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....

Peanut ladoos for navratri, contribute for Feed-a-hungry-child and a meme

These ladoos are so easy and are great for kids to learn and make.

But first I want to put in a plea to keep contributing to ‘feed a hungry child’ as there are still a few days left for the fund raising drive. Even though the fund-drive goal of raising 3, 360 dollars has been crossed, we can contribute more to feed more mouths.

(FHC): feedahungrychild.org is a not-for-profit charitable organization formed in a collaborative effort of the like-minded people from all around the world. It aims to replace the empty plates of the underprivileged children and replace them with ones of food. While FAHC addresses the holistic needs of each children it supports, it believes illiteracy, malnutrition, and other concerns can only be addressed when hunger is appeased.

Join the fight against global poverty…. Help feed children one by one…

Please chip-in and contribute here, or here or go to the FHC website...

And now onto the easy-peasy laddoo recipe:

What you need:

- 350 gm peanut butter (crunchy – if you want bits of nut, smooth – if you want a smooth texture)
- 250 gm khoya (make a semi-hard dough with full cream milk powder and milk and microwave it for 10 minutes on low, cool and grate finely)
- 200gm brown icing sugar (can use normal icing sugar too, and reduce the amount if you find it too sweet)
- 1 tsp elaichi (cardamom) powder
(This amount made 50 ladoos of 2.5 cm diameter (average size for a ladoo) )

What you need to do:
1.) Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl thoroughly. Shape into round ladoos.

Tips:
-Use splashes of milk to moisten a dry mixture, that is becoming to difficult to combine.
- If the mixture is too wet and gooey (which it will hardly be), you can use dry dessicated coconut to make the mixture pliable.

Verdict: These ladoos look and taste exactly like besan (gram flour) laddoos in texture and 90% in taste, so they are great for when fasting from grains. You just get a peanutty taste instead. Also, there is no ‘extra’ ghee I added this time and they tasted great; the only fat comes from the peanut butter. Plus, I looooved making them because of how easy they were to make. They are really good for kids to make too.

See how I made them last year for Navratri, the recipe is pretty much the same, except I didn’t put ghee this time.

This is going to Vee of Past Present and Me for the wonderful event JFI special series: The festive series...

This is also going to Viji of Vcuisine for the wonderful event RCI Tamil Festive Series...

Now for my first meme that Sweet Sig tagged me for:

4 Places I’ve lived:

- Kisumu, Kenya
- New Delhi, India
- Selebi- Phikwe, Botswana
- Gaborone, Botswana

4 Jobs I’ve had / (wish I could have)

- Computer Technician Attachee / Interior Decorator
- Systems Analyst Junior / Coolest restaurant-in-town owner and chef
- Assistant Computer Lecturer (in parallel with 2) / Flower Bouquet Designer(I’m gonna do this when I’m old and grey anyway)
- Computer Engineer / Pencil, Pastel and Oil Painter

4 Favorite places I’ve holidayed:

1. Venice – I was in awe of all the canals dotted with the beautiful houses, the islands and the awesome Italian food. And people, Venice is sinking… hope the engineers can save it in the nick of time.
2. Vienna – Oh this city is truly musical, the opera we went to was to-die-for… and they played all the famous classical numbers especially my fav ..Mozart… there was even a Pavarotti look a like with a ballerina…sigh….
3. Cape Town – was amazing… with all the history and unique flora and fauna, vineyards and wine….Robin island where Mandela spent 26 (?) years.
4. Pongundam near Kottayam – This is a huge rubber plantation… my sin-in-law’s in-law’s place. It was breath-taking and beautiful. And my SIL’s MIL made such yummy food for us…

4 Favorite foods

1. Homemade corn pizza (with bits of paneer)
2. Pasta Recco – at our fav Italian restaurant, I don’t even bother looking at their menu…
3. Chilli Gobhi Dry - Also at out fav south Indian restaurant…. I’m trying really hard (with the help of my mum) to recreate this dish at home… and when I told this to a fellow blogger friend, she loved it too… will post it soon
4. Tie between Appam-stew and Onam sadya(incl parip payasam) – Coz after consuming both relishes, it induces a zombie reaction in the body, where we drift towards the next closest place to lie down and drift into slumber land.

4 Places I’d rather be

- On a looooong drive with M (hubby) where we talk and talk and talk.
- Playing with my son, and going to see the bho-bhos (dogs)
- Touring the world
- Doing something creatively fun (painting, cooking, crafty things).

4 bloggers I like to tag

Wanted to tag Musy, and Lakshmi(Yum), but they’ve already done this meme…

- Manisha
- Bee
- Arun
- Viji

Please take it up only if you wish to...

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.