Seized!

By the cooking/baking enthusiasms yet again :)

There was a recipe for Amritsari Ajwaini Paneer that I have been wanting to try out for a few weeks now, and somehow never got around to it. So a couple of days back, I said this is it, have to do it now. I love so many of Archana's recipes I don't know how I'm going to manage to them all out - she writes so clearly and simply and puts together flavours so well, I'm totally in awe of her cooking. Here's the recipe from her page:

http://www.archanaskitchen.com/indian-recipes/vegetables-in-gravy/422-amritsari-ajwaini-paneer
I had no wish to do any tweaking, only small difference was I used chopped tomatoes and not puree, out of sheer laziness.

And here's the photo of my attempt. Not bad, huh :)

And I was not done yet for the day! Had picked up a bottle of Nutella and after finding myself dipping the spoon into it a little too many times for comfort, I decided I had to do something more useful with it. Started looking around for recipes, and this one was just made for me - it has all of 4 ingredients, and it is so simple that S literally helped me mix it ;). Made in cupcake containers so that each is good enough for one serving, I used peanuts and left some without the topping as I can't be sure what my kids will feel like on any particular day. Miffed to be told by D after I left them out on some - "But I like peanuts!".

http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/08/4-ingredients-nutella-brownies/
Since I use a convection oven, I used 160 degrees C for 17 minutes, I think even 15 minutes would work though I wasn't sure so gave it a couple more.

And the picture :). Yes yes I am trying props and the such, but not much helped by my camera really not functioning very well in low light, and I couldn't wait until morning to take the pic could I? ;).

Generosity!

Yes that's with an exclamation all right. In today's world, generosity is not something you come to expect easily. After all it's a dog eat dog, pushing to get to first in line, ME first kind of place most of the time.

But in the last few days and weeks, I have come across some amazing people, mainly through Facebook (yes, I live online a little too much!). The first group that is a wonderful one for getting introduced to the world of recycling/upcycling is Second to None. This is a place where people post great upcycling/refurbishing ideas, and also put up second-hand, sometimes even nearly unused stuff for sale. Usually the very unusual or interesting items get grabbed within minutes, and we jokingly now refer to the mechanism as FFF or Fastest Fingers First :).

But consider this: there was this very interesting item, originally from IKEA, unused, which was up. And of course it was grabbed in 30 seconds or so. I reached it about 4th in line, and just left a comment saying Oh how nice this was, or something to this effect. Within 5 minutes, I got 3 offers, all from people I never met, to procure me a similar one from Dubai, Bahrain and Mumbai !! I was completely zapped by the generosity of folks to even offer something like this. One of the three I had interacted with quite a bit(mostly online until then), but the others I only knew through one group or the other.

And one more Zap moment happened soon after, when another person offered me some metal rods she had left over from a dismantled wardrobe, as I had talked about needing supports for my plants in another gardening group, quite a few days back. It is amazing to me that people remember requests from days ago, sometimes tagging another person just to direct their attention to a post they may be interested in, and all this with no vested interest whatsover!!!

Must not forget to mention the Foodies group, where people share recipes, restaurant reviews, and sometimes also just where to get a pot or pan! No feeling of keeping information to oneself, or being selfish.

Just in case I ever begin to despair about my children growing up in a selfish world, something or the other comes along to change my mind :) !

Note: This one has been in my drafts for a while, thought it was about time it saw the light of day.