30 Day Meal Plan for Ramzan

 For me, the difficult question ‘Aaj khanay mein kiya pakaoon?’ is never tougher than in Ramzan, on an empty stomach, and when the need for delivering a filling and nutritious meal for my family is crucial.

I need to lure and reward the children especially, after a full day of abstinence, with a feast that will motivate them, replenish lost nutrition and recharge them for the next day’s fast.  

With several years of trial and error, I’ve been fine-tuning a 30 day meal plan based on one drink, one iftari item and one meal item for the family. There’s no need to makes dozens of items every day. This is more than filling enough, and easier on the stomach and the pocket. And also on my brainpower and the cooking lady’s (wo)manpower.  

Now I can be prepared with recipes and ingredients, and also have enough time to rest and pray.

Feel free to use this for your convenience! And share your meal plans too!

Point-to-note: this isn’t a nutritionist’s meal plan; it’s a mummy’s meal plan for her bachas and includes their favourite foods.

If you haven’t made something before then it’s best to try it out from before to avoid last-minute panic and disappointment.

You can also order any of these from the several home-based food suppliers and caterers, including frozen foods that you can use at your convenience.

Drinks can be made more interesting by adding a dash of lemon, ginger, mint or yogurt where possible.

Needless to say, keep a side of fruits and vegetables for a balanced diet and good digestion.

Sehri items don’t need too much planning, with staples like parathas, eggs, shami kababs, mangoes, bananas, dates, yogurt and muesli.

	DRINK	IFTARI ITEM	MEAL
Day 1	Rooh Afza with basil seeds and lime	Fruit chaat	Aloo qeema
Day 2	Mango milk shake	Chicken sesame strips	Dal chawal, bhindi  jalfrezi, kachumar
Day 3	Apple, carrot, ginger and lime juice	Humus and pita platter	Rotisserie chicken, potato wedges
Day 4	Banana and mango smoothie	Sweet and savoury crepes	Lasagne
Day 5	Date and dry fruit shake	Dahi baray	Mutton karhai
Day 6	Ice cream soda	Fruit trifle	Pizza, chicken cutlets
Day 7	Sweet and salty lassi	Assorted pakoras	Bhunnay beef pasanday, aloo tarkari
Day 8	Falsa juice	Channa chaat	Aloo anda curry, zeera rice
Day 9	Limopani	Assorted samosas	Chicken ginger
Day 10	Lychee lime	Chicken corn soup	Beef chilli dry, chicken Szechuan, rice/chow mein
Day 11	Sattu drink	Aloo bonday	Mutton achar gosht
Day 12	Coconut water	Chicken samosas	Biryani
Day 13	Banana milkshake	Tuna salad	Wraps, potato and sweet potato wedges
Day 14	Shikanjbeen	Dahi phulki	Haleem
Day 15	Ginger lemonade	Aloo chaat	Chicken  karhai
Day 16	Zaafrani doodh	Bhel/sev puri	Arvi gosht
Day 17	Sugarcane juice	Beans sprout chaat	Chicken tikka, seekh kabab
Day 18	Dried apricot drink	Fruit skewers	Chapli kabab, kabuli pulao
Day 19	Chikoo shake	Baked stuffed potatoes	Chicken roast, steamed vegetables
Day 20	Watermelon sorbet	Lentil soup and fatoush	Chullo kabab, saffron rice
Day 21	Zaljira (cumin, tamarind, ginger juice)	Assorted vegetable tempura	Aloo gosht
Day 22	Kiwi cooler	Chicken sesame strips	Khao suey
Day 23	Chocolate malt	Greens salad	Burgers and french fries
Day 24	Thandai	Fruit cocktail	Green chicken, peas pulao
Day 25	Zeera lassi	Kachori	Galawat kabab
Day 26	Tamarind juice	Fruit and yogurt parfait	Chicken shashlik
Day 27	Mango lassi	Corn chaat	Nargisi koftay
Day 28	Cucumber lemonade	Aloo qeema cutlets	Club sandwiches
Day 29	Ayran (salted lassi with garlic)	Falafel/ lentil pakoras	Yakhni pulao
Day 30	Plum juice	Couscous/ quinoa salad	Chicken or beef steaks, roasted vegetable skewers

Siachen

KopyKats’ new production Siachen, written by Anwar Maqsood and directed by Dawar Mehmood.

 Anwer Maqsood’s previous plays showed the effect of politicians’ aspirations on Pakistan. ‘Siachen’ is a portrayal of the effect of Pakistan’s permanent military deployment to secure its borders since an incursion in 1984  on the soldiers stationed on earth’s highest and toughest battleground, 22,000 feet above sea level, where many soldiers have lost their lives due to both human combat and natural perils.

The play does not have a storyline; rather, it shows a day in the life of the soldiers stationed at the Siachen Glacier in one of the better times it has seen, when tensions and trigger-readiness are at ebb.

The play depicts their daily challenges and encounters: missing their family; coping with extreme isolation in extreme conditions; celebrating Eid; the palpable excitement when a new person brings a change of scene, especially when it is a woman; a soldier who wanders in from across the border, and the cross-border exchange of banter and fire. And of course, if it’s something to do with across the border then the excitement of cricket rivalry is also a must even, or perhaps especially, at Siachen.

The isolation is so intense that the soldiers orchestrate relationships and social interactions in their dreams to provide some form of human contact.

 Daily survival is a struggle – they have to requisition and then wait for the delivery of provisions and equipment, and then use them judiciously. Cigarettes are a precious commodity. There is no running hot water. Going to the toilet is a painful experience.  

When the soldiers recount their experiences candidly, we realise what we may see are photoshopped images of ground reality. With 30 years of literally hanging on the edge, every moment is a matter of life and death. When your camp is destroyed and you are next in the line of fire, you are left with only a prayer and love for your country. In a battle some survive and some don’t but all are ready to fight and sacrifice, though they would like to spare their mothers the agony of burying a child.

With this grim plot, only Anwar Maqsood’s special talent could make it a comedy. He injected his witty one-liners in this serious topic and made the audience laugh and cry at the same time. The choice of topic was a refreshing change.

The audience’s reaction was somewhat surprising though. In a moving scene when most of the Pakistani soldiers are shot in an ambush, the audience started clapping and cheering before the last salvo was fired. One would normally expect a moment of somber silence. One may find fault with some on-stage shouting, trite dialogues, slapstick, innuendo and the awkward excitement of the actors when a woman comes onstage, but since most of the crowd found it entertaining, perhaps it is needed to draw the crowds.  

KopyKat they have done their homework with the set design and characters. Radio set, gas cylinder, battery, water and food supplies, board games, prayer mats and a poster in the igloo make it a replica army camp. Live guns were used under the supervision of ISPR.  They gave empty shells for firing and also showed them how to use the guns convincingly and also safely. ISPR also helped them with their uniforms, props and set to get the real feel and look. The set remains the same throughout, and the change in act and scene (sometimes played offstage) is seamless.

To immerse the actors into the characters they play, the cast of ‘jawans’, ‘sobedar’, ‘cook’, and ‘captain’ was put under virtual house arrest in Islamabad for four long months. To feel the desperation of isolation, they had to live without their laptops and cellphones. They had to write letters to their family once a week, to understand its significance as the only means of communication. For this duration they were also under PMA training to build their physique, with a strict diet of boiled food, and grew out their hair and beards to look the part.

Then they spent another grueling 20 days in Siachen with the soldiers stationed there. They interacted with them and heard their stories, and got a real feel of the bunkers and the checkposts. Some of the cast who spoke the Pashtun dialect effortlessy did so partly because they are Pashtun. KopyKats tried to represent a bit of every culture and community in casting the soldiers.

A soldier who had served for three years at Siachen and who was present at the play lauded the efforts of the play to show the soldiers' story.

“ Though the extreme harshness of Siachen cannot be fully shown in a play, it does give a fair idea of the conditions there. It is so tough that even the toughest people melt there. It is more than frozen for more than 6 months of the year. Simple things like eating and drinking are a challenge. Often there is a lot of firing. The only one you have with you is Allah; He is the only one you can remember.” This was also a recurrent refrain in the play.

Siachen was shown at Islamabad and Lahore and will also show at Multan, Peshawar, and Faisalabad, the first time theatre will be taken out of the usual audience. With its patriotic theme it should be a good introductory play.  

Details of the play can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/events/439085026299678/

The Diary of a Diary-Keeper

  

One of my to-dos for 2016 is to sort my to-do lists of the past decade. I’m going to go through my old diaries, see what’s pending in there, make a Mother of All Lists, and then strike the tasks off the list as I tackle each chore with ruthless determination till none remain. Tomorrow I will go through the stacks of desk diaries and personal planners which I use to organize my work, home chores and leisure activities.

 

It’s been at the back of my mind for a few years now, somewhere on the vague and obscure outer periphery of my mind’s mind, like an object one can see out of the corner of their eye, and now that I have finally written it down in my list of things to do, I will actually do it.

I know I have completed and achieved many, many tasks and targets, thanks to the daily lists reminding me to Just Do It. I can’t believe I  used to pack in so much work and activity in one day. I must have been crazy at that time.   

There are some things I couldn’t do because of lack of time, willpower or wherewithal. I still haven’t bought a stone-carved fountain for the garden. My trip to the moon is still pending.

Some things don’t need to be done any more because they were time-bound and are no longer required. I don’t need to return the DVD as the shop has shut down. I don’t need to get a rattle for my daughter now because she turned 18 in November. That is one of the things I regret not managing to do.

Some things I don’t need to do as times have changed and so have my tastes and needs. I don’t need to fix the tear in my velvet stole because nobody wears velvet now.

And some things I haven’t done for so long that I should give myself an award for procrastination. This too I will do later.

                                                                  

  

                                       

My diaries have contact numbers of people and places I have forgotten; receipts, business cards and bills stored as bookmarks; recipes, menus and guest lists for dinners; memories in the form of old photographs, ticket stubs and hand-made cards; pictures of clothes and jewelry I liked, to show to my designers for referral; work plans and notes; interviews and travel notes for newspaper articles; travel plans, itineraries and packing lists; and quick, rough sketches of things that caught my fancy.

Although I plan to burn them all after making the Grand List (I don’t want anyone prying through them when I’m gone), I will miss my diaries. These diaries have been a driving force in my life. The days I did not make a plan I made double and even triple bookings and got a lot of flak for overcommitting. Or I forgot to attend a dinner, and remembered when the host called to ask what was holding me up. Or I spent a week floating like a dandelion puff because I could not find my diary to tell me what to do.

This is one of my New Year Resolutions for 2016. I mean it. I will do this tomorrow.

Fitting Back into My Old Clothes Challenge: Day 7

DAY 7: FRIDAY 27.2.2015

An important dieting tip: a buffet lunch during a diet session is a bad idea.

Since I had made this commitment before I started dieting, I went ahead with it. But I knew there was no way I could have a diet meal portion with a buffet lunch. Even though I took a small spoonful of some of the items, the total quantity I ate was equal to what I had eaten altogether in the past 4 days, without exaggeration. My week’s diet unraveled on that plate. I went back to mindless eating in the face of all that food laid out ready to eat. I ate it even though it was nothing spectacular. (Ok, the breaded deep fried prawns were good, which must explain why I ate so many of them.)

For the rest of the day I had 2 cups of green tea and a few bites for dinner, because I don’t believe in sleeping on an empty stomach.

After brunch I went to visit a friend. Her house is booby trapped with junk food. Every nook and corner, every crack and crevice every cushion you turn or pillow you lie on has some junk food lying surreptitiously in wait for you to succumb to it.  After the ignominy of the brunch, I had just a few chips.

Junk Food Trap laid out in every direction:

  

Signs of the fallen

Today I did an hour of medium-paced rowing to work off the deep-fried prawns.

Since I will be spending most of the day out of home, I have packed whatever food I can to eat on the go so that I don't have to eat junk in a food emergency, which is making me feel like both a baby and a very senior citizen.

7.00 am	Coffee with milk
9.00 am	Banana
10.00 am	Boiled egg
11.00 am	Yakhni
12 noon	Biryani and raita…always biryani for Friday lunch. I’ll eat   less of rice and more of chicken.
1 00 pm	Ginger qahva
3 00 pm	A small bowl of salad
5 00 pm	Some sweet potato
6 00 pm	A date and some nuts in yogurt
8 00 pm	Eating out at Biryani of the Seas. I’ll try and eat a small portion of something grilled.
9 00pm	Green tea to wash it off.

Fitting Back into My Old Clothes Challenge: Day 6

DAY 6: THURSDAY 26.2.2015

Yesterday while I was out for work, I resisted eating thela food, my favourite kind of food. There was bun kabab and masala French fries and memoni daal chawal and biryani. I got off the car, got to the stalls, and then said NO to all of it. Turned back hungry to my car and ate the few bair I had packed. If the fried fish stall had started up, I would definitely have given in to that. Sigh. I feel my eyes have started looking unhappy now, because food makes me happy. On the plus side, I have managed to shed 1.5kg and a layer of fat. I can feel my bone structure now, which had collected a nice thick coat of fat.

Last night it was tough saying no to Galaxy’s Assorted Chocolates, but I managed it. Going to bed early helped me stay away from the temptation to eat junk food.

Today I did 2 rounds of light rowing to get back into the groove. I didn’t know if I’d be able to cope with strenuous sprints with the diet. I’ll have to check the recommended diet for training.

When I exercise I make sure to drink plenty of water.

7.00 am	Coffee with milk
9.30 am	Boiled egg
10.00 am	Fruit and yogurt bowl
12 noon	Buffet brunch. I will try to not overeat.
1 00 pm	Yakhni
2 00 pm	A small bowl of salad
3 00 pm	Some sweet potato
4 00 pm	A few dates,figs and nuts
6 00 pm	Tea/green tea
7 00 pm	An early dinner of bhunna chicken qeema
7 30 pm	Ginger qahva
9 00 pm	A tablespoon of ispaghol mixed in a glass of water.

Fitting Back into My Old Clothes Challenge: Day 4 and 5

DAY 4: TUESDAY 24.2.2015

Today was One of Those Days.

I got up late, very late. Missed my exercise. Barely had time to drink coffee and eat a boiled egg (let alone make a diet plan) before being inundated with chores and errands.

But since I had the daily staples of coffee, boiled egg, salad, sweet potato, yakhni, qahva, fresh fruit and nuts ready and prepared, I was able to grab these bites on the go. Otherwise I would have had the candy and cake for sure. (Well, I did have one bite of cake.)

9.30 am	Coffee
11.00 am	Boiled egg
12.00 am	Salad and sweet potato
2.00 pm	A hurried lunch of chicken karhai and some naan (not a good idea; whole wheat chapattis are much better)
3 .30 am	Yakhni
7.00 pm	Chicken karhai and naan
8 00 pm	Ginger qahva

Even though it was a hectic, helter-skelter day, I managed to not fall back on junk food and overeating to see me through it, though I did feel hungry through the day.

Luckily for my diet I wasn’t able to join a friend for paneer tikka at a dhaba.

The previous night I had overeaten when dining out (as usual), but not as much as I would have if I hadn’t tried. At first I took only a small helping of Kabuli pulao, Afghani boti and mutton butter karhai with hot naan as I had planned. And then I went for seconds and thirds and fourths, which I had not planned to do at all. I realize I will have to curtail eating out during this challenge as it seems to be my most vulnerable Achilles’ heel.

With the cycling and fat burner yakhni and qahva, my solid fat layer has started melting and is ready to burn off. I should have exercised today to torch it, but in the morning the weather was so gorgeous that instead of going for exercise I enjoyed it in bed. At least I didn’t go out for halwa puri as should ideally be done.

Day 5: WEDNESDAY 25.2.2015

My bed and blanket won again today. No exercise, but at least I made a meal plan. Today is the third day I’ve missed my exercise. On the plus side, at least I’ll not build muscle mass. But I do need to burn off the loose fat or I’ll lose muscle tone, and that is the most difficult to get back.

9.00 am	Coffee with milk.
9.30 am	Boiled egg.
10.00am	Fruit
12 noon	Khageena, and half a chappati to stave off hunger.
1 00 pm	Yakhni
2 00 pm	A small bowl of salad
3 00 pm	Some sweet potato
4 00 pm	A bowl of yogurt with nuts
6 00 pm	Tea/green tea
7 00 pm	An early dinner of tikka masala beef
7 30 pm	Ginger qahva
9 00 pm	A tablespoon of ispaghol mixed in a glass of water.

Last night I went to bed feeling hungry, and I didn’t like the feeling at all. Today I remembered I had missed the ispaghol drink. Because I hadn’t made the diet chart. 

Tomorrow I must add a vegetable side to the meat dish.