Celebrating our 4th month wedding anniversary

Pras and I finally decided to go to the multiplex to watch Kaminey. We went to Prestige Forum Value Mall and booked for the 6pm show at Fame cinemas. Well, though Kaminey has been influenced by movies like "Snatch","Lock stock and two smoking barrels", etc., it is a movie worth watching. Shahid Kapoor has done a fantabulous job. The movie does have dramarama, comedy and hilarious action. And guess what? I ended up buying a new jean ;)

Dal payasam anyone??

My parents-in-law were very upset to know that Pras and I wont be visiting them for Onam. Hence, my mother-in-law quickly got down to making some dal payasam for us. I thought that it would be a very tedious task but she made it look very simple. Yet, I think I shall take the shortcut of using coconut milk from a tetra pak rather than extract it myself ;)

Here goes the recipe[this will also help as a reminder for me]
Ingredients
1. Coconut milk extracted from one coconut - don't mix the first and second pressing
2. yellow mung dal - 1 cup boiled
3. Jaggery - 250gms
4. ghee - 1 tbsp
5. cashew nuts - a few for garnishing
6. elaichi - a few for garnishing

Method:
1. Boil the jaggery in a little water
2. Pour the second pressing coconut milk and jaggery into the dal and allow it to boil for a while.
3. Fry cashewnuts and elaichi in ghee.
4. Add the first pressing coconut milk, ghee, elaichi and cashewnuts. Do not let it boil.

For extracting coconut milk, boil a little water. Grate a coconut. Add a tiny bit of hot water to the coconut and squeeze the coconut bit by bit, extracting the coconut milk. This is the first pressing.
Add a little more water to the squeezed, grated coconut and squeeze again to get the second pressing coconut milk.

Giving Ayurveda a try

After attending Remya's wedding, I went to an ayurvedic specialist. Off late I've been facing a lot of dandruff, hairfall and skin related problems. My in-laws accompanied me. It was a one-of-a-kind experience with the specialist telling me a list of problems just by feeling my pulse rate. No, I did not tell him that I had any of those problems. I was a bit surprised for most of what he told me was true. He gave me 2 Kashayams and one hair oil. I am gonna start using those from tomorrow. He has promised to cure me completely of these problems in 3 months. I shall keep you posted :)

Snake Snake Snake!!!

I had been to Palakad last weekend. Pras and I had gone to attend Remya's wedding. Remya is Pras's "muh-boly behen"[sister not by birth] :) The climate was really good... raining for a while and then sunny for a while - the sun and the rain were playing a game for sure. The wedding was simple, like ours, 10 mins and it was done. Remya was looking great and I really like Pratheesh, the bridegroom, for his simpleton like looks. After the wedding, we were returning home, and my mother-in-law who had entered the house gate first was standing still, looking at something, without unlocking the door. I walked upto her and asked her what the matter was and with movement of her eyes she motioned to me to look there. Looking ahead I saw the tail of a snake, entering the pipe coming from the bathing area in the toilet. Just going a bit off topic here, my father-in-law has built the house in a very eco-friendly manner :) He has about half an acre of land, but has built the house on a small area, growing turmeric, ladies finger, drumstick, mung bean[green moong], a different variety of french beans, coconuts, papaya and bananas. The water from the bathing area is diverted to the coconut trees/banana trees and the garden. Rain water harvesting has also been incorporated in the design. It is a very beautiful place and you get to see a lot of butterflies, which stopby at the flowers, squirrels and different varieties of birds. Some butterflies are so big and they seem to fly around just like birds.
Getting back to the topic, Pras rushed to the toilet to pour some water to scare the snake. However, the snake did not come out when Pras poured water. Pras very cleverly then poured some phenyl down the pipe and voila - the snake's head popped out, it put out its tongue to sense any danger and then made a dash for the garden. I wonder where it went. I was pretty scared to go near the garden. I must appreciate my mother-in-law's guts for she went into the garden a while later to pluck some ladies finger and beans for our next meal :)