Monday, October 30, 2017

Chicken vegetable stir fry

Half pound boneless chicken breast

Two big florets of cauliflower

One small zucchini

One medium sized onion 

One small carrot

One bell pepper ( I used an orange one. You can use different colored bell pepper. The dish will look colorful)

half tsp cumin powder

one fourth tsp. coriander powder

One tbsp. wine vinegar

salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper

Two tbsp. of oil

Method: (serving size 3)

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Five on Friday

First of all I want to thank all my lovely blogger friends for their wishes for speedy recovery of my son. Last week due all those happening I couldn’t post my week review. This week I decided post the review. The week was pretty hectic.

 
Monday:
My son went to school after the mishap. I talked with his teacher, and she told that she would figure out something, as he broke his writing hand. Around one in the afternoon, I took him out from school to go to orthopedic doctor. I had some other appointment, so, I couldn’t go with him. I took him from school, and went to Mr. Man’s office. From there he took the kiddie to doctor. Then I rushed to my work. I came back home around 8 in the evening. My Mr. Man cooked the dinner for the day.

A lone Marvel Peru is striving in the garden.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Pear cake recipe and life update

The last week was a crazy week. In my home, the electrician, the roof guy, the HVAC guy, and few others were working. On Friday there were at least 7 people were working. Almost through out the week they worked since morning until 6:30 in the evening. It was really painful to me. On the top of that my son broke his right wrist on Friday. In the evening I was drinking tea, and planning to write week's review. Suddenly, my son’s loud piercing cry startled me. I saw him that he was screaming in absolute pain holding his right wrist. My husband and I rushed to him. Within moment we saw a ballon like bubble on the wrist. We put ice pack on that place and rushed him to urgent care. He generally doesn’t cry much. However, that evening the poor little guy cried a lot. 

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Diwali 2017

This third week of October the Indians are celebrating Diwali. Diwali is a very ancient Hindu festival. Diwali or Deepavali means series of lights. This festival is celebrated all over India , and it is the most awaited festival. Though this the festival of lights,but no festival or celebration can be finished without delicious food.So,before the festival, all the Indians clean their homes, decorate, and make many sweets, and yummy snacks. If I don't mention the two main decorations, then the story will be unfinished.Those two are 'Toran', and 'Rangoli'.They put decorations on the top of door frame of the front door of the house which is called “Toran”. We know ,Indians love colors. So, in their any festival, there must be some colors. When this is the biggest festival, no doubt, they make it very colorful by putting some colorful designs on the porch or doorway  as well as on floors of other rooms in the house. It depends on the one’s wish. These colorful designs, called Rangoli, are usually created by a powdered material which usually comes in many colors.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Chicken with Green Bell pepper

This week the air is much better, and it is more clear. From this week we can start our usual outdoor activities. The remodeling job is going on full swing. The week was nice, and the weather is cool. First we decided to go to Half Moon Bay on Saturday to be in the Pumpkin festival . However, Half Moon Bay is far from our home, and we had to start very early in the morning to reach there , and to get a good parking. So, we decided to stay at home. Anyway, as I don’t like to on weekends, I decided to cook a simple chicken recipe.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Five on Friday


This week the situation in California is not good. In many places wild fires brake out, and many people are suffering from that. Though, at the end of the week the situation has come under control, but the loss is immense. I’ve never heard such devastating fire in California in 10 years. When we were in Southern California, we saw the mountain very near to our apartment under huge fire. We saw the blaze from our patio, but never heard about such horrible destructions.  This time the fire has created a horrible situation. Though, we are far from the fire, still we can smell the smoke. I can imagine the situation of those less fortunate people who are still going through it. Hope, the situation will good be very soon. 
My five days in this week

Friday, October 6, 2017

Five on Friday

Monday: 

After Sunday’s run, I needed rest very much (Those who wants to know about the run please click here). So, I didn’t walk or exercise in the morning. Though I thought of having rest, but I ended up doing lots of works entire evening.  In the morning took my son to doctor’s office  for physical in the morning before school. From there rushed him to school. In the evening we take him to swim class. In the forty-five minutes we ran a lot of errands. As he fished him swimming we rushed to Part City to by his halloween costume. We didn’t want to wait for the last moment to buy the costume. When we got back hime 8:30 I was tired as a dog.


Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Buttercup squash soup


When you get a large buttercup squash from you backyard garden, what can you do? Yes, you can cook delicious buttercup squash soups. Few days back Mr. Man cut the huge butter squash, I couldn’t  understand what to cook with that. I cut it into few big chunks, and kept them in the refrigerator. Few times I cut the big chunks into small slices, and fry them. Then I got bored cooking the same thing. I searched on the Pinterest, and found some delicious soup recipe. However, whatever recipe I chose, I found that some of the ingredients were missing In my pantry. So, I decided to cook the soup with my own recipe.


Three cups of buttercup squash chunks
One big onion
One big tomato
Few asparagus
Four-five white mushrooms
Half pound skinless boneless chicken thigh
Two tsp. of garlic powder
One tsp. of ginger powder
One branch of celery 
One carrot (peels of carrots will work fine)
One stalk of broccoli
One bay leaves
salt to taste
One tbsp. of olive oil
Two tsp. of wine vinegar
Dry oregano
Chili flakes(optional)


Cut celery, carrot, tomato, asparagus,onion into big chunks.
Cut the mushrooms into thin slices. Keep aside.
Take a big sauce pan.
Fill the sauce pan with few cups of water.
Cut the chicken into medium pieces.
Add celery, carrot, broccoli stalk, bay leaves, chicken pieces.Cover the pan, and bring into boil.
Cook until chicken pieces are tender. Let it cool down a little. Remove it into a big bowl. 
In the same sauce pan add the squash chunk, onion,tomato, and add sufficient water to just cover the vegetables. Bring into boil. Cook until the chunks are soft. Let it cool down.
Make a course paste in a blender.
Take another sauce pan, heat oil into medium high.
Add ginger-garlic powder. Add asparagus, mushrooms.
Mix well, and cook, covering the pan.
In the meantime, scoop the chicken pieces out of the stock, shred, and add with asparagus and mushrooms.
Strain the stock in a container, and keep aside.
Pour the stock into the pan. Mix well
Pour the squash paste into the pan. 
Add wine vinegar, salt. Mix well. Bring into boil. 
Simmer it. Cook until desired consistency reaches. 
Divide the soup into five bowl. Sprinkle oregano, and chili flakes. Serve hot.



Monday, October 2, 2017

A super busy Sunday

You know past few weeks I was talking about 5K run on 1st October. I did practice, still I couldn’t raise my stamina. Lastly I decided I would run, as far as possible, then I would walk. 


Anyway, it was cold Sunday morning. We woke up very early, as we had to reach the venue early, to get a good parking spot. We all three participated in the very event. When we reached the venue , many participants already reached there. We actually participated in the 5K fun run/walk. Though we three started together, father-son passed me very fast. I took my own time, though I never stopped. Sometimes I ran, and when I couldn’t make it , I walked very fast. I finished 5K in 40 minutes. My son finished in 38 minutes, his dad finished in 30 minutes. Then our run was over, we took some time to visit all booths, my son collected a good amount of toys, notepad, pens. I collected the ice packs, which are very helpful. 


After coming back my day started. I really couldn’t believe myself, that I did so many jobs, after 5k run in the morning. My son, wanted to eat biryani for along time. Biryani is a delicacy all over the Indian sub-continent. Most of the people love to eat biryani. I don’t know whether I can tell it is kind of fried rice or not. However, there are many differences in cooking these two dishes. Later I’ll try to post the recipe the biryani I usually cook. Cooking biryani is elaborate process. Specially, if you want to cook the dish with the kind of meat, which takes time to be cooked. The father-son duo loves only goat meat biryani. Goat meats are usually available in the Mediterranean grocery stores. Anyway, to cook goat meat biryani, I had to marinate the goat meat in the previous night. 


I’m talking about only biryani. I should tell you why the sunday was  super busy. As soon as I enter the home, I rushed to the kitchen. Not only I cooked biryani, I made two more sweets also. I’m from the eastern part of India, and we celebrate Durga Puja, which usually takes place for four days during this time. On the last day of the puja we usually eat some sweet, and meet other people, share sweets. After cooking biryani, I made two sweets, and both usually take quite a time to make. I finished all kind of cooking around 1:30. Then we had a late lunch with savory biryani. 

This sweet is called "Malpoa", it is batter made out of milk, flour, little sugar and green cardamom powder . Then little scoops are deep fried in oil. After that, they are dipped in sugar syrup.


No, the day didn’t end there. Then we went to meet one of our relatives, who live nearby. I won’t say nearby, because that was 30 miles drive. I packed some of the sweets I made and went to their house. After coming back from there, we took kiddie to a creative writing class. This was also fund raising event run by the high school kids.

The second sweet is very much like crepes 


Anyway, we had one hour time in our hand. So, we went to SportsBasement to buy Mr. Man’s running shoe. When we finished there, it was time to pick the little one. Our next plan was to buy Halloween costume for him. However, we found out that 7 o’clock was the store closing time. To my great relief we came back home. 

Lots of jabbering, huh? *smile*