Rose Syrup| Home-Made Rose Syrup Recipe

I am here today with a home-made rose syrup recipe, one that is rather close to my heart, an inextricable part of my summer-time memories.

Like I have said many times on my blog before, the hot days of summer bring back lots of foodie memories for me. Of holidays spent at my maternal grandparents’ place in Hyderabad, and bottles and bottles of my aunt’s chilled rose milk that she prepared using her special home-made rose syrup.

Over the course of several hot afternoons, I learnt from my aunt the technique of making her fragrant rose syrup. Made from sweet-smelling roses, called Panneer Roja in Tamil, this syrup is free of any artificial colours or preservatives. It makes for some awesome, awesome rose milk, of course, and also goes beautifully in lassi, juices, mocktails, falooda, rose milk, cakes, ice creams and other desserts.

Check out the recipe for home-made rose syrup, just in on my other blog!

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Home-Made Grape Squash Recipe| How To Make Grape Juice At Home

As promised, I am here with the recipe for Home-Made Grape Squash, one that is rather close to my heart!

 

I make the squash the way my maternal grandmomma – Master Squash Maker of our family – taught me to. Tried and tested by her several times over, this is a very simple but no-fail recipe. Every sip of this squash brings back fond memories of long summer holidays spent at grandmomma’s place, lounging around, reading with a tall glass of her grape squash in hand, the soothing hum of the air cooler in the background.

 

It is just the perfect thing to soothe your summer-parched throat, I tell you. Do try it out. The recipe is now up on my photo blog!

 

 

Pressure Cooker Jeera Rice| One-Pot Indian Cumin Rice

Today, the members of the Foodie Monday Bloghop group are going #DownMemoryLane. We are all sharing recipes that have memories associated with them. For the theme, I share the recipe for the first-ever thing I cooked for the husband and his family – Pressure Cooker Jeera Rice or One-Pot Indian Cumin Rice.

This recipe is something you can use in a jiffy. In just about 10 minutes, it yields supremely flavourful, fluffy cumin rice that makes for just the perfect accompaniment to dal or a gravy-based curry. Do try it out!

Check out the recipe, just in on my blog!

Masala Dosa Recipe| How To Make Masala Dosa

I would have been around 12 years of age when my first real spark of interest in cooking ignited. I don’t remember precisely which grade I was studying in then, but I do remember the particular day when it happened very, very clearly. Masala Dosa was the first-ever recipe I made on my own. Making Masala Dosa isn’t a big deal for me today, but back then, it was. It was a huge thing, an achievement!

The Foodie Monday Blog Hop group that I am part of has ‘#MyBeginnerRecipe’ as the theme this week, wherein we are required to share the recipe for the very first dish we cooked on our own. Head over to my blog post to read my beginner cooking tale, and my beginner Masala Dosa recipe!

Dodh-E-Pather Aka Doodhpatri, The Valley Of Milk

When the husband, the bub and I embarked on our drive to Doodhpatri, some 40-odd kilometers away from Srinagar (where we were staying), little did we know that we would absolutely fall in love with the place. Neither did we know that Doodhpatri would force us to think deep and hard about human nature.

Read my detailed story, just in on my photo blog!

Rasawala Kala Chana Nu Shaak| Gujarati Black Chickpea Curry

Rasawala Kala Chana Nu Shaak is an utterly delectable Gujarati-style black chickpea curry, a beautiful medley of flavours. It is sweet, it is spicy, it is salty, it is tangy. It makes for just the perfect accompaniment to rotis and parathas, and goes well with dosas and steamed rice as well. When Shantaben, a Gujarati neighbour of ours, taught me how to make this Rasawala Kala Chana Nu Shaak, I was amazed by its simplicity. How can a curry be so simple, yet so delicious, I wondered. But it was just that – beautifully simple, elegant and absolutely scrumptious.

Check out the recipe, just in on my photo blog! 🙂

Ahmedabad, after ages

So, so, so, that long-pending trip to Ahmedabad finally happened! On New Year’s day, the husband got confirmation for a work trip to Ahmedabad, and he asked if the bub and I would accompany us. We did just that, flight tickets were booked, and we were off the very next day – as simple as that. After 6 long years, I finally visited the place where I grew up, and it happened Just.Like.That!

Did I find traces of the city I loved so much or has it changed drastically?

Well, yes and no.

Ahmedabad has, indeed, changed drastically. I don’t know the routes in the city any more. I don’t have a home to stay there any more. The area where I used to live in has changed beyond description. There are loads of new shops and eateries that have come up, and some old favourites of mine (the school I studied in included) have disappeared. The few tourist attractions in the city have been given a huge facelift. I have lost touch with the language – I can’t speak it so fluently any more, though I managed to read the script pretty well. That makes a difference, for sure.

But then, some of my old haunts still exist. The heart of the city still remains the same, and I cannot be more thankful for that. I managed to check out a few of them, in the week’s time that we were in the city. I got reacquainted with some foods that I used to love gorging on, and got shocked at just how much the prices have increased since then. I met up with old friends, shared old and new stories, and built better connections. I managed to show my daughter (and husband) some of what my life before them had held. I stayed over at relatives’ places, and liked it better than I had expected to. I rekindled some very old memories, some pleasant, some others not so much. I fell in love with the broad roads and ease of transportation in the city all over again (though it is not the same as before, the traffic is still way better than it is in Bangalore). I discovered new food joints with the husband and friends. I fleetingly visited the apartment I used to call home, and felt stumped. People recognised me and talked to me, and I felt stumped all over again.

Overall, my trip to Ahmedabad after ages was a mixed bag. I was kind of nervous before I left, I admit, of what I’d find there, but it wasn’t so bad. It was wonderful, in fact. I should do this more often, I realise. Hopefully, my next visit won’t take 6 more years!

Stories from Ahmedabad – coming up soon!

The Sunshine Blogger Award And Meme

So, I was bestowed with the Sunshine Blogger Award by Reena a while ago. Thank you, Reena, for considering all that I ramble about here worth reading and commenting on!

The award came with a set of questions by Reena, which I will answer in this post. Here you go.

1. Some funny or crazy incident you would like to share?

I’ll tell you about a crazy thing that happened at our place last Sunday.

The husband, bub and I were having a fun time, out of home, on Sunday evening, when we received a call from my dad. My parents and we stay in the same apartment, in different houses. So, dad told us that BESCOM cut off our electricity supply because we have dues to pay. Just like that, without any intimation to us of any sort. We were stunned, because we have NEVER, EVER missed paying an electricity bill on time! We rushed back home, nice mood all shattered, but the BESCOM guy had already left. The husband called him at the number he had left back, and was told we had to pay BESCOM 500-odd rupees as ASD (Advance Security Deposit), that it had been appearing in all electricity bills since April 2017. We had no clue about this because we pay our bills online, and this particular charge does not reflect while making online payment. And, no, this amount isn’t added to your electricity reading charges, so you can just pay the total amount – it is just mentioned as a footnote in your bill. So, how are we supposed to know?!

Fuming, we paid off the charges online immediately, and called the guy up again, only to be told that his duty timings were over and that he had left office. We asked if there was anyone else we could contact, but it was met in the negative. The electricity would be back by the next day, we were told, as soon as BESCOM could. We could do nothing but wait and fume some more. In the meanwhile, we had to shift all the perishables from our refrigerator to that in our parents’ house. The milk went too, by mistake, and my daughter spent a restless night without her nightly glass of milk – we didn’t want to wake up the parents late in the night and disturb them. Some time in the night, the refrigerator started leaking water, thanks to the being switched off for more than a few hours, and on Monday morning, we woke up to a flooded kitchen. Our UPS battery had drained off completely. Monday blues worsened like never before.

I cooked a simple breakfast and lunch on Monday morning, in partial darkness. I ensured I didn’t cook anything that necessitated grinding in the mixer. Much back and forth happened between my parents’ home and mine, to fetch ingredients from their fridge. Somehow, I packed the bub’s bag and sent her off to school. We held off bathing till the electricity would be restored (no hot water at our place!). All the water in our water filter got used up, and off we ran to the parents’ place again to fetch some more, at least for the bub. The husband worked on his laptop, using whatever little charge was available. I had some urgent work to finish off, and worked on my mobile, making my data charges shoot up sky high. Multiple phone calls to the said guy from BESCOM yielded the same answer – we will restore the power soon! Finally, after much more fuming, the power was restored by Monday evening, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

Phew! What a harrowing experience! For what fault of ours, I still don’t understand. What is the point of maintaining a good track record when it cannot be referred to, in a situation like this? Digital India, eh? If we had paid our electricity bills at the office (a la Dark Ages) this wouldn’t have happened, right?

2. Your 1^st thought when you wake up in the morning?

‘God, I haven’t had enough sleep at all!’

Yes, this has become a regular thing with me for the past one year or so. I simply don’t get enough sleep due to a lot of reasons, and almost always wake up tired in the mornings. 😦

3. What stands 1^st in your priority list?

My family and my dreams – both on an equal footing.

4. One thing you love about yourself?

Whatever I do, I try to give it my 100%.

5. What is  women’s freedom to you?

Being able to do what a woman wants to do, whenever she wants to, without being afraid or getting a talking-to.

6. Can you describe yourself in one word?

Human.

Thank you, Reena, for this meme. It feels good to be writing on this space again, after ages!

 

Snack Tales

Packing the bub’s lunchbox for school is a task I find as fulfilling as I find it frustrating.

Yes, it is a tiring thing to do day after day after day, getting up early in the morning to make a little something for her snack time, planning well in advance, having to think creatively every day so that she loves what I have sent for her.

And, yet, it is extremely satisfying. I imagine her opening her dabba at school, her face lighting up at the sight of her favourite poori or khakra, and I realise I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Trying to offer her a mix of different ingredients in the course of a week, trying out little twists to regular recipes, including a cheat snack once in a while – that is my way of bonding with her, I realise. It is a way of developing her palate, developing a healthy interest in food.

I love it when she returns home and tells me: ‘Amma, I loved what you had packed for my snack.’ It is, kind of, saddening to learn that she has left her lunchbox untouched, and has preferred to eat the home-made snacks that are offered at school, instead. I tell myself to be happy that she has, at least, eaten something, that she hasn’t gone hungry the entire school time.

When you are a sort of bored SAHM like me, I realise, you relish these little challenges. Packing lunchboxes that your child can’t resist eating from becomes a task that you can’t take lightly – it is an opportunity for you to think out-of-the-box and take your cooking to new levels.

 

The Husband’s Birthday Lunch At Farzi Cafe: An Underwhelming Affair

Farzi Cafe had always been on my list of eateries to visit in Bangalore, thanks to a number of blog posts I have read praising the place. I was in awe of the very innovative ways in which the cafe presents its food. So, it was Farzi Cafe in UB City that we chose to celebrate the husband’s birthday recently, and headed to for lunch. True to the reviews that we had read, the cafe did dish up food in very different ways, but we, sadly, ended up underwhelmed by the whole thing.

Read all about our experience of lunching at Farzi Cafe, on my photo blog!