eggtastic theory seems to have the opposite effect. the egg was perfect today. the day has been anything but perfect.

Eggtastic

Like I always say...I have so many ideas for blog posts in my head...but its so hard to sit down and write i down perfectly. I call this one Eggtastic because of a little game I've been playing with myself. I make my cute husband eggs every morning. Now don't start on the unhealthiness of eating eggs every morning...I'm not sure if its true but this is one of the only things he'll eat in the morning. His favorite type of egg is eggs over easy... you know the one where the yolk is runny. Now let me tell you...I think I'm pretty good at making food...but eggs are one of my biggest enemies. Man I loveee eating them, but I am such a bad FLIPPER! During the last 2 months I've been trying to perfect my eggs over easy...with much failure. So the game I play with myself is...deciding what kind of day it's gonna be according to how my eggs turn out. A good egg over easy=an eggcellent day, scrambled eggs cuz i messed up=a really lameee day. :) i don't know if it really comes true...since I forget the game after he leaves, but today the rule just didn't work.

I made one of the worst eggs in history today...and it has turned out to be a fantastic day. We've heard some good news....that I can't disclose yet...and in general the day has been great.

This week has been ok in general...I actually got food poisoning one day but the rest has been ok. The way C takes care of me when I'm sick is amazing. Everyday I feel so blessed to have him. One good this these last few weeks is that I've been losing weight!

Getting out of my comfort zone has helped my weight a lot. We eat home cooked food for all three meals most of the time, especially me since I don't have a car or anywhere to go. I've also lost a lot of cravings for fast food. I see food more as a way to nutrition my body instead of something to savor. I know you may think that sound sad...but this new mindset has really helped me in weight loss. It may also be why I don't blog much because there are no new interesting recipes. I just eat indian food...all the time...the same things every week. I really had to get out of my fast food rut...and schedule my time better where food can be cooked instead of picked up on the way home. It sounds so cliche...but that's what I needed. Unfortunately, I had to move to another country and strip myself of a job, car, and money to do so. But i love that feeling when I'm standing on the scale!

Pakora/Bhajiya

I've been waiting a few weeks to make this! I love it when my mom has time to make real indian snacks on the weekend and wanted to do the same for my family. But, I've married into a household that does not like to fry food! How do you make indian snacks without frying? So obviously I had to wait till my MIL left. This weekend we went to the flea market and the lakefront! It's so weird that I live next to such a huge mass of water. We want to find some beachy areas so we can go chill in the summer. It was really cold by the lake today though--need to wait a couple more weeks before hanging out. We haven't gone grocery shopping all week either so we didn't have an regular easy snacks. Perfect for busting out the indian food. So i decided to make onion, cilantro, cauliflower pakoras.


This is super easy. I took about 2 cups of cauliflower, half a med onion, and a handful of cilantro and washed and cut everything up as well as a couple green chillies. For the batter I used 1 cup besan/gram flour, 1/4 cup all purpose flower, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, salt to taste and some chilli powder. Then i added warm water until it was smooth batterlike. i mixed all the vegetables together in the batter and fried it in the oil until it turned golden brown. We enjoyed these with maggi chilli masala sauce. DELISH!

I felt so indiany housewife ish :) But now I'm resting after a long day. We had homemade tacos for dinner because Toronto has no Mexican restaurants! So weird after growing up in Colorado!

Indian Food Galore

Today's post is inspired by my best buddy and probably only reader of this blog who encouraged me to post again, thoroughly, so a normal human can read, learn, and crave the food I eat. This is a special post because I actually made two things and took detailed pics!

Since getting married, I've been eating Indian food primarily. We eat mostly Kerala style food, but love to go out for north indian food and even make things like butter chicken or paneer at home once in a while. I've been cooking daily for about a month, and finally i've reached a point where I feel like everything is starting to taste the same, and I just can't handle my food anymore. Unfortunately, when you become a wife or a mother or really the chef of the house you can't just drop everything and never make food. I had to get over my rut and continue cooking. I'm not sure what direction to take...if I should buy more packaged spice blends, eat out more for creativity, or what. All I know is I have to make dinner for one picky eat and one vegetarian.

So my picky eater lovessss black eyed peas curry. I've never even heard of this thing until i met him. My mother doesn't approve of simple foods like this that is made out of a can, but my husband reallyyy loves it. It's a basic curry. The first picture shows most of the ingredients for most curries. I forgot to show the green chillies, black eyed peas, milk, and yogurt that I used. First dice/mince up the ginger and garlic. Slice the onions and get the tomatoes ready by dicing it too. I used about an inch of ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, one small red onion, and half a beefsteak tomato. Next, heat up the oil and splutter some mustard seeds in it. Then you saute the onions in the oil for a couple minutes, add the green chillie, ginger and garlic. When everything is brownish, add the tomatoes (picture 3). I let the tomatoes dissolve a little and then add the spices. First add 2 tblspn of coriander, 1 tbsp of chilli powder, and half a teaspoon of turmeric. Roast the spices with the heat. Next add a can of black eyed peas without the water. Add about half the can of water and let it simmer down. Also add salt, black pepper and garam masala. Once it looks curry-ish, I realized mine is reallyy HOTHOTHOT, so I had to add some milk and yogurt to it. Do this to your own liking. The end result should look like this:



I'm having a hard time arranging the pictures on this post, but I hope you can follow it. :( Sorry. So the next recipe is not really a recipe. It's one of my experiments that came about by eating at someone's house this weekend and trying out a spice blend. In the picture below you can see the main ingredients, excluding the milk: paneer, Sara's butter chicken mix, and peas. i was going for muttar paneer. This is a super easy dish if you can find something like this gravy. Sara's is a kerala company so you would have to go to a Malayalee store to get it, but I'm sure u can make the same thing with either Patak's or Parampara Butter Chicken Masala. But if you have a vegetarian among you just make sure there is not chicken broth or fats added to the mix. This gravy requires you to marinate the chicken/paneer in a premade mix. Then fry it in some oil and add the bigger packet of gravy. i only used half the packet for 200 g of paneer. you also have to add about 200 ml of milk. It turns out really good, not like restaurant butter chicken though. Its more of the south indian style of chicken. after letting it simmer for a bit when im almost done with it, I added a couple handfuls of frozen peas. My mom usually uses dried green peas, but I lovee the taste of fresh peas. Then i turn off the heat, and cover it so the peas get cooked through without getting overly cooked. It will look like the last picture! Yummy! I wish I could plate my dishes properly for you guys, but I cook during the day when my husband is at work and don't make rice or eat any of the food until dinner. I hope you enjoyed today's post! Eat well!