Ramadan Ideas

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Has it really been 7 months since the last post? Wow. First, let me apologize for being out of touch. Technical difficulties on my end kept me from posting. And here we are on the verge of Ramadan which means you won't see much activity here (as has been the case in previous years). But I would like to sincerely thank avid readers who continued to read and review recipes. Your support and feedback makes it all worth it!

Though I don't have any new recipes for you today, I thought a quick Ramadan Meals Guide could be helpful to those of us who haven't prepped any food for the upcoming months (guilty myself!).

Suhoor 

This is the pre-dawn meal eaten before the rays of the sun have appeared. Though you may have to wake up at a seemingly crazy time of night to eat this meal, whatever you do, DO NOT SKIP IT! It is reported that the Messenger of Allah said: "Eat Suhoor, for there are blessings in it." [al-Bukhari and Muslim]  and "The distinction between our fasting and the fasting of the people of the book [Jews and Christians] is the taking of Suhoor". [Muslim].  First and foremost you do not want to miss out on the blessings of this meal and secondly, since most of the world will be observing 15 + hours of fasting, it is important to eat a high-fiber meal that will keep you fuller longer.

Oatmeal Maple Biscuits

Triple Chocolate Muffins

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Muffins
























Egg-Filled Toast




















Fruit Pizza




















Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Muffins

Iftaar

The meal eaten at the time the fast is "broken" or has ended. This is signaled by the setting of the disk of of the sun, or when the adhan of Maghrib is made.

Traditionally small snacks are eaten at this time, followed by a larger meal after the prayer. Here are some ideas for quick bites during iftaar.


Spinach Bhajiyah

Spicy Popcorn Chicken




















Pumpkin Donut Holes

 Kibbeh

Mini Pizzas

 Jalapeno Poppers

Mini Jalapeno Cornbread Muffins

Soft Pretzels 




















Spinach and Feta filled Pastry

Vada




















Spinach Spirals

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Peanut butter and chocolate. Need I say anymore? I think we all agree they go together beautifully. It's also the easiest option to turn to when PBJ's are the food of the month in your house and cupboards are full of peanut butter jars.

These come together quickly and easily. They make for a fun weekend breakfast addition or are rich enough to stand alone as a weeknight dessert. They store beautifully, making them ideal for lunch boxes or a midnight snack...whatever floats your boat.

But whatever you do or whenever you eat them, they are screaming for a glass of cold milk by their side. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar (light or dark)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk at room temperature (I use 2 %)
2/3 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola is my preference)
1 large egg at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips (feel free to use milk chocolate)

 Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350º

2, Lightly grease a 24 count mini-muffin pan or 12 count regular size muffin pan. Alternatively, you can use muffin liners.

3. In a bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

4. In another bowl, stir together milk, peanut butter, oil, egg and vanilla extract until blended. 

5.Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add liquid ingredients and stir just to combine. 
Add the chocolate chips.

6.Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into middle of muffin comes out clean. Place muffin tin on wire rack and cool for five minutes before removing muffins. Serve warm or cool completely and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Another Freezer Cooking Session

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

I have been loving this new approach to cooking, alhamdulillah. It especially came in handy when some out-of-town guests stopped by for a while. I know I'm behind with posting my weekly submissions to my freezer, but here's what I did right before my guests arrived.

I actually split up the cooking over a couple days. I just couldn't dedicate the time I wanted to cooking all in one shot, so I did about an hour of cooking on each day and had several meals to put away in the freezer by the end. Freezer cooking is about convenience, so just do what works for you!


Day 1 Plan:
1. 2 batches of pizza dough
2. prepare veggies for fajitas and pizza



To get things going, I began by activating my yeast for the pizza dough. 

While that set and got all nice and bubbly, I chopped up and divided a whole bunch of veggies for fajitas and pizza for the upcoming week. Diced bell peppers freeze beautifully!

Done for the day. Simple, but will really pay off later in the week insha'Allah.

Day 2 Plan:
1. Breaksticks
2. whole wheat pasta
3. break fast burritos


I started off by getting a big ol' pot of water boiling for the pasta.I happened to make cinnamon rolls that morning, so while my water was boiling, I took a portion of that dough and rolled out some breaksticks.

 

My pasta was ready, I set it aside to cool down before dividing it up for the freezer. I started on cooking my scrambled eggs for breakfast burritos. 

This was the first time I ever attempted breakfast burritos and I wasn't sure my children would like them, so I went easy with the fillings and stuck to (canned) fire roasted tomatoes, scrambled eggs and cheese. But feel free to add beans, sausage and other veggies. 

Next up, I assembled the burritos and bagged and labeled all my food. 

So it took 2 days, but I ended up with a 2 batches of pizza dough, cooked pasta, bread sticks, a week's worth of breakfast burritos and prepped vegetables for two different dinners. Not too bad, alhamdulillah!

My First Freezer Cooking Day

Bismillahir Rahman Raheem

I know you can find some pretty fancy and complicated freezer cooking plans out there on the web, but like I sad last time, I just started with what I had on hand. Personally I like doing all this on the day I bring home meat from the halal store. I have to portion out the meat anyways so I might as well throw on some seasoning before I do it.

So here was my plan:

1. Shred 2 whole roasted, chickens
2. Cinnamon rolls
3. Hotdog roll-ups for kids' lunch
4. Hamburger patties (double batch)
5. prepare veggies for chicken fajitas


First I made the cinnamon rolls dough and put one batch in the oven to bake. I reserved a chunk of dough aside  and took the rest of the dough, rolled into cinnamon rolls, and placed on a baking sheet and stuck in the freezer to flash freeze .

Next up, I prepared my bell peppers and onions for fajitas later in the week. I also diced some onions to have on hand for any last minute meals in the week and also for my hamburger patties.

 

I started to shred up the chicken from my 2 whole chickens that I had roasted the night before for company. I divided it out into 1 cup portions and put into individual bags. All I have to do later in the week is saute my pre-cut onions and bell peppers, throw in the shredded chicken and my fajitas are done, insha'allah.

I used the reserved cinnamon roll dough to make hot dog roll-ups. Just rolled out some dough into circles, and placed a halved-chicken hot dog and some cheese in the middle and then rolled up. A quick 15 minutes in a 400 oven and it'll be a quick and fun lunch for the kids, insha'allah.

And last, I mixed up the hamburger mixture. I added in some diced onions, garlic, ginger, parsely and cajun seasoning. Shaped them up, popped in freezer for a flash freeze and they were ready to go.

 

So all in all, for my first ever freezer cooking session, I don't think it went too bad, alhamdulillah. I also boxed up and froze a batch of cholay I made that morning for brunch. So that was my loot last weekend and we enjoyed the week of warm,home made dinners with minimal work each week night. Let's see how this weekend goes insha'allah!

Freezer Cooking 101

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

image taken from 30daygourmet.com (this is NOT my freezer, hah!)

So what is freezer cooking? It's basically prepared and precooked homemade meals made in bulk and stored in your freezer to be taken out and defrosted or cooked through at a later date. Yes, I know, it sounds kinda...silly, right? At least thats what I used to think when I'd hear stories or see pictures like the one above. Since I've been married I never had a reason to precook anything and freeze it, so the idea never crossed my mind.

Then I had babies and I found in the kitchen around the clock, literally. But that was okay with me because I enjoyed it. So again, the idea of freezer cooking was not at all appealing to me. But then my babies grew up and my responsibilities and duties inside and outside the house changed. My schedule just wouldn't allow me to spend long, leisurely cooking sessions in the kitchen. Even though I want to cook and want to eat homemade food (not store bough, pre-packed frozen meals...eck!), I just couldn't find the time anymore to do much more than a quick meal here or there. All of a sudden freezer cooking sounded like the best thing since homemade sliced bread.

So I took a stab at it. There are so many online sources to tell how to plan, what to buy, how to store, what to cook and by all means, have a look, but for me I just took what I had on hand, cooked it and stuck it in the freezer. Some people cook enough to last a month (really!) or others enough for a week.I'm a once a week kinda of gal right now because I have a small freezer and really, one week of prepared food is more than enough help for me, alhamdulillah.

Some additional resources to help you get started:

Is Freezer Cooking Really Worth It?

Freezer Cooking: Learn As You Go

Freezer Meal Ideas

Explanations

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Ok first things first, a belated Eid Mubarak! I pray Allah accepts from us our deeds, ameen!

Moving on to the obvious: I've kinda been a no-show for a while, I know, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about the MWK! This site is actually very near and dear to my heart but as often happens, life gets in the way and before I know it, its been a month (or two!) since I've updated. Things have just gotten busier and it doesn't look like any of that will change in the near future, Allahu alim. So while I am learning how to adjust to this new hectic schedule of mine, I thought I'd bring y'all along for the ride!

I'm started playing around with the idea of freezer cooking and though I've only done it once, I've been happy with it so far. I've been following blogs that basically live by it and, to tell you the truth, was quite intimidated by the idea at first. But you can only eat take-out so many times and I actually do miss cooking, so I had no other choice but to embrace my freezer.

You'll see a new category to the right and insha'allah I'll keep y'all updated with the latest things to come out of my kitchen and freezer.

It's good to be back :)

Back!

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

So sorry for this long absences, but I'm here alhamdulillah! Please bare with me as I get some things in order and will be back to posting soon insha'allah.

I thought in the meantime I would open up the blog to some Q & A. So please send me your questions or comments about anything food related and I'll do my best to get an answer to you. Just leave it in the comments section or send me an email.