Mau Mau

Toddlers have a funny way to communicating and a strong observation. I have seen kids different words for simple things like water, milk, etc. My daughter uses mau mau for water and one day when I closely examined her water bottle I realized there is a small cat on the bottle and a cat says meow meow..

Mushroom Avacado sandwich

These days, every morning I am hunting for breakfast ideas to try to please my daughter and ofcourse my husband who cant tolerate a lot of deviation from the normal. I also do not want to spend a lot of time preparing the breakfast as my mornings are generally jam-packed until I step out for the office. At the same time, I want the breakfast to be a nice healthy start. This is one recipe that my hubby liked but did not get an ok yet from my daughter.

Ingredients -

Multigrain bread
Avacado thinly sliced into long pieces
Baby Mushroom chopped
Spinach a bunch
Tomato diced into fine cubes
Garlic powder
Salt to taste
Olive oil

Method -
Bake the mushroom. Or lightly saute them in olive oil. 
Put spinach and tomato for a minute. 
Add a little garlic powder and salt.

On a toasted bread put the mixture and avacado slices.
Add parmesan cheese if needed.

Vegetable Wrap with Hummus recipe

Mom's recipe!

For the Hummus
1 cup chickpeas
1.5 tblsp Tahini
1.5 tblsp lemon juice
Little black pepper
1/2 tsp Jeera Powder
1 tsp Olive oil
1 garlic
Salt to taste

Method: Soak chickpeas overnight. Pressure cook it for 3-4 whistles. In a blender, put olive oil, tahini, garlic and lemon juice along with the chickpeas and blend it.  

For the Wrap
1 Grated Carrot
1 small cut zucchini
1 cup moth (or moong) sprouts
1 cup spinach
1 small red onion chopped
1 small bell pepper thinly sliced
1 Avacado cut into small pieces

Method: Heat the wrap and spread the hummus on it. Put all the vegetables in it. That's it!

Pasta Pasta

Here are two pasta recipes I liked. The first one is what I tried last weekend. Here is the recipe -

Cook Penne for 10-15 mins (as per the instructions on the box)

In a pan fry -
1/2 onion chopped
1 tomato
1 cup mushroom chopped
1 cup spinach
1 zucchini

Mix pasta in it and add 2 tblsp Pesto sauce (I like the one I got from Whole foods) Serve it topped with Parmesan cheese. Here is another one that I had in office today. I had it just before my presentation so did not get time to decipher it properly but I will try it this weekend to see how it turns out

Cook Penne (or any other pasta you like)
In a pan add olive oil and sundried tomato
1 cup spinach
1 cup mushroom (if you like)
2 tblsp pine nuts lightly toasted

Add pasta and serve it with feta cheese.

First

First blog after the birth of my baby. What a bundle of joy she is. Life has changed so much - diapers, feeding, burping now rule my day. There is so much to write, so many feelings to share and so many moments to talk about and so many new learnings that I discover each day to brag about, but right now 6 weeks post baby I am just falling short of words to describe the miracle of life! Right now I am just exhilarated that she has outgrown the first set of clothes - actually diapers. Yes she has outgrown her newborn N sized diapers and has moved on to size 1. Yippie :-) PS: You learn the real meaning of sleepless nights only after a baby!

Mint chutney

For long I was searching for the recipe to make the perfect mint chutney and finally came across something we both liked. Here it is -

Ingredients

1 small bunch mint leaves
1 small bunch cilantro
1 medium onion
1 lemon juice
1/2 green chili pepper
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch black pepper
Salt to taste

Put all the ingredients in a grinder with a little water and grind well.

Here's a pic of the chutney with some dhoklas that I prepared.

My cooking spree is on like never before! (thanks to the taking some time off :P)

Somebody that I used to know..

Ok, this is not your typical Valentine's day song. Nevertheless, it caught my fancy yesterday while watching American Idol and now I cant stop the infinite loop that is running it. It also won the Grammy for the record of the year. Listen to it and judge it yourself! I especially like the high note in this paragraph -

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Here's the song - http://youtu.be/8UVNT4wvIGY

You know you are about to graduate

when ....

1. Your travel schedule spells CRAZY
2. You come to the lab only to go to the gym :|
3. You start enjoying the process of giving talks.
4. You can give a talk about your research in your sleep.
5. You start adding your labmates and your advisor on linkedin
6. When you have a job! (May be this should be the first point)
7. You are finally cooking like crazy at home
8. You are barely working :P
9. When your periods of absence from the lab is greater than all the other years combined.
10. When you realize the difference between an accepted paper and a great paper.
11. When you always have a paper ready to submit to a conference, most likely recycled from previous rejections.
12. When your advisor no longer pushes you for any work be it meetings or research.
13. When you prepare a list of things to do and it does not contain work but contains a list of places to visit.
14. When you finally start visiting nooks and corners of your campus.
15. When your parents come to visit you.
16. When you start clicking photos of your campus.
17. When you finally get the time to read books, watch movies in theatres, follow TV serials.
18. When the biggest activity of your day is the gym :P
19. When you are available on chat from multiple accounts :D
20. When you are embarrassingly the first person to like your friends FB posts.
21. When it takes you two weeks to write what you'd have ideally written in two hours.
22. When you write blogs like this :P

Wake me up when Sept ends...

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when September ends

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when September ends

Come tomorrow, Adi is flying out to California to begin a new life and job and my beautiful summer of 2012 comes to an end. But I think we were also lucky that we got to do a PhD in the same university - attending classes together, going to the university together esp on weekends to work when there was no one around and facing all the challenges both from the coursework and the inclement winter weather, having lunch together and being just a floor away from each other, cheering each other during the paper deadlines and just going out for a walk together when the Sun shined bright. Minneapolis and the university will not be the same again but I really had a great time due to having hubby around.

Come tomorrow....

Tomorrow is hubby's thesis defense... perhaps one of the biggest change in our lives in the past 4 years... i'm excited and happy and nervous and overwhelmed...