Sabudana Wada and a Birthday...

This weekend my little munchkin turned 3 and I have spent the last 4 odd days just getting overwhelmed at how fast the past 3 yrs have passed. He turned from a tiny 6lb-15ounce ball of sweet smelling cotton candy into a 3 & 1/2 ft tall bundle of mischief in the blink of an eye! So apart from just smothering him all weekend and sucking in all his cuteness, we decided to spend the weekend enjoying his day doing stuff he loved. He crawled into our bed on Saturday morning around 10-ish with a very matter-of-fact "There you are!". After an hour of chitchat and about 4 rhymes, we got ready to start our day with his favorite breakfast - MAGGI. He can have this just about anywhere anytime! He just recently started Montessori and very adorably showed off how to twist and scoop noodles on his own using a fork. After breakfast we headed out to the city and visited the Aquarium of the Bay by Embarcadero. He loved looking at all the fish and other creatures that were on showcase and had a wonderful time running about the place. He freaked a little around some crabs/octopuses but overall had a ball. Then we stuffed ourselves in about 4 different flavors of ice cream and enjoyed some live dancing/music on pier 39. We headed into The Rainforest Cafe and ordered the three vegetarian items they had on their menu for a late lunch/early dinner. So all in all nice day out in the city, great drive and fabulous memories of fun.
On Sunday, very close family friends of ours visited us and we had tea with sabudana wada with them. Here is my version of this all time favorite snack and some pictures.

Ingredients

Main	Spices/Tadka	Generic
1 cup Sabudana	1/2 tsp Turmeric	Oil
2 large Potatoes	1 pinch Hing	Salt
1/2 cup Peanuts	1/2 cup Dhania
2 tbsp Bread Crumbs	1/2 tsp Red Chilli Powder
1 tbsp Maida	8-10 Green Chillies
	1 tbsp Grated Ginger

Method
Soak the sabudana in just enough water to immerse it for about 2-3 hrs.
Boil the Potatoes, peel the skin and leave it in the fridge for about 2 hrs. This will harden it up a little and make it easier to grate later.
Coarsely break the peanuts in a processor and roast them for just a couple minutes.
Once the sabudana has soaked in all the water, sprinkle a little water on top and microwave for about 2 minutes on medium.
In a bowl, grate the potatoes.
Add the semi-cooked sabudana, finely chopped green chillies and dhania, peanuts, bread crumbs, spices, maida, salt to taste and blend with the back of a heavy spoon until well mixed.
Make equal sized balls with it and flatten them on your palm and set aside on a plate dusted with some flour.
Heat oil in a wok and deep fry them on medium heat until nice and golden on both sides.
Serve hot with a side of chutney of choice or sweetened yogurt sprinkled with a pinch of elaichi.

Summer At Last!!!

So I am back after absconding from the blogosphere for about 2 months. I cannot particularly say that I have been very busy but occupied for sure. I had a whirlwind of an India trip end of April, which I won’t quite qualify as a vacation since I was trying to keep my sanity through a toddlers tantrums, the mother of all sore throats, a never ending jetlag, a family function, the “husband not traveling with me” syndrome and still squeezing in about 8 hours of shopping and 8000 calories of junk food inside a two week window. People might call it insane, but I have chosen to call it a productivity increase workshop. The best part of my workshop was the surprise my mom had for me that she was flying back with me. That definitely spared my DH from dealing with my crankiness coz my son was determined to pull my hair apart one strand at a time…what to do! Occupational hazards of motherhood! The one thing that I should most certainly add after all this whining is the my little bundle of joy is a whole different avatar in his familiar surroundings. I just tend to forget that a 24 hour flight followed by erratic sleep cycles and dozens of new people in a place where heat and humidity are trying to one up each other must be a little overwhelming for a 2 yr old...
So after I came back, we dealt with our annual supply of the cold, cough, viral fever and flu germs. Having survived a three week blur caused by cough syrup overdose, we bid them goodbye and managed to dry about 8 loads of laundry sanitizing the house. We finally decided to take control of our lives from the rigid holds of our insane routines and resolved to use every weekend this summer enjoying the outdoors and spending some quality family time. And I am proud to say that we have sustained on our “Enjoy Life” program 3 weekends in a row!
The first weekend we went camping with my cousin and her family. We packed enough food to feed a village for a week and camped for one night. It is only fair to add that we ended up eating half the village’s food to battle the cold. Our fault for trusting that summer is here to stay! It was gorgeous the day before and after we camped and freezing on the day we were on the campsite. The kids however had a ball…one snuggled warm in a bunny suit and the other keeping warm by hiking up and down every visible slope on the campground. We did have a great time though and clicked some memorable pictures.
The next weekend, we had family over for memorial day and my husband and I spent the whole weekend glued to the delightfully soft, sweet smelling cheeks of our 7 month old niece while discussing world politics and the solution to technological clashes (Read As: school highlights and deciding between a Nintendo and an Ipod Touch) with the 9 yr old munchkin. We hiked up coyote hills with the whole gang and some friends from the neighborhood and they all had an amusing time looking at me dealing with my vertigo on the way down.
The third weekend we went cherry picking with family friends and had a super time enjoying a sunny day in the farm. Junior picked two cherries and ate one and spit half of it out. It was fun nonetheless.
And the coming weekend we plan on visiting one of the local water parks and sun bathing and maybe sneaking out to a romantic anniversary dinner to celebrate our 7th year of wedded bliss…..
I have been resolving every week to make sure I send in entries to a couple of blogosphere events I have been tracking (a clean up your pantry event by One Hot Stove and a Green Gourmet event by Write Food both of which I think I have missed the deadlines on. I did however clean up my pantry and I did whip up a very green Methi Ghia Subzi but haven’t posted the recipes with pictures yet. Will do ASAP (Notice how I am not committing to a date? Chances are it might get done by the end of summer!)
So watch out folks for more updates on my “Weekends of Summer 2010” memoir!!!!

Chaat n Chai with friends...

Yesterday, my friends S, P and I got together to spend the evening making and eating some spicy Chaat and sipping on some good old masala chai. We had a terrific time making Pani Puri and Vada Pav and boy!! did they come out good!!!!! S made the puris for Pani Puri from scratch and it made a whole lot of difference dunking crunchy puris filled with hot vatana and chutneys into spicy chilled pani.....yummm! Click here and here to check out the pictures....

Updates without goals....

I am pretty surprised I did some food photography without an agenda a couple days ago and updated some pictures. Click on the name to check them out....... Stuffed Eggplant, Limbu Rasam and Morchaar...

Goal #2 Down!

I did manage to make and click all the Raitas except one....Pudina Raita....I guess its starting to become a pattern to always leave something undone. I will finish it in a couple days though...The fun part was that after making all the Raitas last night, DH and I gobbled them up right away coz we knew if we didn't eat it right then, it would sit in the fridge forever. Check out detailed recipes and more photos under each individual recipe.

Lunch today....

Phulkas, Gobhi Tamatar, Tendli Bhaji & Salad....

Update on My Goals...

I just vaguely remembered having assigned myself some blog related goals eons ago..(Read as: I didn't quite finish my assignment from two weeks ago!). I did cook a lot of rice dishes and take pictures but unfortunately, couldn't finish all of them. I got through all but one - Ven Pongal. I promise to cook that next weekend. Time for a new goal I guess...

Target: Assemble (coz there isn't much to cook) all the Raitas/Salads and photograph them.

Two more down!!

As you can see above, we had some snow and some sunshine for lunch today....the combination of the mellow sweetness of the coconut rice with some tangy tart lemon rice was yummy and filling. For the recipe and some more pictures, look here & here...

Evolution

As much as I would like to think that my generation of women are extremely accomplished and have survival instincts to get through any tornado that life throws at us, I do not feel confident enough to say that we have "evolved" into a stronger breed. My generation, for the most part, comes fully armed with top class education, tremendous self esteem and a very limited threshold for unfair treatment. We are capable of multitasking 10 jobs at once, confident enough to handle the family's finances, have a say in every decision and the place in society to attract awe and attention.
However, we really seem to lack the soft skills our previous generations had. Although they probably had those skills because their situation drove them to develop those for survival through their times, i believe that all the tools that the women of today have, to make them stronger and independent people have actually kind of diminished the capacity to have the soft skills that make a big difference in the harmony of a family. The level of humility, patience and tolerance that paves way for spiritual growth is subdued by the demands of the busy routines we impose on ourselves.
I believe that genetically, humans evolve with modifications to every version. Any tool that is not used or is getting in the way gets wiped off from our DNA. Fish lost their gills when they evolved into amphibians becuase it was not needed anymore for survival.As soon as humans evolved a strong spine, they lost the tail. It was getting in the way.
I do not think we need a male dominated society of the previous centuries to teach us these soft skills but I do firmly believe that these aspects of a woman's personality are what separates us as the emotionally stronger gender. We have the capacity to ease anyone's pain with compassion and unconditional love and we need to keep these skills alive and not let the fast paced lives we speed through take these away from our genes.
We need to make room for compassion and tolerance in our lives and maybe then we can claim to have become a stronger generation than our ancesters...
I wonder if my kids will have the same compassionate image of me that i have of my mother and grandmother. I hope that beautiful memories like these do not get tainted with images of frustration and intolerance in our childrens' minds just because we did not take the time to understand that sometimes a kid just needs to be kid..

On a lighter note, we have one more rice dish done....check it out here.

One Down!!!

Alright...so I managed to make Tomato Rice last night...check it out here...

A Goal for me!

When I started this blog, it was purely meant to be a record of all my recipes for me to refer to without worrying about my computer crashing. Believe me; I have learnt that lesson the hard way! I used to save all recipes on a folder in the laptop and keep backing them up in disks I could never find later. So having them stored on the WWW seemed like an easy solution to my paranoia of losing them someday. And ever since I have them uploaded, it is so much easier to share them with friends and colleagues. But now that I am making it a public blog, it really seems so dry with only a few pictures and no text at all. Just a couple weeks ago, I saw the movie Julie & Julia and am kind of inspired by the marathon cooking Julie undertook to give herself a purpose. Although I have my hands full with a home, a toddler and a full time job, I do feel that I should undertake a marathon cooking challenge to update pictures on all my recipes. (There is no way I will get around to it otherwise!!!) So I am going to pick each category of recipes and give myself a time frame to cook them all and take blog worthy pictures.
Since both I and my DH are suckers for rice dishes, I believe I have found where I need to begin. So here goes....

Target: All rice dishes on the blog to be cooked and photographed.
Time Frame: Finish by Sunday 2/29/10

Wish me luck!!!