Ramadhan Recipes: Algerian Chorba

Ok, a little late, but here is my recipe for Algerian “Ramadhan” Chorba. Chorba (pronounced Shorba) is an Arabic word meaning soup but the recipes vary largely from country to country, region to region.

This recipe was taught to me by my mother-in-law (may Allah bless her) when she came to visit this summer. It is usually eaten at least once a week and almost every day during Ramadhan. It quickly became popular in our house with the kids asking for it on a regular basis. And because it’s so simple to prepare and cook, I don’t mind cooking it often. Plus it’s nice and healthy too.

As a mother of three daughters, masha’Allah, I am keen to teach them how to cook good food using fresh ingredients from scratch, and fortunately my daughters are also keen to learn. My eldest daughter is 6 years old and is already eager to get started in the kitchen, masha’Allah. I think this recipe is very easy for her to learn to prepare because most of it involves grating vegetables which is not hard to do at all.

So let’s get started:

First, add a couple of tablespoons of oil to a large pan.

350-500 gms Diced lamb.

Add the lamb in bite-size pieces to the pan.

Finely chop a large onion (it doesn’t have to be a red onion, but we like red onions).

Add the onion to the meat.

Grate into the pan 2 large courgettes.

On top of that grate one large potato.

Then grate in one small carrot.

Add in 1/4 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper and 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon.

On top of that, add a handful of fresh coriander leaves.

Finally add in some pureed tomatoes or a small jar of Dolmio (or similar to that).

Mix up the ingredients and heat gently for 10-12 minutes.

Cover the mixture with water until the pan is at least half full. The ingredients should be floating freely. Cook on a gentle, bubbling heat for 45 mins.

Add in a generous handful of vermicelli and some chickpeas (tinned chickpeas) NOTE: If you are using dried chickpeas add them in at the beginning).

Allow to cook gently for a further 10 mins.

Serve accompanied with borek.

BISMILLAH AND ENJOY!

Ramadhan Recipes: Algerian Borek

Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu …

OK … Being married to an Algerian it was only a matter of time before I became obsessed with Algerian food so I’m going to share with you a borek recipe that is cooked pretty much on a daily basis during Ramadhan. It is traditionally eaten with chorba (soup).

As a mother of three daughters, masha’Allah, I am keen to teach them how to cook good food using fresh ingredients from scratch, and fortunately my daughters are also keen to learn. My eldest daughter is 6 years old and is already eager to get started in the kitchen, masha’Allah. 

First of all, add a tbsp of oil to a pan and gently start browning some lean mince. The leaner the better. Can be lamb or beef.

Finely chop an onion and add to the mince.

 

Finely chop some fresh parsley and add to the mince and onion.

Stir the mixture and when the mince is cooked, turn it off and leave to cool. It is important the mixture is cool so that the borek doesn’t break.

Lay out the borek sheet onto a clean, dry work surface.

Spread some soft cheese onto the bottom edge of the borek sheet.

 

 

Spoon some of the mince mixture onto the sheet. (NOTE: at this point traditionally, Algerians would add a few sliced green olives on top of the mince but I don’t like olives so I have left this ingredient out)

HARIIIIIIIIISSSSSSAAA!!

 

Squeeze on a little harissa (chilli paste).

 

Finally add a little more soft cheese.

 

Fold in the edges of the borek sheet making sure they overlap slightly. 

Start to roll the borek making sure to keep the roll tight.

 

 And it’s ready to cook in shallow oil.

 

Drain excess oil using napkins and serve.

NOTE: Once the borek are made they should be covered with cling film and stored in the fridge until they’re ready to be cooked.

BISMILLAH AND ENJOY!

Phonics Lapbook

I created a series of Phonics Lapbooks with my daughter when she first started learning to read and write. These lapbooks are based on the Progressive Phonics program. All the materials are available online for free.

The Progressive Phonics website provides a range of activities  with each series of books including a ‘Read with Me’ story book, colouring pages, handwriting pages and activities to help with letter recognition.  I would print off the worksheets and use them to help create this lapbook for my daughter.

Here you can see an example of the shapes to help with letter formation and reconition. I printed the shapes worksheet onto coloured card and cut them out for my daughter to practise making the shapes of the letters. Then we glued them down onto a flap, and using MS Word Art I printed off the words in bold font for her to colour and glue under the flaps.

There are about 10 short story books for each of the series. And each series covers a number of letters and vowels and progresses onto combining sounds to form longer words. Each of the story books introduce one or two new letters and words and these words are printed in red throughout the story. The adult reads the story to the child and the child should try to read the red words.

I printed out the story book pages and cut them up to make individual pages. I stuck them back to back on card to form little story books for my daughter to stick down in her lapbook.

The website provides handwriting worksheets to practise individual letters and new words. When my daughter completed the handwriting sheet I would cut them down to size and stack and staple them into her lapbook. I also created a cover flap for her to colour the different letters that she had learned in that handwriting session.

Some of the handwriting worksheets covering the letters ‘d’, ‘o’, and ‘g’.

I also created some circle flap books to help her to recognise other words that start with the same letter.

I would get my daughter to colour in the objects that all start with the letter in the middle. These worksheets are available on the website but unfortunately they are not available for every new letter that is introduced, so I had to put together some of my own.

Handwriting and letter recognition

Another story book

In order to review what my daughter was learning, after every 3 or 4 books, I would stop and give her little spelling tests. I would give her a word and ask her to sound it out to herself and write it down.

I also created this little reading review sheet. I gave it to her as blank boxes with a word (name of a character) above each box and I asked her to read the word to herself and draw a picture to match with what she thought the word read. Masha’Allah, I was pleased to see that she got them all right.

More letter recognition.

Handwriting sheets

Another story book

More circle flaps for individual letters

A layout of what we would cover in one session including a story book, handwriting sheets, letter formation and recognition and a colouring page showing a scene from the latest book.

Another lapbook from the series 2 introducing a new set of letters with a new set of story characters.

Same layout with flaps for letter recognition, story books and colouring pages.

More handwriting sheets

In the second series more words are introduced earlier on. By Book 2 we had already learned 6 new words.

A close-up of a book from the second series.

I highly recommend the Progressive Phonics program for anyone wanting to help their kids learn to read and write. Its simple, quick and easy insha’Allah.

COMING SOON: Salat Step-by-Step Folder

This is a folder that I created with my son to learn the words, actions and meaning of salat in a step-by-step format.

Seasons Lapbook

This is a lapbook my eldest daughter has been working on. We are coming back to add to it throughout the year as the seasons change. It has a Winnie the Pooh theme because my daughter loves it and I thought it would make it more fun for her.

We decided to start off with Spring and began with a discussion about all the things that happen in Spring time. Then I printed out some colouring pages with key words.

 Then I searched on the internet to find a simple diagram that shows the main parts of a plant. I printed the worksheet for her to colour, then I cut out the individual parts for her to glue together and then we learned the names of the parts and labelled the diagram.

Then I helped her to make a flap page on the creation of plants and flowers.

When the flap opens it reveals two over-laping flaps. The first flap shows another diagram of a flower with the parts labelled.

And when that flap is opened it reveals another flap diagram of a tree with its various parts labelled.

And finally, when the last flap is folded back it reveals that Allah created the flowers and trees.

On the underside of the first large flap is an alphabetical dot-to-dot of a flower beautifully coloured by Samira, masha’Allah.

On the next page we took a look at how plants grow, looking at stages from seed to fully grown plant.

I downloaded this lovely little booklet from ESL Printables.

Samira coloured the booklet and we discussed how the plants grow stage by stage.

Next we talked about baby animals.

I helped Samira to complete this mother and baby matching game. Even I learned a few things, masha’Allah.

Then she completed this little colouring activity about animals and their babies.

We discussed the life cycle of the chicken using a lovely little book called “See how they grow” by Mary Ling. And then I got Samira to draw the lifecycle into her book.

Then she complete this neat little wordsearch on baby animals.

In the final part of our discussion on Spring we learned about metamorphosis.

We created a flip-over page. On one side is a diagram showing the life cycle of the frog and on the other side is a diagram showing the life cycle of the butterfly.

Then we moved onto the next season …

We discussed many of the fun things we do in summer, such as flying kites, going to the beach, camping, walking along the river to feed the ducks etc.

We created this page showing Winnie the Pooh flying a kite.

I cut out a cardboard frame for the kite and then Samira glued on some red tissue paper in between the two frames. Then we attached some twine and used sticky back plastic to make the colourul ribbons on the kite’s tail.

We attached the kite in such a way that when you fold it back it reveals a maths colouring activity with a beautiful summer scene.

To be continued, insha’Allah …

Arabic Alphabet Folders

My husband created these nice little Arabic folders with the kids when he first started teaching them the Arabic alphabet and “tashkeel” (vowels). These worksheets are available for free download from the Calgary Islam website (Women and Kids section).

*Arabic and English Alphabet Colouring books

*Arabic Alphabet Workbook

*Arabic Alphabet Flash Cards

They created a single book together which has individual colouring pages for each letter of the alphabet.

They made their own individual handwriting books which teach the letters of the alphabet and have a colouring picture with the name written underneath in Arabic to teach the sound of each letter.

This page teaches the letter Alif. This letter begins the Arabic word Asad meaning ‘lion’.

The letter Jeem begins the Arabic word Jubnah meaning ‘cheese’.

Samira also made a similar folder for her Arabic hand-writing sheets.

The letter Baa begins the Arabic word BaTah meaning ‘duck’

Owls Lapbook

Last year I was going through a “stubborn” phase with my son and was having trouble getting him enthusiastic about doing his work. So I  decided to give him the choice to do a project on whatever subject he liked and he chose to do a mini project about owls.

We used the internet to do some research and I found some nice fact sheets online. After researching I also created my own fact sheets and question and answer sheets.

The first pages look at owls in general. Where they live, what they eat, how they hunt, the different families of owls, etc.

I made sure to include lots of pictures and colouring pages.

This is one page of a ‘missing word’ fact sheet that I put together. My son had to read through the paragraphs and fill in the relevant missing words.

I gave my son a factsheet about Barn Owls and then he used it complete the question and answer worksheets in his own words.

Here is the factsheet and question and answer pages on the Snowy Owl.

I also included some World maps so that my son could write about and colour the countries where certain species of owl can be found.

This was a nice dot to dot colouring activity.

Next up were some fact sheets and question and answer sheets on Screech Owls.

I also included some blank boxes for my son to add in his own details. In the photo above you can see he drew some Screech Owl eggs.

Some more maps and a nice symmetry activity which tied in nicely since we had recently covered symmetry during our maths lessons.

Some more fact sheets and question and answer sheets, this time on Long-eared Owls. It also includes a neatly coloured picture of a Long-eared Owl in which my son made sure he paid attention to detail to created the speckled pattern on the owl’s chest.

I also created an Owl Fact Crossword activity which my son enjoyed completing.

If you would like to download the worksheets to make a similar project, you will find my worksheets available here on the Teaching Ideas Website.

Eid Banner

We had a bit of a panic the day before Eid ul Fitr because we had planned to print out some templates to make a 3D Eid banner this year to decorate the living room wall but the printer ran out of ink –  Qadrullah!

So instead I drew out some giant letters on sheets of A4 paper.

Then I got the older two kids to colour the edges of the letter black.

Then all 4 kids worked together to colour the letters.

Finally I cut the letters out ready to blu-tac onto the living room wall. Masha’Allah, not bad really for plan B LOL!

Old Treasure Map

Making an old looking treasure map was something I had done as a kid as part of a history project and I thought it would be fun to relive it with the kids.

First of all we designed a treasure map on a sheet of A4 white paper with a trail leading to the X that marks the spot where treasure is supposedly buried.

Next we scrunched the map up a bit, to give it some creases and made a few rips and tears in it to make it look really old.

Before designing the map I had prepared a cup of instant coffee. Just instant coffee mixed into hot water. When the coffee had cooled down I poured it into a baking tray and lay out the map into the tray to soak in the coffee to stain it. We left it to soak for half an hour. NOTE: You can also get the same staining effect from tea.

After half an hour I carefully took the map out of the coffee mixture and placed it onto another baking tray and placed it under the grill on the lowest setting to dry it out and give it a scrunchy feel. Bear in mind that you need to keep a close eye on the map as you ‘grill’ it so that it doesn’t burn. It only takes a couple of minutes to dry.

Finally, if you want to be really creative, you could hold the edges of the map over a naked flame being extremely careful to not let it catch alight (as I did with our first map LOL!). This will give the map a smoke damage effect. This last step should be done by an adult or under adult supervision.

And when your map is ready you can go on a treasure hunt! We had great fun with out treasure map. I created sign posts around the house that correspond with the points on the map and the kids had great fun running around the house following the map to find the treasure!

COMING SOON: Design a Cake

 

A fun and exciting Design and Technology Project for Key Stage 2 on designing cakes.