Kitchen happenings and Meal Plan

Assalamu alaikom, hey everyone!

As usual I've spent a big part of Sunday in the kitchen.  It's kind of my thing.  I like to get a lot of prep work done for the week, and I try to make stuff I can put in the freezer whether it's muffins, sauces, or soups.  It really helps ease the stress during the week, and alhamdullah, I like having homemade foods available over needing to eat out or to buy packaged food.

Today I planned the main meals for the next few days, and I managed to get a huge pot of spaghetti sauce simmered and divided into two bags for the freezer.  I plan to use some of that for a lasagne next week. 

Using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method, I've baked four loaves of whole wheat bread and frozen two (boy, we can eat through a whole loaf fast here at breakfast).  I'm trying a new recipe using flaxseed with whole wheat, so I'm excited to see how it goes over. It's so much healthier than baking bread with plain white bread. 

I also tried out a tomato basil soup that is the La Madeleine recipe.  Yum.  We'll have some of that leftover for the next day, maybe two.  So.... the rough plan for the week:

Monday:  Salad, Brussels sprouts, roasted leg of lamb, roasted fingerling potatoes
Tuesday: leftovers hopefully
Wednesday: Salad, lasagne, homemade bread
Thursday: leftovers
Friday:  Shakrieh (rice, cooked yogurt with stewed beef cubes)

Lunches:
Tuna
Pasta
Homemade pizza
Fish Sticks

Have a great week everyone! We had a whole week off last week and enjoyed every minute of it, alhamdulillaah.  Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things (well, sorta)!
From a recent trip to the Dallas Arboretum:

fresh air and love

Assalamu alaikom and hello everyone,

A few years ago when I lived in WA state, a dear sister in Islam who used to lead our Friday night ladies' group would joke about the classic 'what's for dinner' dilema we all faced daily.  One time she joked about telling her husband something like "and what do you think we're going to have for dinner, fresh air and love?".  It cracked me up so much back then and I still chuckle when I remember our conversation. It was just funny how she said it.

Well, if fresh air and love is all it took to survive, then I could've made it all last week without breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  My family and I left our little home tucked in the concrete jungle here in TX and headed to visit my mom in her small town in Mississippi.  I prepped for a day or two getting laundry ready, tidying up the house, and sorting through the food in the fridge.  I lined up what we were going to take to Mom, did last minute shopping, and packed up the kids' clothes, shoes, jackets, and car activities (you should look at http://www.momsminivan.com/ if you ever go on a car trip with kids by the way).

What welcomed us in Oxford, MS, were sounds and sights of nature that I don't see where I live.  Large, old trees are scattered here and there.  Masha'Allah, birds actually sing and make noises often.  Homes have different types of flowering shrubberies and other types of plants around the property, and not in little manicured designs like at our houses here.  Because the town in small, we walked to many of our errands and appointments.  In doing that we'd run into friends and people we knew.  We spoke to other people who were also walking around.  What a nice feeling!  One day we walked through a wooded area for about an hour, and I was so happy breathing in fresh air, rustling the leaves that had already fallen, and walking with my kids in an area where all we could see were trees.

We picked pecans off the ground.  A large pecan tree behind my mom's house sure was giving us a lot of nuts this year.  My kids kept running outside to collect what new ones had fallen at least twice a day.  We filled up a rather large bowl (more like a vat) full.  The best part was cracking those pecans with the nutcracker that my late grandfather used at his home.  My mom has it, and it is mounted on a plank of wood. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I don't have one right now.  I only took one picture of my son using it, so that'll have to do to give you an idea.

Since we passed through Memphis on our way, I decided to spend the night there and take a little sightseeing boat tour on the Mississippi River the following day.  The tour was about an hour and a half and we learned all about barges, tows, and life on the river in general.  It was really neat.

Back in Oxford, MS, though we shared a great week with my mom and her husband not only outdoors but inside the house as well.  My children played with many treasures they found in the basement (in treasure boxes as they called the old trunks stored down there).  They baked with their grandmother, played cards with each other, and watched football with Dave.  We had a relaxing week, alhamdulillaah, all praise to God.  It felt like a relief after some long weeks of feeling closed in. 

Crispy Kale!

I'm sure you've heard about how good kale is supposed to be for us with its calcium and super nutrients.  It's not a leaf I buy.  It's very thick and curly.  I'm just scared of it, to be honest.  I haven't seen it used in a recipe where I've thought it would be something we'd eat.  Until now.

I was watching the show Parenthood last week, and it was in the show twice!  Kale was in the show two times.  I grabbed one bunch at the store yesterday, and I fixed 'em up nice and crispy just a little while ago.  So so good.  I'll definitely make it again, insha'Allah.

Here's a pretty straight forward recipe from allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/baked-kale-chips/detail.aspx

Try it out! Tip: you don't need too much oil or too much salt!! Yikes.  A little goes a long way.

Hajj Lapbook

Assalamu alaikom everyone,

Note: Eid ul Adha is in two days, Hajj starts today, and we've been working on this project for two weeks.  I know it won't be very useful for any Muslim families right now, but hopefully it will give you some ideas for next Eid. 

In the Land of Homeschool there is something called Lapbooking.  I had never heard of it before I started homeschooling, and it took quite a bit of clicking around for me to understand what it is.  Once I figured it out, I figured it wasn't anything I'd be doing often.  See, it's a super creative and labor intensive project involving cutting, pasting, coloring, and folding.  You create a large lapbook (usually made out of two manila folders pasted together) that has smaller flipbooks, pockets, accordian books, and other media inside of it to represent a whole unit, book, or topic.  You take your time building the little parts (by reading and learning about them), and finally you have a keepsake of everything you've learned. 

My beef with the lapbook is that it looks like a project that older elementary kids wouldn't enjoy, but the work necessary to produce one is too advanced for a young elementary student to do independently.  Enter Mom. 

Well, a few weeks ago I was cruising the net, looking to some of my favorite bloggers for a good way to make a unit for Hajj and Eid.  Wouldn't ya know, it was a lapbook that really drew my attention.  I decided to go for it mostly b/c I wanted something fun and that would hold their attention continually for two weeks on this subject.  We read from a book I have on Hajj that bought a couple of years ago.  We also spent time talking about the little aspects that are represented in the lapbook.  Some of them were really easy for my 4th and 5th graders.  There were sections about the Animals for Slaughter and the Colors of Hajj.  Not exciting for the older kids, but I had them write the names of the animals and the names of the colors in Arabic on the cut-out cards.  We also added a few little speech bubbles with writing in Arabic for "Allahu Akbar", "SubhanAllah", "Alhamdulillaah", and "La Ilaaha Il Allah".  That was good practice for them, and it was something they could paste on their book.

I got all the help from http://imanshomeschool.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/hajj-mini-lapbook/ and from the original source: http://ummabdulbasir.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/hajj-lapbook-updated/

Here are the finished products from my three.

You can kind of tell which one belongs to the boy, which one belongs to the youngest one, and which one is made from the artistic child!  For a first attempt, I'm happy with the outcomes.  The ones on the links above my pictures look much nicer, but that's ok with me :D  I'm just glad we got it done.

Happy Eid!