Fairy tales too unreal?

A weary Snow White with a passel of kids and a couch potato Prince Charming, Rapunzel with her lovely locks shorn, bald and treated for cancer.... the first one funny, the second one grim.... so goes the theme of an article I saw over the weekend... the 'Fallen Princesses' by Dina Goldstein.

While I do applaud her creativity, I object to her reasoning behind taking the pictures. She says that she wanted to show her kids aged 7 and 3, that fairy tales do not have happy endings ... !!!

'Fairy tales' - by their basic definition do mean, tales that have fantasy characters. No one who makes fairy tales claim their work is rooted in reality.

I know quite  a few people , including my siblings and I,who have grown up, enjoying their share of fairy tales, both written and animated. And I do not see even one person needing therapy because they blindly believed those tales and now cannot deal with real life.

At age 6, my daughter already deals with her share of bullies, teachers who are partial, and a lot of cautionary tales from us grown-ups because of the times we live in. An at the end of each tiring day, our little princess dons a glowing crown and sits down to finish her homework. She knows she has to learn, to get where she wants to be, in life, There are no short cuts...... you cannot be more in tune with reality than that.!!!!

In actual fact, I think we need more feel good stuff in the world.... kids are incredibly resilient and bounce back better from calamities than grown up, not because they do not understand..but because they have not given up HOPE...

Any person who has nothing good to look forward to, has a wasted life.... It just makes them unable to appreciate any good that comes their way... they don't expect it, they do not look for it and they do not recognize it.... !!!

So if a parent thinks shocking their kids with awful pictures of reality is good parenting, I think she doesn't know much about kids or being a parent....OR she is not capable of doing the caring and nurturing so she is sending a message to her kids ..this is what will happen in the future... so this is what you get from me !!!

I find it S.A.D...!!

Easy Chilly Chicken

I cannot promise that this recipe will taste much like the one from the popular Chinese restaurants. There is no MSG (Ajinomoto)  to add that unmistakable taste. But I can guarantee that this is an easy to follow recipe and the  result is tasty. AND, it is safe to serve to our children.

The first step is to marinate chicken for 20 to 30 minutes.

Chicken - 500 gms. (You can use boneless chicken, I used medium sized curry cuts , with bones)
Soy sauce - 1 tsp (dark soy)
Corn flour - 2 tsps
Ginger garlic paste - 1tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp

Mix all the other ingredients together and then add the chicken. Coat well and keep aside for 20 minutes minimum.

Onion - 1 large (peeled and chopped into cubes)
Green pepper / capsicum - 1 large (chopped into bite sized squares)
Garlic - 4 cloves (peeled,chopped fine)
Tomatoes - 2 (diced fine, with or without peel)
Spring onions - 2 stalks or more (finely chopped)

Mix together the following ingredients

Tomato sauce - 1 tbsp
Red Chilli powder - 1 tsp ( use more or less according to preference)
Vinegar - 1 tsp
Water - 1/4 cups

In a deep pan, heat oil, add the marinated chicken pieces (leave the marinade), and shallow fry the pieces.

Once the chicken turn golden brown on both sides, add the shallot part (whites) of the spring onions and the chopped garlic.
Next, add the chopped tomatoes. cover and cook on low heat for about 7 minutes.
Now add the tomato sauce, vinegar, chilli powder and water and the left over marinade, if any. Cook on a medium flame till the sauce bubbles and the chicken is cooked.
Add more salt to taste. Take off the heat.

In another fry pan, saute the chopped onions , add a pinch of salt so that they don't brown. Once the onions turn golden brown, add the capsicum and cook them to your taste. I like mine with a little crunch, so I don't let them cook through.

Add this to the chicken. Heat through, to mix all the flavors, and garnish with the remaining spring onions.

Note: an even easier way, is to toss in the onion and the capsicum when we add the chopped garlic. But when the sauces are added , these will turn soggy. and the capsicum won't retain the green color. Hence I used a separate pan.  

Kerala style clam - Kakka irachi thoran

Kakka irachi are the tiny clams that are found in abundance in the backwaters of Kerala. There are a lot of amazing recipes around, but this one is the typical 'thoran' style. Lightly flavored, and complimented by the freshly ground coconut.

The above pic has been taken from the net, just to show how it looks raw.

We get this already out of the shells. All we have to do it, squeeze it in the middle, and a sac of dirt will push out. Just remove that dirt sac . wash the flesh in water twice.

Clams - 250 gms
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilly powder - 1/4 tsp
Sliced green chillies - 2
Curry leaves - 1 stalk
Salt - to taste
Tamarind / kudam puli - 2 pieces
Water -just to cover the clams in the pot

Add all the ingredients to a pot and cook on medium, lid on for 5 minutes, and then off to let the water reduce as much as possible. Take off the stove.

Meanwhile, lightly grind (or pulse twice), the following ingredients..

Grated coconut - 1 tbsp
Jeera /cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp
Shallots - 4 nos

Add  this lightly ground paste to the cooked clams.

In a  hot wok, add
Coconut oil (what else ?) - 1 tbsp (use olive oil or sunflower oil if u feel like it)
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves  - 1 stalk
Dried red chillies - 2


Just stir though the clam and coconut mixture, add more salt of needed, and switch off..

Enjoy as a side dish with rice n some curry.. great combination with moru curry.

Cheese and Garlic Rolls -

I have been clicking a lot of pictures of my dishes, and not getting the time to post. And after seeing this recipe for the Garlic pull-apart rolls on Edible garden, I just had to experiment!!!. Especially, since her pictures are drool - worthy and difficult to resist...

This is a totally vegetarian recipe. And even though it uses yeast, the directions are so easy to follow, and results are virtually fail proof.... I made two batches within 24 hours !!!

The recipe from Edible Garden is here . She has step - by step pictures too, So please check it out.

I did slightly tweak it. I did not have any fresh coriander leaves, so used those mixed herbs from the Pizza hut .. you can also use dried oregano.

So this is how I did it.

After reading a few comments on the Edible garden blog, I let the yeast rise separately.

Flour (maida) - 1 and 1/2 cups
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Yeast - 1/2 tbsp
Warm Water - 1 cup + 1 tbsp (approximately - according to the flour, you may need to use a bit less or a bit more)

Olive oil - about 1 tbsp (keep aside)
Grated cheese - 2 tbsps

Garlic butter - I used 50 gms of Amul butter (salted), at room temperature and mixed through with 4 cloves of finely grated garlic. Mix well and keep aside.

In a glass, take about half of the warm water, yeast and sugar and mix.. in minutes (5 to 10), you can see the yeast frothing.

Add this to a bowl with the flour and salt and the remaining water, and mix well. This will become a slightly sticky dough.

Knead through the dough with some olive oil -  approximately 1 tbsp till the dough is elastic, cover the bowl with Cling film and let the dough rise, by leaving it in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Take the dough and knock the air out. Then divide into 2 equal portions.

Grease a baking tray with olive oil or butter and keep ready.

Now, take one of the dough balls and flatten it out in a rough rectangle shape.

 (usually, when I try to roll out round chappatis, i get a rectangle or square shape.. this time when i tried to make a rectangle, i got a circle...I got a bit carried away with rolling, so the rectangle shape was a bit thinner than it should have been.. I realised that only after i spread butter on..)

Spread on half of the garlic butter. Then i sprinkled over with the pizza herbs and a bit of grated cheese .

Then roll the rectangle into a log. cut into half and then the two pieces into halves again.  So you get four. Repeat the entire rolling out, spreading butter, rolling and cutting with the other half of the dough ball and u get 8 pieces.

(Since my roll was longer and thinner, to keep the shape, i had to cut each half into 8 . So i had 16 mini rolls when i was done.)

Arrange these in the greased baking tray. Brush the tops with some milk, instead of egg wash.

Let them rest for a half hour, so they will increase in size. Meanwhile , preheat the Oven to 180 C.

I have a convection oven. So I set it for 30 minutes. After 20 minutes were done, I sprinkled the grated cheese mixed with the bits of garlic butter and baked the rest of 10 minutes.

If kept for the whole of 30 minutes, the cheese would have burnt.

Take off the oven, It tastes equally great served hot or even cooled, but mostly getting to sample it cold may be impossible.... Absolutely tasty... It is definitely moreish ...

I loved this recipe because of the guaranteed results, that even an 'iffy' baker like me could do it. I made a second batch the very next morning...  !!!!

Try it out and let me know....

Mutton - fusion style.

This is a fail safe recipe - especially for those people who may not have tried making anything with mutton. The cooking time is long, but once the ingredients are in place, it does not need a lot of babying to turn it into a perfect dish.

In fact, perfect for those days when one is not in the mood for elaborate cooking, but still want a neat tasting dish.


Mutton - 500 gms (cleaned)
Red chilly powder - 1 heaped tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Soy sauce - 1 tsp
Vinegar - 1/2 tsp
Ginger - 1 inch piece cut into big pieces (if  you like the bite of ginger, dice it)
Cardamom - 2 whole
Cinnamon - 2 pieces
Cloves - 2 pieces
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 pinch
Water - 1/4 glass

In a pot, add all the above ingredients , bring to a boil, and then turn the heat to medium - low . Keep a lid on let it cook for approximately 30 minutes . Stir the meat at intervals and make sure there is enough water so the meat won't burn.

There should only be enough liquid coating the bottom of the pan and the meat will be cooked and tender.

Onion - 1 large (peeled n diced)
Garlic -  8 to 10 cloves (peeled n diced)
Green chillies - 2  (diced)

You can also mince the above in a grinder to make it easier.

In a hot wok, add 1 tbsp oil, saute the onion, garlic and green chillies till the raw smell is gone, add curry leaves and then the pieces of the cooked mutton.

Sieve the pieces of ginger and whole garam masala from the liquid or leave it, according to preference. Add more salt if needed.   Add the liquid until it coats the meat well and oil shines through.

Garnish with a chopped tomato and some freshly ground pepper.

Back to - school work

Our daughter has started learning Hindi at school and she was given an assignment - to stick pictures of objects that begin with the alphabets.

However, the charts that we could get ready made, were of different things than those given in her text book. So it fell to me, to do something about it.

                                       

Outlined with a black gel pen and coloured with pencils. It was an enjoyable time for both of us.  And the 'very good' from her teacher was great too!!!!.

                                

I just hope that all the future projects will come be with ample notice like we had this time..!!

Easy Orange cake

This is a very easy cake that my little sis-in-law, Manju gave me when she visited us in Chennai. It is very versatile and I feel confident enough to change the ingredients about according to my choice or availability of ingredients needed to flavour it.

And I made it in my rarely used food processor, so it took no time at all.

Sift together the ingredients

Flour - 200 gms
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda   - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon powder - (Optional) - 1/2 tsp

Keep this aside.

In the food processor, add

Sugar - 175 gms (then powdered)
Butter - 100gms (unsalted, melted)
Eggs - 2
Orange zest - of 1 orange
Orange juice - 1 and 1/2 tbsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Now lid on and process till everything mixes well.

Slowly start adding the sifted dry mix till the batter is smooth and mixed through.

Preheat oven. Bake in an 8 inch greased tray , at 160 C for 40 minutes in a Convection oven.


I decorated the cake with some shaved chocolate truffles before serving.