Solitude

A big thing that motherhood and having five children around me has taught me is to value 'me time'; to relish solitude since it is something I get so rarely. It seems such a beautiful luxury when there is no sound at all in the house, when the older children are at school and the younger ones sleeping or if it is late in the evening and everyone sleeping.

Remember how the messenger of Allah ( صلى الله عليه و سلم ) used to retire to the cave of hira for a time of solitude and reflection:

A'isha, the wife of the Apostle of Allah ( صلى الله عليه و سلم ), reported: The first (form) with which was started the revelation to the Messenger of Allah was the true vision in sleep. And he did not see any vision but it came like the bright gleam of dawn. Thenceforth solitude became dear to him and he used to seclude himself in the cave of Hira' [...] (Bukhari, Book 001, Number 0301)

Ibn Taymiyyah, Allah yarhamahu, once said:

"What can my enemies do to me? My Paradise is in my heart. Wherever I go it is with me. My murder is martyrdom. My Imprisonment is solitude with
Allah. And my exile is tourism."

and:

"At times, it is necessary for the worshipper to be isolated from others in order to pray, remember Allah, recite the Qur'an and evaluate himself and his deeds. Also isolation allows one to supplicate, seek forgiveness, stay away from evil and so on."

Do you enjoy your own company? Do you take advantage of your moments of solitude?

Time to reflect...

5 minute meals

Pasta: so quick, easy and versatile.

My three girls all wanted different 'sauces' with their pasta today but it was very quick and easy. Here are three simple things to do with pasta.

• Boil pasta in salted water.






• Meanwhile to make a tomato sauce, quickly fry 1 grated clove of garlic in a small pan, add half a can of chopped tomatoes, a sprinkle of sea salt, and some dried herbs. I used a little crushed bayleaf, Pasta seasoning and dried crushed basil.






• Chop up 50g mortadella into tiny cubes.






• Grate 50g cheddar cheese.

Version #1 was pasta mixed into the tomato sauce with some cubes of mortadella added and then cheese sprinkled over the top.

Version #2 was pasta mixed into the tomato sauce with a little grated cheese sprinkled over.

Version #3 was pasta with a cheese triangle melted and a splash of water to help the cheese melt, the remaining cubes of mortadella stirred through and a generous helping of grated cheese over the top.

Later when my son woke up hungry, version #4 was pasta with a small knob of margarine, cubed mortadella - reheated in the microwave and then grated cheese sprinkled over - that was a 2 minute meal!

What could be simpler?!

What can you do in 5 minutes?

A few random things that only take 5 minutes. What other suggestions do you have?

• Pray 2 rak'at nafl at any time of the day or night






• Read a page or two from the Qur'an in Arabic or your mother tongue






• Take 5 minutes out from a hectic day putting your feet up and enjoying a cup of tea






• Something that worked for me this week: the bedroom dd10 and dd7 share was m-e-s-s-y and they made no headway on the tidying, I was only hearing whinging. Soooo, I set the timer for 5 minutes and told them to tidy intensively for just 5 minutes and see how much they could do. The bedroom was almost tidy by the time the alarm sounded. 5 minutes well used.






• Make some silent dhikr






• Cyclone clean one room; pick up any things on the floor, quickly dust surfaces, spray some air freshener, plump up the cushions.






• Email a friend you haven't been in contact with for a while






• Read a short story to your child






• Recite As-Salat An Nabi: A person who calls for blessings on me once, Allah sends down mercies on him ten times, ten of his sins will be remitted and he is raised ten degrees.

We often complain that we don't have enough time in the day but there are so many things that require a mere 5 minutes.

Things to do in Riyadh # 1

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

With Riyadh temperatures soaring to 50 degrees celcius and more in the summer months, families have to find indoor activities and you will find that the vast majority of Riyadh's numerous shopping malls will have children's play areas incorporated. The one pictured below is at the fairly new Hayat Mall in Riyadh and has a good variety of games for children of all ages - merry-go-rounds, trampolines and trains for the littlies, a decent roller coaster and ice rink for the older children among other things. It all makes for a welcome afternoon out together. Better to go in the afternoon and leave by isha prayer as isha is when the malls and play areas become particularly busy.



My 12, 10, 7 and 4 year olds all enjoyed having a go at the sand art where you choose a picture and piece by piece peel off the backing paper to reveal a sticky section on which to apply different coloured sands.

The food court and prayer rooms are not far off as usual so it is easy and convenient to pause to pray maghrib and to take a break for food. An array of different fast food choices including the ever present McD's, Chinese, Lebanese, Pizza and a very nice new Spanish food outlet selling filled baguettes. Our choice was chicken and Brie.... yummy all round!

And of course, the children always like to finish off the outing with an icecream so yay for Baskin' Robbins! Of course there are also the doughnut vendors such as House of Donut and the newly opened Krispy Kreme as well as cafes for the grown ups to sip on a Latte - noone is left out. :)

Tagged: Six Word Memoir

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Thanks for the tag American Muslima Writer! It was a hard one!

The Rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post
4. Tag six more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Perpetually Run Ragged By Crazy Kids!

I tag:

Al Ajnabiya

Amina

Ammena

Sonya

Umm Hibaat

Ummihabibati (aka Rainbow in the Grey Sky)

Picnic time in Riyadh

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Picnic in the UK and picnic in Riyadh seem to mean something completely different!

Since being in Riyadh we have taken the kids out for a picnic to a few different spots that we thought the kids would appreciate... Dir'iyyah which is very close to us and has nice grassy areas; Salam Park towards the south of the city which also has grassy areas, a boating lake and some play equipment.

Salam Park Lake

We've even been out to the desert a few times although admittedly the addition of sand to the sandwiches can be a bit irritating on the teeth! Once we were forced to stop by the road en route to Makkah as it was Ramadan, we were fasting and maghrib had arrived. It wasn't too comfortable sitting on the rocky roadside even on our rug but it was a welcome relief to eat our iftar and then sip on the hot tea we had prepared before leaving.

In the UK we like to go to nice beauty spots for summer picnics too.

Wales... beautiful!

Here in Riyadh though I have noticed that the locals will stop anywhere for a picnic. And I mean ANYWHERE! On a Wednesday evening which is the beginning of the weekend here you will see people stopped at the side of the road with the rug spread out on the dust and a family sitting enjoying a flask of Arabic coffee. Open areas near to us that have been smoothed out ready for building will often have families picnicking, enjoying the slightly more temperate conditions at this time of year and there will be boys partaking in a game of footy. The desert is very popular at this time of year too.

Who'd've thought that the Ikea car park would become the local picnicking spot for people that side of Riyadh though?! We exited the mall next door to Ikea on Thursday evening and there was a very distinct odour of barbecue in the air. I joked that it seemed that someone was having a barbecue in the car park... dh and I then racked our brains trying to think what grill restaurant there could be in the mall. Suddenly we noticed smoke gently billowing in the air just behind a parked car... there was indeed a family in the car park who'd brought all their BBQ equipment not to mention meat with them! How strange I thought that someone would want to have a BBQ in the car park! As we exited the car park though we noticed that there were many families either sitting with flasks of coffee or even with the BBQ and it was not something strange at all!

Ikea, Riyadh

Trying to get mummsie

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I haven't been on the internet so much lately, partly because I have been finding it so slow and frustrating and partly because I have been enjoying getting more mummsie around the house and with my kids! OK, so even after 15 years of marriage and 5 kids this doesn't always come naturally so I am happy with progress!

Have turned into a baking queen what with cakes and bread and trying to make healthy snacks. These Focaccia plaits filled with tinned tuna, hard boiled eggs and cheese were among yesterday's offerings:

Today I thought the kids would enjoy trying to make microwave meringues; something I remember doing when I was kid (yuh... many years ago! ha ha!). They didn't turn out quite as superb as I hoped, however there really was instant gratification for the kids. They crowded around the microwave, excitedly watching the tiny balls of mixture puff and rise into comparatively huge meringues! The next fun part was melting chocolate, chopping strawberries and whisking cream with which to decorate the pink, sugary mounds we had created. We served the meringues with a healthy strawberry and banana smoothie. Yummm!



Now with all this mummsie-ness going on, it can be a bit difficult having a 4 year old and 1 year around my feet wanting to 'help'. A few days ago, I got creative once again and made playdough -whoo hoo! Simple recipe, wonderful results.

All you need is:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
few drops of food colouring of your choice
*Even add glitter to make some really fun playdough

Throw all ingredients into a pan and heat gently and stir until you have a dough starting to come together. When you can stir no more, turn out onto a floured board and tentatively (so as not to burn your hands) begin to kneed into a soft malleable dough. When it has sufficiently cooled, hand over to the kids!

They start off rolling...

Cutting out shapes and making cute patterns... (This is 7 year old daughter's effort)



After a while 4 year old son started investigating the drawers for more 'tools' and discovered the garlic press.... yum, worms! (Or was is spaghetti?!)

Humble Pie

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I feel that I have a certain amount of humble pie to eat regarding the vegetables in cakes post. Although I still wouldn't got to these measures myself and prefer to encourage my children to eat a balanced diet, I have had the opportunity to taste test the brownies with spinach and also pancakes with broccoli, carrot and pumpkin hidden in the batter. They weren't bad!

My friend brought some samples over to my house today for us to try. Dd1 (12) gave the brownies 8/10, dds 2 &3 (10 & 7) gave them 10/10. For some reason my son (4) refused to taste... maybe he sensed that something was going on!

As for the pancakes which were rolled with Nutella inside, dd2's verdict was, "A gazillion stars. Auntie is so good at cooking." Dd3 said, "Amazing, 10/10." My son finished 2 pancakes so I think that speaks louder than words.

I still stand by my opinion that food is a journey of discovery and we should continue to offer vegetables to our children a second, third, fourth time and they will soon find some vegetables that they enjoy and will happily eat.

Reverse psychology...

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Isn't reverse psychology great?! Especially when it comes to children. One of the things I have not noticed my eldest daughter eating much of is prawns but today as part of our evening meal I made prawn cocktail salad (lettuce, prawns and cocktail dressing). She saw it in the fridge and asked what it was so I told her and insisted that she wouldn't like it. She asked if she could try anyway so I told her "Of course, but it's my favourite and you won't like it!" There was a challenge for her! I think she took a taste determined to like it just to prove me wrong and for once my tactics worked and she went back for more... and more! Alhamdu Lillah.

Youtube

I was surfing around from blog to blog yesterday and found this nice post along with the following video. I shed a tear watching the video, it's so sweet and it took me back to last year when my youngest daughter was born and I was just marvelling at the miracle of it all. Decided to share it with my eldest daughter (12) who quietly watched but obviously didn't share her mother's enthusiasm. When it finished she said, "Yeah. So...?" I started harping on about how amazing it all is, blah blah blah to which she responded, "On a level of 1 to 10, how much does it hurt?" I answered, "10 but it is another pain altogether and it is so worth..." "OK," she cut in, "I'm not having babies." And off she went. The ingratitude!



This second video from Youtube is one of my kid's all time favourites. I mean favourites. They not only memorised the words but also the different voices so they even mimic the lady asking, "Our calendar, the one we use in Islam, does it go by the sun or the moon?" "The mooooooon"

It's a cute song with a cute video to accompany.

Spinach Fudge Brownies anyone??

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

A friend phoned me yesterday and exitedly told me about a new book she has been reading called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. The wife of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld has brought out a book of recipes incorporating purees of vegetables such as beetroot, pumpkin, carrot and spinach. In the book you'll find simple ways of slipping veggies into macaroni and meatloaf but you'll also find recipes for desserts such as Spinach and Carrot Brownie. Yum... or perhaps not.

I felt cynical from the start... how much nutritional benefit from the vegetables can there be in a mere slice of cake or Brownie that contains a total of 1 cup of vegetable puree and what vitamin content will remain in the cake once the vegetable has been steamed or baked, then pureed and then baked in the cake once again??

The same goes for the chicken nuggets dipped in broccoli puree that she shows how to make. Each nugget will have a very thin coating of broccoli once cooked so it seems really pointless and a waste of time from my point of view.

I feel that there are far better and effective ways of slipping vegetables into the family food without going to such lengths and I expect the addition of the vegetables to enhance the flavour of the food rather than being covered up by the strong taste of another ingredient as proposed by Jessica.

I like to make vegetable soups (pureed) quite frequently and find that my children will quite happily eat Butternut Squash soup with some fresh crusty bread but they wouldn't consider eating butternut squash when I roast it with the chicken... it's all about presentation and honesty. The children don't like whole squash but enjoy it as a soup and they know that as a soup they enjoy it. I don't need to try to fool them into eating things.

I find that grating some courgette (zucchini) and carrot into rice before cooking and adding some spices is a nice way of adding veggies to the meal and makes the rice tastey.

Shorba - the national soup of Algeria, my husband's country -contains a reasonable amount of vegetables and is exceptionally tastey and the children enjoy it.

As mentioned in this article, the whole idea of pureeing veggies and slipping them into our children's 'junk' meals (cakes, brownies, chicken nuggets) gives out completely the wrong message. We will find ourselves encouraging the kids to have another slice of cake simply because "It's good for you" and we will not bother to reinforce the idea of a healthy balanced diet.

"Philosophically and practically, this is not really an effective approach. It will not develop an appreciation of the flavors, textures, and interests of various vegetables, which is what you should try to do by introducing them over and over again until they catch on." - Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and author of What to Eat.

If you have enough vegetables on offer on a weekly basis there are bound to be at least one or two vegetables that the children will find to their taste. My 4 older children have turned into salad freaks and they love lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers... that has to be a good start! One of my daughters loves sweetcorn with her tuna and mayo in a sandwich. The four of them were crazy about broccoli at one point... to the point that if anyone looked away from their plate my son would steal the broccoli off their plate.

I will continue to make stews and other dishes with 2 or 3 vegetables in and encourage them to try different things. If they don't like the turnip in the cous cous stew at least they will enjoy the carrot. One of my girls recently discovered that long green beans are actually quite nice.

Food is a journey of discovery from the outset and I am still on that journey myself trying new things and I don't think I will be forking out the 100 Riyals for Jessica's book. You won't find any spinach in the chocolate cake in this house but I will be happy to add a little feta to the spinach and make it into a toasted sandwich.

A modern retelling of an old tale

My 10 year old had to make a poem of a traditional story for her homework. She chose Rumpelstiltskin and we worked on it together. The following is what we came up with. Quite a formidable duo we make, methinks! LOL

RUMPELSTILTSKIN

Once a miller boasted to the king,
That his daughter could make gold in a ding,
All she’d need was plenty of straw,
In order to give him gold galore!

The king was rich and far from needy,
But alas he became much too greedy,
“Gold!” he drooled, “And lots of it!”
I could even have a golden throne on which to sit.”

He filled a room with straw, and in he pushed the girl,
“Hurry and spin by morning, so go on, give it a twirl!”
Desperate, the poor girl sat and wept,
When suddenly, in a little man crept.

“Aye, aye,” said he, “You look like you’ve had a fright.”
Weeping, she told the man of her plight.
He agreed to help, they struck a deal,
Then at once he got spinning at the wheel.

In the morning, the king came in,
“Ahh, I see, you spun it in the night within!”
He was happy to see the room filled with gold
But thought, “I need much more since I am getting old.”

He gave her still more straw to spin into gold.
Again the little man came to her and thought , “This is getting old!”
They made a deal; “I’ll spin the straw but if you and the king should marry,
I want your firstborn child, but just don’t call him Harry!”

The straw was spun, the girl and king were wed,
In time she forgot the promise she'd made,
And soon she was blessed with her very own child,
The man reappeared looking quite wild.

“You must keep your promise and give me what’s mine,
Unless,” said he, “You can guess my name then it’s fine!
If you guess my name in the next three nights,
Then keep your baby and there’ll be no fights.”

She guessed and guessed, “Charlie? Bob? Dave?”
Each time he said, “No way, that’s not it. Behave!”
A messenger helped her and gave her a clue,
She knew it was right and knew what to do.

The last day came and she said, “Pot Belly? Cherry bun?”
Until, she said, “Perhaps RUMPELSTILTSKIN is the one?!”
He shouted in fury and went quite red. “You cheated!”
He spun and spun right through the floor and was defeated.

THE END

Never too early...

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

One question I notice mothers of small children, asking frequently is "When should I start teaching my child about Islam?" I say, it's never to early! Start from birth saying 'Bismillah' aloud when you begin to feed your child; say other phrases such as 'alhamdu Lillah' upon sneezing or completing a meal and 'assalaamu alaikum'; pray in the presence of your child and so on.

My youngest daughter is 14 months old and now she will even pause from breastfeeding to say 'dandada' (alhamdu Lillah) with me if I sneeze and she always says it when she sneezes. She makes ruku' in front of me at salah times and now seems to be practising the juloos (sitting) position, masha'Allah.

Children are little sponges and readily soak up and copy all our good habits but beware because the opposite is also true!