Thai dragon chilli pickle

Pickle with a fiery kick! Here is what you need:

2-3 cups of thai dragon and Tabasco chilli peppers

equal amounts of ginger and garlic (peeled)

2 cups vinegar

2 cups mustard oil

1/2 cup freshly ground mustard seeds

3 heaped tablespoons of coriander seed

salt to taste

jars for storing

Chop the ginger and garlic with one cup vinegar in a food processor.  Heat mustard oil in a pan and start frying the ginger garlic until well roasted. Add the mustard powder and coriander powder and salt and keep frying. Grind the chillies with a half cup vinegar and add to the pan.  Keep frying and add the salt and fry a lot. Add the last half cup vinegar. Fry for a bit and then let sit until cooled down. Put into jars and store in fridge. Have to figure out if this can be preserved. If anyone has tips on that please do let me know.

Easy baked tofu and veggies – a healthy low carb meal!

Tofu Bake

Two packs of extra firm tofu cut into 2 inch by i inch by 1 inch pieces, you can set these between paper towels to drain

How I spent Friday night, watching middle-aged wannabe Casanovas – Rascals

Take a Deewana Mastana story, twist it a bit so the third guy has a more active role in the film. Take two middle-aged leading men who have lost all sense of maturity, and throw them in with two young girls who are not afraid to strip down to their skivvies at the least provocation.

Fall’s bounty – vegetable medley with paneer

I get a veggie basket every week and it is sometimes challenging to find time for cooking. Today was a good day. I came home with my basket and set to work immediately! Ended up with a great tasting vegetable medley that used up almost all the veggies in the basket.

If you are a Twitter user read on….

You might be interested in the people’s choice, the democratic way – the Twi-Fi awards!

If you care then follow http://twitter.com/#!/twi_fi_awards and vote for the Twitter jury now!

Voting for Tweeple Jury of the FIRST #TWIFI Awards is LIVE here: http://twifi2010.in/. For details: http://on.fb.me/gRvWuv #TwiFi

The far reaches of Bollywood!

Does Bollywood really have fans outside of India and the NRI community?  Here is a small collection of clips that suggest the influence of the Bollywood style film peppered with music and dancing is growing:

The Brazilian Soap Opera Caminhos das Indias aired in 2009 to exceptionally high ratings and increased the visibility of Indian culture and cuisine in Brazil:

10 Things That Make Me Happy

Hot Buttered toast
good bread speaks directly to my sou!

Mahendra Kapoor – 1934-2008

The man with the unique voice is no longer with us – now gone for two years. He provided the playback for such greats as Shashi Kapoor, Manoj Kumar and was known for the mellow and smooth voice and a hatke kind of choice in songs. He won the National award for best playback for Mere Desh Ki Dharti Sona Ugley, but I will remember him for ever for numbers like:

Laakhon hain yahan dilwale aur pyaar nahin milta – a peppy number full of that road song beat.

I thank Columbus daily for my potatoes and tomatoes!

My newest and simplest curried baked potato recipe!! Should not take me long to get through all these potatoes… 😛

POTATOES! In any shape or form, potatoes make me happy. I had been getting bags of newly harvested potatoes from my farm subscription and they came in all varieties and sizes. There were Idaho potatoes, golden potatoes, purple potatoes and even baby potatoes of some kind. Boiled them all, peeled and sliced them. Got some baking pans oiled and turned on the oven to 350 degrees! Mixed in some mustard powder, ginger powder, garlic powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric, garam masala, mango powder, salt and cayenne pepper into non fat yogurt. Blended in a half cup of oilve oil, mixed it all in with the sliced potatoes and baked for about an hour in a thin layer! YUMM!!

My Favorite Comfort Food

Food for thought..

samosa

Anything containing potatoes! Potato curry, French fries, potato chips, Aloo tikki, samosas, Spanish omlette, baked potato, little baby potatoes sauted with garlic and butter, gnocchi – I could go on and on!

Why? Maybe it is a gut reaction to all the low carb diets out there, I simply crave potatoes! Cannot get enough.

Epic Movie – Nyet Nyet!

Was it really Kal Penn in this useless worthless piece of trash? I saw the film dubbed in Chinese, or maybe it was Russian, and subtitled in Chinese! That was about the most interesting part of this film.

It was gross, pathetic and idiotic.

Thank god I did not understand what these moronic characters were trying to say. I am sure that lessened my torture by several degrees. What age group was this film targeting? There is no way anyone could have liked this piece of trash! I should have taken a nap instead. Even reading with the danger of puking due to travel sickness might have been better. So I say Nyet Nyet – stay away.

Ghoda-gadi ka chakkar! Victoria 203

I finally managed to watch Victoria no. 203 (1972), a rip-roaring comic crime caper. The roots of so many films of modern times could be traced back to this gem. It began with a museum display of diamonds, a thief who knows the sewage system runs under the museum, and he will exit from a manhole a block away after stealing the diamonds! Dhoom 2 anyone? The diamonds are stolen but have to be stashed away in a hurry as a double cross scheme goes awry. The rocks find their way into a Victoria (yes, the ghoda-gadi) standing nearby as the thief is stabbed. After this, the story rapidly gets layer upon layer of intrigue that involves a railway station locker, a scrap of paper with the number of the Victoria, and a key hidden under a toupee! There is a chocolate boy hero (Navin Nischol) who mostly just dallies with various girls while he waits for the real thing. There is a leading lady (Saira Banu) with so much oomph then no item girl is needed in the film.

Kapoors, Johars & Khans made B-town

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh lists the top five production houses in Bollywood thus, in terms of their standing in the trade circuits and financial standings: UTV (owned by Ronnie Screwvala, Deven Khote and Zareena Mehta), Yash Chopra’s Yash Raj Films (YRF), Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, Rakesh Roshan’s Filmkraft Productions and Sanjay Leela Bhansali Films.

“Over the past few years, it has been more or less a toss-up between these five production houses in terms of number of movies released, number of hits registered, the annual turnover and popularity overseas. Although Subhash Ghai’s banner hasn’t recorded many hits in the recent past, the company’s market value is still on a par with the five biggies,” Adarsh says.

Link

Akshay Kumar – Kinngg of BW and fashion legend..

Who designs his clothes anyway? Wife Twinkle is always well dressed but she is also a designer of interiors and so should have good sense of style. Akshay sports his own unique style be it at the Kambakkht Ishq SUCCESS party – where he came glittering with sequins, deep V shirt and matching shoes:

What Kolkata Knight Riders need to do immediately!

Lighten up guys, this is just a lighthearted attempt to dispel the gloom and doom relating to KKR. The team is so close yet so far – they lost two matches in the last over (literally the last ball) and one in the power over. How much more unlucky can a team get? So I came up with a few solutions:

1. Seek immediate numerology help from Bejan Daruwala. He will suggest some alphabets being added to the name – like:

KKKR – admitted that KKK has extreme negative connotations for the West – but KKK plus KKR – these two negatives will certainly lead to a positive outcome, simple math.

Or he may suggest dropping a K – as in KR, which I heard was already a done deal – and we see the result! So scrap this one immediately and make KOLKATA patches to sew on to every team jersey and reinstate the K in KKR!! Who will do the sewing? Well there are all those training staff that can finally be put to some use. And think of how happy this will make an entire state.

Or he may suggest adding another R – KKRR, as in Kolkata Knight Riders Rule. Sounds great, the team can use it as a morale booster, and when unleashed on the opponents it would be hard for them to keep a straight face and have any accuracy in pitching, fielding, batting. The Cheerleaders need to drive the “WE RULE” point home with big banners, flashed at every opportunity during the game!

2. For those who think Numerology is just voodoo and silly, there is another option. I know the KKR have lost in the last over several times. Can we petition the IPL to make their games only 19 overs in length? They can be trail blazers – IPLT19 – kind of like the 7 minute abs in Something About Mary!!

3. How about the rain dance? The cheerleaders need to learn this ASAP. When playing with the top teams, getting a split is better than a loss – so pray and chant and rain-dance pe chance le le!!!!

4. Voodoo and plain exorcism is also a viable option. This team needs to exorcise the ghosts of captains past – Ganguly of 2008, and the three other no show captains from the 4 captain rotation proposed by Buchanan. So let us have a massive havan, some voodoo, and a licensed exorcist to eliminate the numbers 2008 and 3, with the entire team present and participating of course. Need pointers or know-how? Look to Bhoothnath.

5. This could really work – since no Karan and SRK ventures starting with K have failed, give K Jo a small stake in KKR. Of course then they might need a player called Rahul (thanks to lindutt for this ace suggestion), and Rahul Dravid ain’t free. Maybe a Raj could work in a pinch? Any players come to mind?

6. Finally we need to simply have the carrot and stick formula – always works. Set a sliding scale of bonuses for performance for both batters and fielders/bowlers. AND tell them it is going to come out of the non-playing staff’s salary! WoooHooo, watch the wins piling up! Might also eliminate some deadwood in the non-playing staff that way. The better the performance the more people eliminated by pay cuts!

Am I missing something?