Contemplations and Ruminations

Mom used to make these pastries quite often while we were growing up, and they disappeared quite fast too once they were out of the oven. They were that fabulous and everyone who came in contact with them loved them dearly. The dough that made them irresistible was easily available in any supermarket back in Abu Dhabi (the place I grew up in), I haven't been able to find them here in the city. My brother bought these when he came home recently from the Gulf, and I had a great time making these beautiful heavenly pastries. So this is the ready made dough, remove it from the freezer a few hours before you start with the process. Now move on to your filling, I used three types of filling here... a vegetable one, a minced beef filling and a cheesy mushroom filling. Getting started on the beef filling, saute chopped onions and green chillies in a pan... Till the onions have turned translucent with a slightly brownish tint. Drop in your cooked mince and give it a good mix. (The mince h...

Here's an easy beef masala recipe. Tonio likes beef, in fact he's crazy about any kind of meat, and this spicy flavourful beef was over in no time at all. So getting started, in a pan heat some coriander powder, chillie powder, a little turmeric, pepper powder and garam masala powders. (Vary the amount of spice powders depending on the amount of meat.) Here are the roasted spice powders... Now grind the spice powders with ginger and garlic paste. Just saute the beef in a pressure cooker, till they lose their pink colour. Then drop in the masala paste, add salt and enough quantity of water. Pressure cook the meat till it's tender, about 8 to 10 whistles. In another pan, heat a little oil and saute two or four onions, sliced. (I used extra onions cause I'm not fond of beef and the onions coupled with the nice spicy masala would make a great meal with chapathi.) Slow fry the onions till they are slightly caramelized or till they get a brownish tint, then add the cooked b...

I love going through home decor magazines and wasting time at home decor stores, I can never get bored there. Sometimes I think we should have been born with tags like engineer, mechanic, driver, celebrity etc. to really know what we were meant to do in life. Mine would have read interior designer... of course I realised that quite late, and became an engineer who now dabbles in English literature. Anyway, I think everything works out for the best, God knows what He's doing. Coming back to my indulgences, I picked up these two candle holders recently... I love this one, light it everyday when we say the rosary at home... This one is pretty too, but not all that useful... keeping it in the showcase. This quilt was love at first sight... bought it a year back, but didn't feel like using it cause it's so pretty and soft and wonderful. Well, that's all for now.

Back when I was in college, I used to bake a lot of cookies, cakes and brownies. Can't believe that was about ten years back... college was horrible, it wasn't fun enough. You know how it is when you have all these ideas of how college life is supposed to be, and then when you finally enter college you are rudely shaken out of your senses. Yeah, that's cause I studied in a rural college, wouldn't have made much difference if I studied in Madras though. The colleges here are worse than the ones back home. Here in Madras it's as though they are forcing the students to become gay & lesbians with their homo glorying rules like boys should not talk/look at/or breathe the same air girls breathe in the campus. How absurd is that, doesn't that go completely against science! It's only normal for boys and girls to be attracted to each other... and if an educational institute cannot understand that, how lame is the whole education system here. Anyway, getting back ...

This is one easy chickpea (channa) curry, you don't have to go through the hassle of chopping onions or scraping coconut here. The chickpeas themselves are used as a thickening agent, giving this curry a nice creamy texture. So getting started... Soak a few handfuls of chickpeas overnight in water, or if you are thinking of making them for dinner, then you will have to soak them in the afternoon. After they have soaked for 6 hours or more, drain the water and pressure cook the chickpeas with clean water and a little salt. Here you see, they have been cooked in a pressure cooker. Now roughly chop up a few tomatoes (5 to 6 medium sized ones) and grind them to a pulp without adding water as seen in the picture. Heat a little oil in a pan, and throw in some cumin (jeera) seeds. Let them crackle and give out a nice jeera smell... Pour in the tomato puree and cover the pan, let this tomato puree cook on low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, take little chickpeas in the mixie, add th...