About happiness and contentment

It must have been the wine from yesterday night, or was it because of the wintery sunny sunday morning? I think it was because i did not have to go grocery shopping or cook anything today. Yeah, that why! That is the reason why I have been in a dreamy haze the whole day. I am quite happy how yesterday's dinner went. Very smooth. Just enough people to make the house feel cozy. Not too many like last time around where I felt very suffocated even though it was the party in my house. All friends mingled very well and the cold outside defenitely helped! Everybody was happy to be in a warm house filled with people. We finally got to show off our rather nice and ornate dining table to friends. The table is large but yesterday night laden with food, it seemed like just the thing we should have bought for the formal dining room. And I was rather very contented with the way my hair appeared yesterday night, and it helped that i was wearing matching earrings and kurti. Its rather strange, I think it was the wine, with made me feel warm and good about myself..........and very accepted amongst our friends yesterday night.

No alarm clock to wake up to in the morning. The bright sunshine in the morning pierced our eyes, always the best way to wake up on a sunday morning. And still there was no pressure to get up, because of which I decided to stay warm in bed for a few more minutes. Rest of the day just passed away in a daze, the hot and strong coffee did nothing to jolt me out of the daze. The rather nice song sung by Dominique in 'Rock On' from our IPOD(docked on bose speakers!) from the corner of the living room just added to the aura as we finalized our hawaii trip and talked of all the possibilities that the coming vacation had. The afternoon trip to the mall to buy a few warm sweatshirts for me, also got me tempted and I bought a new pair of shoes which was not in our shopping list. And strangely I do not feel guilty about it.

Next week has all the symptoms of being whirlwind busy, and i have been getting my 'regular' sunday night(!) blues for the last couple of hours. But truely this sunday was a happy and contented one. And so that i do not forget this wintery but sunny and special sunday i have jotted down about it, to remember these happy and contented moments which i forget so easily otherwise.

Quick lunch on a lazy sunday

It was a cold sunday morning, all the more reason to feel lazy and spend the morning reading a book with a cup of coffee. Come noon and I had to get up rather reluctantly to fix our lunch. After a look into the fridge this is what I could come up with.



Left over veggies(onions, bell pepper, corn and peas) sauted in olive oil, seasoned with herb de provence, salt and pepper.These tossed with cooked penne, marinara sauce and cheese(fontina, smoked mozerella and parmesan), baked in the oven for 30 minutes or so till the top was brown.

I love U....Uthappam :-)

The one and only time I made Uthappam at home



It came out quite well, i wonder why I never made this again!

Murmura Ladoo

My first ever attempt to make these simple but absolutely delicious murmura ladoos for Karthigai.

My maiden attempt at baking

Ever since I started cooking(i.e after I got married), I have been scouring numerous food websites, blogs, magazines. Everytime I come across some mouth watering recipes( mostly accompanied by an even more appetizing photo). I make a mental note to make it sometime that week. I make some, but forget about most. Its mostly true for baking. I drool over pictures of decedant chocolate brownies and its like, but never got to make any of it as I had never baked before.

This week I decided that if I did not start I would never ever get to bake anything. I promptly went to the grocery shop to get the bare essentials for baking - flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder and some vanilla essence. I remember from a few baking recipes that King Arthur Flour would be a good choice of flour for baking. So I went around searching for the flour and on finding it I saw this recipe on the back for making the 'Best Fudge Brownies Ever' and decided to make it.

To my surprise and joy the end product when brought out of the oven was not bad at all. The portions mentioned in the recipe yielded about 2 dozen brownies. Considering the fat content in the brownie, I kept a few pieces for us and packed the remaining for my husband to take to work to his fellow colleagues, the brownies disappeared in the matter of 2 hours!!

My first baking experience has been very encouraging, I have been looking for a few more recipes and would be baking more stuff for sure.

Now for the recipe

The Best Fudge Brownies Ever

Ingredients

2 sticks(8 ounces) unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder( i used Hesheys cocoa powder)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups All purpose flour

12 ounce bag chocolate chips

Method

Pre heat oven to 350 F.

Spray a 9*13 inch baking pan with PAM non stick oil

In a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter.

Add sugar to it and stir.

Keep stirring till the mixture is hot. Make sure it does not start to bubble.

The mixture turns smooth and shiny as you stir it. This yields a shiny top crust tot he brownies.

Transfer the butter-suger mixture into a mixing bowl and stir in cocoa,salt, baking powder and vanilla extract.

Break the eggs one by one and stir into the mixture till smooth.

Finally add the flour and chocolate chips, and stir till all ingredients are combined to make a smooth batter

Transfer the prepared batter into the greased baking dish; bake the brownies for 30 minutes.

When a toothpick is inserted into the center it should come out dry.

Remove them from the oven and after 5 minutes loosen the edges so that the center does not sink in when cooling.

Cool completely before cutting and enjoying this deliciously sinster brownie.