Veggie burger!

Hi all,

Am back! Yeah yeah too long a gap.... Agree and apologies!  Now, now, .... No need to be so upset am coming with some news...    " bun in the oven" describes my current situation precisely :)

Yup yup ... And half of the time I was busy throwing up to do any thinking or to try anything new... Bah the smell of oil and I ran as far as I can ...... Yeah, the story of most women .... Now this is one half part the other half is my long awaited trip to namma  Bengaluru did happen the travel was scary in my condition but had a great time with all my loved ones .... What more I did get to drink Cauvery water and breathe in my Bengaluru air.... No matter how much anyone argues that they aren't same and they re contaminated ..... I would say like the famous ad: tied ha hai par mere hai. :)

The pampering, the food, the love.... Oh felt great... I know I know too much of banter. Flavour will follow too will do my bantering in another post!

Back to my own kitchen after two months of break from kitchen is refreshing.  I did venture into making a veggie burger.  A healthy one while at that.  Now the cutlet, is what it's called mostly at least like I know the Indian version is.  I was introduced to cutlet by my father when I was very young at - The coffee house in mg road, Bangalore.  The first time I was however more worried about  holding the fork properly!  Then over frequent visits started enjoying the taste and over the years did try some of those ready cutlet powder blah blah... Still not to my satisfaction.

Finally, in my own kitchen made from scratch a healthy version of it and oh feels so good!  A regular version would have potato and green peas so I changed it into sweet potato and fresh sweet corn. No frozen please!  Simply don't like it. Boil both separately in salt water, peel, mash etc now add the spices I added a lil more salt, black pepper, red chili powder, coriander powder(only for flavour)and you could add garam masala(am not a fan of the store bought powder hence dint add) a little sprinkle of corn meal and bread crumbs (I used baked croutons powder) and mix it all with no water.  Egg would be added but I kept it pure veg :) this is how it looks:

 Now you can make dough balls out of it and pat it with the flat of your hand use a lil oil if it sticks to your hand.

 You can make this kind of flat patties and slide them on a Tava or thick bottom non stick pan add oil or butter per your liking slide these in and they come out like this:



And then I used cucumber tomatoes  and onion with some organic sauce and yum! It's ready. My mr. Perfect loved it :)



YAWN!!!  The home made whole wheat bun is for another day, another post.  Am lazy now  :) cya soon Ta Ta .....

Nirbhaya!!!!

I was browsing through last evening and stumbled upon an article about a rapist's exclusive termed as a documentary and some excerpts of it and was stunned!

As usual when something shocking comes through my brain does like to shut it off, and like a child scared to enter a dark room i don't want to think of it.  By this i mean  -- "it will go away if i don't think of it"  that's my mechanism of coping i suppose.

So i shut it off and let it be, literally sleeping over it and then i got a wats app message from a close friend and she wanted me to know so had sent me the link to it.  I woke up to it and went by with the daily chores but could not stop the nagging feeling.  Like other women folks i read the article previously where the hideous details of the Nirbhaya case had been mentioned when it happened on December 2012.  Now the reason i say women folks is because this is an issue surrounding us and only "WE" can actually feel the horror!

i flicked through the channels and went to Times Now and kept watching the news hour debate and kept feeling outraged like having a very high blood pressure.  Also there was no one at home and i couldn't control my own emotions even while i belted out some messages to friends and stuff it felt like i was getting suffocated with my own thoughts and hence pouring it out here.

One channel wants to broadcast the view the other wants to question the same, one woman activist wants to talk about the broadcasting ministry and its role in this and another wants to talk about the legal system which is faulty and so on. I Agree they are all making valid points but am stunned to read that the lawyer who is fighting the nirbhaya case said something along the lines of - the women in their family wont step out after a certain time of dark!

These misogynist pigs need women in all aspects of their life and yet these are the dark thoughts they have i daresay thats only the tip of it!  Now the crime itself was brutal and then we had to put up with all the delayed tracking of the criminals and then the case and then this horrible excerpt of an interview with the criminal and then the lawyer's opinion -- How much more ?  This isnt the first this isnt the last there are gonna be a lot more of similar situations following and it makes me very scared for the next generation of girls.

Very long back i was having a casual talk with my mother and i had asked her if she cried because she had a baby girl since her health dint permit for another offspring.  She said - "Was thrilled to hold you alright, but i did cry for another girl born into a world where she will be ill treated because she is a girl not now but may be later... some day".  I thought she was being ridiculous but later i wanted to prove to her that i would grow up to be as strong a woman as possible and make her proud.  I did it to some extent though but i recall her thoughts and cant help but feel the same all over again after so many years -- I fear for the same thing!

At one point of time i used to think its the uneducated class who come up with this sort of thoughts and soon that curtain was pulled too.  Education, caste, creed, language, status none of it has to do anything at all with this mindset may be.  For this mindset starts right from the moment a baby girl is born!  The distinguish starts at-- what sort of games a girl can and cannot play for if she picks up a ball to play with friends then she is called weird in so many words in all languages and the discrimination proceeds to studies, household chores, marriage and even death!  Am sure for many of us born in the 80's into decent sensible families, life hasn't been very cruel but i really dont want to imagine the life of those Firsts! The first lady police officer, the first lady doctor, the first lady engineer to the first lady post woman and the first lady bus conductor...nope dont even want to think about the torture that those women might have gone through.

After all these years the issue still lies on women for we were wrong in going out for a job, for wanting to study further for wanting to  achieve and for wanting to exist!  Women should do house chores perfectly well, should be able to bear a child, should be able to earn some income should be able to do so many things and yet should be able to be home before its dark out and should be able to cover herself well and should be able to get killed the way they are!  And yet its not enough!  There is more expected of us.  Men who fathered the female foetus wanted them killed for their own reasons and today the ratio of a girl child is stumbling off and hence there is a shortage of girls and yet again they are being sold for money to get married to because the same "MEN" aren't able to find women to get married to!

No amount of changes in the legal and other systems will be enough for the crime being committed on women.  She is weird if she plays with a bunch of boys her age, she is cheap if she dresses up and goes to work and earns a salary, she is disgusting if she hangs around with men, she is not a good wife if she cant manage house hold, she is called different stuff for not bearing a child and the list is too long.... it goes on...

But inspite of being tortured to death and all the hideous things following the Nirbhaya case  we still haven't done anything about it as a nation which is other than feeding those criminals and letting them make these statements which are so sick that there cannot be a psychologic explanation to it!

I cant even say RIP Nirbhaya  because that cannot be!

"ಇರುವುದೆಲ್ಲವ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಇರದುದರೆಡೆಗೆ ತುಡಿವುದೆ ಜೀವನ" (Iruvudellava bittu iradudaredege tudivude jeevana) Life is leaving everything we have and craving for things which we do not have..

Pardon the lengthy title, but it best described my thoughts.

A great poet from karnataka wrote this.  And i realised that it makes sense... yup after all these years! (ofcourse in my own ways and for my own reasons)When i first thought of writing something like this the thought of writing it down in my mother tongue - kannada did come to my mind but i dint!  I think its because saying it in kannada would bring back too much of emotions-- may be i cant handle it thats why i dint!

After making Pizza at home, eating it and getting a pat on the back from Hubby dearest, my mind kept going back to years ago when i had eaten a slice of pizza somewhere and had taken a liking to it.

My mom who saw my interest decided to do something about it.  She went to the local supermarket to get the pizza base and one look at that and she decided a "NO" and came home and figured she could use bread as a substitute.  She did go to great troubles, i ate it said it was awesome and was even happy and a while later when she did do it again i sort of told her that she need not go to the trouble.  I meant to say it was too much of work and she looked disappointed :( and i did not press it further.

The reason this came to me the other day was when i realized i had thought exactly the same way like my mom, ofcourse after all these years!  A great cook my mother was, just as anybody else would say about their own, but she seemed to do her best and re create the dishes that i enjoyed when we went out to restaurants or ate it at my friends place and came back gaga over it. When we got a chance to live in South of coorg she did have a garden a really big one and she almost grew anything and everything like from a pumpkin to papaya.  Later when we built a house after years she almost recreated the same kind of garden and had a great variety of roses!

Am sure there are people who have their own farmhouses but somehow i looked at all that in awe, everytime i went home for holidays there was something new growing, something new to be picked and i had the same problem of a teenager!  Not important...  Just as she wanted me to work with her alongside in the garden and i was more interested listening to music of backstreet boys  and Ricky martin and our very own kavitha krishnamurthy and enjoyed munchies with a book of saisuthe and Sidney sheldon.  Now in my defense i would like to say that a teenager's view of things and problems of life are really different and it may not really have showed interest in any of the things my mother wanted me to!

Now before those obedient sweet daughters start getting annoyed about why i dint really show interest they perfectly did!  I could only say i was a bit of a free spirit those days a little tooo dreamy.  I had a weird mercurial nature.  I could not read a subject for a long time to start with.  It simply bored me!  "How long can i do the same thing" - was my constant liner and my mom got frustrated with me.  So did I!

After all these years sitting in a small suburb in North America i crave for a patch of garden  where i can plant tomatoes and cilantro and onions, i try out all possible vegetarian recipes i can lay my hands on and next i want to try if i can do a painting.  Yeah ! i know! no need to have said this making everyone's jaw drop open while they even read this!  How can me of all even think it!  Sure sure nobody believes it  -  thats a story for another day however. 

My mother had the patience of a saint i suppose -- i say it because with a mercurial husband and daughter its a wonder she dint go crazy!  I yelled at her for waiting up on dad night after night to EAT ! supper and then some for so many other things.  She seldom liked to go anywhere without dad and i was always annoyed!  Now here i am married and all ahem ahem yup! i simply cant make myself eat if "B" isn't around, may be because his commentary on the food while eating -  making me angry and a strong urge to LOL all at the same time.  Whenever i sit down alone to eat i inevitably think about something he would have said and smile to myself.  B suggested i spend a couple days at a friends place for a change from the snow and get some sunshine.  I liked the idea though i dint jump at it.  While i surely want to take him up on that i said - "Oh you arent gonna be there, what fun is it anyways?!  HUH!  LIFE - You leave what you have and run towards something that you dont and end up doing the same/ craving for the same --- All over again!

My mom could sew, knit, crochet, glass paint, stitch, do art work, repair appliances, cook and am sure could do so many other things that i dint even know of  -Whenever i saw her doing any of this i simply did not understand why she could not just relax bah! always busy and yet here i am trying my best to keep my self busy with whatever i can find to do at home.  I would love to tell her the things i have been doing except she isnt there to be wowed by any of it.  A bit too late to impress her now i suppose! 

And  YAWN! yeah i know! where are we going with this? I meant to say how i grew up dreaming about a career, being independent, shopping blah blah blah and after doing all that for nearly ten years ended up doing exactly what i thought dint make sense!  Its just a couple of things. Now, if i mentioned all of it in here this would be way too lengthy and boring.  This is just my story but i do feel that there are so many of us who would have left things that was to become something and craved for the same thing all over again!

I know this entry became a tad bit too philosophical and emotional but then, hey i told you its all about banter and flavour dint I ??


ADIEU!!

Pizza

Helllooooo.....

Am back and with a new excitement.... Uh huh.... Only my dear husband bares the brunt of my excitement!  The rest of the world just gets to read and laugh at it....  Surely my closest friends, cousins, and parents have had their share too, except not to the degree of what my darling better half is going through :) of course if I wrote about all my exciting ideas and the misshapen failures and victory of it then I would have to write a lot more blogs dedicating to it.

In the initial days he used to worry about all the hullabaloo I used to create about a new vegetable or fruit I would pick while am out shopping but then he got used to it and considers his wife to be normal now lol

Am a foodie and back where I come from vegetarians have about a billion options to keep munching on and my family could probably participate in a foodie competition and win it too!  All the uncles, aunts and cousins put together I suppose we have a very different palette and each to his or her own weird tastes.  Even in my childhood I remember I had my mind set on a particular set of things to eat at particular time like lot of people don't mind lemon rice or vangibath for breakfast but I wouldn't be ok at all.  My mom had a tough time providing me with different set of things to eat at different times becoz I was fussy and wouldn't eat the lunch food for dinner, I found it to be boring and not at all exciting and would sulk throughout dinner.  Everybody I know said after marriage let's see how many things you will do per day.  Of course my husband happens to be a foodie too and has the same issues like I do except for he is a perfectionist and does not entertain any half baked ideas literally and hence the saga of cooking different things each time has continued so far...

I digress as usual...

As promised today's is about whole wheat home made pizza from scratch!

Now before you have a laugh at this I would like to say in my defense the following:  it's healthy, lot of veggies, home made, I know what's in it and I can eat happily, I know how much cheese is in there so I can eat without worrying too much ... Ok that's about the list my unintelligible brain can come up with.

So I ran out of ideas on a vacation day for dinner and decided to mix about one and a half cup of warm water with a table spoon each of sugar and yeast( rapid rise) after the froth appears start mixing next set of ingredients but before that I must mention am sure most of us don't have a baking thermometer and end up messing this part since most of the recipe sites  have some degree in Ft or C and so it's safe to heat the said amount of water in microwave for about 1 minute and ten seconds  Now once the mixture is frothy add one tbsp each of salt, honey, oil, and three cups of whole wheat flour and mix it and leave it in the bowl for about ninty minutes and see if it's puffy.

It will look like this after you finish mixing:

Once it has puffed up  roll it and cut into the size you want and roll it like an Indian bread but thick and place it on a lightly greased pan (I used my cast iron and inserted it with a baking sheet) and applied olive oil and some pasta sauce(loaded with veggies) and added cheese slices and tossed in vegetables and voilà! You can put the oven to 500 for 15-20 mins and munch on it yum yum :)

The first time I made it looked like this and then I kept improvising on it of course ....

Now if you are as crazy as I am and did try this and did any improvisations do let me know and I will try it too :)

NO POO

Helllooooo everyone....

It's night somewhere and mid day somewhere else... The point being am in the part where it's three in the after noon.  The idea of posting something I did popped into my mind and I started...

Disclaimer:  anything posted in this blogspot is my personal choice, views or whatever one would call it.

The reason this blog is named so weird is that it serves the purpose ....  I want to chat up or give a writing medium for my random thoughts and tell people about my new experiments in the kitchen.

I suppose a quick intro of yours truly would make sense - a h4 visa holder, ex recruitment professional who is now in a small suburb of the U.S trying out xyz things in terms of experimenting both in and out of kitchen.   More of me in the next blogs.....

Now the most important reason of today's post is that I have officially stopped using shampoo!!!!!!!   Am sure that am not the first or last woman to do that, nevertheless am excited about it.  For those women with gorgeous hair and not a thing to do other than brush it twice a day... It's definitely funny to read this further however there are a set of us who belong to the thin hair or limp hair etc category and we are always trying to find a miracle shampoo that would end the dilemma forever for us.  No matter how many times we fail in this conquest we always walk into any shopping mall/ complex and drift off to the beauty section and never stop at any of those make up stash but stare dreamily at the array of shampoo & conditioner placed under the hair care section and end up buying below or beyond the budget stuff, go home and do oil massage and excitingly wash hair with the latest find and after a week get sad faced with the outcome, that ranges from dry limp hair, hair fall, itchy scalp etc., to name a few.

I belong to the same group... And one day while I was browsing for DIY projects and stumbled upon something  for the shampoo version and began my in depth search. Someone had written about yucca root powder that seemed to be available at Amazon which I found is expensive for a project of this sort and figured I should be able to find it in a 30 miles radius again a problem for a h4 without a DL and so began the further investigations and decided to make an Indian version of it by getting our good old "soap nut powder and Amla powder" from an Indian grocery store and mixed some fenugreek powder and made a natural concoction of a herbal hair wash.  It did wash out the oil of course but very early to describe the project a failure or success....

Hoping to post a pic of my hair in a week or two as a proof of the project being conducted.

Since the first blog has been dedicated to "banter" I intend to do the next one on flavour.

Bye for now.