A Goal Because I Never Finish Anything Either!

So I was watching the movie Julie and Julia. In the movie, Julie Powell says she never finishes everything! Ring a bell? Well, it did with me. I never finish anything! I never reach goals on time. Well not never, but RARELY!

I had decided a while ago that I would keep up with the organization around the house. Well, that worked for a few weeks and I am back to a disorganized house. Heck, I didn’t even finish my oatmeal regimen.

Then, I decided that I would take this class and study for the entrance exam and actually take the exam TODAY. Well, today is here and I am not taking the exam. I have decided to now break that “take the exam” into small goals like study this chapter, finish this much each day and take it one step at a time. I have also decided that I can only blog after I finish atleast one part of my daily allotted study material. So guess what, I have finished part one of today’s allotted study material and I feel great!

Does it sound like I am a little disarrayed with my life? The answer is a big fat YES! I have struggled with finding my calling. Teeth? Yes. But the doctorate? Shit (pardon the language), that’s still far away and so is the ever elusive exam score I need. B asks me to do what I love to do. Well, the one thing I love to do besides sleeping and watching TV is cooking. I am not that great a cook but it does bring me immense joy when I see my family eating food that I have cooked. And it brings me even more joy when they like it. I have now successfully made this blog post a confused mixture of words. It doesn’t even have a thesis. But hey, I do have a conclusion.

The conclusion here is that I shall start with small goals of studying and small goals of cooking more regularly. The fact is that even though I love to cook, I am usually so tired at the end of the day that I don’t cook. My personal small term cooking goal is to cook atleast one thing 6 days out of 7, starting today. So there you have the jist of this long and confusing post: 1) Small term study goals 2) Only blog after atleast 1 part of the daily alloted study material is complete and 3) Cook atleast one thing 6 days out of 7 (to start out with – someday I want to conquer 365 days of food).

Here we go. Today’s goal – Pasta in a Mushroom Cream Sauce.

Aloo ke Paranthe for Lunch

Today is Labor Day and we had no plans to go anywhere, so I decided to feed the hubby some warm off the stove lunch. I made some aloo paranthas! I have tried and tried, exactly twice before to make the paranthas with the perfect consistency and have failed. So today, I took it upon me, once again to make paranthas with the perfect consistency. You know, the ones that don’t get all crusty and hard once they cool down.

So here’s what one needs for the perfect paranthas:
1) The perfect dough
2) The perfect rolled out parantha – this does not exactly have to be perfect
3) The perfect cooking / roasting of the parantha

To achieve the perfect dough I decided not to use any oil or ghee during the actual kneading part. In the past, I’ve added oil prior to kneading the dough and that seems to have been one of the reasons for my faulty past paranthas.

So, for the dough:
2 cups whole wheat flour (Today I ran out of whole wheat so I ended up using 1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup all purpose flour, maybe thats what worked)
some salt if you’d like, no more than a pinch or two
water to knead

Now, make the dough – duh. The final consistency should be a stretchy, spongy, soft dough. Finish the dough with a teaspoon of oil and give it one final kneading. Cover and set aside.

For the parantha filling:
5-6 small-medium boiled potatoes – mashed
diced onions – half a medium onion
finely chopped ginger – 3 tsp
finely chopped chillies – 4-5, more if you want spicy
finely chopped garlic 3 cloves
finely chopped fresh coriander – 1 tbsp
and for a change I added some finely chopped green onions too
Spices 1 1/2 tsp each of red chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, salt, and chat masala

Saute the onions in 2 tsp of oil until lightly browned. Add ginger, chillies, garlic, mashed potatoes, all the spices. Take off heat and mix well.

Aloo ParathaRoll a small piece of dough out. I used rice flour to make it roll smoothly. Once rolled out, add a spoonful of the potato filling and literally wrap the dough over like a little wanton. Press gently with your palm and roll the parantha out.

Roasting the parantha:
Place the parantha on a tava/griddle at medium heat. Let the bottom side cook thoroughly before flipping. Once flipped, add some butter on the cooked layer. Let the other side cook and as its cooking gently lift up to check. Slide some butter under and wait till completely cooked. Flip once and check, and again and check. Take off the tava/griddle and serve with your favorite chutneys.

Aloo Parantha

Just Words

So the weirdest thing happened to me today. Well, its been happening for the past several months but today was different. On my way to work, there is this guy that sits on the sidewalk on a chair with an orange traffic vest and waves at cars passing by. I started waving back a few months ago. Guess what I found out today….
Everytime someone waves back at the guy, the old man gulps a big sip of alcohol from the bottle at the side of his chair. :-/

I LOVE windows 7.

I finally have internet in my home. 4 months after coming back from India. I had NO internet at home for 4 MONTHS! Unbelievable.

I also love my new Sony Vaio Laptop.

And I also love my new husband :-) To be honest, marriage is overrated.

Oatmeal Diaries Days 4,5,6,7 and 8

Guess what? All of these days I have actually kept up with the Oatmeal. Apparently, I shouldn’t mix blueberries with milk. According to my mom, anything sour with milk is virrudh aahar so I decided today that I wasn’t going to incorporate blueberries in with the oatmeal but have a handful sometime later in the day. So all these days, I have had oatmeal for breakfast and am not yet tired. Turns out, I like cinnamon roll flavor the best. Tried Banana-bread flavor too but am not THAT great a fan. Of all the Quaker Instant Oatmeal packs that I tried, Cinnamon roll takes the cake – haven’t gotten to trying the Original pack yet.

Overall log: Tried 4 different flavors
Current weight: ** lbs, Total lost: still 1lb gained!
Dang it!
Maybe once the doodh ka halwa is totally gone, it will actually start making a difference.
And exercise? Aaaah we will eventually get to it too.

Oatmeal Diaries Day 3

Today was good and bad as far as the diet is concerned. Got up in the morning at 5:30 almost an hour earlier than I usually do. Made chai coz B was leaving for work and didn’t wanna wake mom up. Then I had some spare time so cooked up the oatmeal and had a good time checking out the latest decor blogs and enjoying my oatmeal + blueberries.

Also had my absolute favorite falafel for lunch and dinner! I think if I ever go live anywhere near the Mediterranean, I could survive on falafel alone! Oh and I had tried to stay soo away from the doodh ka halwa but gave in to several cravings today. Went shopping in the evening with mom and B. We ended up impulse buying the ring for B. We go pick it up tomorrow. I am super excited about it! We are FINALLY talking about the wedding and inko kya dena hai aur unko kya gift dena hai and all that. its all very exciting and scary at the same time.

in short todays log is as follows:
Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal (which btw is super tasty) 1/2 cup 2% milk and blueberries! also munched on some cherries and mango in the afternoon. I love fruits!
Current weight : ** lbs Total lost: I actually GAINED a pound.

Lay off the halwa, lay off the halwa, lay OFFFFFF the halwa!