This weekend saw us working more in the garden thanks to the Karnataka Bandh called by BJP. Bought few roses, crotons and creepers from the nearby nursery. Most of the plants were manured. Tried Reshmi Paneer tikka at home. It came out OK Ok. Had full indo Chinese meal in the afternoon, because of it may be my son had slight stomach upset.

Sunday I wanted to goto north east shop 'Ghar' near ORR, BG road junction, unfortunately it was closed. Went to newly opened Gopalan Mall. Few shops there and it is yet to become fully functional.

Sweet pumpkin idly

When my maid asked do we eat pumpkin, I gladly said yes thinking about the white pumpkin(boodh gumlakai in kannada). Next day our maid arrived with sweet pumpkin. She told me how much in demand these pumkins were in her neighborhood as everyone were asking for it. I was so disappointed in seeing this as me and my husband both hate this vegetable. I couldn't say anything to her and accepted it silently. I was thinking hard what I could do with this, and didn't ask my mother who like us never bought this vegetable home anytime. I kept in a corner of my store room and tried to ignore it everyday. I was hoping it would rot and throw it one fine day. But my maid didn't leave me in peace, after few days she asked what did I do with the pumpkin. I prepared curry out of it, I lied. Before we were leaving to native for the Christmas vacation, I had to do something with the pumkin so i decided to do palya from it. Well it was a hit with my son. But just before the day we left, my maid bought another pumpkin. Oh my God, just when I thought I finished I got another one. This time it was a more ripe one. My husband scolded me for not telling the maid that we don't like sweet pumpkin. If I had told her in the first place I wouldn't have got the second one. After we came back from the vacation, googled about pumpkin recipes. Then my cousin visited us over the weekend. She said she would take a piece of it so I gladly cut and packed, but forgot to give her before she left.

But she gave a good recipe for the pumpkin Idly. I tried a couple of times and it came out good, and everyone was happy with the end result. I still have a quarter of pumpkin gazing at me in the fridge. Here is the recipe

1 cup rava/sooji

2 and 1/2 cup of grated sweet pumpkin

1/2 cup of grated jaggery, more if you desire more sweetness.

A pinch of salt

1 tsp of ghee to roast sooji

10-15 cashewnuts

1/2 cup of grated fresh coconut

1. Fry/roast rava till it becomes slightly brown.

2. mix roasted rava, grated pumpkin, coconut,cashew nuts, jaggery.

3. Put the mixture in idly molds and cook it for about 20 min in low flame( same way as we cook idlies).

New year is in

The new year is in and the old gone. Although not a best way to spend the new year, we spent it travelling. Our Christmas vacation was spent with our in-laws and my parents. Travelling back we took a new route instead of our regular Saligrama-Hebri-Agumbe-Shimoga-Tumkur route. As advised by my father we decided to try the Agumbe-Sringeri-Aldur-Belur-Hasan route this time. The road was good because it was less travelled but it was too curvy. Pranav wasn't feeling the previous night so all the way he was vomiting. After some time we has another patient in our car that was my sis in-law. She was feeling dizzy. I understood why this road was less travelled despite being good. We were wondering when we would hit the straight road. On the way we saw lot of coffee plantations and one Tea plantation. Pranav got a Chance to see the coffee plant and its seeds. In between there were many small waterfalls but didn't make any stop anywhere as we had to reach B'lore as soon as possible. I was glad that we took a road that was less travelled. Had lunch in Shri Krishna in Hassan which was bad.

Finally reached B'lore around 4:30 PM. I came home and cooked some Kochakki ganji and devoured with mouth watering pickle.