Elmo Birthday cake

My daughter just turned three and here is the Elmo birthday cake that I made for her. I scaled down everything but the cake this year. Recipes for the yellow cake base, chocolate cake elmo and chocolate buttercream were from Confetti cakes for kids by Elisa Strauss. A little sweet for me but perfect for everybody else and kids.

Amdavadi italian bakery bread

Made at home in a pullman bread pan using Peter reinharts Pullman bread recipe from the Bread baker apprentice book beautifully recreates the extraordinary sandwich bread we get in ahmedabad in a place called italian bakery. I have never figured out why it is italian in Gujarat - but the bread is the stuff that English novels get their cucumber sandwiches from. Its become a standard at my home, ive changed up the recipe to half whole wheat , half Bread flour and it stands up beautifully. I also add a couple of tablespoons of gluten when i use whole wheat flour. Freezes well for many weeks. This pullman loaf makes enough for family for two weeks, approximately twice the size of a normal loaf.

Paper- plate- Aholic: A rant

Cooking everyday, for every meal yields nasty, dirty, sink filled to the brim and overflowing sink. This photo is not for the squeamish. No amount of photoshopping can make this sight pretty.








My dishwasher is old and doesnt get out the oil stains and masala, H is always too tired to do the dishes, and I feel guilty asking him to do them because he has a job and im unemployed(Child rearing, bill paying and house renovation carpentry, cooking, laundry do not count).

I never buy bottled water, try to recycle, and yet every week i succumb to this.














Every week when I go to shop at BJs i see multitudes buying similar packs. I know they have replaced normal china or steel thalis in almost every house hold. And every time I reach out to buy them, a familiar war between sparing myself and the environment begins. Must i consign myself to doing dishes thrice a day , everyday, for 365 days a year as I have for the last four years?

Capsicum, Peanut & Besan Sabji

The dry arid regions of gujarat grow little except perhaps green chillies of various sizes. This ingenious sabzi combines pantry staples like peanuts and besan, with these green chillies or capsicum here to create a really delicious sabji. Use different colored capsicums for vibrant dish.

This recipe is from the book Easy indian cooking by Suneeta Vaswani. I highly recommend it for the various sabzis and other vegetarian dishes. More from the same book soon.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chickpea flour(besan)
4 lbs green capsicum or mix of colors
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 tsp coriander pwd
2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup coarsely crushed roasted peanuts

1. In a heavy skillet over low heat, toast chickpea flour, stirring constantly to prevent burning until lightly browned and aromatic, 3- 4 minutes . Set aside.
You can put this on the stove over low heat while you cut the vegetables.Parallel processing rocks!!

2. Cut bell peppers into 11/2 inch pieces, discarding stems , seeds and membranes
I also added half an onion for onion crazy H.

3. In a large sauce pan heat oil over medium high heat, Saute peppers until softened.

4. Reduce heat to medium. Add coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne, salt and sugar. Mix well. Saute for 2 minutes longer. Sprinkle besan on top of peppers . Do not mix.
The mixture of coriander and jeera is distinctly gujarati - called dhana jeeru powder.

5. Reduce heat to low. Cook, covered until peppers are very soft, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir to mix. Remove from heat and sprinkle with crushed peanuts if using. Whenever I buy raw peanuts from the Indian store, I roast them in the oven at 425 F for about 8 minutes or until you can smell the peanuts smell and store it. Comes in handy whenever you need roasted peanuts.Here the dish is already seasoned with sugar but I highly recommend the gujju style of finishing vegetables with a pinch of sugar, lemon juice and coriander leaves. Brightens the whole dish.



You can also visit suneeta vaswani at her website
http://www.suneetavaswani.com/

Book Review: Sacred Waters

I am a thoroughly urban person, Nature generally scares the shit out of me. My plants wither and die despite my best attempts, Camping is a scary proposition(no internet? all that silence? crickets ? BUGS!!) and so on. But if you grow up in the dessert like environs of Gujarat like i did you might develop an equal reverence for water in all forms. Lakes, rivers, the monsoon. Nobody knows the smell of rain here - welcome water hitting dry dry mud. It took me a long time to understand why people and children donot go out and dance in the rain here in the USA! It might also explain why Niagara falls is so riveting to us Indians.

I was involved in water quality measuring and mapping in the USA in the past, so i picked up this book out of sheer curiosity about India's most majestic river - the Ganga.

This book is the account of Stephen Alter - atheist; and his journey of the Char Dham - a journey from Hardwar to Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri on foot. Alter is a cousin of Tom Alter ( always the firang in Hindi movies) and author of Fantasies of a Bollywood love thief(nice review here).

The Char Dham Yatra is a fairly popular pilgrimage in India, my parents have done it. For them the attraction was in the religious and moksha angle of it. Why then does a professed atheist want to attempt this spiritual journey? For me these first pages where he explains his motivations for this journey are the most moving - I quote ," In many ways it would be so much easier to possess the kind of faith that the kavar(pilgrims) carry with them as they transport their gangajal.....Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have an absolute sense of purpose that propelled me forward, without hesitation, without fear, without concern for past or future. On the other hand doubt can often be as powerful a motive as belief

He goes on to explain his fascination with the Char dham yatra , "(although I am an atheist) there is something in me that responds to the spiritual elements in nature. I can easily understand how the force of a river or the shape of a rock might be interpreted as something larger than itself....I see myself as a pilgrim who does not follow the prescribed tenets of any particular faith, but seeks to find the subtle and mysterious connections between human experience, mythological narratives and natural history".

This,to me, is the whole book in a nutshell in the authors own words.

The rest of the book follows a journal format where he explains the majestic terrain as he covers it on foot, mythologies, snapshots of common peoples lives and livelihoods and most importantly Nature and natural history. In that sense this book is so tied to the terrain, cities and places he travels through - it seems more like a companion book to such a travel - should you attempt it yourself. So there is a curious emptiness when I read it, my eyes lift from the book and want to drink in the beautiful snowcapped mountains and instead land on the computer in front of me.

What does emerge though is a picture of terrain under tremendous upheavel, Uttarakhand where much of the pilgrimage happens is under tremendous population pressures. Tourism is a major source of revenue. This rapid urbanization and population pressure is threatening a magnificent landscape that would inspire spiritual search in the most blase of us. The char dham area is the only remaining portion of the Ganga watershed above Rishikesh that has water fit for human consumption. The rest of the Ganga , no matter how elevated spiritually is a mortal threat to humans and unfit for human consumption.

The writing in the journal parts gets pretty loose and rambling at times and insights seem scattered few and far in between. What recommends this book finally is the quality and depth of insight when we do get it.

My 300$ Kitchen renovation

or why I disappeared from my blog


Before Picture:























After Picture:























This is what happens when you watch one too many HGTV Home makeover shows!! I had really really horrible formica eurostyle cabinet doors which made my kitchen look absolutely awful. So, I bought unfinished cherry wood doors from Second Chance Inc Baltimore an architectural salvage place -They sell these really really cheap- and they were lying around the house for the last eight months before i finally got down to doing something with them. However the doors are all kept pretty hodgepodge and you will need exact dimensions of the doors you really need and an eye for consistent door design. I sanded the trim of the cabinets, then stained both the doors and the trim, added crown molding at the top of the cabinets to give it some height and finished off with new cabinet hardware - knobs and pulls. Ive had loads of fun so far doing this with the help of my husband.

Whats left? A new backsplash and countertop! I saw these fantastic antique tiles at Second chance inc and am going to design the back splash to match the buttercup yellow wall color and cherry cabinets with a cool focal point over the sink.

Great tip for all those looking for home makeovers on a budget is to find your local architectural salvage warehouse. Just google architectural salvage + your city. Its a green way to upgrade and wallet friendly as well.

Doing all the work yourself does require some effort, but im having fun teaching myself staining and carpentry work.

Brown Rice Idli & Dosa

Thanks to all who left suggestions for a healthier food lifestyle in my last post. I have been working on incorporating these guidelines in my lifestyle for the last two months. I have now switched to brown rice batter for idli and dosa batter - a staple always in my fridge.

I now use Carolina brown rice and urad dal for the batter (3:1) proportion. Brown rice is not a magic wand -
it has the same amount of calories as white rice - the fibre content is marginally higher and so is potassium.

This batter seems to ferment faster - or maybe it is finally summer here :) I plan to unleash my inner mad scientist on to tinkering with this further to make it even healthier.