Trying to replicate what I had in Mithaas :) - Bedmi Puri

I am sure all of you have been disappointed without anything new to read on my blog. :-) Actually I have been a bit preoccupied adjusting & getting used to this new  life style, which is, a pretty restrictive one allowing me to communicate with my loved ones only through a telephone or via the internet :-( ... Anyways a lot & still so few things happened during the last month.... A quick run through.. I tried some new knic-knacs , photographs below give a better picture, after all a picture is worth a thousand words...., got to go to the gym for some well needed physical exercise after a gap of 2 weeks. It was an awesome feeling.... Now I dont know if anything more, interesting, really happened... oh yes Desperate Housewives & online movies kept me occupied during the noon times...
Yes one wonderful thing that we did do was watch 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' ... full of life & a wonderful message, "Live life with no regrets, you only get to live once". Now this has become a motto that I have started to follow close to my heart... So just loved the movie & then once we had our dose of how to live life, we went into an Indian Restaurant - 'Mithaas' and enjoyed Raj Kachori & Bermi Puri.... Now this is what I'm going to write about, since I just replicated the same at home today. Sunday Morning Breakfast was good, except for the lack of a bit of chilly, it was exactly as good as the restaurant's. Now am I exaggerating ?? Hmmm U have no choice but to believe me.. ;-) I'm sharing my recipe so that you too can try it out and validate my words...

So here are my trials (& errors) for this month ....

Handwa - Semolina Pan Cake

(recipe copyright - Yasha Bhabhi)

Gobi Parantha - First Trial Hubby Happy :) ...

Matar Kachori & Imli Chutney - Tried it from Manjula aunty's blog & it turned out Yum Yum.,...

Sabudana Badam Kheer - Minimal Milk & fat ... I'm glad it came out well - My Amma's Recipe...

Ok so after all these now comes my title trial - Bedmi Puri & Aaloo Subji ....

 A zoom effect - made with only 2 tea spoons of oil ...

Gomes's Platter ...

I have tried to replicate my dish from the restaurant, but with a little control on oil & chilly.... 

The below recipe serves 8...

For the Puri :

1 cup urad dal 

5/6 dry red chillies

2 table spoon fennel seeds / saunf

1 tea spoon asafoetida / heeng

2 table spoon grated ginger

2 table spoon salt / to taste

1 table spoon ghee /unsalted  butter

1/2 cup semolina / suji

4 cup flour / atta

Oil for frying.

Soak the Urad dal for one hour & then grind it coarsely along with red chillies & fennel seeds. Now add all the ingredients & with little water make the dough for the puri. Make sure to mix all the dry stuff properly and then add the dal & ghee etc. The dough should be little harder than the normal roti dough. Keep it aside for about 15 mins before rolling the same and frying the puri.....

For the Aaloo Subji :

8 to 10 medium size potatoes

2 to 3 large tomatoes

1 large onion

1 inch size ginger

4 to 6 cloves of garlic

4 cloves

4 cardomom

2 teaspoon cummin seeds

2 tea spoon oil,

1 tea spoon turmeric powder

2 tea spoon red chilly powder

4 tea spoon coriander seed powder lightly dry roasted

1 teaspoon roasted cummin seed powder

1 tea spoon cinnamon powder

2 table spoon fresh finely chopped coriander leaves

Salt to taste

2 table spoon tamarind juice or lemon juice...

Boil the potatoes & cut it into big pieces. Blend tomatoes, onion, ginger, garlic without water into a paste. Heat oil in a pan and add cummin seeds, cardamom , cloves & turmeric powder first then add the the tomato paster & all other spices and fry it till the it changes colour and you can smell the spices. Remember the gravy may not loose oil since we have added just 2 tea spoon of oil. Once it gravy looks & smells good add the potaoes & mix nicely if required add a little water but remember this would not be a very watery gravy hence little water is required add the lemon / tamarind juice & coriander leaves... Keep it stiring for 5 minutes so that the potaoes soak in the gravy...

Your aaloo subji is ready along with Puri... I had made about 45 puris today, for my Friend's breakfast too, & one big pan of subji. All this took a total 1 hr 45 minutes out of my morning....

Make sure that you fry the puris till they are dark brown, this makes sure that the dal gets cooked & the flavors come out....

So go ahead & try it.... 

Till we meet again, with more of my "interesting" experiences, have fun & live life to the fullest, cos 'Zindagi naa milegi dobara' ;-)....

My cooking experiences .....

Since the time I have landed here most of my time goes on watching the idiot box & surfing...Here I do keep trying different stuff which is either a HIT or a Disaster....So I thought I would write about my cooking experiences.... A little background... I love cooking but it is mood specific & I m a health freak cook which means I would NOT be able to pour more of butter, oil or any kind of fats....

As per my Mummy seems I have helped her make roti or parantha since I was barely 10 yrs old.... Please dont misunderstand the above line as a self-praise, it was merely to emphasize my love for cooking... I even used to cook potato subzi with tomato sauce & bread as a kid and take it to school .... So yes I have loved cooking always and have loved to see people eat... I love when some people take interest in food and enjoy it thoroughly.. I have a few examples, my senior Mr. Kapil Kedar, my friends Saji, Snigdha, Jey, Murali, Ashish.... (people, this is a compliment and is definitely meant as one)

Ok now coming back to my title for this post...Here they are, the dishes I have cooked in the last couple of days and the way I feel about them....

Chhole...A Disaster.

Believe me, I had put in a lot of effort into this. Preparing lunch for your darling hubby on a monday morning coupled with the fact that there was no grinder to grind the onion & tomatoes was a pretty tough job... But  it did not taste even one percent of how it looks.... I dont know what went wrong but somehow all my hard labor was not justified... 

The learning : Dont cook more than u need... I had made a whole lot of it :( ... & International chick peas dont compare to Indian chick peas ;-)

Vegetable Noodles - Second disaster  :(

I took 5 full days to recover from the Chhole Disaster & jumped right into the next one on friday. By popular demand (Ofcourse theres no one else here to demand but Gomes) I made Chowmein. I am actually well appreciated for my Chowmein. It was even mentioned as better than a professionally cooked noodle from Mainland China, by my Brother In-law. But this time... at 10 in the night... a total disaster...

Horrible... Poor Gomes had to suffer with this as his dinner ....

Lesssons Learned : Taste & Measure soya sauce & vinegar esp when using a new brand...

Pani Poori - Super Hit

Finally something awesome. Thank god finally my husband had something good to eat and something he really liked too, Pani poori. BTW I just made the masala, Pani & Poori were ready made, that we got from the Market ;-). Although be aware that I have made the poori as well, once along with my sister during my Sister's wedding :).... Happy Happy Happy 

I AM the Custard Queen...

A lovely couple & their daughter ( Precisely Jey's Sis & Brother In-law & lovely Aashika) had been over for lunch this noon & guess what was dessert..... my very own, tried & tested, Custard ( ON DEMAND)... And here, in US, it comes out all the more tastier, with all the variety of Fruits that we can get..... Yummy Yummy yummy...... 

Lessons Learned : Just be humble & keep making it Yummier ...;-)

Dum Aloo - My Mumma style...

I have to tell u the story about this... This is the Dum aloo that is made every diwali by my Mom , My Cooking Queen, that we enjoy with Poori for dinner, right after the Diwali Puja... I dont know how, but my mom makes it with the exact same taste every year, take my word for it, and it is the BEST.... This morning I woke up not knowing what to cook for our guest, so I called my mom & asked her for THE recipe... I'm sure mine was nowhere close to Mom's signature taste, but it was very good..... Atleast my Husband says so :) ....

Paneer Masala - My "Star" Masi's recipes

In my life I'm blessed to be surrounded by awesome people who are also amazing cooks.. and in this list of sisters, aunts & friends, my Masi ( TARA MASI, rather Dr. Tara Dugar) takes first place, hands down... She is just an amazing cook who can cook or bake anything, from Mexican to Italian to Chinese to Indian, Mughlai .... Just about anything & everything and Pure Vegetarian ... She can turn ur dream dish to reality....:) And when I didnt know what to cook I got the recipe for this Paneer from her..... Even though I'm not a Big paneer Fan but still anything for the guest... Masi, sorry I didnt follow your recipe fully and ended up with an "almost" perfect dish.... this was purely cos of my Health conscious cooking (I didnt use as much oil as I should have :-( ...)

Lesson Learned: Follow the recipe to the word, esp when serving the guest....

Pulao... Yum...

Somehow I can never make Pulaos after making the rice separately cos it never gets cooked properly... it becomes sticky or it breaks while I mix in the other ingredients... Shankar (My friend) knows this when I had cooked for my whole team in Chennai & the rice became a disaster.... So I prefer to make it in the cooker directly with the veggies.. and this one, with my Mom's idea, came out great... Happy Happy Happy....

Poori --- Looks good ??? It tasted even better... :)

Happy Happy Happy... again

So now after this long post of mine if U r hungry please go and get yourself a glass of water, dont get tempted and have anything unhealthy ;) ... 

I hope I can achieve the same level of success in all the varied cuisines that I hope to cook. Now all I got to do, is get myself to cook the different dishes.... :-)

The week that went by....

Hmmmm even though I m jobless here I mean nothing BIG to do still I could not find time to write this post... This was due by this monday.... Anyway now that I m writing it , I m thinking back and revisiting my activities over the whole week that went by... Monday was very boring and tiring, just did not feel like getting up since the temperature here dips any time... Tuesday I was determined to not waste and go out, so there I went for my regular routine walks around our apartment....and made vegetable soup and bruschettas for dinner.. Was happy that it turned out well.... Wednesday & thursday went on some reading, and movie watching ....Here comes Friday and this is what I wanted to write about.... We invited Gome's old roomies for Dinner and I starting thinking what should be the menu....

Asked couple of friends... Interestingly I have friends who have real good culinary skills, so took some tips from them and I was glad to read couple of food blogs shared by my friend Anita who herself blogs http://sliceofmylyfe.wordpress.com/ . Thanks Anu for sharing those... Finally I made up my mind to make the following for dinner:

1. Dahi Dum Aloo
2. Mixed Vegetable dry
3. Thyme Paranthas
4. Sprout Salad
5 Custard (On Demand by Gomes ;) )


One of my friends dad had a surgery, so the morning went on calls, from parents to inlaws and to friends... Without having a hint of time it was 4 pm and I was wondering when would I start preparing for dinner since only custard was made by then....

One interesting thing I noticed from 4 pm to 6.30 pm I was done with everything without binging on which I normally do since there is not much to do for me....And I was happy...Sharing some pictures of the food that I cooked for the dinner...

Sprout Salad

Mixed Vegetable Dry

Dahi Dum Aloo 

Thyme Paranthas

Custard

 No wonder we had fun and the party went on till 11.30 in the night... Super tired and satisfied we hit bed... Weekend started with an awesome news.... :) .... followed by we eating at a restaurant called RAJNI ( Inspired by Rajnikanth - The super star) ummm.. The hot sambhar vada was wow.....and then we saw X -MEN first class....Sunday was just lazing around and watching Padaiyappa ( a Rajni Hit) and Chupke Chupke a superb comedy ....

Yeah this was all about my week......

My first week in America - The land of opportunities ( ;-) as called in the movie Flavours)

So finally after 3 and half months , now that I m writing I realise it is exactly this period of being away from Gomes I get to meet him.... here in US to be specific in JFK ( New York airport) ... The journey from India to US would be coming shortly in my next post ( I hope so) ... Oh god the feeling of seeing him after this long period cant explain in words... AWESOME...just a hug and it says it all.... no words just stare.... staring at each others eyes ... Ok ok... wont bore you with our eye to eye thing....
Next I knew we headed to the Parking lot... interestingly theres no Ground floor concept here... its called Level 1 ... So we headed in terminal 8 Parking lot and I saw our car.... Nice cherry red ... so we started on our way back from New York to New Jersey where I m living currently...
I was in America... For the last couple of years I always wanted to get here and work here.. dont know whats so great about it yet but yes I wanted to come and WORK here...

So we crossed the so called New York Skyline and also the streets but trust me I have not noticed them then cos I was just busy looking at him... The traffic was bad that day thats what Gomes says since it took us nearly 2 hrs to get back home.....So finally we arrived at Gateways @ Randolph thats our apartment... Now this place is a little hilly area, so we parked our car and I was super excited to see our home which till now I had seen just in Webcam... and realised that we have to drag the super duper heavy luggage which I have got after paying extra at the airlines from India.... Some how we pulled the suitcases to our first floor apartment and my house is beautiful... well ventilated and nice....

Interestingly till now I didnt feel tired or no signs of jetlag as well... So we got freshened up and were on our way to drop one of his Friend to the airport ... while on our way back we went to SUBJI MANDI (Its Indian Store) ... U get everything there right from Parachute oil to Ganthia and MDH masalas.... So shopped for some groceries.... Interestingly last weekend here was a long one Monday being the Memorial Day... So we shopped stuff and on our way back home I dozed off in the car... Came back home and had dinner... Trust  me when any one lives alone I would not mention Man or a Woman.. The fact is if either of them live alone in any part of the world they intend to cook less and eat more of Frozen stuff ... So here I m with my Fridge loaded with Frozen paranthas.. All kinds from Naan to Roti to Phulka everything.... So yes we had them since I was in no mood to cook that day....

Next day we went for some furniture shopping... The place we went IKEA was so huge that we went in at 12 pm and got out at 8 pm... This is a whole 8 hr shift that we did... But satisfied we came home....decorated the house, settled our stuff.....

Next day we went to Temple it was lovely rather such a wonderful feeling to just see god..... a sense of peace and happiness.... All idols are there from Venkateshwara to Shivan , Durga to Seeta and Hanuman... There was some big Kumbhabhishekham was going on so it was very crowded but still I loved it...

Next day we went and had lunch at Hotel Saravana Bhawan .... and its only now that my jetlag started showing its existence eveyrthing I ate was tasteless and I was so drowsy and felt pukish almost all the time... Its 10 days now and I m still figuring my taste buds out...

When Tuesday came only then I knew that all I have in hand is to do some walking and then watch TV endlessly and cook... This is pretty much what we did over the whole week..

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to WORK here... untill I get to do that I can just say I miss India.... Just tooo much..... Theres nothing better than My INDIA..... and more so I miss all my Family, In laws, Friends a lot....

Hope this week I would spend more interestingly and U guys too....

The COOKING week :)

Yeah this week I had just seen the Kitchen I guess  :) .. Monday morning is always a hurry burry.... so after a busy monday morning @office when I came back home , I just cooked phulka & some subji ... I m trying right now so hard to remember which subji did I make... But cant recall.... Ahhh yes it was Paneer ...As tuesday went by, the work in office started getting more hectic.... but again same I was in kitchen till 10 pm making dinner, cleaning the puja valak etc....

Managing work & home is a difficult job I must admit... But yes it is very satisfactory as well after a well served day :) ..Wednesday I cant recall at all....So now comes thrusday I took the day off since Amma had a cataract operation thankfully this got over in just an  hour... Actually I would like to describe how I my thrusday had been... Got up at 5 .30 am to prepare our breakfast & preparing for Amma's things which we would need to take to the hospital... At 7.15 we were expected to be at the hospital. Me, with Amma & Appa reached around 7.20 and Amma had to get some BP check up and then around 8.10 she went inside the OT... The doctor (Dr. Amar Agarwal) got into the OT about 8.37 am and then the attendent called me and led me to a side room where I could see everything in how the operation was done and the new multifocal lens was inserted into her eye in a screen.. and within 4 mins we got a nod from the Doctor that the operation was successful... Amma was out by 8.50 and we were home by 9.15 Am...

So once I was back home there was house work to do... So thrusday went on just taking care of Amma and me resting on a weekday... :) .. Come friday and I was wondering what to make for breafast and I ended up making Potato stuff bread patties for all of us and Oats for Amma.... So friday evening its time for Chapati and My sister in law making yum Dum Aaloo....and crispy cookies for desert...

Saturday morning I got certified for making Authentic Southindian Sambhar from my Mother in law ( you know how  much it means right? :)) .... I was happy.. then comes the sad news.. it was 9.30 and the maid didnt turn up... So  this means that I end up doing all the dishes of the previous night as well the morning... So a very tiring day and then to make things easy I thought I would just make something simple for Lunch... So there I was making vegetable pulav... thankgod it turned up well :) ....

And then just a little bit of a rest in the afternoon and video chatting with my darling... and evening I  went out for a walk and while walking and talking to my hubby I decided to make veg chowmein for dinner...

And what best compliment could I get when my Brother in law says it tastes like Mainland China :) ... I was glad and today morning...

Happy Holi... I got up missing Gomes and my whole family and so to say Delhi... I missed the colours.. it is our first holi after marriage but we were not together to celebrate it.. But I got myself distracted and got into my normal routine of making breakfast... So for breafast I made Tomato -Onion Chutney & cocunut chutney along with Dosa... And another compliment from my BIL... The chutney tasted like Saravana Bhawan,.... Now I could not hold onto my thoughts of actually opening a restaurant....

Anyhow I decided to make a proper southindian meal  for lunch...

So here goes what I made ... there was Semiya Payasam, Murungaikai  ((Drumstick) Sambhar, Carrot & beans Poriyal and rice.. and when I pronounce these in this manner it means it is cooked in the  proper Southern way  with no North flavour....

Once I was done with all this comes the pack of the day.. my SIL & BIL comes from behind and colour me in all colours of love... and beyond this I need not say.. the picture says...Even our dogs played with colours :)

With Ginger

Me with Divya & Adithya

In all this I just missed my home & gomes the most... but these guys made my day.... They are a darling... Thank U Divs & Aadi :) ...

And once we got ourself cleaned and had the southindian flavoured food.... wherein the compliment I received from Appa was wow the look has the southindian touch and the Vanilla flavoured Payasam won the championship of the best item :) ...

OK Now I think its enough of food for me for now.. Evening I went and met Rajesh, Ramya, Shankar & Guru & for a change for this week ordered Pizza from Dominos there... :)...

Happy Holi.... May ur life be filled with colours....

Quarter Anniversary :)

Its been 3 months that I m married..

 So first thing first this post is a dedication or celebration of our (Me & my loving Husband) quartanniversary ... And its been almost close to a month that he has left for US but today I m missing him a lot.. Since morning my day has been very hectic @work.. Client's visit and loads of mails to answer since I went back to work after my Delhi break just today.. But in all this throughout the day I hv been missing him..

Dont know first thing I felt when I got up today was I m blessed.. truly blessed.. To have him in my life... We had started off as friends and then became very close friends and then there was a day when he went down on One knee ( yes its true) ... and asked me if I would marry him.... And I didnt know what to reply .. I was taken aback but deep within my heart I knew the kind of person I m, only my best friend can handle me ;) or so to say bear with me...

Last three months had been wonderful... with loads of fight and pampering.. and loads of wonderful memories... On this day I remember something his friend said when he told him that he has asked me " That his life is kind of same as what happens in FRIENDS (SITCOM)  and he has lived in what he truly believes..." BTW he loves FRIENDS (THE SITCOM)

Today it seems like a dream... Since after a lot of twist n turn .. some bitter n sweet experiences that I have been through I had though I cannot get married or so to say I didnt want to get married... But He had changed my thoughts and he is the best thing that has ever happened to me :)

Actually I can go on n on about him but I would stop here... Was missing him on this day and wanted to wish him and thank him for being in my life and sharing my life.... So thought of sharing my thoughts with my blog

... Happy 3rd Moniversary :)

.........

The week of adjustments

The week that past had a lot of changed in it...I have been working over 6 yrs now in the Indian IT industry and have been used to the 5 day week cycle...Come Friday and it TGIF :)  Happiness and smiles and loads of weekend wishes to each n everyone around.. But this week started with the News that since our project is behind schedules now we need to follow the 6 day week concept as our Client does...
So yep on a Monday morning when me and My team was in full swing to make it up for the Last weeks missed deadlines, we got this news... With a very heavy heart or I should mind we said NO we cannot come on a Saturday...

And all six of us from different modules of the ERP had our own reasons which varied from travel issues to newly married ... New born  baby to No personal time.... But by the end of Monday we were prepared that there is no choice and it is not optional for Us but it is a mandate that we need to come and work on a Saturday as well.. Most of Manufacturing concerns in India work on a six day week concept, so it was not difficult or undo-able but I guess we were just so much clinged to the 2 day weekend feeling...
Anyways so finally by Tuesday we got in in our head that we have to work on Saturdays as well... Most of us were very busy completing our work so that there was no backlogs this week atleast...
I have completed mine... I was more looking for ward to my weekend travel to Delhi ... After  marriage this is the first time I m going to see my parents though the timing didnt matter much cos before my marriage as well I used to go to Delhi once in 3 to 4 months...

Then wednesday was just another day with lot of travel ( I travel for almost 3 to 4 hrs a day To n Fro my clientsite) .... Thursday evening when I came back home from work I had guest.. My sister in laws friend... Nice .. it was really nice to see gurls having fun... They are in college and enjoying life.. giggling.... smiling.. laughing... Nail painting.. ;) ... I missed my friends... really missed them... Gurls if u r listening or reading... i missed u sooooooooooo much then... I can name some of them... Nidhi, Bhuvana, Shilpi, Roohi, Deepa, Sonia, Anita, Preeti... Dont know why but I liked them (Sister in law n her friend)  having fun  and wanted to them to have as much fun  as possible before they get into some seriousness of life n career...

Then evenings were devoted to my husband... and the best part was I could watch him now.. So everytime I saw him online I wanted him to turn on the Webcam so that I can see him.. Though he gets annoyed or feels conscious... But he is a darling.. he still comes on Webcam and I can see him... I missed him.. then came friday when I wanted to do with my packing since I had to take the Saturday early morning flight.. but when I came home from work.. Actually these days I come home early around 7 in the evening, since we have saturdays working we are leaving early...

Now this whole schedule of leaving early doesnt actually work for me, cos post lunch there is no time left to complete some work and suddenly its 5 in the evening when we need to start for home.. So this is a whole different story which I would share some other time...So back to friday evening.. we all were hooked to our TPs (Think Pad) to complete stuff and I had to stay back since I would not be attending office till tuesday the 8th March I had to complete some stuff... So others in my team left and I was there doing my work... Suddenly theres No TGIF.. no happy feeling.. people just said a normal Bye and left... After a lot of traffic and road block when I reach home.. I had another guest.. this was my cousin Sister in law who had come to visit us since it was a weekly off for her... Last time when she was here I promised her to cook a good NorthIndian meal but since she was there without any prior information all I could do was bake a vanilla cake...
Happily it came out well and she loved it too.... In between my daily chores of cleaning the kitchen and stuff cleaning the Diya for puja and well .. I did manage to bake it well in fact I made it in cooker eggless Vanilla Cake...and then we all had dinner.. ... Once all this was done, I tried to finish my packing for the travel... It was late in the night when I finally mange to speak to my husband.....This distance between us makes us closer and farther to each other both at the sometime..... We fight often cos we miss each other and me miss each other so we fight.. He is very busy with his schedules and I sometimes understand and sometimes dont.. so we dont have time.. when he is free to talk then I m travelling to office so theres a lot of honking and eventually we keep the phone down...So for now I m waiting to see him and be with him...

Then came saturday and at 5 in the morning I was off to the Airport to go to Delhi... and then on its been just lazying around and relaxing..... Delhi has changed a lot, especially since CWG 2010... its clean and greener... Sometimes the True Delhiite in me wakes up and craves for tikki and mehendi on the roadside...the colours of delhi , the winter of delhi... Hmmm but gone is gone.. For now I m just having fun at home.. Mom & Dad.. Sister n bro...and my lovely Niece Aadya....

So loving it......... the week that started with an adjustment of giving away a day from the WEEKEND... has ended off feeling relaxed and enjoying the lovely weather of Delhi for now :) .....