Author: nainadg

Blogging...Mommy Style
Food and Drinks, Friends, Life, Recipes

Dahi Vada and Potluck

nainadg

I am becoming rather proud of culinary skills lately. I have graduated from just cooking for J and my family to now cooking for big groups of people. Last Sunday DS and Y hosted a Potluck in their backyard and I cooked up a big batch of dahi vada and people actually enjoyed it.

In fact I overheard this conversation between DS and Y

DS: This is great, Did X make this ?

Y: No , this is the dish N and J brought

DS: N made this , really , wow!

The setting was really fun, they had set up a long picnic bench and it felt like this big family meal outdoors. There were Italian dishes, tapas, mac and cheese, shortbread cookies and Tempeh and also DS’s homebrew. After dinner Y and I watched her wedding video and the boys made fun of us.  Also I got an email from DS saying that they will be hosting every sunday , so it will become a summer tradition.

Anyway to celebrate the summer season, I am posting a recipe for Dahi Vada( Dough balls in Yoghurt): A yummy, chilled summer snack

Dahi Vada ( Makes 6 small portions)

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 1/2 cups Urad Daal without skin (black lentils)
  • Salt to taste
  • 2″ piece of ginger grated
  • 2 green chillies chopped very fine
  • Vegetable/ canola/ sunflower oil for deep frying
  • 3 cups thick fresh yoghurt (should not be sour)
  • Red chilli powder to taste
  • 1 tbsp chaat masala
  • 2 tsps cumin seeds roasted gently and ground into a fine powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp sugar
  • Chopped corainder leaves to garnish

Preparation

  • Soak the urad daal in a bowl of water overnight. Grind it into a paste the next morning. Do not add any water while grinding.
  • Add the green chillies and ginger to this paste.
  • Mix 1 cup of yoghurt with 2 cups of water and salt to taste
  • Keep aside.
  • In another bowl mix the remaining yoghurt with the red chilli powder, chaat masala, cumin powder, sugar and salt to taste. Mix well. Keep aside.
  • Heat oil for deep frying on a medium flame. Grease your palms with oil and put 1 tbsp of the lentil mix in your palm. Make into a donut shape (these are the vadas).
  • Slide each vada into the hot oil and fry till light golden. Drain and put immediately into the yoghurt/water mix. Allow to soak for 2-3 minutes.
  • Remove from the yoghurt/water mix and press gently between your palms. Arrange these vadas in a deep platter as you prepare them.
  • When all urad daal paste is used up and the the vadas are done as above and in the platter, pour the thick yoghurt mix over them to cover completely.
  • Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and chill in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.
  • To serve, put 1 or 2 Dahi Vadas in a plate and garnish with Tamarind Chutney and green Mint-coriander Chutney. (optional)

    • Wedding

    Relief

    nainadg

    Last weekend J and I emailed out our Save the Date . After sending it out ,I felt a huge sense of relief and excitement all at the same time. Relief , because we had one thing crossed off our list, Excitement and nervousness because now it seems like the wedding is on for sure. Other people know about it and there is no turning back now. I am happy to say we got mostly positive responses. Maybe some people were offended that it was an email rather than a card, but it made sense for us.

    Wedding

    Sangeet

    nainadg

     

    One of the traditions of Indian weddings is a Sangeet. Sangeet literally means song and dance in hindi and it  is a womens only get together hosted by the Brides female friends and relatives before the wedding.  The main part of a Sangeet is the putting Mehndi(Henna) on the bride and other women. The significance of Mehndi is a way to make your love stronger. Tradition says that the darker the color of your Henna the deeper your love and hence the stronger your marriage. Another fun Mehndi custom is to hide the groom’s name in the design and he has to find his name in the Mehndi design the day of the wedding or the Bride’s friends won’t let him see his bride. Usually at a  Sangeet women  play music, make up bawdy songs about the bride and groom and there’s lots of dancing. Also there’s  jokes( some off color ones), and silly skits and of course food. 

    One of my mom’s friends wants to do a Sangeet the night before the wedding, but I’m not sure how likely this will be because a lot of people may not even get into town till Friday morning. Also, I’m not sure if I will be able to find someone to do Henna in Utah because the Indian population is quite small , but if I could, I think it would be something really fun to do with my bridesmaids. Its a very Indian tradition and I feel like if this happens it will add some desi flavor to the wedding festivities. Plus any chance to party is good. Right ?

    Wedding

    Which comes first…..

    nainadg

    I feel really frustrated about my wedding plans lately. I did go ahead and decide on a Save the Date. I guess we are going to do Send-O- Matic ones becasue even though it is a pay site, it is not very expensive. All I’m waiting for is a final list from our parents and that seems to take them forever. J and I have decided that if we dont’ get a list by Friday night, we are mailing those suckers out anyway.

    Things that need to happen by this weekend:

    Find a house/apartment/condo for my family while we are in UT for the wedding.

    J absolutely needs to follow up , what the hell is going on with his suit

    We need to come up with an events calendar for the wedding, which is hard at the moment because I don’t know how many people to plan for. Also it would be easier to plan events if we had accomodations booked because it would let us know what activities are even feasible.

    Life

    Poker Face

    nainadg

    Last night J and I went out to play poker with his regualar group of poker buddies. It was really fun because Y went with us and also the hosts wife played as well. I was pretty amazed that I came out two dollars on top. I had gone all in one hand, lost and then I had to buy back in,but at the end of the night still recovered all my money. Some of the guys that play are really intimidating though and I realize the only way to not be bullied on the table is to play a lot and get more confidence. I also feel like playing with flair comes with practice. A lot of people who did play some big hands came out even or won really big. I only won because I played small ,steady hands.

    There is a really neat coffee shop in our old neighborhood called Broad Street Cafe that host poker games every tue and thu night and I really want to go check it out next week. I think its funny that they can’t call it gambling and you technically don’t play for money but you play for points instead. My theory is that points are less motivating that money and one would take bigger risks with their hand.  The thrill of poker is in taking huge risks, risking points doesn’t seem like a huge gamble to me. Maybe I’ll change my mind after I play there.

    Food and Drinks, Recipes

    La Michelada and She Crab Soup

    nainadg

    Saturday afternoon at Cape Hatteras, DS had a very strong craving for a Bloody Mary. We went to this little restaurant called Dolphin Den to eat some seafood and drink some cocktails, only to find out that Hatteras was a Booze free island. THat meant that they had beer and wine but not liquor. Being the good wife that Y is , she decided to make this yummy, spicy and delicous beer coctail for us. It is a Mexican Cocktail called La Michelada and here is the recipe

    La Michelada

    The Michelada is a refreshing summer twist on the standard Bloody Mary.  Try it with a light Mexican Beer.  You can’t go wrong with the Michelada!

     

    4 drops of Tabasco Sauce
    1/4 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

    Dashes of Salt and Ground Pepper
    Juice of 2-3  Lime wedges

    1 Bottle of Beer, preferably a Corona Extra

    Optional: Maggi Sauce

     

    Combine above ingredients in a glass and pour beer to top.  Serve with wedge of lime in a salted glass. Serves 1.

     

                              

     

     

    She Crab Soup

     

    Originally this soup was prepared with the meat and roe (crab eggs) from female blue crabs.  However, it is now considered environmentally unfriendly to harvest roe, therefore the soup is just made with female crabs. Since I cannot afford 9- 10 large crabs with shells (just in case there is roe inside), I found this recipe that uses lump crab meat.

     

    Ingredients: Serves 6

    • 2 hard-cooked eggs, optional
    • 3 tablespoons butter
    • 1 scallion including green top, minced
    • 1 rib celery, minced
    • 2 tablespoons flour
    • 2 cups Fish Stock, or bottled clam juice
    • 2 cups milk
    • 2 cups heavy cream
    • 1 1/2 pounds lump crabmeat, picked free of shell
    • 1/4 cup dry sherry
    • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    • 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
    • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
    • 6 thin slices lemon

    1. If using the eggs, separate the yolks from the whites and save the whites for another use. Press the yolks through a sieve and reserve.

    2. In a large pot, melt the butter over moderately low heat. Add the scallion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft, about 4 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Stir in the stock, milk and cream. Bring to a simmer, stirring.

    3. Add the sieved egg yolks, if using, the crabmeat, sherry, salt and pepper and bring almost to a simmer. Ladle into bowls and top each serving with a pinch of paprika and a lemon slice. Serve soup with oyster crackers.

    *Recipe from CulinaryCafe.com*

     

     

     

     

    Wedding

    Decision-o-matic

    nainadg

    So, now that I have run out of exuses on why I can’t work on my wedding save the dates, the crucial moment is finally at hand. I wanted to do email save the dates for our wedding and my original plan was to make some sort of fancy html email. I don’t know why this would have worked b/c because neither J nor I know html. Anyway, I decided on a web based , evite type thing but now it seems there’s the options of paid or non paid. Free email (www.evite.com) invites seem really hassle free but the  designs are strictly okay and there is heavy advertisements throughout the site. The paid site (www.sendomatic.com) is really cool customizable but they even charge for emails that don’t go through. Also for some reason their email seems like it has problems on some browsers and my guess is that they might be considered spam by a lot of peoples emails. 

     I propose that Google’s next new app should be a decision o matic site. Where you put in your options, pros , cons, etc and the site chooses for you. I think super indecisive people like me would be eternally grateful.

    In other wedding news, we have had a set back on the Indian ceremony. My whole family had finally agreed upon a reception and ceremoney venue and this is no small feat in my large and crazy family where everyone is very very very opinionated. Anyway, it seems like the vendor is being a jerk and has doubled the price of the venue so we are back to the drawing board. What this means, is more opinions and more chaos.

    Friends, Life, Travel

    Bittersweet!

    nainadg

     

    Well this post would have been titled just Sweet, had it not been for a certain law enforcement officer being a jerk. But I will not ruin the ending.

    Thursday night Me, J, Y and DS had a planning session at their house. We weren’t sure if we wanted to go at all this weekend because the weateher forecast said it would rain on saturday and that it would really cold on sunday. These did not sound like ideal conditions to go camping, so we decided to rent a camping cabin which is a very rustic cabin and just chance the weather.  Our destination was the village of Frisco on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. Our planning session lasted long into the night with us making extensive lists of stuff we were going to take with us.

    Friday, we got a late start becasue DS ‘s meeting ran late , but we finally started our adventure. On the way, we nearly ran out of gas b/d J kept taking exits that did not have gas stations, but we did make it into Frisco without too much more adventure. It was weird to drive on the Outer Banks in the dark and we had no idea what the view around us was really like.  Our camping cabin turned out to be very cool, it had a two rustic platform beds and a table and an air conditioner. The air conditioner which seemed like a luxury at first was actually a necessity in the humid sea air.  That night, Y and I went to bed while the boys stayed up smoking cigars on the porch.

    Saturday morning , I was the first one to wake up and I decided to explore the campground. It was a beautiful morning with warm temperatures and a pleasant sea breeze. Right as I stepped out of the cabin I reaized we were only a few feet away from the Pamlico sound . The sound is just beautiful and teeming with life, I saw a cottonmouth(water moccasin) and all sorts of really cool birds. After breakfast we wandered around Hatteras Island and checked out the talled Lighthouse in America -Hatteras Lighthouse and wandered along the beach. The thing that impressed me about Hatteras Island was the fact that most of tha seashore was protected and undeveloped, which is very unusual for coasts in the east. On the beach, we saw plovers, sea cucumbers, tons of crabs, skate eggs , different types of sea anemones and a horse shoe crabs. We also ate a delicious lunch of She Crab soup and calamari and Y made us a special mexican beer cocktail.

    Saturday afternoon we checked out the little villages on the island and went to the Pea Island Wildlife refuge. We saw different species of turtles and some river otters  and also some ospreys. That night we made a yummy camp dinner of steak and potatoes and chilled on our porch.

    Sunday, the weather did indeed get really bad. We spent the morning exploring the southern end of Hatteras Island and then headed north to Kitty Hawk and Kill Devils Hills. At Kitty Hawk we checked out the the famous Wright Brothers memorial and saw the spot where they launched into flight for the first time. It was really neat to see  how scientific they were in constructing their glider and their flyer.

    The weather was getting really bad now, so we just grabbed lunch at the Pier House restaurant of fresh seafood and Bloody Marys and headed back home. On the way….here comes the bitter part… we passed a cop who had pulled soemone over and J had to veer out into oncoming traffic to not run into him and we nearly ran into the oncoming car. But a few miles later the same cop pulled us over because we had not pulled into the other lane far enough and we were apparently “endangering the cops life” according to NC law. So J got a ticket for $ 36o  and our great trip had to end on a sour note.

    Despite the ticket, I had a great beach weekend and it was fun to celebrate the end of my semester by a quick getaway.

    Life, Wedding

    The End

    nainadg

    My finals are finally over! yaaaay!!!! It was a hell of a busy semester but I made it through! I don’t think I did as well as I did last semester but the overall results aren’t terrible. I felt like I had a lot going on this semester with wedding planning and dealing newer responsibilites at work. I also think it was just general burn out. I rewarded myself with a trip to the mall and I bought some headbands and some new shoes.

    J and I celebrated last night by drinking margaritas and playing scrabble. Yes we are geeks. We know. Then I went out wiht my friend JE and we drank some more margaritas and I came home and got some good loving.

    Now that my finals are over, I have no more excuses for slacking on wedding planning. Starting today, I am all about wedding plans.  I have had a few new ideas that I want to research and incorporate into our wedding:

    1) I want to incorporate more indian stuff

    2) I want to see if I can find a vendor for Marigolds or Calendulas

    3) I want to find a way to make a kick ass electronic save the date card.