*Shrugs* Week

How sometimes, when you are travelling and you fall asleep, you wake up with a start to realize you have crossed so much distance and time had evaporated. It feels surreal and imagined. That is how my week went by me. It happens, when you are in too much of comfort that you stop thinking. I realize now while I write this post, that because I stopped thinking, life doesn’t seem like a struggle anymore. But for that matter, life doesn’t seem anything.  A Frame (of time and mind) devoid of any feeling and emotion and just passing by  like a rivulet flowing when it had rained torrents  the other night. I also realized since I didn’t feel neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction, I had nothing to crib about. Nothing to crib about meant, you are automatically happy, no?

Now from my rant, you can pretty much make out how thoroughly useless I have been this entire week.

With the exception of this, I have done nothing else but watch the Cricket World Cup, eat tonnes of maggi and be on twitter, like my life depended on it.  I spend the insane amount of time on my laptop that my father almost believes that I can play the harmonium.  He refuses to believe that it is all for job hunt. Darn! he is always right.

Also, this World Cup matches have ensured that my husband and I have very little communication. Only when India wins we softly congratulate each other over the phone. That must change. We are breaking all the rules of a long distance relationship.   If our past experiences of staying apart have to be taken into account, we are very very very very bad at being good to each other. This is mostly because, both of us are totally uncomfortable phone users. Chatting does help at times but mostly the Internet – God ensures that by the time we have only finished exchanging pleasantries, the connection conks off. I might have conducted a video chat with innumerable friends, a zillion times but in the last two weeks, my husband has managed to see me and my daughter for a few measly seconds. So that is how things are. No, I am not complaining. We are used to this, and we have accepted it too. It helps keeping tempers from flaring, you know.

My daughter is probably the most unpredictable toddler ever. I was expecting her to show some signs of separation anxiety or the likes towards me. But it seems she is showing such anxieties only towards my father. But it is the sweetest sight ever to see her huddled up and going to sleep when my father’s taking his afternoon nap. When I insist she do the same with me, she never obliges. Mothers are not supposed to be treated like that!! But because she spends more time with him and lesser and lesser time with me, she has learnt to mouth a few words in malayalam.

My mum would be taking voluntary retirement towards the end of this month and is looking forward to spending more time with Mimi. She is more enthusiastic about my food blogging than anybody else I know. She helps me select props for the photographs and constantly pushes me to do better. Since the time I sent my Chatti Pathiri entry to the Kerala Kitchen community, she has been following up with me about when the round up on the same was going to happen. She has always been like this. Very competitive and always wanting to do the best she can. I think I get that  quality from her



Finally, some action did happen towards the end of the week. One of them was, we  ( India) won the cricket world cup and I showed some emotion akin to what looked like tears in my eyes. Unfortunately I had zero avenues to  get drunk and enjoy, so I had to be content with tweeting with drunk people. Also, on Sunday, we ( my parents, my daughter and I) took a trip to my grandmas’ home. She lives in a village and it takes about 5 hours travel by car to get there. The serpentine roads make sure that by the time I reach there, I have no energy or excitement left to enjoy the few hours that I get to spend with her and my cousins, aunts, nieces and nephews. By the time, I am feeling upbeat, it is time to head back and to feel wretched again. In between my usually jolly daughter vomitted and by the time she reached home, she was exhausted and cranky. In fact when she stepped inside the house, she actually heaved a sigh of relief which sounded a lot like “phew”. Then she shrugged and got on with what she does at home, that is, making  a mess.

So each time something emotion-worthy happened, I caught myself shrugging like I didn’t care. This isn’t like me at all. I don’t shrug, I don’t usually let go. I hope I get my mojo back on this week since there are a lot of exciting things waiting to happen. It even hurts my fingers to type exciting which is mostly because Mimi has plucked some important vowel keys from my laptop keypad.

Well *shrugs* again.

Chatti Pathiri-Sweet Layered and Filled Crepes

As I have already mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I have joined a food blogging community by the name of Kerala Kitchen hosted by two very talented food bloggers - Ria and Rose

This month’s challenge has been hosted  by Magpie’s Recipes for The Kerala Kitchen and  she challenged us to make Chatti Pathiri which is a speciality amongst the Muslim and the Christian community in Kerala but enjoyed by all nonetheless. When I took up the challenge I was faintly confident that I would pull through since I was in Bahrain back then. I had my oven at my disposal and in my mind, the pathiri’s were sorted out. But due to unexpected circumstances I had to travel down to my mum’s place in Cochin and as the month end drew nearer, I felt my confidence fade fast. There was no oven and if at all I had to participate, I had to somehow manage with the stove top. I kept procrastinating till my mum herself pushed me to take up the cudgels, in this case the plain flour and the roller pin.

Within this challenge, I had one more personal challenge. My parents are strict vegetarians ( dad doesn’t even eat eggs) and while the recipes called for either egg or mince meat in the filling, I was faced with the prospect of giving up altogether. It was when I went grocery shopping with my parents, did it strike me that I could easily do my version of the whole thing. My eyes chanced upon the condensed milk tin and I knew I had my own recipe in the offing.

I quickly got onto a shopping spree and stuffed my basket with condensed milk, coconut, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, assorted dried fruits and raisins. Essentially I followed shab’s recipe and decided on the sweet version of this delectable delight. I wouldn’t say that this Baklava – like treat is entirely easy but it isn’t overtly difficult as well. It is pretty much do-able and the results are stunning. My parents savoured every bit of it and later that night I overheard my dad praising it to the skies to my brother over the phone. That really meant something. It was a clear indicator that chatti pathiri had won a few hearts here for sure.

The Recipe for Chatti Pathiri

Ingredients:

For the Pathiris:

1 cup (150 g) Plain flour

1/3 cup warm water

1 tbs vegetable oil

salt to taste

For the filling:

half a tin of condensed milk (I used nestle’s milk maid)

4 tbsp black sesame seeds

7 tbsp  Grated coconut

3 tbs (30 gm) Raisins

3 tbs (30 gm ) Cashew nuts(Chopped finely)

3 tbsp almonds (chopped finely)

4 tbsp Poppy seeds

3 tbsp cardamom powder

For Coating:

1 cup atleast or even more of coconut milk ( I used the powdered variety that can be done to milk by adding hot water to it)

5 tbsp mix of Cardamom powder and powdered sugar

2 tsp Ghee

Preparation:

For the Pathiris

1. Mix the flour with water, oil and salt and knead into a dough like that of chappati. Keep it covered for half an hour.

2. Divide the dough into 8 equal portions.Using a roller pin, roll it out into paper-thin chappaties/round flat bread of uniform size(6 Inches inches diameter) on a dusted flour board.

3.Heat a griddle and cook the chappatis/round flat bread lightly on a tawa. Keep them aside.You should be able to get 8 chappathis with this amount.

Note:You can vary the size of the chappati /round flat bread depending on the size of the pathiri chatti or the vessel in which you are baking it.

For the filling:

1. Heat a Large frying pan.Add ghee and saute raisins, cashew nuts, poppy seeds, almonds, sesame seeds till seem a little golden brown . Then saute grated coconut along with cardamom powder until they start to change the colour slightly.

2. Mix the above with half a tin of condensed milk and keep aside. Taste to check the level of sweetness. Add more condensed milk if required.

For the coating and the assembling.

1. For coating, make the coconut milk from the coconut powder. If you already have ready-made coconut milk, that’s awesome. Add to this, cardamom powder and powdered sugar and keep aside.

2. Take a non-stick baking tray,  or a deep skillet and spread couple of tsps oil or ghee / clarified butter all around.

3. Keep one pathiri/flat bread as the first layer. Using a spoon sprinkle the nut mix filling on top of the pathiri/flat bread.

4. Dip the second chappathi/flat bread in the coconut milk mixture, coat well and place it on top of the filling.

5. Sprinkle the condensed milk -nut mixture again and repeat this until all the pathiris, the coconut milk mix and the nut mixture is used up and pathiri being the top layer. Pour the remaining coconut milk mixture on top of pathiri (a generous amount) so that it drains on all the gaps on sides and form a thin layer on top. This is important to keep the Chatti Pathiri moist. If you run out of the coconut milk mixture after coating, make more and mix with sufficient sugar and cardamom and pour on top.

6. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes or until the top of pathiri turns golden. Alternately you can do what I did, which is to cook it on a stove top in a non stick  deep skillet or deep pan. All you have to do is to place it at a very low flame and flip it carefully to cook on the other side. According to me, herein lies the test and I passed it with flying colours. Flipping of such a heavy set block of flat breads with filling is a mean feat.  The flipping becomes a bit easy when the lowest layer of flat bread/pathiri is a little hard. When both the sides have cooked well, it is easy to slide it out of the pan into the serving plate.

7. After it cooled down a little, I drizzled it with some more condensed milk and decorated it with pitted cherries.

I was more than happy with the end result and it tastes absolutely fantastic. I have already decided to try it once again but with whole wheat flour and with a different filling. Thank you Rose of Magpiesrecipes for hosting this challenge. I really enjoyed the whole experience.

Clueless Week

I have spent several afternoons trying to pen this weekly update.  The words did not come out. I am at a loss here and have had to resort to distraction. But to tell you the truth, distraction does little to help recall the events of  last week.  I tried to think of ways to remember such as using Mind Maps by Tony Buzan (Thank you , Namit) but nothing.

Such acute amnesia can only mean that there was nothing to report about over here. Also, the situation is, with the current week going south and my previous week’s update remaining unfinished, I had to offload it somehow.

So I am going to write about how each of us ( Mims, Amit and  me) spent the week.

Mims – She’s been hooked on to the nursery rhyme dvd and keeps watching it in loops. She dances to it and  claps her hands in glee. That reminds me, she also likes the Glee Series on FOX and tries to follow their routine. A cute a sight, really. As far as vocab is concerned, she hasn’t been all that  inventive. One addition to her vocab is Anu. Yea, my name. She calls me by my name now. My heart melts at the sound of it and my guess is she has picked it up from all the times Amit calls out my name. But Mims goes, “A-nooooo, A-nooooooo”. Every word out of  her mouth is a celebration. I feel like baking a cake or atleast a cup cake for that joy. An over indulgent mum, you may say. But far from it, I see myself getting angry with her at the slightest of misdemeanour. I keep promising that I would bite my tongue as soon as angry words threaten to spill out.

She has also found sanctuary in action and puts no effort to learn any new words. If she wants something, she points out her tiny finger at it and says “Mimi , Mimi” which is a sure indication that she wants it right this instant. She points a finger at her mouth or runs to kitchen, each time her stomach growls for food, she even operates the dvd player to play her favourite nursery rhyme dvd.  Sometimes for sheer impish pleasure she calls out to Amit and says “Fa -Fa”. Amit is floored with that mispronunciation too. We shopped for some really pretty summer dresses for her and new shoes too. Her old shoes ( really cute ones) are tad too small. A sign that my daughter is growing or atleast her feet are!

Amit – There is very little that I have attempted to write about him First because he feels too self conscious and asks me specifically not to put his photographs or mention him. But I still do, because he is a biggest slice of my life  and my life has revolved around him. He thinks otherwise, but what’s important is, I think it does. He is a homebody and is most comfortable in the company of his family. He hates venturing out until it is absolutely necessary. He does so more than often because, I like going out. As a person, he is extremely reserved but for appearance sake he may come across as being extremely gregarious. He is the happiest with a book in his hand or surfing the internet for historical fact-finding. He is attached to his past and forgets nothing. I can go on and on but he would be very upset with this transgression. The past week has been all cricket and the World Cup for him. Work has kept him busy and the rest of the time he spends on cricinfo. He comes home and demands a family hug from us like the Teletubbies lot. He also critiques all my baking efforts and minces no words if they aren’t unto his high standards. Before sleeping, due to the dearth of books, he prefers to watch super hero animation movies. Currently he is hooked on to the Avataar Series which is about the The Last Airbender. I have to admit, this one is really addictive.

Me/ A-Nooo - I haven’t had the easiest week. Mentally it was the most confusing and frustrating. Job hunt has been like a wild goose chase and has been giving me some sleepless nights.  While I search for a job, I constantly debate about going back to the corporate world. I know in my heart, it is not the kind of work I enjoyed. I would like to be involved in something more creative. That being said, I have  had all my work experience with a single company. Would it be wise to base my decision on such a small sample size? All these questions would be answered with time, I know. But I feel my time is running out and a clock is constantly ticking inside. Do any of you feel like this??

When I feel like I am stuck in a quagmire, I channel my energy towards writing, baking and running. That brings me to some level of peace  but then the basic questions remain unanswered, so the vicious cycle continues.

But my baking efforts have been spectacular. I surprise myself because I was a non -baker once and to come out with such tantalizing treats shocks the day lights out of me also. No no, I am not being immodest. Really.

Over the weekend, we invited Namit, for a pao bhaji treat. This is my favourite Indian street food and if it was possible and if the calories didn’t count, I would have eaten it every single day. Considering it is fairly easy to make and makes for a tantalizing a snack, it wouldn’t be wrong to guess that it would be made in almost every North & West Indian home.  It is still to catch up in many parts of south India, while I am no position to comment upon how Pao Bhaji is percieved in the east.

The recipe  for Pao Bhaji ( Bread and spicy vegetable mash) goes like this:

Ingredients:

2 large Potatoes ( boiled and mashed; skin peeled)

2 large onions

2-3 Tomatoes

1-2 Capsicum

half cup of green peas

1 cup of cauliflower florets

1 large brinjal

1-2 medium sized carrots

Pao Bhaji Masala – I use the Everest Brand*

200 gms of Amul Butter or any butter will do. Salt variety tastes better.

Salt to taste

Lemon Juice

Coriander leaves for garnish

Chopped onions ( separate from the above mentioned onions) for garnish

Garlic & Ginger paste (optional)

Note * – If you do not have pao bhaji masala, you could use, a combination of coriander powder, Amchur powder ( mango powder), red chilli powder, garam masala, cumin powder

Preparation

Boil/pressure cook all the vegetables except onions and tomatoes and keep aside. Boil, skin and mash the potatoes separate from other vegetables.

Chop onions and tomatoes and keep aside.

In a large pan, heat some oil and fry the onions first. When they turn pink and translucent, add tomatoes. Let them fry for a while and keep stirring with a  spatula. Then add the mashed potatoes and mix thoroughly. Let it fry for a while. At this stage, you can add the garlic ginger paste.

Meanwhile, try mashing the boiled vegetables as much as possible and then add it to the potato mash mix in the cooking pan. Mix thoroughly while mashing all the same. Make it as homogenous as possible. Add 100 gm of butter first.

Now add the Pao Bhaji masala or alternately the mix of masalas mentioned in the note. Mix well.

Let the vegetable mash cook well in the masala. Add salt to taste. When the oil starts leaving towards the sides of the pan, take the pan off the fire.

The remaining 100 gm of butter could be used for grilling the bread and for topping the bhaji ( vegetable mash). More the butter, the better it tastes. Obviously.

While you plate up the bhaji and the pao, you could give the bhaji a squeeze of lemon juice and top it with chopped onions and coriander leaves.

Thats about it. Now have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because, that’s how I enjoyed it.

My baking venture of the  week was Lemon and Blueberry Banana Bread and with vanilla custard.  The banana bread encrusted with juicy blue berries was well recieved and with vanilla custard it was a surely a trip to heaven and back.

Lemon & BlueBerry Banana Bread

Banana bread is by far one of the easiest baking expeditions, I have undertaken. But gratifying none the less. A far cry from the usual chocolate and strawberry, it calls for the comfort and the warmth of bread with almost cake like consistency but none of the fan-fare attached. The Blueberries give the burst of juice in parts over the mellow  taste of the bananas.

The Recipe for Lemon Blueberry Banana Bread

Yield: One loaf

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 60 minutes

3 medium ripe to overripe bananas

zest and juice of one large lemon

1/2 cup butter

3/4 brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries*

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup pastry flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lay bananas (skin still intact) on a baking sheet and throw them in there for about 15 minutes. When done, remove the bananas from oven and allow to cool. Turn the oven down to 350°F.

2. While the bananas are roasting, grease an 8 x 4 loaf pan very well.

3. Now we are going to brown the butter for maximum flavour enhancement. In a small pot, melt the butter over medium heat and continue to heat until it begins to foam up. Don’t stir it, instead swirling it as it foams. Once the foam dies down and begins to take on a rich brown colour, remove it from the heat. Set aside.

4. Peel the bananas by cutting a slit in them and gently squeezing them into a bowl, they should come right out without a fight. Mash them up with the lemon juice and zest.

5. Stir in the browned butter, sugar, vanilla and buttermilk. Gently fold in the blueberries.

6. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add to wet and combine, but do not overmix!

7. Immediately pour the batter into the greased pan and pop it into the oven for about 60 minutes. When done (toothpick comes out clean), remove from oven and set on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes before turning it out to cool completely.

Consuming all these goodies is negating my work out effect. But I am keeping at it like an indefatigable warrior. Now I am looking to cut back a little on baking for a few days and try some new dinner and lunch recipes especially Kerala style food.

I am participating in the Kerala Kitchen challenge hosted by http://magpiesrecipes.blogspot.com/p/keralakitchen.html and am proud to have already submitted an entry of Pathiri and tomato curry to the same. What this will ensure is, that I get to learn and try new Kerala recipes. So kudos to that!!