Soul food:Prawn rice

I’ve been dreaming of prawns recently. (Don’t laugh, it’s true! You can dream of food!) Anyway, I ordered some stir fried rice with ginger garlic prawns the other day at work, but the craving didn’t go away — it got stronger! That’s when I realized I wasn’t craving just any ol’ prawn dish; I wanted me some prawn rice!

But, before I could even think of making some, I had to find fresh coriander. Seeing as it’s monsoon season here in India, that was going to be a hard task — it sure wasn’t available at the grocery store near my house! But I was on a quest. I mean, I was literally dreaming of prawns, remember? So I picked up my car and drove around to a few of the fancier grocery stores, and finally managed to get my paws on some coriander. Now, I was ready to get cooking!

Prawn rice is served as a main course, with some plain yogurt and onion as accompaniments. You can also substitute the prawn with any firm-fleshed fish like halibut or cod (directions for that are at the end of the recipe).

You’ll need:

1 packet frozen prawns
1 cup finely chopped coriander leaves
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp salt
juice of 1 lemon
1 medium sized onion, peeled, cut into fine rounds and halved
1 fresh green chili, finely sliced (optional)
4 tbsp oil
250 gram long-grain rice (you can also use short-grain rice)

Method:

In a bowl, mix 1 tbsp of warm water, coriander leaves, green chilies, lemon juice, turmeric, garam masala, and 1 tsp salt.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a frying pan, put in the contents of the bowl and stir on high for about 2-3 minutes, until the fresh green color changes to a darker green. Tip in the prawns and fry them with the spices on medium heat for about 4 mins.

Turn off the heat and fish out the prawns with a fork, transferring into a tightly covered dish; it will continue to cook a bit in its own steam.

Pour 275 ml of warm water into the pan and scrape up the spices stuck to the bottom and sides of the pan. Simmer for about half a minute.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat the remaining oil and fry the onions until the edges brown. Then add in the rice and stir around for about 30 sec. Pour in 360 ml of water, the contents from the pan and 1 tsp of salt. Stir and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to very low.

Check in about 5-7 mins. Once the rice is almost done, add in the prawns, stir, cover and cook for another few minutes until the rice is cooked through.
(ps: that isn’t the best snap; it’s a little blurred – sorry! I was trying to click the picture covertly; didn’t want to dear husband to catch me at it, he’d think I was losing my marbles! ;-))

If you want to substitute the prawn with fish, you’ll need 340 gm of cod or halibut (or any other firm-flesh fish) steaks or fillets. Make sure they are at least 1-2 cm thick. Cut the fillets into bite-size strips, at least 4-5 cm long and about 2.5 cm wide. Follow the preceding recipe.

Serve with plain yogurt and chopped onion with a dash of lemon.

Enjoy!

The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews

Have you ever wondered why you’re here? If your life has any significance, if it matters?

Andy Andrews, dubbed one of the most influential people in America by The New York Times, a best-selling novelist and corporate speaker, is here to tell you that it does.

“Every single thing you do matters…You have within you the power to change the world.”

This gift book is beautifully illustrated; I spent the first few minutes just leafing through the pages, looking at the images, the layout and the typography — lovely! Then, I curled up to read it.

The book connects random, every day actions of common people and the uncommon effect those actions have at a later stage, effects that impact us to this day. For e.g., Andrews traces back Norman Borlaug’s achievement of hybridizing high-yield, disease-resistant corn and wheat for arid climates to…Henry Wallace…no, George Washington…no…Andrews lists random, everyday actions of normal people who made Borlaug’s achievement possible. And this isn’t the only example in the book.

It’s a quick read, but The Butterfly Effect makes you to stop and think; you’re unlikely to forget the message of this lil book in a hurry.

I received this book from the the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program.

Going home to mom!

There’s no place like mommy’s home. We’ve got a long weekend coming up this week, so I’m taking a couple of days off and flying home to be with my parents. The husband won’t be coming with me this time, which is good — it will be like old times, except that my lil sis won’t be around to irritate the hell out of me!

Mom’s already decided which movies we’re going to watch together –

We Are Family

and Dabaang

We’ll also go out for some absolutely awesome Italian food to La Pizzeria, and then of course shopping and lots of gossip with mommy! Can’t wait to get home!!

Life, it's beautiful

I feel blessed today. Blessed to have great friends, an awesome husband, an interesting job and an “easy” life. Maybe part of this feeling stems from the lovely week I’ve had.

Met up with out of town friends on Sunday at my favorite Moroccan hangout, Fez Dining. Mojitos, a hot mezze platter, chicken tangine and interesting conversation make for an excellent lunch, don’t you agree?

Lunch over, me and the husband went over to a friend’s house to drop off some things at her place. That supposdly short visit turned into a talkathon and dinner. We alternated between longing around in her living room and running out to the balcony to look at the sky as the sun set over Delhi. Pleasure comes in the small things sometimes. Isn’t that a pretty sky?

A perfect Sunday gave way to a busy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we had a holiday on Thursday for Janmashtmi (Lord Krishna’s birthday). I spent the morning lazing around at home, reading, surfing the net; then headed over to the gym for a workout and finally to the parlour for a haircut and pedicure. I’m totally loving my shiny red toes! Don’t they look pretty?

Friday started off slow…no work in at all in the morning, so I was able to book tickets for my visit to the parents. Luckily for me, two projects floated in in the afternoon, so I had something to keep me constructively occupied 🙂

Looking forward to the weekend now — got to finish packing since I leave on Tuesday, have to buy some gifts for mom and dad, and will probably catch up with a few friends too.

Life…it’s beautiful!

So, what’s your week been like?

100 posts!

Image by Rachel Smith via Flickr

Spiritual Sunday #2: Relax With Nature Sounds was the 100th post on my blog, woo-hoo!

As I look back over the posts and my reasons to start blogging, I see how much I, and this blog, have evolved. I’ve tried my hand at blogging a number of times – I had an online diary with a friend and a personal journal on DiaryLand.com, then I moved on to Blogger for a couple of months, and finally ended up here, on WordPress, where I have maintained this blog since December 2006.

There were long periods inbetween when I didn’t post at all; but almost 4 years and 100 blog posts later, Modern Gypsy (formerly known as Mindchatter) has evolved from being a purely personal blog, where I didn’t bother about any reader interaction, to becoming what it is now – a mix of personal and fun stuff, and hopefully, an expanding base of readers!

There’s still a long way for me to go, and a lot that I still need to learn, but I’ve enjoyed the ride so far!

So, here’s a big thank you to all my readers, to all of you who have left comments and encouraged me to continue to write, and to all the lovely bloggers out there who have inspired me and helped me grow!

A case for simple living

Where has the happiness gone?
Image via Wikipedia

About a year ago I had written a post titled Jaded Consumerism, where I mentioned that I’ve increasingly noticed that buying material goods doesn’t seem to bring much happiness to me or my friends. Oh yes, there are exceptions — like when I bought my iPhone recently; it still makes me happy! But, overall, we purchase without the joy.

This week I finally gave in to the husband’s constant cribbing and we traded our 10-year old TV for an LCD. That should have brought us (or at least him) a lot of joy…but it didn’t. We bought it, got it installed, he played around with the remote and read the manual, but there was no thrill to the purchase. A TV is a TV is a TV is what I was saying all along, but the husband just wouldn’t listen, would he?

Jokes apart, though, I’ve been wondering about this lack of joy since a while, and then I read an article on NY Times titled But will it make you happy?

SHE had so much. A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people. Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”

That was the opening of the article, and I was hooked, because that’s exactly what I had been thinking about!

Strobel eventually hit the stop button on the treadmill, inspired by books and blogs that promoted simple living. She and her husband gave away a lot of their possessions to charity. In fact, “emboldened” by a website that challenged readers to live with just 100 personal items, she went ahead and did just that!

A case for simple living
Image by eflon via Flickr

I’m quite sure that mustn’t have been easy, and I’m pretty sure that it isn’t something that I could do! But, living simply does have its benefits.

If you can downsize your desires a bit, not bother so much about keeping up with the Joneses, you could end up saving quite a decent amount of money. Instead of spending that on purchasing more material goods, you could use that to travel, to do some volunteer work, or even to help family, all of which will give you infinitely more happiness than simply amassing material goods ever will. And a lot of new research shows just that!

Studies over the last few decades have shown that money, up to a certain point, makes people happier because it lets them meet basic needs. The latest round of research [examines] how to reap the most happiness for your dollar. So just where does happiness reside for consumers? Scholars and researchers haven’t determined whether Armani will put a bigger smile on your face than Dolce & Gabbana. But they have found that our types of purchases, their size and frequency, and even the timing of the spending all affect long-term happiness. One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.

If I could control my spending impulses, there are a lot of things that I’d be able to experience — a trip to Egypt , learning Italian, painting a canvas, going on an African safari — just a few of the things that are on my bucket list.

If you chose to live simple and spend on experiences instead, what experiences would you choose?

You can read the entire NY times article here.

Dagny Taggart, or Scarlett O'Hara, or maybe…

Over at Plinky.com, the prompt was to choose which book character you’d want to be. As I thought about it while idly browsing through some of the answers, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to come up with just one character. I mean, how can I ever let anything be that simple?! So, here are just a few of the characters that I would absolutely love to be!

Dagny Taggart, the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged. She’s smart, intelligent and objective; takes independent decisions without bowing down to the baseness and commonality of society; she’s the epitome of woman as an equal to man without having to shout about it from the rooftops. By extension, I’d also like to be Hank Rearden – who though he knows the value of his metal isn’t able to see the shallowness of character in his mother and wife because he doesn’t think like that – and so wrongly believes that no one else does – or even John Galt, who shows all people who love their work above all else the “light.”

Scarlet O’Hara, the flighty, tempestuous heroine of one of my all-time favorite books – Gone With the Wind. I love her flirtatiousness, her verve and vigor for life. She’s selfish to the core and knows how to use her charms to get exactly what she wants. In love with the idea of love, she fails to see that Rhett Butler, not Ashley Wilkes is the love of her life. (I was lucky enough to not have made that mistake!) But when push comes to shove, she rises to the occasion and through determination, sheer will, and good old fashioned shrewdness, keeps her family together and drags them out of poverty.

Harry Potter, the wizard who was able to survive the dark wizard Voldermort’s killing spell. With the love of his mother as protection, a lil help from his friends, and an inquisitive mind, he’s able to triumph over evil time and again.

Lady Mutnodjmet, Nefertiti’s younger sister, protagonist of Michelle Moran’s Nefertiti. A herbalist, level-headed character who gives up most of her life to ensure that her family’s name isn’t forgotten in the sands of time.

And of course, this list can’t be complete without my favorite childhood characters – Nancy Drew and Mr. Pink Whistle! The first, my teenage hero – the fearless mystery detective – the second, my absolute favorite childhood fantasy – the magical Mr. Pink Whistle, who quietly does good and sets things right. I can read his books even today and still be fascinated by him! (Shhh! Don’t tell!)

So, which are your favorite book character(s)?

The perfect comfort food – 5 min chocolate mug cake

I recently came across a recipe for a Five-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake, and I just knew that I had to try it. So today, when I was craving some comfort food but wasn’t in a position to cook ’cause I’m not feeling well, I thought this cake would be perfect.

I have to admit, it took me a bit more than 5 minutes – 15 maybe? I didn’t time it, but then, I’m a pretty slow cook.

Anyway, I did tweak the recipe a bit and I wasn’t sure of some of the measurements, but the cake did turn out pretty darn good!

Here’s the recipe (from ovenhaven )

50g dark chocolate – I threw in 2 9.5gm bars of Dairy Milk, some bitter German chocolate and 4 squares of Giraldini dark chocolate
3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon – I used 1 heaped tsp of Fabindia’s cinnamon sugar; next time I’ll keep it level
3 tablespoons sugar – I used 2.5, but next time I’ll probably use just 1 ’cause I like my cake to be a bit on the bitter side
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk

Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler. Set aside to cool.

Add flour, ground cinnamon and sugar to a small mixing bowl, and mix well.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and mix well. Add the melted chocolate and mix again.

Pour the mixture into a large microwavable coffee mug.

(Since I wasn’t sure if I had got the quantity of chocolate correct, I threw in a few blocks of dark chocolate into the mug and gave it a quick stir before popping the mug into the microwave.)

Microwave for 2 minutes on medium, 1 minute on high. It should be cooked (skewer test comes out with moist crumbs), but still a lil moist. Remember, it will continue to cook while standing.

Allow to cool a little and dig in!!

The cake came out quite moist, with pools of melted chocolate in between. Next time, though, I’ll probably reduce the amount of cinnamon sugar I used.

Reflections in the rain

I enjoy monsoons. There’s something about the rain that brings hope — it’s a time of regeneration and joy; growth and introspection.

An impressionist painting

While driving to work today, the sunny skies suddenly turned dark and the rain started pouring down. Caught up in traffic, I turned the car wipers off. As the rain sluiced over my windscreen, the world outside turned into an Impressionist painting — blurred and beautiful. It took the chaotic traffic and huge puddles out of focus, prompting me to reflect on the parallels that we can draw between this moment and life.

When standing in a jam, turn the wipers off and enjoy a moving Impressionist painting. In life, stop and smell the flowers! How many self-help books say this…and yet, how many of us actually take the time to do it? Try it. Just 5 minutes of being present in the moment will give you a high unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

When you’re stuck in traffic with nowhere to go, turn up the music and groove to the beats. In life, when you feel like things are going on on auto pilot, it may be just the time to stop “doing” and to think about what you can change or how you can shake up your routine.

When you’re driving through a downpour, it’s best to go slow. In life, when there’s a lot that’s coming your way and you feel overwhlemed, it’s best to take out some time for yourself. Even if it’s just 15 minutes to meditate or destress. You’ll feel relaxed and will be able to tackle things more effectively.

When storm clouds gather, turn on the headlights! In life, when you’re confused, bogged down by your thoughts, shine the light of reflection on yourself. Try using mind mapping or brainstorming techniques to work through your problems and come up with creative solutions.

When day turned into night

It’s amazing how you can draw parallels from situations around you! Are there any other parallels you can think of? Do leave a comment, I’d love to hear them!