Excuses for not doing anything productive

I have never known days to fly by so fast. First there was that little toothache so i ignored it. Then the tooth decided to increase the pain and i hurried to the dentist. She very kindly informed me that i had not one but 3 bad teeth and i needed extractions and implants. So many a painkillers and antibiotics later i was finally free from the pain and the teeth. All through the past month i felt like i was living in another world where only me and my teeth exist. Thankfully i still have some time to go before i see the dentist again for implants though i am now an advertisement for 'what happens when you ignore toothache and think yourself smarter than the dentist'. I am sure she will have my case history put up as a warning for people visiting her. The kiddo initially was very sympathetic to my pain and so spared me from my task of telling her bedtime stories. As the days wore on she became quite convinced that i was putting forward the excuse of pain to avoid telling a bedtime story...which was true at certain times coz i am normally asleep before she is.

I still managed to make the Diwali a bit fun for the kid though. Now that she is 4, she will remember what we did this time. So my husband made a pretty lantern and i went traditional all the way with rangolis.

Periwinkle that adorns my home

I don't have a green thumb but this little one seems not to mind! I wish i could learn to befriend plants though! My kiddo loves flowers and she wears all sorts of flowers in her hair. 

Toddler Talk

When she came home from school yesterday I asked my daughter why her lunch box was half eaten. She looked at me seriously and said " Because of you! You should know how much food a 4 year old can eat!".

Guess i need to take lessons from her now! :)

Weekend fun!

My family and me went for a drive from Pune to Varandha ghat last Saturday. It was an impromptu picnic with last minute grabs of whatever food we could pack in ten mins. The rains have made that entire road beautiful with small rivulets and waterfalls revealing themselves in every nook and corner. The kiddo loves our 'spur of the moment' picnics and enjoyed being dunked in a waterfall too. We love doing unplanned stuff and this was one trip where we couldn't decide when to stop clicking photos. 

Corn Bhel

A yummy snack for a rainy afternoon. Very quick to put together and quicker to disappear.

Just toss some boiled corn kernels, a chopped tomato, half of a chopped onion, half cucumber chopped fine and some chat masala and salt together. Top it up with some sev and go ahead and eat. As simple as that! 

Paneer Makhani

Pratibha from The Chef and Her Kitchen is one lady whose blog i love to follow. Her recipes have been tried and tested and passed by the entire family many times. Last Sunday, after being prodded by the better half for about a week on the short lunches and shorter dinners that i serve, i decided to go for something grand. I settled on Paneer Makhani because Ira is in a paneer loving stage now. Needless to say this very clear and step by step recipe from Pratibha's blog resulted into an awesome dish. In a fir of the home godess avatar i even made the paneer at home from scratch. We finished it in no time and this is surely going to be my preference for all the future dinner parties. I don't have a picture to show you my efforts but a happy and content husband and kid who slept away all the afternoon and did nothing all evening proves it was an effort well invested. 

New thoughts

During my afternoon thought sessions i realized that i was cramming two different loves of mine....cooking and quilting in one blog and was getting more and more confused about what to concentrate on. So i have decided to move all my food related activities to this blog and keep the other only for fabric related experiments.  This, i foresee will encourage me more to cook.

P.S. I love to think i love to cook....and i only run after time saving and quick recipes :).

A prolonged summer

Clear skies, perfect sunshine....all indicators of a perfect summer. Except.....this is supposed to be monsoon already. Indian seasons are getting confused as the years go by. The rains should have officially arrived a month back however here we still are blessed with a perfect summery weather. Apart from the absence of mangoes one really wouldn't know. The downside to this perrrrrfect weather is the power cuts and the water cuts. Having to time the chores according to the whims and fancies of water and power supply is proving to be a merry dance. DH is known to find a silver lining in even the drabbest of clouds. He says it's a good opportunity for me to improve my housekeeping efficiency :).

Breakfast

One of the many questions that i face every day is what would i cook for breakfast and for tea. My lunch and dinner menus are easily based on the contents of the fridge. Sometime ago, i have started following food blogs with a passion to find 'quick and easy' recipes. No matter how i try i cannot get up early enough in the morning to make a complete breakfast meal. So quick and easy is my mantra. As a result I am a huge fan of Tarla Dalal's food site. MRs. Dalal has an awesome collection of quick and yum recipes. Also the fact that if you follow her instructions the dish is bound to turn out well, helps a lot. I tried her Amiri Khaman recipe and it turned out really well. Now i can earn brownie points from the husband and the kid - quickly and easily! :)

Resurrection

Since i began the chronicles my adventure with the needle, thread and fabric, i have seriously neglected this blog of mine. This was my first venture to voice all the thoughts that normally my husband is the only listener of.

This new year, along with adding to my other blog about quilting, i plan to record snippets of my life, thoughts and adventures in this one. Let me see how far i keep up the resolution!