Nothing to say

Today's meal:

Chick peas fried with onions, mixed with rice.

The Strange Adventures of the Solo-Cook

Strange meal of the day:

Bread with nameless dish made of tomatoes, chickpeas, chili powder and cheese. Just one of those wild experiments.

Yesterday's dinner was :

Pongal, but not quite. With tomato chutney but not quite.

I should stop calling myself the solo-cook. I should be called the inventor-cook.

Speedy!

Today's meal:


Rajma fried with garlic, with chapaties. At warp speed! Just under 30 minutes to knead the dough, roll it out, fry chapaties and make the rajma and wash all of last night's . When I started making chapaties I took a whole 2 hours to make them.

Pots and Cans

Today's meal:


Jeera rice with rajma curry made of chili powder and onions. Rajma came in a can with tomato sauce. Good stuff.

Very impatient for tomorrow to get over. It is like I have been waiting for the day for too long. This whole evening was spent waiting for tomorrow. I am not eager for the day itself, just want it to be done and over with. Wish me luck!
Took a few pictures of the sun and my potted plant today. It is getting nicely nourished with the fresh light that we had here today. Take a look!

Oranges and lemons

Today's meal:


Butter fusilli with beans and carrots. It was originally just fusili and veggies, but it ended up tasting so boring and dry that I had to do something about it. The nearest thing at hand was butter. It tasted a bit better.

I have been swallowing lemon-sized oranges almost whole these days. Mandarin oranges. They are so very sweet that I feel let down about all the sour oranges I have been eating till now.

Solving the multiple-requirement problem

Sometimes, the solo-cook is confronted with a lack of options. Sometimes it is the excess of options that plagues him/her. At other times, it is the several requirements that baffle.
Today's meal:


Pongal and beans tomato onion with chili powder dish. Something between beans fry and the famous tomato gojju.
Introduction to the MR problem
1. I wanted to eat some pepper.
2. I wanted to use up the dal that has been lying unused on my shelf for a very long time.
3. I wanted to eat some vegetables
4. I wanted it to be done very quickly
5. I wanted something sweet.

But there was no way I could fit that last one into the list, so I settled for some cream biscuits instead.

Well, today or tomorrow is Sankranthi/Pongal. So happy festivities!

Comical! Sacrilege!

Today's meal:


Capsicum crisp fried noodles. Flavoured with olives and pepper.
Broke the noodles (not maggi) into small bits, put it in water til.l it got cooked. Fried capsicum in oil, and added noodles into this. Left it on the stove for around 10 minutes: longer than I normally would have. Added salt only after serving. Result = crisp noodles and crisper capsicum. Have you ever eaten Sambhar with capsicum? Sacrilege!
It has been raining for around 24 hours continuously here. I heard people saying it is raining hard, looked carefully to see just what we people would call a drizzle. Well, this drizzle has caused puddles as large as some of our lakes! Comical!

In a perfect world

When I grow up I want to join Nestle India's Maggi noodles division. Thinking about it, even Top Ramen will do. As long as the earth exists, they will never go out of business:

With beans and brussels sprouts.

It is quite astonishing that this is not the staple food of the world, yet.

People, if you are unaware of the awesomeness of Maggi, simply because it is found easily and everywhere, be aware. There are some deep and dark corners of the world where some enemies of mankind keep it hidden. For those suffering similar fate, do not despair. The forces of Maggi shall triumph some day!

Madrasi Combinations

Puli kozhambu and rice.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this dish, it is difficult to pronounce (l in puli is the harsher sound than the la in English/Hindi and the 'zh' is a sound unique only to Tamil and Malayalam(I think)), it is very easy to make, but not very easy to eat if you are not used to extremely spicy dishes like this one, I would advice extreme caution.

The dish is usually eaten with a 'kootu' that is salty and very mild, probably to neutralize the effect of its fiery companion. This kootu is made with some vegetable like cabbage and channa dal. I have never really tried making it, so I may have missed several other ingredients there.

My puli kozhambu has onions, garlic, canned beans, tamarind paste, chili powder and salt. In most versions, fenugreek seeds are also added to this. Canned beans is an introduction that I have made into it. Usually, people prefer brinjals, potatoes, radish and other things like the 'turkey berry '(<-link) known as sundaikkai in Tamil.

Madrasi used to be a word (still is?) to describe 'curd rice eating' Tamilians and all other South Indians as well even if they came from Karnataka or Kerala. But I am sad that this had to be changed to the less interesting Chennaiites after the name change. Chennaiites does not have that insulting ring to it that Madrasi has.

Ok. That was just a really bad topic to talk about. Bad for the digestion of food. Lets go find something else to eat now.

BBB

That's bisi bele bath for you. With some Haldiram's snack.

Carrots, beans, rice, toor dal, chili powder and some tamarind paste. Not too happy with the results. There is something missing here that I cannot identify.

Some really low flying aircraft here just now. For a few seconds, the sound of the aircraft convinced me that we were under alien attack. Hmm....

Summer in winter

If I couldn't feel the cold, I would think of today as a happy summer day. It was clear, bright and golden sunshine covered the earth. This evening I also saw the moon and Venus side by side shining bright. Beautiful sight.

Today's meal:

Curry with double beans, red and yellow capsicum and chapatis.
Today was shopping day.

Pasta and sauce

Again. Sauce contains garlic, carrots, tomato ketchup and red chilies. Turned out to be very hot and sweet. Fun.

Heavy duty room cleaning activities today. My room was beginning to portray signs of a level one hoarder.

Dull and Duller

Today's meal:

Wheat dosa in picture. Tomato gojju not in picture.

The hunter shot me

Today's meal:

Tri-colour fusilli with peas and carrots. The ingredients claim that the orange and green colours come from tomato and spinach powder. Hmmmm. Wonder if they really can do that.

Last night I was treated to a spotless night sky. I have not had the chance to see the stars much here, so I stood gazing at the sky. What a treat. I did not search for familiar constellations as I did when back home, because I was certain that I wouldn't see them here. But there he was! Orion shot me down in just a few moments! The orientation of the constellation looks different although I am not sure if that makes sense.

Small Favours

Today's meal:

Chapatis and dal. I think I have now managed to formulate a really good way of making chapati dough. Initially they were coming out very hard and tough to chew. Today, they were very soft.

I spent most of this afternoon with the sun shining down on me and felt at peace with the whole world. While feeling this peaceful and happy feeling, I looked outside my window to see this wonderful sight. Last night's cracker display, which was pretty good by the way, had left behind a lot of paper and rubbish. There were a bunch of kids who were picking up all that rubbish. A little later I saw a really old man, maybe in his late seventies or eighties, searching for and picking up paper from the ground and dropping it into a bag. He spent at least 10 minutes doing that and quite much filled this shopping bag. I do know many people who wouldn't spend that much time cleaning their own homes and I can't help but think of the mess we leave behind for the municipality's cleaning crew to take out after our Diwali blast.