Organizing the serving bowl.

What is it with me and food and me and organization. There is a weird connection there. Alright if you see the space in my head it is rather disorganized. A few years back some professionals did attempt at organizing it. And now I don’t see them anywhere in the business listings. But outwardly I am organized and much to the despair of the people living with me it is surely tedious. Would you believe it my Gmail account is organized. Who organizes their Gmail account. I have folders for all sorts of emails and those that do not stand worthy of any folder gets instantly deleted not just from the inbox but from Gmail.  once tried to retrieve one such email and couldn’t find it. So I created a new folder called ‘it should be deleted but don’t”.

Now the same applies for food. I don’t know if it is just me or if it is true with every girl. I get totally irritated if people serve themselves rice without creating clean lines. A little tedious for you understanding. But here is what I am trying to explain. If you are gonna take rice why not cut a straight line through and then take it. Don’t leave back 1/4 cup of vegetable because you are too full to eat. And please do not leave a spoonful of dal. It is difficult to store nobody wants to eat it the next day and then I end up storing it the whole night and throwing it away the next day.

So everyone I have fed till date (ok most of you) accuse me of over-feeding them. The idea is not to over-feed but to bring some organization in the serving bowl.

Ghati Mutton Masala

Spices are the backbone of Indian cooking. It is amazing how we complicate our daily lives by getting our tongues used to all the spices. Being a Khandeshi Marathi Mulgi – I have loved my chillies. I love my mutton curry the marthi way – laden with red dry chillies and the spice mix (aaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhh that makes it sound really bland) or the masala is the key to this simple dish.

Ingredients for the masala:

1 cup drey red chillies

2 cups dry coconut

4 bay leaves

3 elaichi (cardammons)

a handful of dhania dana (corriander seeds)

1 tsp haldi (turneric)

2 tbsp jeera (cummin seeds)

1 tbsp black pepper seeds

1 tbsp laung (cloves)

2 badi elaichi

a pinch of caraway seeds

1 tsp hing

2 tbsp til (sesame seeds)

1 tbsp khus khus (poppy seeds)

Method:

Dry roast this and grind it till it tunrs into a fine powder.

Ingredients:

2kgs mutton/lamb

salt to taste

1 tbsp haldi (turmeric)

1 onion puree

2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste

oil

Method:

Rub the salt and haldi  over the meat and let it marinate over-night.

Fry the onion and the ginger-garlic paste in oil till the oil separates. Add the mutton and the dry masala. It is ready to eat once the mutton is cooked to your liking. For 2 kgs of mutton you will need all the dry masala.

The best way of eating this is with jowar/bajra roti and onion.

Birthday wishes come true

Ever since I have come to Hong kong I have seen that children’s birthday’s are more of making a statement than clean fun that birthdays should be. It is about who has been invited and who hasn’t been. All this becomes a little hectic to my liking. For one my goal has always been a child’s birthdays should be about inviting her friends and not mine. And since I truly believe in this I have actually forgotten inviting a couple of my friends – no harm meant. But who will explain?

To break from this cycle of karma –  it is birthday karma. Karma is when you do something and comes back and bites you in the butt. Similarly you forget inviting someone and rather than come upfront and ask why there was no invitation you are not invited for the next event. So you see it is birthday karma. Anyway we celebrated her birthday at Disney in true princess ishtyle.

In most children’s birthdays parents are just left behind to handle sugar fed rowdy kids and take backs gifts out which most are really just not for the child. But here Disney takes all the effort. And for paying that huge amount parents get a huge spread of food at the buffet.

My mouth has just turned into a watering can thinking about it. No doubt the food was really fab and it just kept coming. And no matter how much we pay for food my daughter always eats bare minimum (knowing that her parents are going to embarrass her by mounting their plates). So I really urge all of those who have Disney age kids and those whose kids are now princes and princesses to get to the Disney buffet (before it gets closed down by embarrassing parents like us).

* I am not advertising the for Disney or it’s buffet, but post is inspired from a true life story. The proof for this will be available on my daughter’s muffin top parents.

Is This Hitting A Writer’s Block

When I was looking to have a blog on the various blogging websites, they all talked about writer’s block. And I in my most over-confident (I wish that was a regular trait, most of the time I am living myself doubting everything I do) way said to myself, there is no way that I am ever going to have a writer’s block. I just have so many things to write about. Soon I realised that with limited interests (which would make good writing) I had nothing to write about.

So in my first attempt to increase my intellect I decided to start reading newspapers. I still haven’t got any close to a newspaper stand. I wonder when that will happen. To top that I met a friend of mine who I think highly off, very few in that category, said to me I never read the papers. Wow! Amazing I don’t either. There you go. Now I never really need to get any close to a newspaper other than when I eat pakoras in a newspaper.

So I thought then what else. Well, I started this as a food and weight loss blog, that’s not happening currently, I am in a need of a new helper. And cooking without a helper sounds rather foreign to me.

So I have finally decided that in my next few blogs I am gonna write some horror stories. I know I am great at writing these and if the hair stands on any of you reading, then I have won my prize.