*sigh*
Remember when last month the Daring Bakers made Lavash and I complained. I could’ve joined them. I actually made lavash from the same recipe that month.
Well guess what they baked this month!
See here!
Pizza.
From Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.
Yeah.
We all know what I have sitting in my freezer, right?
right?
In case you don’t know, let me refresh your memory:
And I still am not a Daring Baker.
*sob*
I promised ages ago to post a last post on Eid.
And of course I didn’t.
For almost a whole month I stood silent.
Well, a couple weeks ago I went to a Ladies Eid dinner (small group) where they also invited mom and her family to wish us a good hajj. They sang a couple qaseedas and I took the opportunity to leaf through the qaseeda book to find…tada! the song I tried to share with you earlier.
This is the song my grandfather used to sing every eid at every house.
It’s in urdu and if you want the translation, it’s here.
The food from this event can be found here and here.
Now maybe some of you are wondering if we did all the things we planned.
Well mostly.
I got to make my roasted red pepper couscous salad. You can read all about it at Chennette’s blog.
She took most of the pictures.
You can also see the lovely pictures of baklava she took that we timed with the arrival of our cousin and her new groom from the airport, thus delaying their sleep even longer.
It must be stated, our new cousin-in-law seems quite nice and Insha Allah they will be very happy.
And did we make the barfi for them? Yes!
We ordered chinese food for them when they were due back from Tobago and it was waiting and they enjoyed it immensely. It’s great to be back in Trinidad and find halaal food to eat…not just vegetarian and not just run by muslims but completely halaal chinese food.
And then later, we made barfi for my cousin so she could get it nice and warm. It was delicious. She stuffed some in her husband as he lay half-asleep.
I took pictures of the complete process and it’s deserving of its own post eventually but you can see the set here.
And I finally uploaded the pictures of my making the Cordon Rose Cream cheese cake.
Most Eid mornings, mom wakes up very early and starts the sawaine, frying stuff and maybe even cooking.
When I say early I mean the un-Godly hour of say 4am or before.
During Ramadan, when we’re fasting, 4am is *very* Godly however…not fasting…take a break please.
Thankfully, we didn’t wake up until Fajr time! (5:15am)
So, she didn’t wake up looooooooooong before me and I was able to come downstairs and help or be sous-chef.
Here follows the extremely dry, minute-by-minute account of my day. Enjoy :-p
Mom instead made accra with 1lb of flour (as opposed to the planned 2lbs). A proper recipe will follow later.
Earl Grey Tea,
originally uploaded by Lilandra.
I’m sure I’ve said this many times but I’ll repeat it.
Since , this meant Ramadan ended at sunset on Tuesday.
So, we break the last fast of Ramadan in Shawwal, that is, on ‘Id-ul-Fitr.
For these reasons, we try, as we did last year, we made Chicken Biryani for the night. After all, why not celebrate at the start of ‘Id.
Chicken Biryani,
originally uploaded by Lilandra.
Oh my! You should’ve been there. To wake up to break fast to that smell. It was…heaven.
So, summarizing for the last day of Ramadan:
Tuesday 30 September 2008, Ramadan 29
Suhur: Hops Bread and butter and cheese
Iftar: Earl Grey Tea
Dinner: Chicken Biryani
Edit: When dad came from work, not only did he ignore mom’s directives and pass and pick up lamb, but he also bought a flower arrangement for her ;-)
Traditionally, ‘Id-ul-Fitr is a many-day celebration as we, muslims (strict), have only two celebrations1 and in muslim countries, this is honoured. Thus this will be the second of many posts commemorating ‘Id especially since Chennette won’t be arriving until Friday when we shall do some extra special cooking and thus have our ‘Id lunch on Saturday, as close to our whole family as we’ve been able to get any time the last four years, as my other sister, usually in Guyana with her offspring and spouse is now in the UK and my brother and his new family is in Saudi Arabia2.
When I was a child, we used to go house to house (muslim), following the Imam and at every house there would be a table set with sweets and savouries and other things. And we’d eat. Can you imagine? Every house? Or every “muslim” house? But it was fun. When we arrived at a house, we would gather around and he would lead us in the qaseeda:
Ma hay ramzan chaldiya
Eida kadin nagaya
Eida ho subako mubarak
Eida kadin nagaya
The above is from memory. I don’t know how accurate it is or even any more than those four lines. But it was and still is my favourite (only?) qaseeda. I wish someone could tell me how it goes…and sing it like he did.
After awhile, this was discontinued. I mean we’d spend all day going and stuffing and somebody would have to be at the house waiting for the rounds and thus missing out on the rounds and some people we would probably never even see at the masjid. It wasn’t very fair all around.
Then, at some point, we started having people bring something to the masjid. You know, you fry some aloo pie, make some barfi, bring some. If everybody would bring a little of what they made, then we could all lime and celebrate a bit at the masjid before going back home.
I like this idea…except some times it seems people only bring sweet stuff, and then to compensate, the next year/next ‘Id they only bring savoury :-)
Continue reading ‘Id Mubarak: Snacking at the Masjid
Wednesday 24th September, Ramadan 23 (also Republic Day)
I made corn muffins from our bread machine cookbook. It was supposed to be a bread but I made it in muffin tins. It was supposed to be corn meal and chick pea flour. I used corn meal and split pea flour. It was supposed to be hard cheese, finely grated like parmesan. I used cheddar, coarsely grated.
Despite all this it was fine.
Except.
I kept wanting it to be sweet. It wasn’t. There was no sugar…and I didn’t think about adding any.
There are still some left. I intend to brush them with a honey glaze and reheat them in the oven or toaster.
Suhur: Bread and butter.
Iftar: Pholourie from over de road, kachorie from down de road and corn muffins.
Dinner: Parents had curry fish and rice. I forced and had the last of the macaroni pie (from last week when Chennette was here) with stewed red beans.
Thursday 25th September, Ramadan 24
Suhur: Chocolate pudding, toasted dhalpuri and avocado.
Iftar: Leftover tuna croquettes
Dinner: Parents had lots of freezer leftovers, I had rice and stewed red beans.
Friday 26th September, Ramadan 25
Hmm, we bought fried chicken. We broke fast with…???
Saturday 27th September, Ramadan 26
According to the second draft of the Eid menu, mom was supposed to make sahina and me cheesecake. Well mom made the sahina before I woke up…and I woke up at around 9am as we were going…Eid grocery shopping!
I went to Tarawih in the masjid on Saturday. You can read about the night of power and when it is and about the last ten nights of Ramadan anywhere else. I’ll try to find some links. I only stayed for 12 of the 20. I was getting rather dizzy.
Also, some people from the Jamaat (sort of…they used to live here but migrated…and then presto…met again there and got married…) gave an iftar.
Suhur: bread and butter?
Iftar: I didn’t take pictures. Too tired. Half-asleep. We had…GULGULLAH! (it’s like a sweet fried fritter with raisins) and accra (a bit tough, mom says batter/dough too stiff, needs more egg…but I still managed to eat a bit of it!!!).
Dinner: CURRY! I took a picture of mom’s plate and mine as she had more variety. I had my curry spread staples (roti, channa and aloo, stew chicken and salad).
There was, paratha roti, channa and aloo, stew chicken, curry mango, vegetarian biryani…and not sure if there was anything else. I can check mom’s plate.
Sunday 28th September, Ramadan 27
Soooo dead beat.
Today, with excellent preparation, I made Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cordon Rose Cream Cheesecake. It looks very nice thank you very much. This needs to go in the fridge now, and tomorrow it will be unmolded and cut into squares and will wait to go to the masjid on Eid day to share. Um. Shouldn’t I taste it to make sure it’s good? That I’m not giving people…garbage???
Mom fried pholourie from a mix. Oh sooo very addictive with a nice fresh tamarind chutney.
Suhur: Honey Wheat Dark Rolls and Egg paste (salad). Parents had…I dunno bread? and boiled egg.
Iftar: Dates, grapes, addictive pholourie and chutney, starfruit (mom), raspberry and cream cheese pastry…anything else? It’s in the picture.
Dinner: Haven’t had any yet. Current just went.
Parents are having black-eye beans and rice plus fridge lamb. Mom was going to make a black-eye pelau…when she came down while I was making the cheesecake, she told me she forgot to take out the chicken, is rice and beans okay? I’m like yeah…
PS Our dryer is kaput and not here. We’ve run out of clothespins.
Tuna Croquettes, originally uploaded by Lilandra.
The problem with delaying posts is I take no notes and forget…so if I don’t take any pictures, there is almost no hope.
Monday 22 September, Ramadan 21
suhur: unknown
iftar: Since I wasn’t fasting, I made tuna croquettes from this recipe. I doubled the recipe and used two cans of tuna (6oz each). I also used low fat milk (that’s what I had).
Aunty from next door dropped sahina.
dinner: leftovers from the weekend iftars.
Tuesday 23 September, Ramadan 22
Suhur: can’t recall, maybe bread and butter unless that was wednesday
iftar: leftover sahina and tuna croquettes
dinner: leftovers from iftars
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