this year is a mixed of emotion - excited because it will be akmal's first ramadhan, worried because of a baby around hence nightly feedings (although amira have been sleeping through the night, but one never know, right?), scared because the first week of ramadhan will be during school holidays (eeekkk!!!)
on the first day of ramadhan, the boys and i wrote down five ramadhan goals. what we wanted to achieve in the month - fasting, of course, reading the Quran, memorising surahs, a simple, yet difficult for some to do, such as uttering Alhamdulillah daily, selawat. i'm embarassed to say, most of us did not meet our goals - some not even close! we will try better. i believe, its a journey, you make goals, try to achieve them, if you don't succeed, you try harder. insyaAllah one day, you will achieve what you set out.
once again, my goal is to prepare food for the whole months. maybe only half a month for sahur (because after a couple of weeks, one probably cant face a full meal at 5am) but hopefully throughout the month for iftar. this year however, i wanted to make more desserts. the fruits will be mainly starters and then we'll have our main meal and we will end our meal with my desserts (if i make them, at least).
for obvious reasons (singular - new baby) tarawikh prayers at the mosque is a totally no-go. the boys would love to go everyday but that would depend on hubby.
i'm glad that, while i did not manage to meet all of my set goals for ramadhan, i was able to prepare good meals for the family. while it did take a lot out of me, to prepare for 30 days in a row (because normally, i'd take a couple of days a week off cooking) and sahur preparations made it even more difficult, it held on. easy for some but not entirely easy for me. i'm not fond of white rice with lauk. i much prefer western, one-dish with salad meals but we cant have that for a whole month. the boys needed rice or else they'll wilt away.
i had a couple of meals that is ok to recycle particularly nasi lemak and chicken rice. the boys can have that on a weekly basis. and then there's the cook a lot and have it for sahur with rice method - works well with roast chicken and grilled lamb. or the cook a lot and then make fried rice the day after trick. my slow cooker helped tremendously as well. on days i'm just too not in the mood, i'd throw stuff in there and make stew or soup and i would add desserts. fruits of course is a must. we love fruits - watermelon, mangoes, apples and grapes made their appearance from day 1 and stayed til the last day of ramadhan.
i do look forward to my ramadhan entries being more than just about food. but for now, when my boys are young and food-focused, that takes centre stage.
my grilling days...
my slow cooker assistant...
some days i do prepare rice and lauk for iftar...
tried making new desserts this year...sad that this stopped after ramadhan, it really shouldnt...
the icing on this wonderful ramadhan is that the 6 of us, fasted the full month, and that includes my baby boy, akmal izzat.
just like last year, asyraf's bff came over to bake raya cookies. but unlike last year, amir, asyraf and adam were glued to the ps3 and only ariff and akmal helped me with cookies.
we had iftar at his house on the last day of ramadhan. that was the one of two days we had iftar outside. the other was at klgcc with the family. this is the only place i'm ok to have iftar at as the surau isnt too far away and the buffet line isnt crowded.
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