Special Ten Days Start Today!!!

The big holiday, Eid Ul Adha, is coming up on Sunday, November 6, insha'Allah.  This is the Eid of sacrifice, and it falls at the same time millions of people are performing Hajj in Makkah.  And by sacrifice, I mean it marks the braveness and piousness of Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, who was willing to sacrifice his son Ismail because that is what Allah ordered him to do.  In the end, Allah sent a ram to be sacrificed instead, and it is part of the Eid to sacrifice an animal and distribute its meat to those who need it, to friends, and to keep some for yourself.   The other Eid we have during the year is the one that follows Ramadan. 

What's really neat to me is that this Eid falls on the 10th day of the Islamic month called Dhul Hijjah, and that the first ten days of Dhul Hijjah are the most blessed days of the year in the sight of Allah.  Not all days of the year are equal, and these days are a special time to dedicate to doing good deeds, increasing worship, and even fasting.  Just silently glrorifying the Creator while you work, asking for forgiveness, and asking for His guidance are ways to increase your worship.  The kids and I made a list where I asked them to think of examples of good deeds we could do during this time.  I was thinking of random acts of kindness, for example, if we're out somewhere like complimenting a check out clerk, smiling at someone, or paying for someone's coffee if I were to go to a coffee shop anymore...  One of the kids listed 'watching your tongue' and 'smiling'.  So to keep  up this good mood and feeling of joy for doing a good thing, I strung up our colorful Eid lights one of the archways downstairs and hope to get another one up tomorrow.  The string of lights blew a strip and 1/3 of them don't light up anymore.  Good thing all the Christmas decorations are out in full force; it's easy to find what I need!  We'll also plan what goodies we'll bake for Eid and what plans insha'Allah we can make. 

Please forgive me if I've offended any of you all, and I pray that my fellow Muslims have a great ten days and a great Eid.

Here's a link http://ummabdulbasir.wordpress.com/category/hajj-activities/ to a fun Lapbook you can make with your kids about Hajj.  It's for younger ones, I think (with the numbers, colors, and animals) but we just added a few things to make it a little more advanced for my 4th and 5th graders like making them write the Arabic names alongside the English ones hehehe.  This is the first lapbook I've ever attempted, and so far it's working out how I had hoped it would.  We're reading a book that talks about Hajj and doing this project for our Islamic Studies for two weeks leading up to Eid.  It's fun and I think the information is sinking in more than it has in the past.

Been in the kitchen tonight

Sometimes I wonder where that strong drive comes from; the one to just get myself busy in the kitchen and bake and bake and bake.  I do love it, but I HATE THE CLEANUP!!!!  Not only are there the baking utensils, bowls, mixers, pans, and other paraphenalia, but the regular family dishes continue to stream in as well as they did during dinner time tonight.  Grrr.... can't they all just vacate the building while I feel like baking?

I don't always have time in afternoons to bake (and my mornings are busy homeschooling), so I often wind up starting projects in the late evening.  Perfect for using up every last bit of energy I might have, having it run out exactly as I face a sink full of yet another round of hand-wash dishes (inevitably around 9pm).  Right, well I'm not here to complain, so I'll post a recipe of some Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins we're all loving around here at the moment.  I casually pass by the cute little "pie pumpkins" at the store, but I can't bring myself to bring one home to prepare for pie or muffins. I totally don't mind using Libby's canned pumpkin, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing out on.   These muffins really taste so much like a pumpkin pie (which I love), just in the form of a muffin.  This is the third time I make them in a month.  What I love is that this recipe makes about 18 muffins, so we dont' wipe them out all at once, and if I double the recipe I can freeze a ton for snacks another day.  Here is the recipe:
PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS
1/2 c butter or margarine, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 c canned pumpkin (without spice)
2 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl. Add eggs, stir until smooth. Stir in pumpkin. In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Stir to m ix. Pour into mixing bowl; stir until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon into greased or paper-lined muffin cups until three-fourths full. Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures right now.  They come up just perfect each time, though.  I bake mine a full 25 minutes, if not a few minutes more.

The other thing I baked was a cookie we call Snowballs.  They're also popularly known as Mexican Wedding Cookies, but my mom's husband has made these every year at Christmas time and calls them Snowballs, so I call them Snowballs, too.  I'll be sharing most of those cookies with some friends to whom I've promised some homemade goodies, and now that it's not 110 degrees all over the South I feel comfortable putting food in the mail! 

And now I'm craving peanut butter, so I think my next goody will have to be a new experiment of brownies with peanut butter... yummmmm.

(these are not my cookies, but yum)

Getting Friendly With My CrockPot

I've been trying to get better at using my crock pot, but not many of the recipes fit into our eating style whether it be because of health or taste.  (was that grammatically correct?)  What I mean is most of them involve opening and dumping copious amounts of canned foods into the cooker.  I'm not totally against said canned foods, but the overuse of the cream of fill-in-the-blank soups and blocks of velveeta have me turning pages in disgust.  I had to laugh when a recipe for Chicken Alfredo called for chicken and a few cans of cream of mushroom soup.  Ya... I don't think so!! 

I checked out Fix-It and Forget-It, 5-ingredient favorites by Phyllis Good from the library to give me some ideas on how to get going.  The book was pleasing and easy to look at.  She lists the recipes in columns with only 3 to a page.  The big font and occasional tips make it feel very easy peasy to do.  And easy it is.  During our breakfast time yesterday, while some kids ate and others finished up their morning routine, I boiled a box of small pasta just a few minutes, drained it, and put it in the crock pot.  To that I added 2 cups of milk, half a stick of butter, and a good couple of handfuls of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  Oh yeah, I learned that you have to add flavor to a lot of crock pot recipes, so I finely chopped up half an onion and threw that in along with some crushed black pepeer.  (The original recipe called for a can of cheddar cheese soup, so I just didn't use it at all, put plenty of cheese and milk)  It was ready in less than 2 hours, which was great for us to eat before we headed to the library for a couple of hours. 

Today, with the leftovers, I added half a can of tuna and warmed it up for the kids.. they loved it! 

I also decided to work mom's chicken stew recipe into a crockpot one.  I started all the 'stew' parts in the cooker (tomoates, sauce, potatoes, and onions) while I cooked the chicken in the presure cooker.   We were in school for the following two hours, but by lunchtime the chicken was cool enough to debone and pop into the crockpot.  By then the tomotoes had gotten a good two hour lead time  into cooking which is always yummy for tomatoes.  It was delicious, and I plan on doing that again.

I'm getting hungry talking about this food and thinking ahead to the lazy lasagne and to the mexican food I can cook in there!  Let me know if you have any favorites.

Personal note

I can't seem to blog about anything recently.  I feel like it's a silly waste, this blog.  What is the point. I start to think of things to blog about, but I often delete it and close the laptop without posting.  I just don't see the point in blogging about our details of where we went, what our schedule of homeschool is, and whatever else I did.  Maybe that's because my blog isn't focused on one particular topic, so I find it irrelevant to post about just anything and everything.  I might not post for a while. I just thought I'd put that out there since that's what I'm feeling.  Sometimes I'd like to post our schedule, our struggles, our good times, and so on, but once I get it typed out it just seems a little frivolous. 

If you have any feedback I'd be happy to hear it.  See y'all later!