This is part three of the year end manifestation of the life of my blog.

My blog this year won so many awards, that I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count them! NOT!! (Didn’t I sound cheesy and dorky like the rest of the bloggers out there?) But yes, my blog won a lot of invisible mind boggling awards. I won people’s readerships. That’s the biggest award I can get as a blogger. I don’t care about best blog, or best writer, or best anything. Who cares? It’s like winning a virtual banner to advertise someone else’s bright idea that started the campaign.

Really, if the prize was money based, then people will be all over it! I would be so all over it!

So, I am gonna list the top blog posts this year by comments, my favorites, and ones that I should have never published, but found their way online cause of my insomnia or excessive amounts of coffee!

Top Blog Posts 2009 | Comments & Reactions

1. April 28, 2009 | It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a conspiracy theory!
2. June 7, 2009 | The Arab Blogorette
3. June 16, 2009 | I think it is time for change!
4. August 25, 2009 | Why are Muslims turning Atheists?
5. August 30, 2009 | Analysis: It is much harder to get rid of her
6. September 7, 2009 | Arabs marrying non-Arabs
7. September 18, 2009 | Window shopping for a bride
8. October 27, 2009 | Symbols of being different

Top Blog Posts 2009 | Monaism & Love

1. January 15, 2009 | Are good people always the victims of life?
2. March 31, 2009 | How accurate is this?
3. April 20, 2009 | Airports think I am a perv!
4. May 21, 2009 | A way to relieve stress
5. July 15, 2009 | Teaching a child the basics of the internet world
6. September 6, 2009 | No Comment
7. September 24, 2009 | I am sick and tired of looking for work!!! NO MORE!
8. December 4, 2009 | The typicals
9. December 26, 2009 | I am the master of my choices

Top Blog Pots 2009 | Those That Should Have Never Been

1. January 28, 2009 | The blogging world is run by monkeys
2. May 4, 2009 | I thought I held the title of taking things too seriously
3. June 20, 2009 | The media has been following me for over two decades
4. September 26, 2009 | I don’t like talking about sex in public

For the past week, people have been lecturing me about my new eating habits. My non carnivorous ways are blasphemous! Why does it matter to you what I eat LISA! AND OTHERS! I don’t care about nutritional facts LISA! AND OTHERS! I am content with my eating habits. I do not want to eat bloody meat again! I eat shrimp though, but it is a crustacean and it has no blood, and it tastes AWESOME!

Down with meat! Down with meat! Save the trees, oops, I meant animals. lol Jeez, wrong campaign there. I make my self laugh sometimes. Har har har!

Dude.. the past 2 weeks all we have been getting is food entrees from my mom’s friends. It’s not like we don’t cook at all in our house. We cook daily, and we cook well! It’s like a competition those women are doing to see who feeds us better. They think we can’t cook or we are bringing take out food every day. I just find it hilarious. One of my mom’s Syrian friends sends us an entire meal. Salad, entree, dessert. My dad keeps saying, what are we going to give back this time? Last time he filled the plates with fruits. LOTS of fruits and desserts.

We just have too much food, and I am obligated to eat it. So far I am categorizing the food from yummy to non-edible.

The ladies bring the food, and say, “this is for Mona!” Not everyone in the house, BUT MONA!

Why can’t it be for dad, or my brother. Why me?

I thank them with all my heart, but seriously MISH MA2TO3EEN! (I don’t know how to translate it from Arabic, but Arabs know what I mean.)

Not only that, they call the house and specifically ask for me. When Arabic ladies talk to me on the phone I hesitate and I forget how to speak Arabic. All I end up saying, Inshallah (In God’s Will). El-7amdulla (Thank God). Shokran (Thank you). They ask me numerous questions such as: are you ok? Do you need anything? Is the food we are sending good? Are you guys eating it all?

And I say repeatedly, na3am na3am na3am (yes). Shokran. El-7amdulla.

In conclusion. I can’t speak Arabic well and I want my mother back. No one beats mom’s Falafel and Grape Leaves!

I am watching the Food Network and they had this clip from a diner called the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento that serves extreme cheese burgers. LOOK at the cheese!

I donno if I would enjoy the meat at all with all that CHEDDAR CHEESE!

Here is a video of how it is made.

My friend told me of this recipe for tea. She said, “no need to keep going to Starbucks, we can make our own specialty tea.”

I said, “sure…”

She gave me the recipe.

Lipton’s French Vanilla Black Tea, one spoon brown sugar and one spoon evaporated milk. Whip cream if you have any.

Oh my god! That’s the most addictive combination on earth! I can’t stop drinking it! I quit drinking coffee cause of her! She is the food devil!

I decided to make dinner, and I wanted to go all exotic. I love oriental food because of all the spices and great taste. I was looking up recipes of onion bahji’s, one of my favorite appetizers. I am a sucker when I go to Indian restaurants and I always want to get me some of those things. They are so addictive! It’s unbelievable. As I was browsing the net for recipes, I found a lot of videos as well of how to make those little suckers. I also found some interesting ones where potatoes are used. So I came up with a little nice mixture for the batter, and spiced it up more. I didn’t want to add cilantros or parsley. Too much work and I am lazy! I really hate chopping stuff. Onions were worst! I have super sensitive eyes when it comes to onions. So I remembered once that I read that chewing gum and chopping onions will not make you tear. AND IT WORKED! Wohoo. I chewed gum and diced those onions and I did not cry! GENIUS!

Recipe:

2 eggs beaten.

1.5 cups of white flour

1 tbs cayene pepper

1/4 tbs salt

pinch of black pepper

1/2 tbs cumin

1/2 ground coriander

1/2 tbs water

4 small potatoes

2 small onions

Mix the batter together and cover the potatoes and onions completely with the batter before frying. Make sure you fry the potatoes in small batches over medium heat. It takes about 12 – 15 min for raw potatoes to cook over medium heat. When frying the onions, it will only take 2 – 3 minutes to get golden brown. Onions cook a lot faster! Taste better too. My fav!

Dipping sauce:

1 tsp regular mustard

1 tbs mayanoise

3 or 4 drops of tobasco sauce

Chopped parsely

Chopped green onions for decoration

I am not a burger eater.. but lately all I have been eating is cheese burgers, and chicken burgers. Also onion rings.. yummm…. I donno why.. Maybe I am just craving the SANDWICH! This pic looks so good.. I am such a pig.. I just want a burger with onion rings.. lol

I didn’t have any sugar, so I came up with a solution!!

I need sugar to be happy and hyper! So I grabbed all the yummy cookies and my dad treats us like we are five and buys us candy.. So he got us cookies and cream filled pastries. Aaah. SUGAR! Yaaay!! And mom had made date cookies.. ooooh...

WE CAN’T FORGET COCA COLA!! SUGAR AND CAFFEINE. I know the caffeine is bad.. but I haven’t had any for days!!

So from now on … I will have sugar sugar and only sugar..

Tomorrow I will get fudge and cake!! I miss cake..yummmmmm.. SUGAR!!

I am now at work on my lunch brake and I decided to write for a bit while I am eating my spaghetti. It’s yummy and spicy! Anyways, my best friend is coming back from Jordan tomorrow. Yaaay. I am so excited. She was chatting with me and she suggested and actually told me, “We are going to all you can eat sushi! I am craving it!” I can’t resist the offer of course. I hadn’t had all you can eat sushi for over a month! My favourite obviously is Sashimi. So I decided to look up some sushi making videos on daily motion. They are quite amusing to watch… since eating sushi is fun, making is too!

Today I decided to cook! I wanted something healthy and cute. I love making small things that require a bit of work. It brings more joy in cooking. I didn’t like what was cooked today at my house. They made Moghrabeyeh (a well known Lebanese dish of something similar to couscous with a side of chicken and onion soup thing.) I am not a big fan so I barely ate it. So at the gym this morning the instructor was talking about ice cream and rice cakes for some odd reason. Then I thought, I have not had rice cakes in forever! So I went to the grocery store after to pick up some ingredients. I wanted to put a twist on it and make it more vegetarian. I am not a big fan of meat by the way. (I used to be a vegetarian for 6 months!) So this is the recipe that I came up with. It’s yummy!

1 cup short grain rice

3 or 4 Asparagus sticks

Sweet potato

Corn Meal

1 egg

Mozzarella Cheese for decoration

Muffin cooking sheet

Instruction: boil the rice in two cups water until fully cooked. Boil the asparagus and sweet potato and spice it up with salt and pepper. After everything is cooked, make a ball out of the rice and dip it in the whisked egg and then cover it with corn meal. I use corn meal instead of flour. I find it better and gives it that nice yellow color. So place the rice cakes in the cooking sheet one ball at a time. After you are done, place the boiled vegetables on the top and grade some cheese if you like on top of it. Cook it high on 400f for 10 minutes. That’s it! It taste good! hehehe.