Welcome home

Welcoming our new family member home - who is such an important part of our lives.
After ten days of struggle, sending back two defective pieces, this good fella is here finally!
Don't you just love the paisley design?

Bye bye

There was a time our fridge was filled with Lindt Chocolate bars - and one by one they were devoured, over the last six months.
This was all that remained in the end as the last piece got over today.
Lindt Dark chocolate with orange and almonds - Love you!

Breezy Monday

One of the best weather days in a long time
An evening in the terrace
Lovely breeze
Little River Band on the iPod
Life is beautiful

Beautiful bread

From Ruci & Idoni
Multigrain with sesame seeds, flaxseeds
Soft and flavoursome
Love this bread

The Hyderabad Girls' on Twitter meet up

At Sweet Nirvana, Kavuri Hils, Hyderabad
8 girls
Lots of conversation and laughter
Lip smacking desserts
Good coffee

Yoghurt muffins

Very easy, delicious and healthy - mildly sweet
Tastes yum with a pat of jam
Also baked some butterscotch brownies for the Hyderabad Twitter girls meet up on Saturday

Atri see, Atri do

My son is at that stage where he likes to imitate everything we do.
Here he pulled out some old newspaper that was lying around and sat down in the balcony with his morning Biki pretending to read it. Never mind that the paper was upside down :)

Kway-Teo noodles with Oyster Mushrooms

Delicious dinner

Morning sun/ son

It's barely 6.30 am and we are well into our day.
Don't mind the Teacher's container - we use it to store the smaller wooden toys - just in case you were wondering!!

Fridge hunt

Most of you must have seen my rants on FB / Twitter - The hunt which started that weekend resulted in me buying it on this day - but then had to return it twice and over a week gone, am still waiting!!

Kaapi morning

Frothy Filter coffee - just the way I like it

Self

Since a coule of self shots are permitted in a month, this is one of them. Standing by the window, overexposed - from iPhone - what do you expect?

WIlly Wonka @ Cream Stone

Cream Stone is an ice cream chain that combines the flavour of ice cream and other stuff like cakes, candy etc etc on a slab of hard ice until creamy and serves it in a cup or cone.
This Willy Wonka was deadly, lived upto its name - chocolate pastry, chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce all in one...deadly enough to make us miss dinner.

Shaky car -->shaky picture

One of the few things that managed to scare my otherwise very adventurous son!

Mango and coconut

Two of the trees hugging our terrace wall - coming in from the neighbour's compound to say hello!

Summer skies

Dinner came from these

Our friend got us these Thai Vermicelli noodles - only problem was that instructions were written in Thai and the pictures were not self explanatory.
Luckily, we have google.
About.com had a section on thai recipes that explained how to deal with these noodles - soaking in hot water for 10 minutes did the trick.
Dinner was these noodles tossed in oil with garlic, chilli flakes and peanuts, paired with Eggplant in Chinese sauce

Choco-Crinkle Cookies - Batch Two

A fat pinch of dried ginger powder went into this one
I'm getting confident in cookie-baking YAY

Choco-Crinkle Cookies - Batch One

A recipe from Jamie's blog
Used half all purpose flour and half whole wheat flour and did not manage to use all the oil as I forgot to add it earlier on.
Turned out just perfect

Fresh curry leaf podi

My neighbour gave me a big bunch of curry leaves from their farm and this was the best way to make use of them - Karuveppalai Podi

The haircut

The day i took the bold step of cutting my hair short :)

Sunita's Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Baked these cookies for my son - he loved them
Used jaggery instead of sugar, raisins instead of chocochips and lots of cardamom in the recipe and they almost tasted like my favourite 'athirasam'
Original recipe here

Double coloured bougainvilleas

Found this to be an unusual colour for a bougainvillea
Making summers bearable with their beauty

Tiffin time for my son

Boiled potatoes cubed and sauteed in ghee with salt and pepper
A spoon of grated cheese sprinkled on the hot potatoes

Quack Quack

For my son's entertainment

Lunch date at Golden Dragon

Farm fresh mangoes

A box of Banganapalli mangoes sent by a farmer
Perks of husband working in Agri sector
Best mangoes I've ever tasted
Sorted into almost ripe, yet to ripen and under-ripe piles

Curry leaf flavoured paneer bhurji in Dosai - Breakfast

The storm outside my window

Starring - The Pot

If you see the picture in the header, you'll know where this pot came from.
Another exhibition gem.
Have cooked thrice in this and food acquires a new dimension of taste
This stew served with red rice tasted fabulous

Minty Raw mangoey Ragda Patties for Dinner

Mini mushroom pizzas for dinner

Ready pizza base, cut into two slices to make it really thin crust
Ready Pizza sauce - Maggi Pizza Mazza
So literally a dinner in minutes

Tea and Sugar

After my househelp cracked the sugar bottle, it was time to replace the pair with these pretty ceramic pots I bought from the Gandhi Shilp Bazaar

Washed and drying in the sun

Syn-ful dessert

The choco-tsunami I had for dessert after a wonderful dinner at Syn @ Taj Deccan

Gandhi Shilp Bazaar

The fountains at the entry

The Exhibition and sale of handicrafts and artistic textiles was organised in the lovely green lawns of the Botanical Gardens in Hyderabad. The stalls were not as many as those seen in some other exhibitions, but it was clearly a case of quality over quantity. The fabrics from various states had around a stall each. My yearning for white Lucknow kurtas to wear in the hot months of the year was fulfilled by this really good Lucknow stall run by husband and wife. I also managed to pick a piece of Banarasi material to stitch a blouse.
The Bandhani (my current love) stall from Gujarat was also one of my favourites - i went looking just like that and the sweet spoken Gujarati lady managed to convince me to buy a saree (!!)
The single Khurja pottery stall spread out on the grass had some lovely designs of mugs, plates, serving plates etc. in vibrant colours.
In short, this was one of the best exhibitions I have attended in recent times - lovely natural green setting, limited stalls, quality products. It's there for another couple of days or so, so do not miss it.

More pictures of the products and stalls here

Gandhi Shilp Bazaar
S.K.V.B.R Botanical Garden
Chirec School Road,
Kothaguda 'X' Road, 
Hyderabad

Entry: Free
Parking: Rs.10

Thrilled

Seeing Atri's fascination for anything in wheels, we decided to buy him a cycle - It was my uncle and aunt's wish that they get him one, when they saw him running after the neighbourhood kids' cycles ;)

This is the one we got him. He refused to get out from this, let alone leave the shop - Now i keep it hidden in some corner of the house as he wants to ride it every waking minute :)

Stepping into the world

May 3rd, 2010 - A day to remember
My baby's first day in a playgroup - first day away from familiar environs
He didn't turn around to look for me
Found joy in riding the wheely horses
In two hours, felt tired and sleepy - started getting worried looking for Mama - when the attendants called for me :)
Still, a brave two hours for him and me :0

Coffee and conversations

@ Mocha  near our place

The first Mocha in Bombay which started at Bandra was one of our regular haunts to catch up with friends - superb ambience, restored flea market furniture, the smell of coffee in the air and the best apple pie ever - kept taking me back to the place...

The one in Hyd was a poor imitation of the original - their Blueberry Brain freezer shake was good though, apple pie that we brought home to eat for dessert was horrible, no sign of apple - just some crumbled mix as the filling inside a hard crust! If you ever visit this Mocha, stay away from this seasonal 'fruit' pie!

Plans washed out

Our plans to visit this exhibition were washed out by the showers - which were otherwise most welcome as they cooled up the city so beautifully!

Inside story - Mumbai airport

The new wing in Mumbai airport where gates A1-6 are, is spacious, well decorated and has a bar, food courts, shops and palm trees - but a sorry state of the so-called 'Baby changing room' (pic on right) really saddened me at the insensitivity shown by the people who manage the airport.

The room was not done at all, just used as a mini-dump and by someone to drink his/her mid morning tea.

The perch

Atri liked to perch his little bum on the small ledge outside the floor window in my parents' house - only I would worry if he sat with too much force and ended up going out of the glass :) Luckily we were spared of any such drama!

Appa's Kurma

Appa catches many cookery shows on TV. This time after being considerably inspired by Chef Damu's recipe - he made this Vegetable Kurma for dinner today! I really appreciate how he sourced every single ingredient over two days - chopped all the vegetables patiently to size with his recently recovered fractured hand.
The kurma smelled divine from the fresh whole spices I got home from Munnar and the fresh masala that appa ground for this dish!

Sunny sonny

My little one getting his dose of vitamin D by the bedroom window!

One of my favourite stores

 Sunday, couple of my good friends travelled to my end of the city so that we could catch up! Even in those couple of hours, we managed to squeeze in some shopping at one of my favourite stores.
Fabindia has now launched a range of kids' furniture and furnishings - I loved this curtain (blue and white) displayed on their window.

Tiffin time - Bajji

Bajjis (slices of vegetables dipped in batter and fried till golden) would feature on the 4 pm tiffin once in a while on a weekend, when we were kids. Just for nostalgia sake I asked Amma to make Bajji on this Saturday afternoon and she was kind to oblige.
After eating it didn't seem like a good idea - severe summer heat and fried food are really not meant for each other!
In case you want to see how the prepared stuff looked - here's the pic -

Geeta Chithi's Panha

My chithi always makes this drink from raw mangoes every summer - so when Atri and me would visit her house each evening, I'd ask her if she'd made this already! She was sweet to make this drink while I was still in Bombay and a glass of this prepared with the raw mango concentrate diluted with chilled water and a sprinkling of roasted cumin powder is sheer bliss in summers!

Visiting my dear friend

Had this plate of chilled watermelon at one of my best friend's place in Bombay. I've spent many hours in her lovely bright living room - surrounded by foliage - and I managed to escape for 8 hours on one day to travel to the other end of the city and spend some time with her! This was my only long outing in my entire trip of three weeks.

A sampling...

...of the good stuff - my cousin is scheduled to get married this year. The wedding hall, the caterer are to be booked well in advance in today's times. Sometimes, the wedding date is even adjusted to suit the availability of halls and good caterers.
The caterer who is almost shortlisted called us today to sample his offering - and my uncle, aunt and myself landed up to check how good his food was...This was a Kerala style meal for a Keralite wedding and everything tasted superb! I've just come back home an hour ago and I'm taking time out to update this space - you can imagine how tough it is for me to sit up after eating a yelai- saappadu (banana leaf spread) like that  :)