I'm going to try this month to put in everything that I cook. Of course, I didn't get off to a good start, even with taking off Friday to do prep work and clean house. :) We ended up being out too late on Saturday to do a good cooking job and so got Thai ;) Yummy, Thai, but certainly not the traditional Ramadan cuisine - lol.
So, yesterday, we made sure to give enough time to making food and we got a few dishes all done. I still haven't made my big pot of lentil soup (and froze for other days), but in the end, soup doesn't take too long so I can do that one of these days before Iftar.
We are breaking fast (well, I'm not fasting because I'm pregnant... It's fine if you fast while pregnant, but I would either need to sleep a WHOLE lot more or drink/eat. I didn't even eat that much this weekend because it's so hard to eat when F--'s not, but that was not good. I can tell that my blood sugar was getting pretty low/I was cranky) around 7:55 pm in Fairfax, VA. Yes, it changes each day - so Sat: 7:58, Sun: 7:57; Mon: 7:54; Tues: 7:53, etc. You break fast when the sun sets. :) The good thing about it being later is that it gives me time to get home from work and cook. It was SOOOO bad in winter when we were breaking fast in the office - you could only have snacks basically and then you have to drive home and THEN cook...?! :( Very not cool. So, summer gives us more time. The BAD thing is that because you eat so late, you can't really go out afterwards and walk around too many places because they are already closed :( And, again because I'm pregnant, I'm tried. Although thank GOODNESS I'm in the 2nd trimester because I have more energy to cook, clean and even stay up through Bab al Hara! :) (= until 10:30 pm at least)
So, yesterday we had salad, macaroni bachemel, sambosik, figs/dates, 'Ataiyef, and mango's. Yummy! The bachemel, sambosik and 'ataiyef took the most time, but really is not that hard to do. The bachemel sauce is still tricky for me... I need to get it right - it's F---'s favorite (or, one of) food! The sambosik is pretty easy - mix ground beef with freshly chopped parsley (flat-leaf/Italian) and VERY well chopped onion; saute until brown, then put a bit in the sambosik pastry rolls (it's just long pastry sheets- rectangle, and maybe 2 inches by 5 inches?, like you would use for egg rolls or something like that). When you are ready to heat it up (we freeze a bunch), you heat up oil in a deep pan and fry them. Supper easy and very good!
For the 'ataiyef I usually just get the pancakes pre-made from the bakery, but you can make your own - it's pretty much pancake that you don't flip, but just cook through until it's done on both sides (you'll see bubbles on the top). If you make your own, try to make the pancake thin and I usually add flower water to the basic mix. The insides can have a bunch of things, we usually fill it with sweet cheese (get from the Mediterranean stores) or walnut/cinnamon/powdered sugar mix. Once the pancakes are done, you scope or place a bit of the mix inside and pinch the pancake close. Be sure that you pinch the sides VERY well. When you are ready to cook (again, you can freeze this until ready to use), just take out, grease a tray and put in the oven until brownish. Then, take out and dip in sugar water (1 cup water = 2 cups sugar, heat over oven until very sticky, add a bit of flower water) and serve with additional sugar water available on the side.
So, here was our table for Iftar (minus desert). PS- I don't know why it won't let me load the pictures length-wise, I just spend about 10 minutes on that!
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