It’s official in most countries, Ramadan started on Saturday, Aug 22. Every family has a different way of preparing for the month- both spiritually and physically.

One unique part of Ramadan is the food preparation that is done for the evening meal, iftar. In the Middle East and many parts of Asia there is a HUGE rush to grocery stores and mass purchasing of various staples for breakfast and dinner. Sales of dates and Vimto soar!

For me, Ramadan preparation means the purchase of Rooh Afza- the sickly  sweet flower/fruit flavored drink that I never drink any other time of the year. In fact, it’s the drink that I can barely have a few times in Ramadan and the rest of the bottle drags out for the year. But no Ramadan is complete without it!

What’s your nostalgic Ramadan iftar treat?

Makes about 1 cup sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2/3 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup walnuts (or pine nuts or almonds)
• 2 tablespoon crushed garlic
• salt to taste

Method:

1. Blend everything together until a fine paste.
2. Bon appetit!

Notes:

• This is the perfect consistency for mixing with pasta
• If you want a creamy pesto sauce, just mix with 1-2 cups white sauce
• Go easy on the salt as the parmesan is salty
• If you want a thicker pesto for serving on top of bread, reduce oil to 3/4 cup
• Pesto is usually made with pine nuts but walnuts and almonds work well if you do not have any handy

We have an ongoing battle against the squirrels in the garden that eat bird food from the feeder. Not only do they finish all the bird feed within a day they also chase the birds away. 

Chasing them away, making noise, squirting with water guns, tossing twigs at them- we tried it all and nothing worked.

After a little internet research it seemed that greasing the feeder pole so the persistent tree- rodents could not climb up would work. We tried WD40 but it only lasted a day. Next attempt was Vaseline but the location of the feeder was too close to a tree. They used the weeping cherry tree to jump onto the pole, do a flip worthy of Olympic gold and land on the feeder (cayenne pepper powder didn’t help much as they squirrels came back the next day).

Next we changed the location of the pole from which the bird feeder was hanging, away from the tree. The squirrels then started using the flower pots on the deck as a spring board to jump up and grab the feeder.

The flower pots have now been removed far enough that they cannot be used as a prop. The tree is too far for jumping. And the Vaseline is BACK!! A nice thick coating all over the pole. The squirrels try jumping up and swoooshhhhhhhh, they slip right back down.

The bird seed is safe for now…

The red cardinal is the state bird of Virginia- if you put out bird seed they come in droves!

The male of the species is bright red and the female is a dull brown with a red undercoat.

Oh, and to stop squirrels from eating all the seed we greased the pole that the bird feeder is hanging from- the squirrels hate it and have not gone up since then.

This year we finally got around to planting perennial flowers in our backyard (this is after we cut back the creeping juniper on the slope and discovered an extra 10 feet of backyard!). Here is a lily from our new flower bed.

This works wells with a side of mashed potatoes and some Caesar salad. The parmesan cheese browns to a very flavorful crunchy topping, without using any oil.

A quick and filling snack option

Mary, Mary quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row

In our case we don’t have any of the above mentioned items, but we do have (or are in the process of planting):

• Apple
• Peach
• Apricot 
• Cherry
• Hazelnut
• Fig
• Raspberry
• Blueberry
• Blackberry
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Bell pepper
• Beetroots
• Cucumber
• Squash
• Basil
• Parsley
• Chives
• Mint
• Cilantro
• Chamomile

Hungry yet?

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

Filling:

• 4 cups sliced apples (tart apples work well)
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1/2 cup water

Crumble topping:

• 1 cup sugar (or 1/2 white and 1/2 brown sugar)
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter (4oz)

Method:

Preheat oven to 220C. Grease the base of 8” pie dish with butter. Add apples.
Add cinnamon powder to apples. Toss to coat evenly. Add the water.
For the topping: Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon powder together.
Cut in cold butter.
Crumble butter into flour to make crumb topping. Using your hands is the fastest way to do this.
Evenly spread the topping across the prepared apple dish.
Bake for 35-40min until the topping turns brown. Serve warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. Bon appetit!

Tips: If your dish is filled to the top the filling and topping will ooze over the sides while baking so place a dish underneath.

This recipe can easily be doubled.

Entree: Grilled ostrich steak with feta cheese and caramelized onions

Sides: Mashed potatoes and salad