eyes, and valentine day themed pencils. The material can be bought from anywhere, including Walmart. The pencils can be bought from Dollar Tree or any dollar store, but since I was shopping with the baby and she wasn't a happy camper yesterday, I had to make a quick, one-store-stop, and Michael's is right around the corner from where we live.

Cut out

The first thing I did was cut out the owls from the card paper. Then I cut 2 lines about an inch apart in the center towards the bottom of the owl. I used the scraps to cut out leafy shaped noses. If your kids are old enough, maybe 1st or 2nd grade, I am sure your kids will be excited to help you put the owl cards together! Unfortunately mine aren't old enough to help yet. The excitement was still there though.

Next, I worked on one card at a time. For next year, I'm going to pre-print the messages onto some valentines themed labels and that will help me save some time. That way the kids will be able to help too. So, going back to my cards, I glued on the eyes, and the nose. Next, I wrote the messages out. Lastly, I slid a pencil through the slits that were on the card. I made a total of 38 cards.

My messages were limited to the following:

• Owl always be your friend!
• I'll owl-ways be your friend!
• I'll be your friend, owl-ways!

Finished product

Keep in mind, there are several other wordings you can choose from. I saw some owl cards with the following phrases, "You're a hoot," "Owl be your valentine," "Owl you need is love," "Whoo's my favorite valentine? You are!"  

I think desis are natural hoarders; at least I am. I don't necessarily think I need intervention, although I am sure there are some that feel otherwise. In any case, hoarding proved to be a good thing; I was able to re-use the boxes from my Holiday cards to pack up and send these hand-made valentines day cards to the teachers. 

Packed & ready to go!

I was up until 3:30 am getting these done and packed. The kids had to take them in early so the teachers can sort all the cards. I'm working on 4.5 hours of sleep. We again had a dinner party to go to last night. By the way, the blotched spots you see on the cards were put on using MS Paint. I didn't want to make my kids unique names public. Making the cards was a lot of fun. I am actually going to do more crafty projects, once the semester ends. For now, OWL this Desi Girl needs is some sleep!! 

Desi Girl and Hair Problems

Grass is always greener on the other side, whoever came up with this notion must've known a lot about how many people think. From as far back as I can remember, I've always thought the grass on the other side is much more greener. As a kid I always had long, thick, jet black hair. It was straight and all I wanted was to have brown (actually more like light brown) curly hair. As I was growing up I remember getting my hair chopped off and getting it layered. I even got highlights put in and my hair has never been the same since. 

Layers brought waves in my hair. I would grow it out and then chop it off color it lighter and lighter until I had blonde highlights. Then the trend of having silky straight hair came in. I've always liked being up with the latest trends, but on my terms. I would fly to New York and it would end up costing me a fraction of what it would cost to get my hair done in Boca. I would have the girl up there color and chemically straighten my hair. The processing only made the hair weaker and curlier. 

Finally I invested in a good straightener and vowed to never get my hair bleached or chemically straightened. Somehow though, every year maybe year and a half I would go get it colored, then let it grow out, and repeat this trend. Watching Bollywood movies and Pakistani and Indian drama serials I want to color my hair browns and ash blonde. After watching American movies and TV I want my hair to be dark again. 

Not to long ago, I posted about being classy the desi way. Similarly, about a year and a half ago, I discovered a a little place that has turned out to be the best salon in South Florida!! My stylist is Karen. She only works 2 days, Thursday's and Sunday's but if you're desi and want to get a cut, blow-dry, color, or highlights, I can't think of any place better than this salon! 

I had a few desi parties to go, in case you've forgotten we pretty much need an excuse to get together and eat. My hair was actually 3 different colors, and so as always Karen came to the rescue. I texted her and asked when would be good for her. I explained what had happened to my hair... I attempted to color it at home to make the ends darker, and the roots lighter. Let's just leave it at, if you're desi and cursed with dark hair that's been been double processed, unless you're a pro DON'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING AT HOME! 

Luckily for me, Karen was able to fix my hair, and unlike the various other salons I've been to in the past, let's just say a full head of highlights, double processed coloring, cut, blow dry, and a deep conditioning treatment cost less than what a full head of highlights would've cost. 

The Salon is located on Hillsboro and Powerline, in the Deerfield Mall. It's in the strip-mall that is located facing Hillsboro, slightly west of Powerline, on the south side. 

For now, the grass on my side is as green as it gets!!

Super Bowl or any Sunday – an excuse to get together and eat

          Similar to many other cultures, Desis need and want an excuse to get together and eat. Almost everything we do revolves around food. When an event is being thought of being hosted, after creating a guest list, the next thing to do is decide on the menu. Although I have never really been to a Super Bowl party that wasn't hosted by another fellow desi, I do have lots of friends that aren't desi, don’t get me wrong.

          While my non-desi friends watch the game for the game, most desis I know of will watch the game either because there’s nothing else on TV, for the halftime show, or for the commercials. Everyone loves Super Bowl commercials. There are those that follow the games and know what football is about, but there is a vast majority of us (meaning desis) that use football and Super Bowl Sunday as an excuse to have a get together.

          At a desi party, Super Bowl or not, you may find the typical chips of all sorts and various dips, you may also find a fruit and veggie platter, and maybe even pizza and wings. Depending on the host and guests, there may or may not be beer, but there will be Pepsi (or coke), lots of it. Another thing you may find is crunchy triangles stuffed with meat or veggies, these are samosas, and are usually deep fried. You may even find other desi snacks, such as the popular street food item, Chaat, which is a chickpea salad type of appetizer. Don’t be surprised if the table has colorful rice with chicken or beef and potatoes poking out, this is Biryani. Other entrees may be chicken Tikka – spicy grilled chicken, or some form of kababs. 

Samosa

Chickpea Salad - Desi Style

Chicken Biryani

Chicken Tikka

          You can be rest assured that if you are in fact going to a Desi’s residence for a party, you will most probably be able to smell the spices and the food from the driveway. You might even find various candles burning inside the house along with different types of plug in devices, and maybe even coffee beans being used for decoration to mask the smell. If you can smell it, chances are it is home cooked. Now excuse me while I go run for the next hour, being Desi and staying in shape is a lot more work than you’d think. 

Classy and fabulous the Desi way

In the words of Coco Chanel, “A girl should be two things, classy and fabulous.” Our society has given different connotations to both classy and fabulous, but there are certain things that most women do to look and feel fabulous, and the most common thing would be getting their eyebrows to look nice and getting facials. While some women tweeze, others might be getting the hair in their eyebrows yanked out – waxing that is, to get them to look a certain way. Some people have thick eyebrows while others like myself have thin and light brows. The latest trend in getting the eyebrows a perfect shape is to get them threaded, which is a very typical way of grooming for desis.

This beautiful eye ISN'T mine. 

Growing up in South Florida there were very few desis and so the route to get rid of a unibrow meant getting waxed. Along with our naturally tanned skin, desi are blessed, (sometimes it feels like a curse though) with thick black hair. Waxing and sometimes bleaching is another technique used to look and feel fabulous; most girls don’t like having facial hair. It feels as though desi skin is also very different, and maybe because of our diet, we tend to be prone to breakouts.

In Boca, eyebrows can be threaded at a lot of different places. However, the price varies drastically. Although a few ladies have been offering threading and facial services out of their homes, I’d much rather pay a few dollars more at a salon. But a few dollars is a couple of dollars, not twice the amount! There are a few salon’s that want to charge $18+ just to thread eyebrows, waxing will end up costing an additional arm and a leg; and most salons don’t know or don’t recommend bleaching facial hair. My personal experience with the overpriced “spa’s” has also not been the best. Either the wax will make me breakout, or the person threading clearly has no idea what they are doing and I end up with droopy eyebrows! Not to mention how painful a facial ends up being. 

Various eyebrow styles.

Some years back I was told by a friend about a new salon, Preeti’s Salon which is located on Palmetto slightly west of Powerline next to Pei Wei. The owner is from India. The prices are amazing, there are coupons on her website, and what I like the most is that Preeti, the owner, understands my skin very well. The salon offers your typical mani pedi and various other services offered by the classic salons and spas. I recently decided my skin and I needed some pampering, so I booked an appointment for a facial.

I went in a few minutes early, and naturally the girls working knew me and said Preeti would be in shortly. Preeti came in and the first thing she did was thread my eyebrows. She knows I prefer to wax my upper lip and chin so she told me that would be done after the facial. Then we went to the facial room and it was a cute small room. I was given a towel wrap type of thing to wear. There was a CD player in the room and music that was played was very relaxing. I almost wanted to fall asleep. The products she used smelled nice, some smelled fruity others smelled minty. My face was bleached, and so that helped to hide the dark facial hair. I really thought my face would need to be waxed afterwards but that was not the case. During the facial, my arms, legs, feet, head, and shoulders were all massaged! This was the best kind of pampering a girl can get!

At the end, my skin was literally glowing! Preeti managed to rid my nose of all the blackheads as well. I've had facials in the past from various other salons and spas in the area, and always regretted it. I would always breakout more after my facials. This was not the case at Preeti’s Salon; the herbal facial was awesome! It was a very painless process, which resulted in incredibly clean glowing radiant skin! It took another desi girl to get this Desi Girl’s skin to look fabulous and feel classy!