Burj Dubai

Everyday I see this beautiful building reflected in my rearview mirror. Usually the sun has just risen and it's golden rays are bouncing off the gleaming windows. This building is the Burj Dubai (or Dubai Tower) and it rises almost half a mile above the city It now stands as the tallest building in the world and certainly most impressive to stand beside and look up at (maybe soon observation platforms will open!).

Today as I was driving home this structure loomed up from the other buildings definitely making a statement. The sky was a little hazy after the morning rain, but it made the skyline look so much more impressive. I have to give praise to such a human-made ediface. Remember when God struck down the Babylonians for creating such a tower? And here we are today, continuing that uncompleted feat of our forefathers, what an amazing time to live in!

Turkey Day

Well this Turkey Day was rather hard on us. Since the government declared a 10-day holiday for Eid and National Day our co-workers fled the country and we were left to create our own fun - which we did! As you can see we had a whole table full of yummy traditions to tackle!!!

I took the opportunity this year to make my own pumpkin pie from scratch. We had bought two pumpkins to carve for Halloween but we didn't get around to it and I thought it would be a waste to not do something with them. I did some internet research and found that it's fairly simple to bake the pumpkin and go from there. Most sites recommended not using the "Jack-o-Latern" because it's too stringy but I had no choice and here's what happened:

I cut the pumpkin in two and cut out the seeds, then I placed it on a flat pan with about 1/4 inch of water and cooked it on 350 for a little over an hour...
Once it was cooked and mushy I scooped out the shells and pureed the pumpkin as best I could without a blender (the internet was right, it was a bit stringy but seemed like it would work)...

I made a pie crust, but I always have a hard time rolling it out and placing it in the pan, but as you can see below I managed to make it work!

Here's the pie crust and the filling ready to be placed in the oven.

Cooking away!!!! Yummy!

The final cooked product - not too bad!

The Wandering Monkey, Pepe, seemed to love it. He couldn't keep his paws off of it!