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....

Edible diyas for Diwali... yeah...eat them!

Happy Diwali !!!!!!!

I would like to wish all my readers a very happy Deepavali…. Wishing everyone lots of happiness, joy and prosperity.

Diwali is the festival of lights, the celebration of good over evil…light over darkness. Deepavali as it is also called ....means a row of lamps. These lamps are usually made with clay and some women at home make them with ‘aata’ or roti dough.

When I saw the recipe for these edible coconut diyas, I fell in love with them and promised to make them on diwali….here is the recipe. I used orange food colour to give them that earthen clay hue.

The recipe doesn’t fill the diyas with anything, so I put in a small dollop of soft sweet khoya as symbolic ghee with a sliver of almond for the wick.

I also decorated them with ‘hundreds and thousands’ - tiny coloured sugar balls. I tried decorating them with silver vark, but it got messy....

So here's wishing all my readers all the happiness in the world.... my advise is ....make lots of sweets, share them with all your family and friends, eat them too and have a joyous 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 Meeta's Monthly Mingle for Traditional Feasts.

Karva chauth di sargi: Early morning vermicelli pudding

I love fasting on karva chauth despite it being a grueling day of controlling your hunger and thirst, and not because it’s the most fanciest custom that bollywood has to show in their movies nowadays. But fasting like this is when one gets to really appreciate the food we eat and the water we drink daily.

Mostly I feel more thirsty than hungry. But somehow it feels good to fast on the day. Its not just 'fast for your husband's long life' as is mostly portrayed, its also about celebrating your wedded life and marriage.

The day started for me at 3:30am, when I got up to eat my sargi and to drink all the water I could before sunrise. ‘Sargi’ is just the (punjabi) name given to the delicious vermicelli kheer (see recipe below) eaten in the morning.

According to traditional custom, a married woman takes the 'sargi', which is prepared specially for the ocassion by the mother-in-law, and leaves on the previous day to go to her mother’s house. In the wee hours of the morning she eats it with her mother and other aunts that have gathered there. The fast begins at twilight, and women fast from food and water.

When the day starts, the women folk spend decorating themselves with henna and getting dressed up in their wedding apparels, and pretty much look like brides. In today’s times they go shopping, they especially buy decorated bangles and sometimes spend the afternoon at the movies!

Around late afternoon, ranging between 3pm to 6pm (depends on the individual family custom), the daughter-in-law arrives with her mother and her aunts at her in-laws place. Here all the ladies, including that of the neighbourhood gather to perform the ‘poiya mansna’ ceremony. They get into a circle and rotate their pooja thalis whilst singing traditional songs.

Ive always heard the one that Ive shown below, “kudiye karwada....”. Here in Africa, we gather mostly at the local temple hall and do this ceremony. Then one of the elder lady tells us the ‘katha’, the story behind the fast. The hardcore ‘pindi’ punjabi (village accent) becomes a foreign language to me and I’m lost after a few lines into the story!

I just enjoy the whole ceremony of seeing so many women all dressed up. Its like seeing all your friends, aunts, and all women as brides all on the same day! We admire each other’s jewellery, mehndi and wedding gowns etc. :D

A lot of woman take their first sip of water after this ceremony, and have some form of liquid to relieve themselves. They have food only after the moon comes out. Some (really dedicated wives) wait with thirsty throats up until the time the moon comes out.

I had a big glass of water at 4:30 pm and then another glass of juice. From then the wait starts…for the moon to come out. In India, I have heard from my mum that the moon comes out around 8:00pm. Then all the women rush outside and offer obeisances to the moon and see the moon through a seive (I have no idea, why all this is done so). Thereafter they break their fasts.

And because some of us are in the southern hemisphere… we waited till 10:30pm and there was no sign of the moon… After another gruelling, half an hour…the moon was sighted at 11:00pm and we finally broke our fasts and had food. By then I wasn’t even hungry, but nevertheless ate to replenish the energy I had lost! My malayalee husband still doesn’t get why I need to do all this… I know I do it for the fun of it!

"Karva Chauth Day falls on the 4th day of the Kartik month every year. On this day it is customary for the wife to fast the whole day. She does not drink water either. She paints her hands and feet with henna, dresses generally in red apparel ...

On Karva Chauth day, which is observed in North India, tens of millions of women keep a fast, .... Only after seeing the moon do the women break their day-long fast in the evening/night. Normally women go out of their houses and on their roof tops to see if the moon is up yet.

Here is the song sung by punjabi women, while they exchange thalis seven times.

Veero Kudiye Karwada...., Sarv Suhagan Karwada...,

Aye Katti Naya Teri Naa, Kumbh Chrakhra Feri Naa,

Aar Pair payeen Naa, Ruthda maniyen Naa, Suthra Jagayeen Naa,

Ve Veero Kuriye Karwara,Ve Sarv Suhagan Karwara....... "

picture and text:http://www.karwachauth.com

Karva chauth ki sargi

What you need:

- 250 gm wheat vermicelli
- 50 gm ghee (can completely zero the ghee, if you want to make it fat free)
- 1 Lt full cream milk (can easily use 2% reduced or even skim milk to make it ‘lighter’)
- 200 gms sugar (again, this amount gives the kheer a mild sweetness, up or own the amount to suit your palate). Here sugar can also be substituted for brown sugar or jaggery for more flavour.
- A few pods whole elaichi
- Saffron strands
- Chopped nuts of your choice ( I did not put any in this version)

What you need to do:

1.) In a large pot roast the vermicelli in the ghee. The vermicelli can be dry roasted too (without any ghee for a low fat version). Stir frequently to allow equal roasting.

2.) Add the milk and elaichi pods and bring to the boil. When boiling, reduce gas to a simmer and cook for a further 10-12 minutes. The vermicelli will swell in size and soak up the milk.

3.) Switch off the gas and decorate with saffron and nuts. The kheer (pudding) can be had warm and or can be cooled down and refridgerated and served chilled.

We (mum and I) had it cold in the morning, drank lotsa water and went back to sleep!

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