BBQ Weekend with an Arab family

Asalam waliykum, 

Had a wonderful BBQ the last weekend before Ramadan, with all the family. Alhamdulillah got to see most of my family, beautiful hot weather and lots and lots of jokes and laughter. Alhamdulillah, we had an opportunity to spend such an enjoyable day together and I thank Allah for those few days a year we can all get together, now we are all off married and living far away from our parents, these occasions are rare.
I just wanted to share with you guys the lovely day I had. I know many people are having BBQ for Iftar and I think that is such a good idea. 

***Warning lots of photos of food*** You have been warned. 

Th food was the best bit for everyone of course, fresh, healthy and delicious. Mashallah my mother, and khelty (aunty) are both extremely talented. Allah bless their hands, and bless them for feeding us with such amazing food and taken all day to prepare us these delight, ameen. 

Meat 100% Halal, Fresh and tasty, that was the best beef burgers, ribs and Chicken wings I have had in such a long time. Home marinated with secret family mix. 
Loved the King prawns and veg skewers!  Also had some Fil-fil, (Sweet pepper cooked salad) Moroccan veg mix that is a little bit similar to ratatouille. Another cooked salad with Aubergine (Baitengel in arabic) with garlic, olive oil and seasoning. 

Great refreshing cool salad, need to have some sort of healthy balance to the meal, can't be all meat. 

Now onto the lovely desserts prepared and made from scratch by my Khelty/Aunty H.
First up Ice cream... No! In actual fact these are filled with a cupcake, and topped with toffee butter cream and caramel syrup. Was amazingly rich and delicious, sweet and yummy. 

She made an even bigger Oreo, fruit cheesecake. Look at all the fresh raspberries and blueberries!  

The last dessert Khelty made, homemade French Fancies. These were by far my favorite dessert for the evening, and they taste 100% better then Mr kiplings. I find the shop ones to be too sweet, sickly and buttery. Whereas, these had a nice light sponge, and a slight sweetness. So you could have about 3-4! 

After the main meal Moroccans like to sip on some refreshing Atay/ Moroccan tea made with fresh mint leaves and sugar. You can get different varieties of Atay in Morocco. In the south and central Morocco the tea is more strong and extremely bitter. In the east of Morocco, like Oujda the Tea is lighter, refreshing and sweet. It is tradition to have Tea at least twice a day. Morning, at breakfast time and in the afternoon. When we have guests over we serve it after the meal with some sweet desserts and other types of snacks like nuts, seeds, olives, honey and the Moroccan breads like Khbouz, Mafrouk and Khringal (Similar to pancake). 

This is the colour we have it in most parts of Oujda, it is light and refreshing and not too sweet.
In Sha Allah will be doing a separate blog post on Atay and different ways to make it. 

Everyone enjoyed the Atay and desserts, we also had cake pops but I forgot to take any snaps of them. Huge slices of cheesecake so was hard to finish them, so good but yet too big to finish. Was a real struggle I can tell you that. 

And finally me! Well this is as close as you will get to seeing me on my blog that is. The hat was a joke, you would have had to have been their to understand. Tehehehe... inside joke. 

Arab gatherings are loud, noisy, fun and a real treat. There are so many conversations going on, lots of jokes and pranks. I really had a wonderful time and pray Allah brings us back together soon. If you ever go to an Arab gathering/ Meal you will be in for a shock, and may need to bring some ear plugs. I swear all the neighbors down the street thought we were having a wedding in our house from the amount of noise we made.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post, and seeing all the photos. Alhamdulillah, slowly getting better with my photography.

Jazakallah khier

Wasalam -x-