The Masala Toast!

Everyone in my friendship circle thought, my first post would be about food, but for some reason it's changed. So here it is, a post on food itself, my passion :) I am a real foodie, but because I need a check on my diet plans, I eat less :) But I always enjoy trying different dishes for my people and would be satisfied if they enjoys. Because of my daily schedule, I am forced to wait till weekends to realize my urge for cooking.  And the girls in my gang knows how I have helped them with my simple recipes, all this while. Whenever someone gets married or moves out to a different place where they really need to cook, I am in help for them. Hope still you have the whole back up of recipes I shared with you, that made you famous before your in laws ;) (pun intended) and among that the most famous is my 28 ingredient Chicken Biriyani, which I used to share with great pride ;) So I have a whole stack of my researches and trials, but the luckiest one to come first here is "The Masala Toast"

This is not just a recipe post, as I am not a great cook and also the experience is what I want to focus here. You may have to go all through to reach the final recipe :)

The scene is Infosys campus, Trivandrum. Since I am in my current project, I never used to go to our FC as we did before. Ours was a very famous lunch gang in FC, the gang which makes most of the noise during lunch time. And I am very famous for my loud laughter ;). After a while each one has moved to different places and finally it came to and end. I really miss you girls, it was an awesome time we had :( So I started having food at my desk from then, because having food alone at FC is such a boring thing, also when young hearts are having food together in front of us :). After a while, I was getting bored with the work alone nature and I thought sitting simply in front of computer is going to make me a junk. Then I thought I would take a walk around the buildings in the evening just to make feel fresh myself. So one thing I forgot to mention in my introduction; I wish to be engaged always. I cannot sit idle at all, at least there should be someone to talk. And if you started talking with me its gone, I am never short of topics while talking. You would be thinking what a hyper creature I am :)

Then I have started a new habit of having papaya juice for evening and my evening snack buddy is Varsha, she is my team mate too. To girls - papaya juice is very good for skin, its good to have this habit :)
Everyday she used to buy something, so that she wont need to stay hungry if she has to stay late. One such day, we have found a very different dish on the menu board of one of our vendors. So my evening snack buddy was hungry very much and she ordered one for her. I was having my usual course Papaya juice! Then she told, swathy chechi try this one its really nice. So I had a bit of it just to know what these guys are stuffing inside that's making it a wonderful toast. It was. She was right. The crispness of the bread was so right and the stuffing was enough dried. It was sort of fusion, western toast in Indian masala stuffing, great minds idea. Hats off to you guys.

I have a capability with foods, that I can guess the ingredients which went inside the dish when I taste it. I think most of the people passionate towards cooking has. But I can just guess for simple dishes. So there it started, my "Khoj" for the ingredients and my passion to try it one day.


So here goes the recipe for 2 toasts, which I tried for my little ones lunch. I couldn't manage to take a pic of it, as was in a hurry to get his lunch ready. Will add next time I tries it out.

I had a different version of what we got there. I had cheese stocked, and I stuffed that too, to make it exciting for him when he opens his box (he is very particular about food, and also a foodie like me. He always talks about his wish to become a chef and the best motivator of my culinary skills ;) ). Its so simple and your little one would enjoy it, for sure.



Breads - 2 slices (brown bread is best. Encourage your kids to use it)
Cheese - 1 slices (optional)

For Stuffing

Boiled mashed potato - 1 small
Veggies - Onion, Green peas, carrot, beans, anything you want to use, even beetroot will go well with this, all these chopped fine  - 1/2 cup
Kasuri Methi - 2 pinches
Garam Masala (I used kebab masala, so it will have little amount of all masala..chilly, turmeric etc)-1tsp
Oil to saute
Salt to taste

Preparation

Boil oil in a pan and sputter mustard seeds.  Add all veggies and saute for sometime, till it becomes soft. No need to overcook. Add the mashed potatoes, salt, kasuri methi leaves and saute for a min. Then add the masala and again saute for a min, your masala should be dry enough for stuffing.
Remove from pan and let it cool down completely.

Arrange one bread  and then the masala should be spread evenly to cover the entire bread surface, and cheeze slice on top of it. Finally the second slice of bread. Press it a little and place it in your toaster.
You can have a tawa also to do the toasting part.

I think these simple recipes can make someones lives simple, especially mom's of school going kids :) Anyway my motivator was very much impressed and got a very big appreciation from him.

My mental drive to drive :)

So let me tell you something. I am not that proficient in this, and still learning how to get the confidence on being on road alone, with a car :D Although I used to drive before my marriage, for past 7 years the skill is been dead. You would be thinking girl at this age doesn't know to drive, yes of course, I never thought I would need to know these 7 years.

So very recently got this idea, "How it would be if I start it again", and now situation too demands as my Micheal Schumacher (my hubby, he hates calling him by that name, he says he has his own identity ;) ),  is far from home for his job and my boy Gauthu always wish to travel with me especially when his dad is out.

So the start was unanticipated, here is what happened. We had a late night trip planned to his home and when it was almost 3 kms away from home, my hubby asked me, whether I am giving a try. This time I was so firm on my decision and thought would impress him. At night 2 30 AM, so my driving classes started again. I would say the most adventurous of my life yet and most enjoyed one :)

So our plan was to have weekend driving classes from then. Next morning my tutor has come, but again my hubby was sitting at my side, and tutor in back seat. Driving with him would be a tough task, as he wants to do things so fast, changing from each gear to next, and he was crying, shouting all the time. Even if it was sort of whirlwind, I enjoyed each moment, may be because this time I was so determined. So for the trip, we selected a rural place, as it was first time after a long. You can imagine roads in Trivandrum and that too rural. The roads were uneven and had cow pats all over and I handled it very well by not even missing a single one ;). The deal was to get the car washed once we are home :D

The journey had two funny things, one with a bike going in front, has stopped without any sign to answer his mobile. I was clueless on what can be done now, and my hubby cried out, brake…Otherwise the guy would have landed in nearby plot with his bike :D I wished to step out and tell him, that he should obey traffic rules, then stopped myself.

The second one was a bus which was coming from opposite direction. I have a theory in driving, we should very much respect big vehicles like bus or lorry and when it comes opposite, we should stop and give space for them to go :D. As I told, we have been driving through roads which were very much narrow. So same thing I did here too, I stopped my car a few feet in front of bus, and my car engine went off due to slowness and now you can image, “The whole road was blocked in seconds”. I knew what to do, I have to start it again, but my mind was a black hole then, I cried out “what to do now cheta”. He thought he would need to come and start it, but I got a trigger from inside and started and all was back to normal again :) and there it is, my first appreciation for driving from him, for handling the situation well :) 

So my confidence has increased now and I hope, one day I would be able to drive with out any dread. Now I am looking forward for each weekend to go drive again!

introducing me

So all new to the concept of blogging, apart from the experience I had in my college days, just to understand what's blogging. Today it was another instinct in my life to start up something here.

I don't have any core knowledge to share, so this would be more of like random thoughts of mine. As I always say to my friends, I am interested in so many things in this world that keeps me busy and stops me in focusing a single thing and I am yet to find out what is the real passion in my life. As the quote, "jack of all trades, master of none" :-)

My hobbies are reading novels, cooking which I think is my passion too, dress designing and sometimes designing cards for my close ones special days. I am a software engineer by profession and I have envisioned my future in that, and I moulded my passions surrounding it. Coz My belief is anything which is done with passion would be fabulous. And I would say I am doing good in my profession because of just this thought.

I am not sure on how active I would be here, may be this is another one such crazy interest of mine, or you can see a bunch of foods, books or nature photography, designs piled up here.

Thanks to all my dear friends & family for supporting me through, and always had an ear to lend for my worries, jokes and never getting bored by my non stop talking. Some of them are really close to my heart, who have been with me through my hard times, my success and whenever I succeeded, enjoyed as their own. I have learnt a lot from them and I am really indebted to them for the person I am now.

So it's lot for an introduction, and now you know I am a big talker. As one of my friend says, "dangerously talkative" ;-)
Hope this space won't remain vacant after this post. Thanks to my true friend to get me out of the cocoon of work alone. I don't know this helps me with pursuing my dreams or finding out my real passion. But one thing for sure, now I have a different world than work, which I think is a stepping stone to explore much of myself, which I have never tried before.