IslamoSophia - Food and Health

Spicy Carrot Pickle: A Nostalgic Family Favorite When I was younger, my mother used to make grilled sandwiches with spicy carrot pickle . I loved them—but when I tried making the pickle myself, I didn’t do it often. Cutting carrots into finger-like strips was such a chore! That all changed when my mother bought me a grater. It’s not the original German brand, but it works wonders. Thickly slicing carrots now takes a fraction of the time it once did. Honestly… why did I ever do it by hand? This pickle has become a staple in our household. We eat it with almost everything: alongside salads, as a quick side when a fresh salad hasn’t been made, or even rolled into flatbreads. It’s an effortless way to get carrots into the kids’ diet—they love it! The heat level is entirely flexible, so you can turn it up or down to your taste. Ingredients 2 lb thickly grated carrots (optional: soaked in salt overnight; my mother swears by this to prevent digestion issues, but I’ve never had proble...

I wanted to let everyone know that although I met great challenges fasting last year with what became an irregular eating schedule and a neglect in my own food habits rather than those of my children ( I would actually forget to eat sometimes as long as the children were fed although our food was still natural and home cooked.  Needless to say I was fearing the long 17 and a half hour days this year.  To my great surprise, my fasting has gotten back to what it used to be years ago thanks to what I know is our greater intake of grains (lentils, Barley, Bulgur, semolina etc). I can now face the long extremely hot days (today was 53 degrees here in Qom) and still go out and do my things in the heat and yet not even face any weakness in my health.  I realized that it could only be due to our great strength that we have gained from putting grains first. I have found that quite a number of people around me are facing anaemia and immediately turn to meat to solve their probl...

Hi everyone, I've been in a very busy time with the children off on Summer holidays at home, work (teaching and  writing) and keeping these stomachs full and satisfied.   With the Holy month of Ramadhan on our horizons and my need to remain practical and creative I've been making my fair share of deserts. A week ago we were invited to a friends house for a swimming lunch where the children were quite content to swim for 4-5 hours straight even while I left them in the pool and went to my class and returned to 3 very satisfied children as we sat down to have a piece of beautiful, dark (my family's favorite chocolate color) and not to mention very chocolatty (is that even a real word - it should be) which was one of my contributions to this feast (before Ramadhan). We all love this cake but my friend's family (3 more children not counting the little baby) from Melborne also seemed to love it equally.  They called it the mud pie because they said it was so moist that...