A Birthday celebrated with Rice Pudding, Kerala Style

It is that time of the year, when post 30, you fervently pray that people should forget your birthday. I turn 31 today. It is a bitter-sweet feeling. I am not overly excited neither am I under-playing it when friends and family call me to wish me a beautiful birthday. I have  never been excited about birthdays. Frankly, I think they are slightly over rated. I rather enjoy festivals and other important days such as my daughter’s birthday or my husband’s even than my own birthday. Do not know why but my birthday seems like  just another day to me.

I LOVE TO PLAN for others’ birthdays, anniversaries, last day in office and similar events. But when it comes to my own, I hate to do any planning for myself and I also do not expect anybody to plan either because it wouldn’t be as great as the way I do. Totally narcissistic. But I have high standards, what to do? 🙂

Post 30, cakes can make you feel, if not a little depressed, then definitely uncomfortable. How many candles are you going to light up there? 30 odd candles and then there is no space to put the knife through! So naturally, I did not order for a cake on this birthday. In fact, it is all-Kerala strike and hence there wasn’t even a question of ordering one or going out for dinner too. All celebrations are confined to my mum’s home. My mum being the lovely mum that she always is, went through the trouble of making a rice pudding. This is no ordinary rice pudding since I have had all versions possible ( north Indian, south Indian, west, and east too). She promised me that it wouldn’t be anything like I would have had before.

So while she sweated it out (literally) in the Kitchen I made myself comfy with a book. Around lunch time she asked me to come over to taste the divine concoction. It had an enchanting aroma and I guessed it was because of the rice being cooked in coconut milk ( traditionally it is milk that is used to make rice pudding). I quickly grabbed a bowl and dug in. Simply fabulous and like she said, it wasn’t like any other rice pudding. It had a melt in the mouth kind of texture with fried coconut pieces far and in between. It was simply perfect. The sweetness was because of all the goodness of jaggery and the stunning aroma was because of the coconut milk and cardamom.

It is anybody’s guess how many bowls I would have devoured. Who needs a cake when you have the yummiest pudding made by mum?

The bananas that you see in the background (photograph above) are organic bananas from my uncle’s farm. 

This modest seeming pudding is an explosion of flavour and in my opinion, a grand substitute for a birthday cake:-)

The Recipe for Rice Pudding in Coconut Milk and Jaggery

Ingredients

1 cup of rice (basmati rice- you need to break it up a bit by grinding for a bit in the mixer grinder. Need to be careful that they don’t become too fine else will be mesh and almost dissolve into the pudding)

5-7 cups of coconut milk ( either squeezed from freshly grated coconuts, like my mum did or use the ready-made varieties available in the market)

Jaggery(grated)-2 to 2 1/2 cups depending on how sweet you would like it

Coconut pieces – a handful ( optional)

1-2 tsp of cardamom powder

1/2 tsp of ginger powder ( optional)

Preparation

Wash the rice thoroughly and throw it into a mixer grinder or blender to break it into smaller bits. .

In a huge vessel/pan, pour 2 cups of coconut milk and the broken rice and cook it in medium heat.

Traditionally, this recipe would require 2 coconuts which are grated and fresh coconut milk is squeezed out which is called the first milk. This would be thick and dense. Then a sprinkle of water on the same grated coconut to squeeze out some more, which is called second milk. finally, pour a little extra water on the grated coconut lump and squeeze out maximum that you can, which is called the third milk. The rice needs to be cooked in the third milk to start with. As and when the rice cooks, second and first milk are added after the addition of jaggery.  This is the foolproof way of ensuring the authenticity of the pudding. Only after I learnt from her the actual method of making this pudding, did I realize how much effort she had put it.

So for anyone ( like me ) who uses ready-made coconut milk right off the tin, this process would be way simpler. For ease of understanding, I have divided the 6-7 cups of coconut milk into approximately 3 lots. The first lot, like I mentioned above would be approximately 2 cups to cook the rice first.

To this,  now add grated jaggery. It is a joy to see it melt uniformly into the whiteness of the rest of the ingredients. This is when the pudding attains the chocolate like colour.

Time to add the next lot of coconut milk which would be 2 cups and let the pudding simmer. A beautiful aroma would waft through the kitchen as the coconut milk cooks the rice.

Finally, when the pudding seems to near completion added fried coconut pieces ( fry them in ghee/clarified butter for enhanced taste) and add the last lot of coconut milk to maintain the consistency.

You can keep simmering the pudding on low fire till you get the consistency that you prefer.

Top this with cardamom powder and dry ginger powder and mix thoroughly before taking it off the fire.

Let it sit for sometime and give time for the flavours to blend in. I loved mine chilled but you can have it hot and steaming.

So that is how I celebrated my birthday. My personal trainer is not going to be happy at all. I guess he might give me a break since it is my birthday. No birthday is complete without the round-up of presents.

I have to thank my mum first for gifting me a beautiful Tissot watch which I will treasure for life. It is an exquisite looking thing.

My dearest hubby, Amit- thank you for all the lovely books you got delivered home.  You are  a darling to have sent me splendid baking and culinary books and  a parenting book by Amy Chua called ” Battle hymn of the tiger mother”. For a laid back mum like me it is like a slap on the face kind of book. I love it!

My fantastic friend, Namit, cared enough to send me the book that I was so excited to buy but never got around doing so. He bought me ” Baking from my home to yours” by Dori Greenspan. It was such a  pleasant surprise. Thank you Namit

My darling friend Gayathri surprised the day lights out of me, by dedicating a birthday post. It is such a lovely gesture that it would very difficult for me to express how much it means to me. Thank you Gayathri.

Throughout the day, I recieved phone calls from school and college friends. I was touched that even after so many years, they remembered my birthday. Especially because, I haven’t let FB update it on my profile:-)

I was warmly wished by lovely twitter friends and lots of wonderful people on facebook.

Thank you all for making it so perfect. Though I am not the biggest fan of celebrating my birthday, what I excitedly count is the number of blessings that I get each year from these lovely set of people. Thank you all.

Last but not the least, my daughter gave me two meaningful pecks on my cheek and a big hug 🙂

For CSAawareness- Coping and Moving On

This post is a part of  the Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month initiative started by some fantastic souls I met on Twitter.  I have to extend my heart-felt appreciation to the CSA team who have relentlessly advocated this noble cause with unmatched passion and zeal. Through CSA team’s effort, I have realized and understood so much about my own behavioural aspects as a result of some untoward incidents that occurred when I was younger.

I read through numerous stories on  CSA blog  that each survivor has so bravely managed to convey. Each such story strikes a chord and somewhere I relive my unsure and unhappy moments with them.  When I was asked to submit a post for this cause, I went through many a sleepless nights. However hard I tried, I couldn’t remove the thought from my head and it kept coming back to me. I kept questioning, if only writing about it and talking about it would do any good?  That’s when my daughter came prancing around on her ballet toes and I decided to do this post.

Unsavoury events in the past have probably done a lot to turn me into the person that I am today. But it is only today that we discuss these issues more openly, with reason and empathy. When I was a child, I believe it was a taboo to discuss “such” things. As a consequence, inspite of a very supportive family it wasn’t possible to come forth to discuss, or atleast I believed so. Now when I sit back and think, as a child an unkind word, a rude gesture or a mal-intentioned touch were all slotted in the same category. It is difficult to distinguish one bad feeling from the other. While, as a child, I didn’t run to complain to my parents when my classmate pushed me to the ground for no fault of mine, I couldn’t or didn’t feel the need to rush and tell them about any other kind of issues I faced within the school or outside, even if it was sexual or intimidating in nature. It was much easier to either fight my battle OR  submit at times and then try to forget about it.

Over a period of time, as I grew up into a teenager, it was made evidently clear from discussions with friends, parents and teachers that it was completely fine to come up and discuss your grievances. During one such unsavoury incident, I understood a vital truth that even if you bravely went and spoke about your infliction, people ( read teachers and others) were more interested in the voyeuristic listening pleasure of details of the incident. When this revelation came to me, I immediately closed doors and decided to not let ANYONE have the pleasure of listening to my woes and convert it into a sensational gossip to discuss in their free time. As a result of this treatment, I quickly changed tracks and became the reserved person that I am.  People who think that they know me may laugh when I say this because, I might the one who sang the loudest at the back benches of the class, the one who participated in every competition, debates alike. But inside, I knew a constant turmoil that rendered it impossible to let my emotions out easily.

Because these incidents left an indelible imprint on my mind really early on, I was always on high alert, constantly gauging my environment and those within it. Nobody needed to teach me the proper way to sit, stand or behave as I was already conscious about my body and had a specific idea about how I needed to project myself.  As a young adult, I learnt to cope with these feelings of guilt and confusion by diving deep into creative projects. I played competitive sports, took dance lessons, exercised till there was no energy to carry on. This vigorous physical exertion made sure my mind was far from all the negative feelings that tried to creep up on me. But sometimes during the lowest points of my life, I have struggled to see the bright side of life and felt the demons rise again. I grappled and fought them till they were quelled again. In my own experience, there is actually no closure ever because memory seeks to find it from the deepest recesses in our most vulnerable moments. Even if  you confront your abuser it may or may not lead to any kind of closure inside your heart.

But I can confidently say, it is possible to slay these demons by always being CREATIVE- trying to learn something new, being true to yourself, and being optimistic about life in general. When I found it extremely difficult to handle my emotions I sought refuge in courses such as Art of Living and reading inspirational books. I also indulged in activities like baking, painting and martial arts such as krav maga. PHYSICAL EXERTION or building physical endurance made sure I felt confident about myself and able to come out of my body image issues. BLOGGING or expression via the written word has helped me de-clutter and de-stress the most. I never thought I would be able to vent out my emotions so easily post after post. But that I can, validates that all those who have problems with expressing their feelings would find it very therapeutic. This form of expression I discovered only recently and boy! am I glad that I found it.

This positive outlook has helped me cope with my feelings of anger towards my perpetrators.

Many times I have wondered why I took the decision to take a break from work and be at home with my daughter. The obvious reasons are that I want to see her grow and be around to be a witness to each of her accomplishments. I am eager to get back to work, but in my heart I know, I am not giving my best to the cause. Lot of thought and I realize somewhere I am scared to leave my daughter with strangers, when I go to work. I have to be around to protect her and her interests. Subconscious makes sure you do what you got to do.

But it is a  fallacy because I am not going to be around her all the time. All I can do is to equip my daughter with the right tools for life and to trust her instinct. To be able to stand up for herself and say no. To have the confidence to seek help in case the situation becomes difficult to handle. I for a fact, would always keep an open channel of communication with her right from the start. I would be around her as much as possible to keep her safe. After I read through most of the posts on the CSA blog, I have learnt so much about how important it is to earn my daughter’s trust and not take it for granted that she would turn to me when faced by a situation.

On a final note, it would have been easy for me to blame my bitter experiences on my guardians and feel resigned for the rest of my life. It was easier  an option to blame them but I know for a fact that they stood up for me whenever  they could whether it was about confronting an abuser  or reprimanding an eve teaser. It was still up to me to find my inner strength and move on. I wish and hope that each one of us who had the misfortune of being abused finds something  worthwhile that we can hold on to, get up, and move on.

This is my 100th post and I wanted it to be special. I am glad that it was for this important cause. Thank you CSA team for letting me contribute.

Apple Jelly Pudding

In my last weekly update I mentioned about an awesome pudding that I had made. I also immodestly raved about how I can say a good recipe from a bad one. Recall?

Well the post is not about my qualities of picking recipes but its about this fantastically delectable pudding called the Apple Jelly Pudding. I made this in haste since I had somewhere to go but the results were still stunning. This recipe I borrowed from Nashira’s food blog who is immensely talented and the photographs  on her blog are sensational.

Since this is an egg free dessert it was much enjoyed by my parents. My mum skipped dinner to have her fill and my daughter had it again as a mid night snack ( yea, she still keeps me up beyond midnight). My family declared this to be the tastiest pudding hands down. Thank you Nashira for sharing this fabulous recipe. For the topping, Nashira suggests a generous helping of carmelized cashews, while  I settled for some butterscotch chips. But my strong recommedation would be to keep up with what Nashira has suggested for topping, as laziness got better of me.

I hadn’t used china grass /agaragar before but this thing sets like a dream. I set the pudding in a big glass container and it plopped out without any hassles.

Without much ado, here is the recipe.

Recipe for Apple Jelly Pudding

Ingredients

2 apples
500ml milk
375g sweetened condensed milk – I used Nestle MilkMaid
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 teaspoon sugar
13g agaragar /china grass (a bit more than 1 ¼ cup when crumbled)
1 ½ cup water
For topping
½ cup unsalted cashew nuts, chopped
3 tablespoon sugar
1 ½ tablespoon butter

Preparation

Place agar in a pan with the water and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Turn down heat and leave to simmer until melted.

Meanwhile, bring milk to boil in another pan, and then stir in the condensed milk, sugar and vanilla essence. Now peel, core and grate the apples and add this to the milk mixture. Cook for 4 minutes.

Remove the melted agar from heat, allow to cool for 5 minutes, and strain the liquid into the apple-milk mixture. To prevent mixture from curdling, stir well to combine and immediately remove from heat. Transfer to a jug and pour into the cake mould or divide between small ramekins. Cover with cling film and chill for at least 4 hours until set.

To make the topping: In a small heavy-based saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Tip in the cashews and gently toss and roast for 2 minutes. Add sugar and gently heat until the sugar has melted. Take care not to burn the sugar-cashew mixture. Remove pan from heat when the sugar turns pale golden. Note that the mixture will continue cooking and turn a shade darker after removing from heat. Spread onto a piece of parchment paper or a lightly greased baking sheet to cool. Break apart.

When ready to serve, unmold the pudding and flip onto a plate. Sprinkle liberally with the caramelized cashew.

Its a genius this pudding. YOU HAVE GOT TO TRY THIS!!

Bedtime Stories

“But Papa, what would have happened if the thirsty crow wouldn’t have spotted any stones close by?”

Mithi’s Papa looked at his adorable four-year-old, all wrapped up in her Winnie the Pooh bed cover up to her chin. Only her tiny hands were visible that had clenched the bed cover with all the strength that they could muster. But it was her question that stumped him. How on earth did she start thinking about the “Thirsty Crow” story while he read her the “Three little pigs” story from her handsome, fully illustrated, sparkly fairy tale book? He garnered all the patience that he had since this was the tenth time she had interrupted his flow of words by her unrelated innocent questions. It suddenly worried him whether, his daughter, whom he had thought of being unusually imaginative and smart was having trouble focussing on the activity at hand. But he dispelled the baseless thought away when he looked  at the probing eyes waiting for his answer. He knew he had to invent one like the countless others he had before. But this time he decided to give her some logic to test whether she understood reason or not.

“Errr, beta, had the crow not found the stones to put in the pot, the story wouldn’t have existed in the first place!”

This answer seemed to please Mithi and she quickly indicated that he should continue with the rest of his story about the “The Three Little Pigs”.  By the time, he had reached the middle of the story, the tiny eyes had closed. Mithi’s Papa, got up slowly and placed her favourite dolly, Lola next to her and caressed her forehead before turning out the light in the pretty pink room. He closed the door after him and called it a day.

Mithi had an active imagination. So active that she enacted her imagination to see if it could come true. Most of all, she wanted to see if all the stories that Papa told her were actually true or not. She had asked him innumerable times whether these were only stories or was there really any ounce of truth. Each time, her father confirmed and assured her that these were true tales. She constantly endeavoured to put his hypothesis to test. She dressed up most of the times to be the part in question and enacted the whole story the way she understood it to be. She requested her Papa that she wanted to be the “Red Riding Hood” who out-smarted the wicked wolf. Her Papa, on the very same day, on his way back from his work, stopped at the General Stores in the local market and picked what had the closest resemblance to  Red Riding Hood’s attire  – A bright red raincoat. For the next few days, Mithi was seen strutting her red raincoat and talking to herself in front of the mirror, being the best Red Riding Hood, her Papa had ever seen. Mithi even buried a few beans in their backyard, to see if they were magical and turned into a giant creeper like that of  in the Fairy Tale “Jack and the bean stalk”. She watered it everyday and turned the spot into a muddy puddle and patiently waited for the creeper to grow. When nothing happened, she was disappointed but not for long as she would have found some other story to test. She even placed a pot of water near the Gulmohar tree  in her front yard. She strategically placed a few stones around the pot for any crow who was thirsty to drink out of the shallow pot. Crows did come around but flew away when they realized there was nothing of importance in the pot. After a few days, a silly crow managed to push the pot down to break it into many pieces.

Mithi’s belief that her Papa would only tell her the truth, made her stubborn when none of her ploys seemed to take effect. As a part of her afternoon play time, she and her dolly, Lola, put pieces of bread to form a trail so that “Hansel and Gretal” could find their way to her home and into her room. She waited for hours in her room playing with her doll house but Hansel and Gretal did not turn up. She then decided, it might be because they would have thought she was the wicked witch and wouldn’t want to make the same mistake again.  So she dressed up as a Princess with her tiara and got about playing the next story.

Mithi’s Papa watched her closely after he came back from work and worried that she was getting bored. Soon she might say that the stories were all untrue. What would he do then to put her to sleep. Surely, he couldn’t sing her to sleep. She might never let him into her room if he tried singing, he thought and chuckled to himself. He realized that Mithi did not have any companion  apart from her dolly, Lola. The place where they lived did not have many children around and so did not have any community playground.Mithi had to be content playing by herself in the garden, in front of their house.  He made a note to himself that he needed to look for another neighbourhood where Mithi could play with other children.  Anyways, in a couple of months she was going to start school so things would fall in place. He felt much better after that thought. That night he told her the story of ” Goldilocks and the Three bears”. This time she did not ask any questions but he could sense that she was actually visualizing the whole story in front her eyes. He wouldn’t be surprised if she asked for three teddy bears or for that matter a blonde wig to play Goldilocks. He only dreaded that she might try to paint her hair to look the part. Before that he needed to make sure she had the wig and the three teddy bears!

On one such night he had tucked her and retired to his room. He switched on the television to catch up on some World News. After sometime he felt weary and drifted off to sleep. It would have been little after midnight that he woke up with a start. He realized he had forgotten to switch off the lights in his bedroom. But before he did that, he had a strong urge to check up on Mithi. He strode to her room as silently as he could and crossed the hallway to reach the lavender painted door.

He was taken aback to see a faint glow coming from underneath the door. He recalled having switched off the lights before stepping out but the faint glow did not look like the one from the lights. He slowly opened the door and then he stopped on his tracks.

He felt his knees go weak and felt paralysed. The sight in front of him made his face go white with fear. He tried to enter the room but felt like a force was pulling him back. He called out to her but felt as if she couldn’t hear him at all.

He saw her hoisted in the air and bobbing up and down. He could see that she was still asleep and had no cognition of what was happening to her. That eery glow was coming off the space around her and it was as if she was in a bubble. His trepidation filled eyes observed that a long and almost endless creeper had broken the window glass panes entered her room to surround it from all sides. He felt he was going mad when he noticed three tiny pigs dressed up in a suit and prancing about on their hind legs. Just when he thought that the tiny black flying things were flies, one of them just flapped their wings right in front on him. To his dismay he realized what it was. It was a crow from his stories. The crow flapped a few more times and flew close to Mithi’s floating body. He screamed and screamed for her to wake up and run to the safety of his arms. It was then he saw two shadows in the darkest corner of the room. He saw a cloaked figure whom he instantly recognized from the faint red silhouette as Red Riding Hood only that she was faceless. The hood was hollow and only darkness seeped out of it. He didn’t have to think twice before he understood whom the gleaming green mean looking eyes belonged to.

Meanwhile the one of the miniature crows came back flapping its wings wildly.  It screamed the most blood curling screech which made the hair at the back of his neck stand. Suddenly he felt a cold wave wash his face and he woke up in cold sweat.

He immediately realized that he was dreaming. But his heart felt like lead and it hammered inside dangerously. He was unable to move for several minutes and sat upright in his bed thinking of the bizarre dream. He decided he wouldn’t be reading any mean bedtime stories to Mithi anymore since they had started to even affect him now. He felt he needed to check on her after the nightmare to make sure she was tucked in well. He silently made his way to her room and open the door. He saw her sleeping peacefully on one side holding Lola snuggly. Quickly he made a survey of her room and felt silly about his nightmare. He took one more look at her and felt a deep wave of love engulf him. Not wanting to disturb her, he closed her door and walked towards his.

While he switched off the lights to his room and snuggled under this bedcover he felt he had missed seeing something. But he again pushed that thought behind and closed his eyes. It must be his nightmare, he decided. Certainly there was nothing in her room that he should worry himself with. With this he drifted off to another fitful sleep.

Back in Mithi’s room, as she slept soundly with Lola in one hand, she was unaware of the presence in her room. In the darkest corner, there sat a hooded faceless figure and a pair of gleaming green eyes keeping a watchful eye on their protegée.