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Savour that mouth waters

 I still remember this meal. It always made me content. On my nights off I would sleep like a log and then get up at 12 noon and rush to Kondhwa Road to the South Indian Restaurant. Pack the brown rice, and prawn curry or fish curry. The hot steamed rice with prawn curry ah! So yummy. Prawn curry Kerala style. Ingredients Prawns—500 grams Crushed garlic—1 teaspoon Crushed ginger—1 teaspoon Turmeric—2 teaspoons Coconut oil—2 tablespoons Curry leaves Mustard seeds—1 teaspoon Cumin seeds—1 teaspoon Green chillies Onion—1 chopped Kashmiri chili—1 teaspoon Coconut milk—300 ml Kokum rinds—2 Salt to taste Method 1. Soak kokum in hot water for 15 minutes.  2. Marinate cleaned and deveined prawns with salt, turmeric, and chili powder.  3. Heat the pan and sauté mustard and cumin seeds.  4. Add onions and fry till translucent.  5. Add Kashmiri chili and roast for a while.  6. Add prawn and kokum water.  7. Prawn is cooked when it curls and turns red. ' 8. Add co...

Plastic chutney

On our side, this plastic chutney is so famous. It is present in every marriage and party. I have eaten this every time but never tried it ever. This Sunday I tried.  Ingredients Raw papaya—200 grams Jaggery—300 grams Elaichi—1 Cashews—2-4 lemon—1/2 milk—1 teaspoon Method 1. Wash and peel off raw papaya 2. Grate it.  3. In another frying pan, put a spoonful of ghee and fry the cashews.  3. In a frying pan, put the jaggery and a cup of water. Keep stirring until the jaggery dissolves. Put a spoonful of milk and pull off the dirt.  4. Put the grated papaya into the pan, cover, and cook until it gets thick. 5. Squeeze the lemon and stir well. Switch off the flame.  5. Garnish with fried cashews.  Relish this dish. I am sure you will enjoy it.  #BlogchatterFoodFest2025

Discovering my cooking mind

Moving out of the house remains the biggest dream of everyone. Mine was the same. Studying in a college was quite good. I hardly remember missing my family. Getting a job was icing on top. Now life seemed settled. This was the moment when I felt relaxed and content. Then I started thinking about what to do next. My mother is a good cook. I always longed to cook like her, both creatively and tastily.      In my school days, I saw my friends cooking tasty dishes in sixth class, and I was nowhere. I also wanted to cook good food like my mother and like my friends.      I still remember the first dish I prepared. It was "aloo bhuji." I prepared three or four large potatoes. My potatoes were getting sticky to my kadhai, but still they were not cooked well. I put water on it, and it started sticking more. I have used more turmeric also so that I get a good yellow color. I also used more cumin powder.      My family members said it was okay, and whe...

Another try with the wine

     I am very fond of trying new dishes. In those days, when the internet was not there, the newspaper was my best friend, and I used to wait for these food columns so that I could add them to my cooking diary. So my second page also has a wine dish. When I turn these pages now, I feel proud that I chose to change my perspective towards food, and I learned many things. My taste changed. My way of trying out new dishes changed. My attitude towards ingredients changed.      So, this second dish is "Meatballs in Red Wine." INGREDIENTS 2 eggs 1 cup half and half (half part whole milk and half part light cream)  3/4 cup bread crumbs 1 medium onion, chopped 1 kg mutton keema 2 tablespoon butter 1 and 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon allspice (combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper) 250 grams mushroom 1 clove garlic 1 and 1/2 tablespoon flour 1 cup red wine METHOD 1. Beat eggs. 2. Mix in bread crumbs, half-and-half, salt, allspice, a dash of pepp...

A wine dip

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  Image Credit:  sergiovisor_ph  on Pixabay      The first page in my food diary, which I started in 2006, I guess, after I secured a good salary job and was thinking of marrying, was a recipe that I saw in the newspaper. In those days, the internet was not so common, and newspaper reading was explicitly practiced.       I belong to a small city where hotels were not so very famous and meals usually used to be delicious home-cooked meals. So, after having a secure job and a good earning, I was living in a hostel. The life here was totally different. On one such occasion, our team planned an evening outing to a restaurant. I guess such an outing was the first of its kind for my batchmate and me, the hostellers.       Our other colleagues ordered a good starter and soup servings followed by a dinner. As they served, they named the dishes, and one of the chicken preparations was made in red wine. As we both unmarried new...

Judgment fear

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  Reaching the end, now I have discussed with you everything we can do to show self-love. This topic will be incomplete if I do not discuss this one barrier, which has the capability to pull down everything.  If we have open wounds, we can dress and heal them; if we have ulcers, we can take care and medicine to get them healed; if a fire breaks out, you can call the fire brigade and help, but what will you do if you are judging yourself or you are being judged? Judgement fear is like a cancer that flourishes within no time. It ruins our self-confidence and self-esteem; it kills love and understanding between me and my inner self; it convinces us that self-love is not for us; it is a property of few.  The sting of judgment is poisonous. No one escapes it. I had learned how to fill myself with positivity; I knew how to keep myself charged and encouraged; I took good care of self-compassion and self-care. In this balanced state I fell into a situation where I offended one o...

Riveting power of hobbies and interests

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  I was trying to find out the connecting bridge between hobby and self-care. Self-care is any act that takes care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life. It is responsible for our overall well-being.  Hobby is defined by Merriam-Webster as  a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation. This means that a hobby is something that we don't do regularly. Secondly, it is accompanied by relaxation, i.e., we do it because we get pleasure and relaxation.  Hobbies are not just anything that you use as filler to pass your free time. They are the bridges that connect you to the real you. You do work for others and gather loads of baggage that makes your visibility impossible. We worked together, but one got recognition and the other was ignored; resentment and inferiority feelings came. Like this, so much baggage we pile at our backs every minute and every day makes our visibility poorer and poorer. When we take up ...