Kicking off with K..!!

K is for Kumbh Pulao

I never considered Kumbh or Mushroom a 'real' vegetable back in India. I used to love them on the tomato mushroom pizzas at Nirulas. (One of those occasional royal treats out, long before we got Pizza Hut, or any other real Pizza chains.), but that was about it. Clearly Mushrooms were never a part of my aai's or aaji's home cooking. Even living in Delhi, they always stuck to the usual gilki ( ridge gourd), bhopla( pumkin), vange(Eggplants) type of vegetables ( I hated all of these as a kid) apart from the usual aloo gobhi bhindi etc.

I started experimenting with Mushrooms only after coming to the US, after a friend here gave me a recipe for kumbh matar malai. It came out pretty decent actually. Well Mushrooms are still not a part of my weekly grocery list, but I use them more often now .

I got this very easy and quick recipe for Mushroom Pulav at Recipe Junction.I changed it a bit to make use of all the vegetables I had - my entry for K of Indian vegetables on Nupur's blog.



Ingredeients ( For 2 to 4):

Basmati Rice ( 1 cup)
1 Pack of Mushrooms
1 Onion(thin slices)
Grated ginger ( about 1 Tbsp)
Fresh Garlic chopped ( 2 cloves)
1 capsicum sliced into thin strips
1 carrot( small round thin slices)
2 green chillies

fresh tomato puree ( medium sized tomato)

1Tbsp Soy sauce
Pepper powder
Jeera seeds
Red chilly powder
Salt to taste
Olive/vegetable oil

Soak Basmati rice in water for half an hour. Cook the rice and keep it aside.
Heat 1 tsp of oil and add the cumin seeds. After the seeds start spluttering, add the green chilies, ginger and garlic. Fry for some time and add the onions. Add the rest of the vegetables and soy sauce after the onions turn golden brown. Once the vegetables are semi cooked, add the tomato paste, mushrooms, pepper powder and salt. Cover the pan and let everything cook for a while. On a slow flame add the cooked rice and mix well. Kumbh Pulav is ready to serve.

We had it with Boondi Raitha and Lemonade, quite a hearty meal after a busy day at work :)

Read more...

Inspired ..

I have been visiting a lot of food blogs lately. All of them are just fantastic!, special in their own way..Delicious descriptions, mouth watering pictures served with interesting tales and tit bits ..

Thanks to all the food bloggers out there, I too am set to" Spice " up my usual work-home -work routine.Lets see how far I can take this venture...

Read more...

Sexy Engineers..!!

Dilbert!! jus love the strip..
hehe its the only place, where I really really like the engineers..
(they arent as creative anywhere else on the earth..;-)

Please excuse my biases..
Is Scott Adams ann Engineer himself??????

Read more...

Good Fences make good neighbors

'Good Fences make Good neighbors' .One of my favorite old english proverb.

From a poem by Robert Frost which I had in my 9th Grade English Text.

I was very pleasantly reminded of it today. Frost's'Mending Wall' was the first thing my Urban design proffessor mentioned in class before starting a discussion on Property rights.

Enjoy it!

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

-- Robert Frost.

Read more...

Wassup people..?

I am feeling great.
How about u?

Read more...

Boon?Bane?

"..Mommy's baby
Daddy's maybe.."

An Ad I saw this morning at the train station about some DNA paternal testing Laboratory.


Left me feeling sick.

Read more...

55 it is..

Tagged by Dushyant to write a 55 word story.
Here it goes:

He was old, frail and all alone. They never went to visit him since the day He was left in that stuffy room; hardly enough room to stretch one's limbs. Not even a window to let the fresh breeze in .Lying on the hard wood, he remembered his loved ones.

He hated that sealed Coffin.

Read more...