Chambaka for click

The good thing about blogging is that you write whenever you want and pick up from whereever you left off. Over the past few months, something or the other has kept me from penning anything down, even though I have been eagerly following all my favourite blogs. My job got busier, went to India on a vacation, attended brother's wedding which was awesome, got busy again with work; then the dark clouds of job lay-offs hovered above our heads, but now the clouds are beginning to thin out and I see the sun coming out; analogous to how spring is finally here after a harsh cold winter.

And to celebrate spring, this month jugalbandi's lovely click event's theme is 'spring'. I am sending the following picture of a bunch of rose apple called "Jambaka/Chambaka" in malayalam. Its a crunchy, slightly sour fruit. My mother-in-law first introduced them to me as pickle and I could not guess what they were (since I had never had them before). Nevertheless, the pickle was yummy and I was having them with every meal. Later she took me to her sister's (Renu Elema) house to show me how the fruit actually looks. My mother in law is herself an ardent gardner and I'm showcasing shots I took from her garden on my recent trip to India. Enjoy!

Im also trying out this new look with my blog so hang in there, if it looks weird, know that I'm fixing it up!!

Click Red: Marzipan Roses

This goes as my entry to Click for the lovely 'Red' theme. Its from when I made marzipan roses a while back!

Click apples, Musical's goody bag and Bhutanese red rice kheer

Apples: are my entry for Jai and Bee's lovely Click event: and this month's theme is 'Au Natural'.

One fine day when I entered my apartment lobby, I got a wift of the most aromatic masala and thought to myself, "Gosh these neighbour bachelor boys are cooking up a storm today....why dont they use their exhaust fans when cooking and not make us so hungry". As I turned to check my mailbox, I saw a big yellow bag and as I approched the bag and opened it I realised it was a parcel for me and it was smelling of lovely garam masala. I chuckled when I saw it was from Musical with all these goodies inside.

Here I'm showing everybody the lovely things that came out of the goody bag that Musical sent me from her cool punjabi kitchen!! There's Bhutanese red rice, of which Ive already made payasam which turned out yummy and pink from the colour of the rice. And there is a packet of Beluge Lentils that Ive never used and would love to experiment with. The garam masala is so aromatic that Ive kept it for special dishes like rajma and chole!!. The long peppers are new to me and Musical advised me to use in Raita's and salads. And many bars of yummy organic chocloate of which Ive finished a couple already.

If I had waited any longer there would be none for the picture as I'm just about to use the dark choc slabs to make some brownies this evening. Thank you musy for a lovely welcome goody bag!!!! I dont have the picture of the yummy pink kheer because it got devoured before I could find time to take a picture, but I will give you the recipe for sure!!!

Bhutanese Red rice kheer

1/2 cup Bhutanese Red rice
1 L milk (I used 750mls and added 250 mls later, and I used 2% organic milk)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
a handful of roughly chopped cashew nuts

Method:
1. Wash rice thoroughly and soak overnight.
2. Drain the rice and throw it in a pot with 750ml milk and bring to a boil.
3. Simmer on medium-low heat until the rice has swelled and cooked and the milk has reduced to two thirds.
4. Add the 250mls milk, sugar , cardamom powder and simmer on low for 15-20 mins more.
5. Garnish with the chopped cashews and server warm or cool and chill in fridge, whichever you prefer!

The colour of this kheer will be a lovely pink! Thanks again Musy....

Back with a click!

My Click entry: sunlight through my colander.

Wow, it isnt easy when you are shifting city, country, and continent, to a new city, new country and new life. Life changes totally and everyday is a new expirience. Moving from laid back Africa all the way to the US needs changing your gears up a notch or two. Of all the major changes I had to go through, the two main changes affecting me daily is the weather and the different taste of food.

I had always complained about never seeing snow in my life and never expiriencing the fluffy feathers falling from the sky. Finally the Gods had the biggest pillow fight ever and by now Ive seen myself ploughing through inches to get to my bus stop, waiting for the bus and getting buried in the falling snow - I know I looked like a snowman myself!! And expiriencing -18 degrees Celcius and the icy winds, really killed me!! How can it be so cold on our planet with the blazing sun as a nearby planet??? Which brings to mind all the coversion formulas from farenheit to celcuis and miles to kilometers you need to do in your head to make sense of all the measurements in this place!!! grrrrr

And food, yes, everything tastes 'different'. The daily morning and afternoon tea doesnt taste like it used to in Africa; I miss my 'five roses tea'!! And bread in the US is too sour and spongy, sugar isnt sweet enough, and milk tastes different too. And there's ten million varieties of whatever you want to have, anyway. The food labels are so comprehensive, my head is spinning by the time I go through all the nutritional info bits. And I'm wondering to myself....high fructose corn syrup....ooh ooh I'm not supposed to have that.....polyunsaturated, monounsaturated this 'n that...oh is that a trans fat???...uhhh whatever....... for now....

But then there are things I'm liking too like I love all the baby versions of veggies you get like baby carrots and baby broccoli and the fruits. Then there are all these new ingredients and foods I want to taste and cook with and try, the tortillas, the bagels, the doughnuts, and the local cheeses (quesa fresco) and the local veggies and fruits like persimons and kohlrabis. And all this means a lot more time spent on grocery shopping!

When life makes you so busy things like blogging take a back seat. Then there are things that lure you back on... like the cool blogging events that are happening in the blogosphere and also a special blogger friend who welcomed me to the US with a lovely parcel of aromatic ingredients, Musical from Musical's kitchen! I have this goody bag of yummy things which I will share with you all in my next post that Musy sent my way so i can start blogging again!. How sweet is that? Thanks so much dear. And not forgetting all those lovely bloggers who checked up on me while I was away. You guys are all so special to me!

Life, however, is slowly beginning to return to normal and there is sanity in my daily schedule. I want to start off my posts with a click entry to my favourite couple at Jugalbandi for their click metal event. Jay once clearly emphasized in one article, that you dont need a good camera to take a good shot, you just need creativity and vision. So the top pic of my favourite colander and all the other ones below I took with my, ahem, Nokia E70 cellphone. I hope I captured it with enough vision to make it to the spectra shortlist!!!!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy some snowy shots of my new residence in Connecticut. Yenjoy!!

Click Entry: Festive Vermicelli Pudding

This is my entry for the click event. This month's theme is noodles.... I made this kheer for karva chauth.

This picture was taken, whilst I toodled around the house on Karva Chauth Day wondering how to take my mind off my hunger pangs, and my mum thought it was sad that I was trying to take pictures of food to try and forget my hunger...... :S

In the the previous statement I got carried away.... I was intending to say this....

This picture was taken with a Sony Cyber shot DSC-P200 7.2 mega-pixels....

Clicking Eggs after completing a year

I just cant believe that Ive been blogging for just over a year now. Most people like me discover the food blogosphere in the quest for a recipe... I was looking for Naranaga Pickle and stumbled upon Injipennu's Ginger and Mango... then onto Asha's Foddie's Hope....and I was amazed at the way these ladies would cook and present their recipes. I was truely inspired... I wanted to make my contribution too and hence (Fusion Food then) and Soul Food now was born... and in the process discovered so many amazing blogs and lovely friends. Food blogging has become such an obsession and even though I dont have very deep archives, I thoroughly enjoyed sharing recipes and finding new recipes and great food ideas.

I get so amused when I think back ... one time putting hubby and baby to sleep and getting up in the middle of the nite to write a post!! Ive met such amazing people who've become such good friends. Asha was the first one to always visit my blog and encourage me frequently, thank you so much dear. There are some who are such darlings with whom Ive exchanged so many emails; and there are those that always come to read about ramblings and comment on my recipes. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

And what better way to celebrate than to click a picture for the cutest couple in the blogosphere, Jay and Bee!!! They've got a cooool event going on to encourage food photography. Its a theme based event and just what I was looking for to push me to take better pictures... This month they want us click some eggs. Ive put a ostrich egg next to normal farm eggs to show a comparison in size. Ostriches are native to Africa and lay the largest eggs in the world. One ostrich egg is equivalent to 2 dozen chicken eggs!!

Wikipedia says: Ostrich eggs can weigh 1.3 kg and are the largest of all eggs, though they are actually the smallest eggs relative to the size of the bird. The nest may contain 15 to 60 eggs, with an average egg being 15 cm (6 inches) long, 13 cm (5 inches) wide, and weigh 1.4 kg (3 pounds). They are shiny and whitish in color. The eggs are incubated by the females by day and by the male by night.

All pictures were taken by a Sony Cyber-shot. The third picture was an amazing artwork that we picked up at Outshoorn, a small town full of ostrich farms in South Africa.