Om Ali .. history of an Egyptian dessert

The story of Om Ali
Om Ali ( Ali's mother )was the first wife of the Sultan Ezz El Din Aybek. In Egypt, women were not allowed to rule, but were permitted to be guardians to their sons who would become king when they came of age. When the sultan was killed by his second wife ( queen Shagareteldorr ),she had a dispute with Om Ali over whose son would be the successor to the Sultan. Shagareteldorr was heavily guarded making it difficult for Om Ali to get rid of her.

Om Ali hatched a plot bribing Shagareteldorr’s handmaids. While Shagareteldorr went to the hamam for a bath, she was beaten to death, by slippers, by her own handmaids! To celebrate her death, Om Ali made this dessert by mixing bread with milk and sugar and distributed it among the people of the land.

Om Ali recipe

Ingredients
1 (17.5 ounce) package frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped hazelnuts
1 cup raisins
1 cup flaked coconut
1 1/4 cups white sugar, divided
4 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2.Place the pastry sheets in the baking dish and place the dish in the oven. Watch it closely. When the top layer turns crunchy and golden, remove it from the

oven. Continue until all the sheets are cooked

3.Preheat the oven broiler.

4.In a bowl, combine walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, raisins, coconut and 1/4 cup sugar. Break cooked pastry into pieces and stir into nut mixture. Spread mixture evenly in 9x13 inch dish.

5.Bring milk and 1/2 cup sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Pour over nut mixture.

6.Beat the heavy cream with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread evenly over nut mixture in dish.

7.Place dessert under oven broiler until top is golden brown, about 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Extracted from more than one source

Cleopatra's milk and honey bath

Cleopatra is one of the most magnetic and seductive women of human history who knew how to care about her face and body beauty. Women are excited about Cleopatra's beauty for many centuries because she succeeded in winning the hearts of the most unapproachable and formidable men of that time.

There are many discussions about Cleopatra's beauty nowadays. We don't know for sure whether she was a real beauty in our opinion or not. But the ancient sources prove beauty of her skin and fresh complexion. At that time it was an urgent problem in Egypt where the baking sun and sand had a negative effect on skin. And you've got to hand it to Cleopatra, she left good recipes for us.
There are three Cleopatra's beauty secrets came to our days ' milk bath, beauty face masks and special fragrances.

Cleopatra's Milk and Honey Bath
Actually, the main beauty recipe of Cleopatra is her famous milk bath. To prepare a bath you should dissolve a small cup of honey in 1 litre of hot but not boiled milk and pour the mix into a bath. A bath temperature should be the same as body temperature that is 36-37 degrees. Take a bath for 10-15 minutes. Present followers of Cleopatra's beauty suggest substituting fresh milk for dried milk. I also tried to do it and got skin so soft!

You'll need:
- ½ cup of dried milk;
- ½ cup of liquid honey;
- 1 teaspoon of jojoba oil.

Mix the ingredients and add to a bath. Take a bath for 20 minutes. It's enough for all components to have a beneficial effect on skin.

But that's not the half of it. Speaking of Cleopatra's beauty it should be noticed that an effect of Cleopatra's bath was heightened by a scrub. Her servants mixed 300 gr. crumbled sea salt with a half a cup of rich cream and rubbed it into the queen's body. It's better to apply the scrub before bathing because it cleans your skin and opens pores for milk and honey.

Here is one more recipe I found recently. Taking a milk and honey bath put there an old nylon stocking or cotton cloth with some handful of oatmeal inside. At the end of bathing, rub yourself with oatmeal, wait for 5 minutes and rinse with warm water. I think Cleopatra would like this beauty recipe as it clears and nourishes skin making it smooth and silky.

Anyway, we can always afford a milk bath for hands even if we cannot fill a whole bath with milk. 1 litre of milk or less and 1 teaspoon of honey are enough and your hands skin will be extremely beautiful!

Extracted from EveBridge.com

The ancient Egyptian legend of Isis , and the secret name of Ra

The Legend of Ra, Isis, and the Snake

Ra, the chief god and sun god, has a secret name, which is the secret to his power. The goddess Isis (healing, childbirth, "throne") wants "to rule over the earth jointly with [Ra] . She thought she could get this power by learning Ra’s secret name. Ra was getting old, dribbling at the mouth and having "little or no control over his body." Isis took some earth and after adding some of Ra’s drool (which, naturally, dropped from the sky), she worked and kneaded the clay into the shape of a snake. Somehow, with her magic powers, she brought the snake to life and placed it in hiding by the path that Ra (as the sun) traveled every day.

Soon, Ra came along with his retinue of gods and servants. The serpent leaped out and bit Ra in the leg. Ra began to feel woozy right away, feeling his "vital power" leaving him. As the serpent’s poison flowed through his veins, Ra screamed in pain. All the gods gathered round him, asking what was the matter. However, Ra was in the grip of the poison, and could not tell them what had happened—his teeth rattled and his limbs shook, "for the poison had flooded all his members, just as the Nile during the Inundation floods all of the land of Egypt.

When Ra finally does manage to speak, he says that he has been wounded "by some deadly thing which he did not see or make, and he asks who would do such a thing to him. He says, "I have never suffered pain such as this before." Then he talks about what a mighty god he is and how many wonderful and powerful names he has. His real, secret name, however, "was hidden inside my body by my begetter so that the words of power of those who would work magic upon me might not obtain dominion over me. He then talks about his pain again and asks the gods to help cure him with spells.

All the gods try, but only Isis seems to have a clue as to the nature of this disease. She says immediately that Ra has obviously been poisoned by a serpent, and moreover, that she can cure him with her "efficacious words of power. Ra again complains about shaking and feeling chilled ("colder than water") and feverish ("hotter than fire"). Isis says, "Tell me thy name, O divine father, for the person liveth who repeateth thy name

However, instead of telling his name, Ra boasts of his creation of the earth and mountains and of his power to make the Nile rise. He tells Isis some of his other names--"I am Khepera in the morning, Ra at noon-day, and Temu in the evening but he will not surrender his secret name.

Isis is not fooled by these well-known names, and she asks again for the secret name. Since he is so ill, Ra finally says, "I will allow myself to be searched through by Isis, and will let my name come out from my body and pass into her body . Ra hides himself from the other gods, and Isis, assisted by her son Horus, performs the name operation in some unspecified manner. She then utters a magic spell ("Discharge thyself, O poison" etc.), curing him with her words of power.

Extracted from Yahoo answers