I am back..

Hello friends

I have been missing in action for a long time. When kids have summer vacation I do visit my parents and in laws. Although the holidays should be carefree, its the hardest time of the year where we spend our days in hot sultry coastal weather. Seriously, after returning back to Bangalore I felt I was in AC room.
While kids enjoyed their long break, my days were very busy in my mother place, it was either helping her or taking care of the ailing grandmother. At my in laws place its complete the opposite. I am totally free there and have to devise few things to keep myself occupied. In those times  I completed two books by Anirban Bose. They both were good and interesting reads. I also half completed a small cross stitch project taken from here . Since I had chosen my own colors set, the end is sure going to look different.

My visit to native is never complete without visiting Airody Pai shop on Car Street of Udupi, Karnataka. This time I bought a brass utensil to use as a planter. The shopkeeper kept on praising how the utensil is hand made and blah blah, would not have if he had known the real reason I was buying it -:))

Have a nice day everyone. I will be back soon with my small treasure from the sea in my next post.

MTR Rice Sevai...

Well, this is definitely not a recipe post. This is about my experience with the product MTR rice sevai.

The packet contains dried rice noodles, which you empty into boiling water and strain it after few minutes. Once you have rice noodles, you can use it as you want, like preparing lime bath or pulao etc., out of it.
In the past I have made instant rice noodles successfully out of few other brands, but my husband has liking to only this particular brand of MTR's. Every time I make it, it would become a flop show in spite of following the procedure in the packet properly. Umm, properly according to me.
I simply couldn't figure out why the noodles were turning to a lumpy mass. I tried lot of tricks to make each strand of noodle non sticky, like adding pinch of salt, oil etc.. I used to get so frustrated, upset when the end product was not matching what was shown in the packet.. For  many days I stopped buying rice noodles altogether, but once in a while it would make a way in our pantry, courtesy my husband.
Once I got so upset that I fought with my husband bringing it and banning MTR Rice Sevai in our house. This time my husband took the matters to his hands and said 'I know you are doing something wrong, I will try it myself, if it doesn't turn out good we would stop buying it'. Agreed, part of me wishing the same thing happening to him. But voila, it turned out to be best. So the culprit is 'ME NOT FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS PROPERLY'.
Then we started investigating where I was going wrong. Ok, where this is where I was going wrong, I was not boiling the water properly, I would just see few small bubbles and pour the contents of packet into it. The water has to be thoroughly boiling like you boil for drinking.

So the moral of the story small change in cooking can alter things -:). Sad thing is that, in spite of having around 8 yrs of experience in the kitchen, your husband had to point out your mistake.

Back to blogging

I am back, after missing in action for more than a month. Where did I go? No fancy vacation, but a visit to my native place. In between a couple of short visits to few relatives nearby Udupi.

After I came back, apart from inch thick dust in home, this mess awaits me in the garden. A few heavy summer showers have made plants,creepers, grass grow like anything. Hmm, it will take few days to clean it up, and make it pleasant, re-presentable. So looking forward to busy hrs in the garden..

Sipping on Ragi malt

Well a month has already passed in 2012, and it's bit late to mention about one of my resolution for this year. I have decided to give up my cup of tea for the evening and switch to Ragi malt instead. So this way I would consume half spoon of sugar instead of 1 spoon and in addition have the healthy benefits of Ragi. It tastes nothing like the heavenly tea but I am slowly developing the taste for it. Actually I had got it for my younger son for emergency, but I am finishing it up now. It is available in MK Ahmed Supermarket. I hope I continue this habit...