A date with myself...

Being a Harry Potter buff has its advantages and disadvantages - Given that the final offering was PG-13, I could not with a right conscience take eager K2 for The Finale -- seeing the grimace of distaste on K1's face, I decided alone was the way to go...so with a kid's size popcorn and a massive dose of excitement, I went into the theater and the movie did not disappoint. Hey it was Stephen King who quoted - "Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." No wonder, I didn't watch Twilight beyond the first offering - it was too one-dimensional for me while Harry Potter took me to places I wanted to visit and it is a magical journey I will cherish and I hope I can pass on this affinity for Harry Potter to K2.

This week has been about "healthy substitutions" food wise. I made this easy Apple Spice Bread Muffin with ground Flax Seed Powder (the brand I used is Spectrum - I have posted a picture below). Flax Seed Powder has been a wonderful addition to our pantry. Wikipedia not I says - Flax Seeds are a rich source of protien - One hundred grams of ground flax seed supplies about 450 kilocalories, 41 grams of fat (the good kind) , 28 grams of fiber, and 20 grams of protein.Flax seeds contain high levels of dietary fiber as well as lignans, an abundance of micronutrients and omega-3 fatty acids. Flax seeds  lowers cholesterol levels and lessen the severity of diabetes by stabilizing blood-sugar levels.

• 2 Cups Apple Sauce
• 1 Teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 Cup all purpose unbleached flour
• 1 Cup whole wheat flour
• 1 Teaspoon baking powder
• ½ Teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ Teaspoon salt
• 1 Cup Spectrum  Organic Flaxseed Flour
• 2 Organic eggs
• 1 Cup organic sugar
• 2 tbspoon Spectrum Organic Toasted Walnut Oil
• 1/2 Cup coconut milk (or fat free milk)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Measure the flours and cinnamon into a  bowl. Sift together with the salt and the baking powder/soda. Keep aside. Measure the eggs and the sugar into a large bowl. Using a hand mixer (or your hand), beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed for about 5 minutes, stopping two or three times to scrape the sides of the bowl using a rubber spatula until the mixture is pale yellow and creamy. Add the  Apple Sauce, walnut oil and the  milk. Beat with the hand mixer set on medium speed for about 5 minutes, stopping two or three times to scrape the sides of the bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Test this by rubbing the batter in between two fingers. It should feel smooth. Turn the sifted flour mixture into the beaten egg mixture and stir to combine, until the flour is completely mixed in, but don't beat it or the cake will be tough (now is a good time to add in raisins and nuts if you so please, I chose to make it a plain kind). Spoon heaping tablespoons of the batter into the muffin pan (or cake pan) , filling each close to the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes until the mini cakes are deep golden in color and a cake tester (I used a tooth pick) inserted into the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a tray to cool to room temperature. Wrap with wax paper or plastic wrap to store for up to three days. This is a healthy, protien filled snack for K2, it is a great breakfast item, which has tonnes of healthy stuff (yes the sugar content is high but what's life without a little bit of sweet, you can definitely substitute the sugar with Stevia)...

This recipe goes out to Sobha @ Good Food who is hosting the event - Cook it Healthy - Protieneous. And when you think Muffins and Cakes - protien is the last word you think of -- but with my special muffins made with  Flax Seed Flour -- the protien level is high but you don't really lose out on any of the big flavors & moistness of a muffin ( K2 had 2 in one go - if that isn't a testament to taste I don't know what is !!!)

How is your week going? I am spending time in the evenings with a book K1 suggested to me - What Got You Here, Won't Get you There by Marshall Goldsmith. The book has been eye-opening in parts and insightful in others...as they say there is always room for improvement in oneself  :-)

The Story of a Jhola and Conformity...

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself

What in the earth is a Jhola you ask me...well it is a stunning bag made usually in India out of cloth with intricate patch or art work and it's usually handmade. It was a hot summer in 2004 when I was back in India, in Pune and I saw a shop selling Jholas and it was love at first sight...
I bought not one or two Jholas but five- all for the princely sum of Rs.300 (roughly 6 bucks). I had 2 bright pinks, one black, one blue and an orange...I came back home and used my Jholas just about everywhere...the yoga class, shopping, everything...and I observed the covert looks my Jhola got...and I got conscious. A week later unable to deal with the stares, I packed up  my beautiful Jholas and put them in the garage.

Seven years later, I was cleaning a garage cupboard and I found these beauties and I picked them all up and reinstated them in my closet -my current favorite is my bright pink one  and it goes with me everywhere --- sure I get looks but I like my Jhola and that seals the deal for me...How true ring the words of Dr.Seuss - Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

The past week has been uneventful - watched a couple fun movies with K2 - Cars 2 and Megamind.  We also watched a heartwarming Hindi movie - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - definitely worth a watch (brought home the point about living not just going on with life...because you get to do it but once) - we went on a 5 mile hike and got lost amidst the warning rattles of snakes and mostly silence...

we came upon a clear beautiful lake where there was this young puppy cavorting in the water - joyous, seizing the moment...this week life has been trying to teach us some lessons...

Fast Food Nation.

Over the long weekend, we took it slow - we strolled in the mall and bought nothing, just walked around people watching, we hung out with A whom we hadn't seen in more than 2 months. We spent Saturday with good friends C and P over a pot of delicious Paella and store bought Dhoklas...C I hadn't seen in over 2 years and she was (is) one of my closest friends,so catching up was great.We went to the library on Sunday and picked up a bunch of movies...K2 is in the Berenstain Bears phase and I scrounged in the kids section for  their DVDs and  found Get Organized and Mind your Manners...and while I was on this hunt for K2's DVDs I spied on  "Fast Food Nation" and picked it up. A long hike down the bay trails later, K1 and I sat down over a relaxed dinner and watched Fast Food Nation - let me tell you I was glad we were eating a vegetarian meal that day (and even more glad that I didn't eat hamburgers...ever!)...the movie was a candid view at different issues that plague the American Society - Conformity, Apathy...among others and interwoven is a killing story about   America's fast food industry - when a marketing executive for the Mickey's burger chain is told there's a nasty secret ingredient in his latest culinary creation - The Big One, he heads for the ranches and slaughterhouses of Colorado to investigate...but discovers the truth a bit difficult to swallow....

In this country where we find it easier to just dress up, pick up the car keys and run out to pick up some food...or even better order take-out with the press of a few phone buttons - it is hard to cook food from scratch -- and who am I to judge, there are days when I come back all tired from work and all I wish for is a warming bowl of Khichidi with some spicy achaar and all I have on hand is zippo...we do try and make healthy choices then - a creamy organic tomato soup from TJs, or a burrito from Amy's or a Naanwich from Sukhi's.

There is a joy to slowing down and enjoying a stroll down the farmer's market while sampling their fresh produce and buying local, buying a beautiful mint plant and planting it in my backyard  and watching it grow and planning a meal with my family (a salad made with leaves from that mint plant)...and most importantly watching my son's interest in food grow and his food knowledge and horizon expand (he tried Ethiopian food last month and pupusas and tamales the month before and empanadas this week)- so with a commitment to trying to cook more I brought myself this weekend - a beautiful Le Creuset Cookware set (I have waited  awhile for this beauty).
At our place we are having  tonight a spicy Zunka (made from Jalapenos) and saucy Usal with rotis - a maharashtrian's dream meal...what is cooking in your kitchen?

To Amy with love...

I had an Aha! moment today. I dragged myself out of bed at 5.45 AM to prepare for a call...back to back calls later, I rushed to get my son ready for school - just as I was packing his lunch I realized they had a BBQ at school, so quickly got him to school and went along with my work day...by 5.30 PM I was drained and exhausted and ready to crawl under the blanket  but of course my day was just beginning - I picked up K2, walked the dog, hauled the trash out and came into the house to contemplate dinner. As much as I love cooking ...today was just not the day that I wanted to cook dinner. So for K2 I made a plate of small eats featuring Amy's Kitchen  : Amy's Tomato Bisque (I melted shredded mozzerela cheese on top), Amy's Toaster Cheese Pizza and Blue Horizon's Salmon Sticks (and he talked me into giving him a Yoplait yogurt). I microwaved in less than 2 minutes an Amy's Organic Black Bean Vegetable Burrito (that I topped with a smoking spicy salsa from Mrs.Renfro called Ghost Pepper Salsa). Now I am relaxed in front of the TV watching "Iron Chef" with a hot cuppa "African Nectar"...Life is good !!!

Coming to the Aha! moment - It's ok to not keep pushing myself to perform like a race horse - at work, trying to place a balanced meal on my family's table, trying to stay on top of a growing to do list etc...it is ok to take a short cut and create an equally balanced and healthful meal for my family. On days like this when going near the kitchen has a negative "value proposition"...I lean heavily on wonderful Amy, so for that support I will be grateful. So this blog post I dedicate To Amy with love...

No Backup Plan

Do you know what a typical Product Manager does -

1. Creates a kick-ass product road map
2. Prays hard that all ducks line up
3. Creates a back-up plan
4. Creates a back-up plan for the back-up plan

Having spent about a dozen years in product management, I let my tendency to create backup plans at work creep into my personal life too...when we were buying our home, even though we had a solid mortgage broker, I talked to a second mortgage broker and lined up a second approval...and guess what! the first loan fell through and it was the backup plan that came through for us. One thing is obvious though, as much as the idea of planning and over-planning (think financial goals, personal goals, grocery lists, to-do lists, meal plans, etc.) was comforting -- there comes a stage in life when one wants to kick the habit - live for the moment as they say and damn the consequences. We will see how this thought process conceptualizes in my head and actions.

Today was a long and rainy sort of a day and to perk up the sniffling K2 I served him homemade mini-pizza (with Turkey Pastrami and Mozzarella Cheese with a baby carrot in an orange plate to cheer him up for dinner. For myself,  I made a quick broccoli fried rice which will also serve as lunch for K2 tomorrow...in the background my mac book was playing Karen Carpenter's Rainy Days and Mondays

Sending out my Easy Broccoli Fried Rice to "Vardhini's Kitchen" for the event  Healthy Lunch Box Ideas : Broccoli and this event was concepted by Kalyani from the blog "Its Not Madrasi"

Truth be told 50% of the time the lunch box comes back half eaten - K2 does not relish his broccoli as much as he does Amy's Toaster Cheese Pizza or the Blue Horizon Salmon sticks  (or sour cream or cup cakes :( )....but hey! I have learnt which are the important battles to fight with a 4 year old and I try to let him have his occasional sugar rushes.

Easy Broccoli Fried Rice

You need :

1. 1 cup (or two) Cooked Brown Rice (I cheated, I had a carton lying from the Thai take-out)
2. 1 Head Chopped Broccoli (I use the stems too) - from my local farmer's market
3. Soft Tofu (add as much or as little as per taste)
4. Red Onions, Garlic and Ginger (all finely chopped)
5. Vegetable Oil
6. Soy Sauce to taste, Rice Wine Vinegar to taste

Add the oil to a wok...when it's shimmering hot - Add in the Onions, Ginger and Garlic (if you want it spicy now is the time to add in your Jalapeno, Serrano, Habenaro...as per your taste. I was making this for the kiddo, so I added the Habenaro Hot Sauce from the top later on). When the Onion Garlic and Ginger mixture is cooked through, I added in the chopped brocolli, when it is half way cooked I added in the soft tofu and scrambled it up with the brocolli - the mixture resembles scrambled green eggs :)
Now add in the Brown Rice and season with soy sauce and rice wine vinegar.

This is a kid friendly version and lacks the normal kicked up spices- like an overdose of Sriracha or Sambal...yet in some ways this is a very satisfying one pot meal.

Did you do anything fun this weekend? We saw huge life-size dinosaurs on Saturday that scared K2 speechless...ate Ethiopian food -- it was almost like a race to the last morsel.On Sunday, A left for India and we will miss him but as K2 says but Ma his plans are back and forth (meaning he will be going back and forth between US and India). After we dropped A in the airport, we picked up grilled chicken burgers and a Ham and Cheese Croissant for the little guy and sat by the waters and had an impromptu picnic....the simple pleasures in life are the most memorable ones...so what's your backup plan...wait a minute...you are smarter than me ...you don't have one...do you?

Come cook with me...

This past week I got from my public library a wonderful book by Miriam Hospodar called "Heaven's Banquet". I have been reading the book quite intently however for me cooking is as much a gut instinct kind of an activity as a cerebral activity. So tomorrow I will venture to make two of my favorite dishes from the book with my own special tweaks. The dishes are the humble Khichidi and Kadhi...by themselves simple but when paired with each other - the perfect couple, yin and yang, two peas in a pod...yeah yeah you get the drift. They remind you of home, the comfort of your mother's arms soothing out uncertainity and unrest...warming not just your physical being but filling you with a sort of a mental peace. It is not by chance that these two dishes reign as super stars in Indian Ayurvedic cooking.

Here is my simple and straightforward way of making Khichdi and Kadhi, hope you will walk this journey with me -

For the Khichidi you need

• 1 cup of Moong Dal (use whatever lentils you have but Moong lovingly dry roasted in a stainless steel container works best)
• 1 cup of Brown Basmati (or whatever rice you have, try to make a move to unprocessed, whole grain rice and your body will thank you)
• 1 cup of mixed vegetables ( I will use a cup of frozen peas, carrots and beans mix)
• Hing, Turmeric powder, Fresh Roasted Cumin powder, Ginger (thinly chopped), clarified butter, fresh chopped cilantro leaves

The steps are simple :-

1. Wash and soak the rice and lentils in water for an hour
2. Take your pressure cooker ( if you don't have one use a stainless steel or cast iron pot).
3. Heat the clarified butter (about a tad bit, I usually use Olive oil but this tastes the best). When it shimmering add the Hing, Turmeric Powder, and the ginger. Cook for about 1/2 a minute 
4. Add the vegetables and the cumin powder. Cook for a minute and a half. Add the Dal and Rice mixture (soaked). Mix thoroughly. Add Salt to taste
5. In the pressure cooker let it go about 6 whistles (minimum), if you want a creamier khichidi like I usually do, I let it go another 2 whistles (total of 8 whistles).
6. Garnish with Cilantro and add Black Pepper and Lemon Juice to taste

For the Kadhi you will need:
1 cup of Yogurt
1.5 cups of water
3 tsp besan (chickpea flour)
1 tsp sugar
Dash of salt

1. Mix the above in a bowl and keep aside
2. Heat a pan and add some vegetable/olive oil and temper with hing, mustard and cumin seeds and  5-6 curry leaves ( Tip: I usually buy 1-2 bags from the indian store and microwave them to dry and then they last me 3-6 months in my masala daba). Now add minced ginger, cut green chillies
3. Once the tempering is sizzling and fragrant add the yogurt mixture and bring to boil. Simmer it for 10-12 minutes until the chickpea flour is cooked.
4. Garnish with Cilantro

So are you going to cook with me today? Walk the path seldom walked in this fast paced life...yes there is stress right now....work stress that I would not wish on anyone...yet there is a sense in the background of peace to come and every evening that I cook a meal alone in my beautiful kitchen, the sense of equilibrium slowly returns and there is an inner reassurance of good things to come.

On my death bed...

What does one do when one is told that one's time is up - People grow a lot when they realize that there is now an "expiry date" which has been indelibly stamped on their existence, not tangible yet ominous....coming to terms with their mortality, struggling to define the validity of their existence, remembering the good times and more importantly the regrets.I read an interesting article on Yahoo this week by Bronnie, a palliative care giver on the top five death bed regrets people had -
(A) I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me : It is so easy to get caught up in the mundaness of life and believe that the mediocrity makes us happy --- I had always had this dream of being a theatre artist…a dream that I gave up before I even tried to see if I would ever be any good at it because I did not want to fail.
(B) I wish I didn't work so hard : More than me this applies to K1. We spend so much of our time in mindless madness, that we lose objectivity and focus on what is really important and it brings a dark cloud over our lives…something is not right with that picture.
(C) I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings – I have always been a “in-the face” sort of a person. If I don’t like you – you will know it, if I like you – you will also know it…I am not shy about expressing my opinions, likes and dislikes. I just hope and wish that my near and dear ones have the courage to get there. Life is too short, say what is on your mind – you will not have yet another regret
(D) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends: If there is one regret I have, it is in being content with just my small little family, leaning too heavily on them for emotional support. There are a few people who have touched my life but they are far in between – I cherish those friendships fondly – yet sometimes I feel like I have let some of those friends slip me by. The classic introvert who reaches within when the tumult outside reaches a crescendo
(E) I wish that I had let myself be happier: There are “times” when I keep telling K1, I am not happy, I am miserable with the circumstances and the state of limbo “ness” that life has pushed me into in the past few months and then he tells me “ Happiness is a choice” – a person or a situation cannot make us happy. We have to choose to be happy. Hey K1 – how about you taking on and implementing your own advise.

Today I make a pact with myself to try to face some of my fears, resolve some of my internal conflicts and choose happiness.
On a bright note I got my first basket of “co-op” grown fruits and vegetables – luscious peaches, bright apricots and grapes. Heirloom tomatoes that begged to be converted into a Caprese salad, crisp cucumbers, a head of cauliflower, beets, bunches of carrots, a bunch of celery --- all organic. All of this wonderful produce will be the main players in my week’s cooking. Dinner for today is : Rice, Daal (Lentil Soup laced with ginger and ground toasted cumin), Aloo Matar  ( Potatoes and peas cooked in a tomato-onion-ginger-cilantro gravy) and Beet Greens ( cooked down in olive oil with garlic and fresh ground pepper). How has your week been shaping up?