Category: Cooking

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A lesson, a Drabble and some innovation

This was going to be hard. Saying ‘No’ always was. For a second she considered a ‘Yes’ then gave herself a mental shake. ‘No’, it had to be. A moment later her daughter came skipping in, ‘So may I mama, please?’. ‘No,’ she said gently, trying to blunt the blow with her smile. The dreaded tears came in a deluge.

Later she watched her daughter playing happily. In teaching her a lesson she had learnt one too – that life lessons were important, tears temporary. She wished she knew then what she knew now. It would have made her decision easier.

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Linking to Write Tribe’s 100 words on Saturday for the prompt
“S/he wished S/he knew then what S/he knew now”

The Drabble will make more sense if you read yesterday’s post.

With all of that behind us we spent a near perfect day today.. Cleaning together. 

There she is wrestling a cushion cover. She won with honours, I might add.

A month of being away has left the house coated in layers of dust. Seriously, how it climbs up to the 9th floor is a mystery. The maid’s on leave and I’d have probably left it as it was and waited for her (yes I’m bad like that. And I do hate housework) but we’re expecting a friend and it needed to be done. 

Over lunch, N asked me if she could melt her dairy milk and re-freeze it into tiny chocolates. I had this vision of a chocolate smeared kitchen and refused rightaway. I stashed away the moulds for good measure. Later, while cleaning the fridge I spotted this… 

She even found some cake sprinklers and used them

On quizzing her she said she had melted the chocolate in the sun then poured it out into medicine dispensers and topped them off with gems. Didn’t I tell you this new gen was a tad too smart?

In other news she has figured out how to use the printer all on her own. Now she can do her school projects on her own. Yay! Maybe 8 years is that magic age when kids grow up suddenly.

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Chocolate spoons, cup cakes and a party

The drafts have been piling up, my comeback drafts, but I’ve been weirdly reluctant to press the “publish’ key. This post, however, just might get done. It’s a party post and I love party posts. Besides, a party is a good way to get back, right?The kids this time had their birthday in my hometown so missed out celebrating with their friends. The Husband told them to decide between one big gift each or another party with their friends – not a birthday party, mind you, just a party.

You should have seen them think and debate and argue back and forth. N wanted the party, H wanted the gift, we just wanted a consensus. Finally after much thought a party it was to be.

For long I’d wanted to separate the concepts of ‘party’ and ‘presents’. This party was to have no gifts and no return gifts either. For the record, I have a long lasting vendetta against return gifts and the mega avatar they’ve taken.

That decision being made the next thing was to convey it to the mums that this wasn’t a birthday party. It took a bit of convincing but they came around and did a pretty good job and the kids were primmed well. I just had a few queries of “Aunty where’s my return gift?”… far fewer than I expected.

I chose an invite off the Net and fiddled with it so it looked like this.. to make sure everyone got our message.

I did away with the cake and instead got cup cakes for everyone. We put on name flags to avoid fights over colour! Yeah we think of everything.

Another fun thing I’d been longing to try out were these chocolate spoons. The recipe I worked with was from here http://www.oneperfectdayblog.net/2012/09/12/how-to-make-chocolate-spoons/.
Since my spoons were plain white I dressed them up a bit with stripey glitter designs with 3-D paint. I loved the result.

 

All I had to do after that was melt some regular Dairy Milk chocolate on a double burner, pour it out on the spoons and decorate them with sprinkles (which I had ordered from gourmetco.in). Here’s what they finally turned out. Not as good as the ones in the original recipe but then I’m no cook. I do hope to do a neater job next time round.

The menu was simple, the music good and H set the mood with that notice!

The kids had a blast.

With twenty of them in our tiny living room, decibel levels climbed beyond decency. Even as I fretted over what the neighbours would have to say, The Husband slept.. yes slept through it all.

We really should have more of these!

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Cooking isn’t math

H learnt an important gourmet lesson today: Cooking is not math. Simply put.. If you mix together 5 delicious ingredients you might not get something five times as delicious as the individuals.I love the fact that he likes to ‘make things in the kitchen’. I’ve scoured the Net hunting recipes for him. I’ve not minded clearing up after him and I’ve struggled to help him set right his disasters so he doesn’t get disheartened. I’ve even been fine with him turning experimental and creating recipes. The problem arises when he wants me to sample his creations.

This is what he put together today…

A glass of water
One tspn of Glucon D nimbu pani
One tspn nutella
A pinch of baking soda (he thought it was black salt because I changed the container)
One tspn honey

“I made it for you,” said he as he held out a glass for me with that shy smile he brings out when he knows he’s done something that’ll make me happy.
How could I say no?
And so I took a sip.
“How is it?” he asked eagerly. “You know, I added Nutella so it’s all chocolatey,” said he, eyes shining.
“Hmmmm… it’s nice,” said I. “It would be better if you put in some more nimbu pani powder,” I told him, hoping it would mask the nutella completely.
He took a sip, then asked, “Should I add some Horlicks, instead?”

He likes his drink chocolatey.
“Horlicks doesn’t mix in cold water,” said I, “Besides, it tastes best with milk.”
“Well then we’ll add some milk to the nimbu paani and then the Horlicks.”
He really can argue.
“Milk and lemons don’t mix too well,” I told him.

Mercifully, he took my word for it and I got to savour a glass of nimbu paani with a hint of chocolate.

The holidays have begun.

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Yet another soup

After weeks of red soups with carrots, beets, onions and tomatoes finally a friend offered some respite – a white vegetable soup. The recipe is typically ‘me’.. no fancy ingredients, no fancy cooking.

Maggie masala cubes 4-5 (which I was surprised to find are stocked even by our neighbourhood general merchant)
Chopped vegetables – Cauliflower, beans, peas, carrots, corn. Recently I added baby corn too.
Oats 2 tbsps
Vinegar (optional)

Take water in a pan.
Let it come to boil.
Add 3-4 Maggie masala cubes. The cubes are salted so taste the soup and check if you need more.
Put in the vegetables.
Let them cook. You can let them remain crunchy or cook them soft depending on how you like them.
Grind two tablespoons of oats in a mixer with a little water. Add the oats to the soup.
Keep stirring as the mixture comes to a boil.
Simmer for a few minutes and serve.
You can add a dash of vinegar too.

Incidentally my first ever blunder at work was getting the spelling of ‘recipe’ wrong. It would have gone unnoticed except that it was in the masthead. Gosh! Never will I forget this spelling.

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Breakfast like a king

Friends bear with me this month. I am going to sound like an obsessive fat fighter rather than an obsessivemom.. just for these four weeks. I need those two kgs off.
Exercise has always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whenever I’ve stopped I’ve faced bad bad consequences like oodles of weight gain or high cholesterol. So since exercising is a given, it’s the food I’m focusing on. While dinner is mostly soups.. check out today’s yummy low fat breakfast.

1. Whole masoor dal cutlets with coriander and mint chutney (which turned out hot enough to blow your brains away).
2. A slice of brown bread
3. Carrot, cucumber and beetroot slices on the side.
All made by moi.
Now for the recipes.
Caution: If you’re not the cooking type you might find this mind-numbingly boring.
The cutlets are a hand-me-down recipe from my mum, who has struggled harder than me to keep me slim. Here it is for those who are interested. Do remember I’m NOT a good cook and bear with my hit and trial ways.
1. Soak whole masoor dal overnight.
2. Crush to a powder whole garam masala – Green cardamoms, large cardamoms, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon.
3. Boil the dal with the crushed spices and salt. You can add in a bay leaf too. The water should be just enough to cook the dal. Don’t add too little or you’ll burn it, which I’ve done often enough. If you add too much, simply let it boil away. You can also add bread crumbs to dry it up. Mash the dal to get a dough-like consistency. Mum used to grind it in the mixer but I’m too lazy to do that. Mashing it in the pressure pan works well enough.
4. Add chopped onions, green coriander, green chillies and you have a nice batter for your cutlets. Make balls and fry. It can also be used as a sandwich filling… any day healthier than those potatoes. FYI: It’s totally awesome if fried properly in oil.. but if you’re on a weightloss trip a tiny bit of oil is not bad either.
The chutney is another staple these days. It replaces sweet ketchup at breakfast and oily pickles at lunch. You can even add it to curd to give it flavour. I put in coriander leaves, mint leaves, a bit of garlic and loads of chillies. Then I realised I’d forgotten the sour factor.. so added some amchur (dry mango powder), tasted it, then squeezed in half a lemon too. It ended up fine.
That was the breakfast.
Before I forget…

Weight as on 3.2.12 – 70.6 kgs.. Down 500 gms. Yay! Yay! The weekend’s here and I’m in a state of high alert. I don’t want the weighing scales tipping the wrong way on Monday.

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