Lentil Soup or Dhal (Mugu riha)

Mugu riha is one of my favourite side dishes. Its a healthy, tasty and an easy dish to make . Mugu riha is a popular dish at our home. 

This is one of the dishes my mom admits that I prepare better than her. Isn't  that the highest praise a daughter could get from a mother.

Ingredients;

• 1 cup (210g) lentils, rinsed well
• 3cm fresh ginger, sliced
• ½ inch cinnamon stick
• 3 cardamoms
• 2 Bilimagu (or juice of 1 lemon)
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp mustard seed
• 1/2 chili pepper
• 1/2-1 tsp salt
• 1 Carrot peeled and chopped
• 10 green beans ends trimmed and cut
• 5 curry leaves
• 4inch pandan leaf (raanbaa)
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 cups of coconut milk
• 1 Tomato chopped
• coriander leaves 

Place lentils in a large saucepan with 3 cups of cold water. Bring to boil, and remove the froth, reduce the heat to medium and simmer, stirring to prevent sticking for 10-12 minutes. 

Add all the other ingredients except the tomatoes and coriander leaves and coconut milk, and cook for 3 minutes and season to taste with salt.

Stir in coconut milk and cook for another minute or two. Add tomatoes and coriander leaves and remove from the heat. Enjoy hot with rice or flat bread and a side dish of fish or chicken.

 

Friday's Fragrance

By Ferran Turmo Gort

And ‘Abdullah bin al-Mubarak recorded in az-Zuhd [p. 51] that al-Hassan al-Basri said, "I saw those people [the salaf] and how they were more careful about their time than about their Dirhams and Dinars [i.e. their money].”

Sewing; My Eid Abaya

Assalaam Alaikum,

I have been trying to write a post about sewing for so long, but due to my horrible pictures I have been unable to publish any posts. But after several failed attempts at taking a good picture I have given up, and here is my Eid Abaya.

Lace on the hem of the dress

I have sewn several Abayas for myself. This is the latest Abaya that I made for Eid (Fitr).

Lessons taught by a baby

Assalam Alaikum,

This is one of those days, my baby girl crying for no apparent reason and glued to her momma. Usually, she is easy going and happy, especially in the mornings. 

After a few hours of on and off crying I put her down for a nap. Guess what she was holding on to and hugging when she slept? Nope, not one of those soft cuddly toys ….an empty plastic bottle:)

Anyway, who needs toys when the real stuff is all over the place ;)

D Sharon Pruitt 

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we had to try for a long time to conceive. I used to daydream about how my child was going to eat everything without a fuss, behave perfectly; I thought my child won’t climb onto furniture or play with things that she is not allowed to and so on, ….(hahaha, now I laugh at myself thinking how ignorant I was). Now I know what a parenting snob I was (does the phrase even exist?).

Some of my (day) dreams did come true, as I did stick to some of my decisions; such as breast feeding, cloth diapering, reading to her and teaching, playing and having fun with her.

But actually having a child had taught me a few lessons;

• I could say no and try to stop her but she will climb things, all I could do is show her what is safe to climb and how to climb safely.

• She won’t eat everything I offer and there will be times that she would finish her food, eat a little or refuse to eat at all, the only thing I could do is try.(I will, Insha Allah, write a separate post about the tricks I use to make her eat) 
•  I could try to teach her how to talk, walk and hold a crayon, but she’ll do them if and when she’s ready,

• She doesn’t behave the same way in front of strangers or when we are outside.

Most important  lesson I learnt is, that each child is different and their behavior changes throughout the day, according to their needs, (hunger, sleep and play)

Friday's Fragrance

Assalaam Alaikum

Alhamdulillah, We are blessed with meeting another Friday, the best day of the week.

"By no means will you attain Al-Birr (Piety, righteousness-here it means Paradise), unless you spend (in Allah's cause) of that which you love; and whatever good you spend, Allah knows it well"

(3:92)

My morning cup of coffee.

By Roger Price

This morning was really hectic, as I had several visitors today. Making a special breakfast and lunch took most of my time and I did not have time to take my morning cup of coffee. You see, I never ever start my day without my morning cup of coffee (unless of course I'm fasting).

When everyone left I took an afternoon nap with my baby, and after our nap my husband took her for a ride.  So now I'm enjoying my missed, belated morning cup of coffee as I write this and soaking in the blessing of some free time.

Hope you all had a nice day.

Modern Cloth Diapering in Maldives

Cloth diapering is not new to me. As I’m the eldest from a family of six, I have done my fair share of cloth diapering my younger sister.  

My youngest sibling was born during 1994 and back then cloth diapering was the norm in Maldives. I personally did not know anyone who used disposable diapers, only have heard about of the ‘wonders’ of dispos. But now, I don’t know anyone else who use CDs around here (cant’ help feeling a bit lonely).

During the first two months, my daughter had terrible diaper rash, I started using expensive diaper rash creams, but no matter what I did, it would not disappear.

I searched the internet to find a solution for the diaper rash problem and found some advice regarding using CDs (cloth diapers).

Another reason I wanted to use CDs was, when I visited islands I’ve seen dispos littering the beautiful beaches, and that made me think about finding another alternative, without the inconvenience of traditional cloth diapers (folding and using pins).

The other reason was, in my opinion, the amount of money spent on good quality dispos is ridiculous. 

Thus began my search for modern cloth diapers. I found many online stores selling modern CDs but the shipping was just too much (to Maldives). So I began to search the shops here, and found only one shop which sold Kushies AIO CDs. I bought just one to see whether I would like it. It was a cute looking, soft diaper, but the fit wasn’t right for my daughter since it leaked from the leg holes I had to search for another brand and found Alvas a Chinese brand online.  Since then I have exclusively cloth diapered my daughter and haven’t looked back.

Note; Is it bad manners to talk about food and cloth diapers in the same blog? Just wondering…