A little 'news' with a simple recipe..

Hi,

Hope everyone out there is doing well. I am doing great here.  I have been getting several messages for the past many months asking about my erratic posts and sometimes total disappearance. I have also been getting several messages over Facebook asking if I was expecting a newcomer. Yes,  I am about 36 weeks now and due on December 25, X’mas Day!! 

Unlike my first pregnancy, this one was like a roller coaster ride. During the first trimester of this pregnancy, I was almost always on bed, so tired, couldn’t even get up for food. Most of the food made me nauseate, had terrible back ache and to make it worse, had heights of mood swings and was always irritant and on the verge of explosion. Often the poor husband and child became the scapegoat of my outburst. Cooked very rarely, and by the time I am done I would be so exhausted I ended up on bed for rest of the day. So, that has been my first trimester, after which I went to India. I dint face any of these in my first pregnancy, so it was a total new experience! 

I know I wouldn’t be able to do much to keep my blog alive and running. I have got several recipes and pictures in my drafts which I am not sure when I would be posting. Otherwise, I don’t do any shooting and styling. Well, I dont even cook on regular basis. So I packed away all my props. I realized that the junk I collected over the years have dominated a major chunk of space in our house, which is now free for placing something useful. I chucked them all in the garage, knowing that I won’t be able to make use them for a very long while now. I am not happy with that, but I know I won’t be able to do styling and photo shooting as it makes hell lot of mess and lot of tidying up which can be very tedious now. And my mind is always occupied with the baby stuff and organizing things before the little one arrives. 

Now, here is a recipe that I typed long ago, I guess it was for Onam, but it slipped off my mind. My boys here, loves beets in any form and beetroot pachadi is something that I cook when I get some, apart from the thoran. It is very simple to make and goes as a side dish with plain boiled rice.

Beetroot Pachadi (Beetroot in tempered yogurt sauce)

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Serves ~ 4

Ingredients:

1 large beetroot, 220g; grated – 1 ¾ cups

2 cloves of garlic

a small piece of ginger, 7 g

1/3 cups, 50g freshly grated coconut or frozen

2/3 cup lightly whisked yogurt

water -  as required

salt -  as required

For tempering:

2 tbsp coconut oil

½ tsp black mustard seeds

1 twig curry leaves

2 dried red chillies, broken up into two halves

Preparations:

1.Place beetroot in a small pan and cook it along with 2 tbsp of water on medium flame until cooked through.

2. Grind coconut, ginger and garlic adding about 1/3 cups of water to smooth paste.

3. Lightly whisk the yogurt and add to the ground coconut mixture. Once the beets have cooled down, add this coconut-yogurt mix to the beetroot and mix well.

4. put the pan back on heat and gently until steam comes though, but not boil as boiling can curdle the mixture.

To temper:

Heat oil in a small pan, and add mustard seeds. Once they splutter, throw in the curry leaves and the dried chillies. Let it splutter too for few seconds and then add this tempered oil to the cooked beetroot. Cover. Just stir before serving.